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Famous Licensed Poems by Famous Poets

These are examples of famous Licensed poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous licensed poems. These examples illustrate what a famous licensed poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).

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by Blake, William
...ut.
To be in a passion you good may do,
But no good if a passion is in you.
The whore and gambler, by the state
Licensed, build that nation's fate.
The harlot's cry from street to street
Shall weave old England's winding sheet.
The winner's shout, the loser's curse,
Dance before dead England's hearse.
Every night and every morn
Some to misery are born.
Every morn and every night
Some are born to sweet delight.
Some are born to sweet delight,
Some a...Read more of this...



by Hope, Alec Derwent (A D)
...my malediction single out, 
These modern Dives with their talking screen 
Who lick the sores of Lazarus and grow fat, 

Licensed to pimp, solicit and procure 
Here in my house, to foul my feast, to bawl 
Their wares while I am talking with my friend, 
To pour into my ears a public sewer 
Of all the Strumpet Muses sell and all 
That prostituted science has to vend. 

In this great Sodom of a world, which turns 
The treasure of the Intellect to dust 
And every gift to some ...Read more of this...

by Hardy, Thomas
...on edged from the upland nigh,
My sad thoughts moving thuswise: "I may house

"And I may husband her, yet what am I
But licensed tyrant to this bonded pair?
Says Charity, Do as ye would be done by."...

Hurling my iron to the bushes there,
I bade them stay. And, as if brain and breast
Were passive, they walked with me to the stair.

Inside the house none watched; and on we prest
Before a mirror, in whose gleam I read
Her beauty, his,--and mine own mien...Read more of this...

by Hope, Alec Derwent (A D)
...my malediction single out, 
These modern Dives with their talking screen 
Who lick the sores of Lazarus and grow fat, 

Licensed to pimp, solicit and procure 
Here in my house, to foul my feast, to bawl 
Their wares while I am talking with my friend, 
To pour into my ears a public sewer 
Of all the Strumpet Muses sell and all 
That prostituted science has to vend. 

In this great Sodom of a world, which turns 
The treasure of the Intellect to dust 
And every gift to some ...Read more of this...

by Shelley, Percy Bysshe
...a bull,
And nothing more; and bid the herald stick
The same against the temple-doors, and pull
The old cant down: they licensed all to speak
Whate'er they thought of hawks and cats and geese,
By pastoral letters to each diocese.

The king would dress an ape up in his crown
And robes, and seat him on his glorious seat,
And on the right hand of the sunlike throne
Would place a gaudy mock-bird to repeat
The chatterings of the monkey. Every one
Of the prone courtiers cra...Read more of this...



by Davidson, John
...
The battle to the strong. 

Of old it was ordained 
That we, in packs like curs, 
Some thirty million trained 
And licensed murderers, 

In crime should live and act, 
If cunning folk say sooth 
Who flay the naked fact 
And carve the heart of truth. 

The rulers cry aloud, 
"We cannot cancel war, 
The end and bloody shroud 
Of wrongs the worst abhor, 
And order's swaddling band: 
Know that relentless strife 
Remains by sea and land 
The holiest law of life. 
From...Read more of this...

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