Get Your Premium Membership

Famous Mannered Poems by Famous Poets

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

See also:

Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry
...el-fingered lady, 
your portrait flickered all night 
by the bulbs of the tree. 

Your face as calm as the moon 
over a mannered sea, 
presided at the family reunion, 
the twelve grandchildren 
you used to wear on your wrist, 
a three-months-old baby, 
a fat check you never wrote, 
the red-haired toddler who danced the twist, 
your aging daughters, each one a wife, 
each one talking to the family cook, 
each one avoiding your portrait, 
each one aping your life. 

Later, afte...Read more of this...
by Sexton, Anne



...ntage, and the King 
In open battle or the tilting-field 
Forbore his own advantage, and these two 
Were the most nobly-mannered men of all; 
For manners are not idle, but the fruit 
Of loyal nature, and of noble mind.' 

`Yea,' said the maid, `be manners such fair fruit?' 
Then Lancelot's needs must be a thousand-fold 
Less noble, being, as all rumour runs, 
The most disloyal friend in all the world.' 

To which a mournful answer made the Queen: 
`O closed about by narrowing...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...or the nonce, 
And in her eyes there was a flickering
Of a still fear that would not be veiled wholly 
With any mask of mannered nonchalance. 
“What has he done? Madam, attend your nephew; 
And learn from him, in your incertitude, 
That this inordinate man Lancelot,
This engine of renown, this hewer down daily 
Of potent men by scores in our late warfare, 
Has now inside his head a foreign fever 
That urges him away to the last edge 
Of everything, there to efface himself
In ...Read more of this...
by Robinson, Edwin Arlington
...yeless,

Perfectly voiceless,
Widen the crannies,
Shoulder through holes. We

Diet on water,
On crumbs of shadow,
Bland-mannered, asking

Little or nothing.
So many of us!
So many of us!

We are shelves, we are
Tables, we are meek,
We are edible,

Nudgers and shovers
In spite of ourselves.
Our kind multiplies:

We shall by morning
Inherit the earth.
Our foot's in the door....Read more of this...
by Plath, Sylvia
...d, though we don't consult 'Mine Host'
Before the thing's arranged,
Still, if he often quits his post,
Or is not a well-mannered Ghost,
Then you can have him changed. 

"But if the host's a man like you -
I mean a man of sense;
And if the house is not too new - "
"Why, what has THAT," said I, "to do
With Ghost's convenience?" 

"A new house does not suit, you know -
It's such a job to trim it:
But, after twenty years or so,
The wainscotings begin to go,
So twenty is the limit...Read more of this...
by Carroll, Lewis



...estined for her soul.

3
Jove in the clouds had his inhuman birth.
No mother suckled him, no sweet land gave
Large-mannered motions to his mythy mind
He moved among us, as a muttering king,
Magnificent, would move among his hinds,
Until our blood, commingling, virginal,
With heaven, brought such requital to desire
The very hinds discerned it, in a star.
Shall our blood fail? Or shall it come to be
The blood of paradise? And shall the earth
Seem all of paradise th...Read more of this...
by Stevens, Wallace
...She was thinner, with a mannered gauntness
as she paused just inside the double
glass doors to survey the room, silvery cape
billowing dramatically behind her.What's this,

I thought, lifting a hand until
she nodded and started across the parquet;
that's when I saw she was dressed all in gray,
from a kittenish cashmere skirt and cowl

down to the graphite signature of her shoes.
"S...Read more of this...
by Dove, Rita
...Your dog is not a dog of grace; 
He does not wag the tail or beg;
He bit Miss Dickson in the face;
He bit a Bailie in the leg.

What tragic choices such a dog
Presents to visitor or friend!
Outside there is the Glasgow fog;
Within, a hydrophobic end.

Yet some relief even terror brings,
For when our life is cold and gray
We waste our strength on little thi...Read more of this...
by Raleigh, Sir Walter

Dont forget to view our wonderful member Mannered poems.


Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry