Famous Obliterate Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Freedoms Fool

by Robert William Service
 To hell with Government I say;
I'm sick of all the piddling pack.
I'd like to scram, get clean away,
And never, nevermore come back.
With heart of hope I long to go
To some lost island of the sea,
And there get drunk with joy to know
No one on earth is over me. 

There will be none to say me nay,
So from my lexicon...Read more of this...

The Soul that hath a Guest

by Emily Dickinson
 The Soul that hath a Guest
Doth seldom go abroad --
Diviner Crowd at Home --
Obliterate the need --

And Courtesy forbid
A Host's departure when
Upon Himself be visiting
The Emperor of Men --...Read more of this...

The Red Lacquer Music-Stand

by Amy Lowell
 A music-stand of crimson lacquer, long since brought
In some fast clipper-ship from China, quaintly wrought
With bossed and carven flowers and fruits in blackening gold,
The slender shaft all twined about and thickly scrolled
With vine leaves and young twisted tendrils, whirling, curling,
Flinging their new shoots over the four wings, and swirling
Out on the three wide feet in golden lumps and streams;
Petals...Read more of this...

Death sets a thing significant

by Emily Dickinson
Death sets a thing significant
The eye had hurried by,
Except a perished creature
Entreat us tenderly

To ponder little workmanships
In crayon or in wool,
With "This was last her fingers did,"
Industrious until

The thimble weighed too heavy,
The stitches stopped themselves,
And then 't was put among the dust
Upon the closet shelves.

A book I have, a friend gave,
Whose pencil, here and there,
Had notched the place that pleased...Read more of this...

The Thin People

by Sylvia Plath
 They are always with us, the thin people
Meager of dimension as the gray people

On a movie-screen. They
Are unreal, we say:

It was only in a movie, it was only
In a war making evil headlines when we

Were small that they famished and
Grew so lean and would not round

Out their stalky limbs again though peace
Plumped the bellies of the mice

Under the meanest...Read more of this...

More Life -- went out -- when He went

by Emily Dickinson
 More Life -- went out -- when He went
Than Ordinary Breath --
Lit with a finer Phosphor --
Requiring in the Quench --

A Power of Renowned Cold,
The Climate of the Grave
A Temperature just adequate
So Anthracite, to live --

For some -- an Ampler Zero --
A Frost more needle keen
Is necessary, to reduce
The Ethiop within.

Others -- extinguish easier --
A Gnat's minutest Fan
Sufficient to...Read more of this...

There is a Languor of the Life

by Emily Dickinson
 There is a Languor of the Life
More imminent than Pain --
'Tis Pain's Successor -- When the Soul
Has suffered all it can --

A Drowsiness -- diffuses --
A Dimness like a Fog
Envelops Consciousness --
As Mists -- obliterate a Crag.

The Surgeon -- does not blanch -- at pain
His Habit -- is severe --
But tell him that it ceased to feel --
The Creature...Read more of this...

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