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Famous Loaned Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Lux, Thomas
...cart piled high with skulls
on their way back to shelves
while in the next aisle
a cart filling with those about to be loaned
to the tall, broken-hearted man waiting
at the desk, his library card
face down before him....Read more of this...



by Service, Robert William
...rage is,
When folks who borrow books from me
 Turn down their pages.

Or when a chap a book I lend,
 And find he's loaned it
Without permission to a friend -
 As if he owned it.

But worst of all I hate those crooks
 (May hell-fires burn them!)
Who beg the loan of cherished books
 And don't return them.

My books are tendrils of myself
 No shears can sever . . .
May he who rapes one from its shelf
 Be damned forever....Read more of this...

by Service, Robert William
...rote.

In dreams I see it praised and prized
By all, from plowman unto peer;
It's pencil-marked and memorized,
It's loaned (and not returned, I fear);
It's worn and torn and travel-tossed,
And even dusky natives quote
That classic that the world has lost,
The Little Book I Never Wrote.

Poor ghost! For homes you've failed to cheer,
For grieving hearts uncomforted,
Don't haunt me now. . . . Alas! I fear
The fire of Inspiration's dead.
A humdrum way ...Read more of this...

by Service, Robert William
...And even there we 'ad no disagree.
For when 'e copped Mariar Jones, the one I liked the best,
 I shook 'is 'and and loaned 'im 'arf a quid;
I saw 'im through the parson's job, I 'elped 'im make 'is nest,
 I even stood god-farther to the kid.

So when the war broke out, sez 'e: "Well, wot abaht it, Joe?"
 "Well, wot abaht it, lad?" sez I to 'im.
'Is missis made a awful fuss, but 'e was mad to go,
 ('E always was 'igh-sperrited was Jim).
Well, none of it's been ...Read more of this...

by Service, Robert William
...store;
I guess he does the best he can
 To feed his kiddies four:
It sure is hard,--don't think it funny,
 I've lately loaned him money.

I want to wipe away a tear
 Even to just suppose
Some monster of an auctioneer
 Might sell his sticks and clothes:
I'd rather want for bread and butter
 Than see them in the gutter.

A silly, soft old thing am I,
 But oh them kiddies four!
I guess I'll make a raisin pie
 And leave it at their door . . .
Some Sunday, dea...Read more of this...



by Levine, Philip
...n,
Arthur, he survived graduate school,
later came home to Detroit and sold
pianos right through the Depression.
He loaned my brother a used one
to compose his hideous songs on,
which Arthur thought were genius.
What an imagination Arthur had!...Read more of this...

by Brautigan, Richard
...d

trees in the backyard. The ones that grew beside an old pile

oflumber. Weed.

 One early autumn day she loaned me to the woman next

door and I fixed a small leak in the roof of her woodshed.

The woman gave me a dollar tip, and I said thank you, and

the next time it rained, all the newspapers she had been sav-

ing for seventeen years to start fires with got soaking wet.

From then on out, I received a sour look every time I

passed her house. I ...Read more of this...

by Khayyam, Omar
...or the past; and, finally, were it only
for an instant, to free from the shackles of reason that
soul which has been loaned us and which groans in its
prison....Read more of this...

by Lindsay, Vachel
...A little colt — broncho, loaned to the farm
To be broken in time without fury or harm,
Yet black crows flew past you, shouting alarm,
Calling "Beware," with lugubrious singing...
The butterflies there in the bush were romancing,
The smell of the grass caught your soul in a trance,
So why be a-fearing the spurs and the traces,
O broncho that would not be broken of dancing...Read more of this...

by Butler, Ellis Parker
...e tax, check tax,
Tax on drugs and pills,
Gas tax, ticket tax,
Tax on gifts in wills,

“Poll tax, dog tax,
Tax on money loaned,
State tax, road tax,
Tax on all things owned,

“Stamp tax, land tax,
Tax on wedding ring,
High tax, low tax,
Tax on everything!”

Said Statesman A to Statesman Z:
“That is the list, a pretty bevy;
No thing or act that is untaxed;
There’s nothing more on which to levy.”

Said Statesman Z to Statesman A:
“The deficit each moment waxes;
This is no t...Read more of this...

by Paterson, Andrew Barton
...-- like many other things -- 
I've recently forgot. 

"Advances on a dried-out farm 
Are what we chiefly need, 
And loaned to friends of Ms.L.A. 
Are very good, indeed, 
See how the back-block Cockatoos 
Are rolling up to feed." 

"But not on us," the Savings cried, 
Falling a little flat, 
"We didn't think a man like you 
Would do a thing like that; 
For most of us are very small, 
And none of us are fat." 

"This haughty tone," the Premier said, 
"Is...Read more of this...

by Service, Robert William
...n me,
 I did not do my best.

"I did not measure with the Just
 To serve my fellow men;
But unto levity and lust
 I loaned my precious pen.
I sorrow for the sacred touch,
 And though I toiled with zest,
Dear God, have mercy, in-as-much
 I did not do my best.

"I bless You for the gift you gave
 That brought me golden joy;
Yet here beside the gentle grave
 I grieve for its employ.
Have pity, Lord,--so well I know
 I failed you in the test,
And my last thought i...Read more of this...

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