Famous Morality Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Morality poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous morality poems. These examples illustrate what a famous morality poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Burns, Robert
...iend in need,
The gentleman in word and deed,
It’s no thro’ terror of damnation;
It’s just a carnal inclination.
Morality, thou deadly bane,
Thy tens o’ thousands thou hast slain!
Vain is his hope, whase stay an’ trust is
In moral mercy, truth, and justice!
No—stretch a point to catch a plack:
Abuse a brother to his back;
Steal through the winnock frae a whore,
But point the rake that taks the door;
Be to the poor like ony whunstane,
And haud their noses to the grun...Read more of this...
by
Burns, Robert
...some Latin ditty;
And Common-sense is gaun, she says,
To mak to Jamie Beattie
Her plaint this day.
But there’s Morality himsel’,
Embracing all opinions;
Hear, how he gies the tither yell,
Between his twa companions!
See, how she peels the skin an’ fell,
As ane were peelin onions!
Now there, they’re packed aff to hell,
An’ banish’d our dominions,
Henceforth this day.
O happy day! rejoice, rejoice!
Come bouse about the porter!
Morality’s demure decoys
Shal...Read more of this...
by
Masters, Edgar Lee
...ly glass sometimes with us,
Siding with us who would rescue Spoon River
From the coldness and the dreariness of village morality.
You were like a traveler who brings a little box of sand
From the wastes about the pyramids
And makes them real and Egypt real.
You were a part of and related to a great past,
And yet you were so close to many of us.
You believed in the joy of life.
You did not seem to be ashamed of the flesh.
You faced life as it is,
And as it ...Read more of this...
by
Masters, Edgar Lee
...tion,
And became active in the church?
That was due to my wife,
Who pictured to me my destruction
If I did not prove my morality to the people.
Well, she ruined me:
For the radicals grew suspicious of me,
And the conservatives were never sure of me --
And here I lie, unwept of all....Read more of this...
by
Service, Robert William
...t:
"Unchastity is sin."
I don't believe it, but I grant,
By every human test,
From parson, pimp and maiden aunt,
Morality is best.
Yet what a bore our lives would be
If we lived as we should;
It's such a blessing to be free,
And not be over-good.
I value virtues great and small,
As I in life advance:
But O the greatest sin of all
I count--INTOLERANCE....Read more of this...
by
Smart, Christopher
...t Alured, house of Alured rejoice with the Book-Spider -- I refer the people of both Universitys to the Bible for their morality.
Let Lidgate, house of Lidgate rejoice with The Flammant a curious large bird on the coast of Cuba. God make us amends for the restoration of the Havannah.
Let Cunningham, house of Cunningham rejoice with The Bohemian Jay. I pray for Peace between the K. of Prussia and Empress Queen.
Let Thornhill, house of Thornhill re...Read more of this...
by
McGonagall, William Topaz
...r>
And, in conclusion, I will say without dismay,
Visit the theatre without delay,
Because the theatre is a school of morality,
And hasn't the least tendency to lead to prodigality....Read more of this...
by
Lehman, David
...espresso cups and saucers
and The Necessary Angel by
Wallace Stevens, a little violet
paperback opened to page 58:
"the morality of the poet is
the morality of the right sensation."...Read more of this...
by
Arnold, Matthew
...uds are off the soul,
When thou dost bask in Nature's eye,
Ask, how she view'd thy self-control,
Thy struggling, task'd morality--
Nature, whose free, light, cheerful air,
Oft made thee, in thy gloom, despair.
And she, whose censure thou dost dread,
Whose eye thou wast afraid to seek,
See, on her face a glow is spread,
A strong emotion on her cheek!
'Ah, child!' she cries, 'that strife divine,
Whence was it, for it is not mine?
'There is no effort on my brow--
I do not ...Read more of this...
by
Masters, Edgar Lee
...the spirit of mortal be proud?"
And then, suppose:
You are a woman well endowed,
And the only man with whom the law and morality
Permit you to have the marital relation
Is the very man that fills you with disgust
Every time you think of it--while you think of it
Every time you see him?
That's why I drove him away from home
To live with his dog in a dingy room
Back of his office....Read more of this...
by
Gibran, Kahlil
...d this other for my body?"
All your hours are wings that beat through space from self to self.
He who wears his morality but as his best garment were better naked.
The wind and the sun will tear no holes in his skin.
And he who defines his conduct by ethics imprisons his song-bird in a cage.
The freest song comes not through bars and wires.
And he to whom worshipping is a window, to open but also to shut, has not yet visited the house of his so...Read more of this...
by
Brontë, Emily
...gion,
Bring the unreal world too strangely near.
I'll walk, but not in old heroic traces,
And not in paths of high morality,
And not among the half-distingusihed faces,
The clouded forms of long-past history.
I'll walk where my own nature would be leading:
It vexes me to choose another guide:
Where the grey flocks in ferny glens are feeding;
Where the wild wind blows on the mountain side.
What have those lonely mountains worth revealing?
More glory and more gri...Read more of this...
by
Schiller, Friedrich von
...binds,
Views duty's slavish escort scornfully;
Her path of light, though fairer far it winds,
Sinks in the sun-track of morality.
Those who in her chaste service still remain,
No grovelling thought can tempt, no fate affright;
The spiritual life, so free from stain,
Freedom's sweet birthright, they receive again,
Under the mystic sway of holy might.
The purest among millions, happy they
Whom to her service she has sanctified,
Whose mouths the mighty one's commands co...Read more of this...
by
Pound, Ezra
...All the while they were talking the new morality
Her eyes explored me.
And when I rose to go
Her fingers were like the tissue
Of a Japanese paper napkin....Read more of this...
by
Sexton, Anne
...t
and the stones of the river
have sucked men's eyes dry,
season after season,
and every bed has been condemned,
not by morality or law,
but by time....Read more of this...
by
Chaucer, Geoffrey
...e;
For he shall find enough, both great and smale,
Of storial* thing that toucheth gentiless, *historical, true
And eke morality and holiness.
Blame not me, if that ye choose amiss.
The Miller is a churl, ye know well this,
So was the Reeve, with many other mo',
And harlotry* they tolde bothe two. *ribald tales
*Avise you* now, and put me out of blame; *be warned*
And eke men should not make earnest of game*. *jest, fun
Notes to the Prologue to the Miller's ...Read more of this...
by
Chaucer, Geoffrey
...lighted him to be a shrew.* *vicious, ill-tempered
And so befell, a lord of his meinie,* *suite
That loved virtuous morality,
Said on a day betwixt them two right thus:
'A lord is lost, if he be vicious.
[An irous man is like a frantic beast,
In which there is of wisdom *none arrest*;] *no control*
And drunkenness is eke a foul record
Of any man, and namely* of a lord. *especially
There is full many an eye and many an ear
*Awaiting on* a lord, he knows not where.<...Read more of this...
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