Famous Overdone Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Erasmus

...When he protested, not too solemnly, 
That for a world’s achieving maintenance 
The crust of overdone divinity 
Lacked aliment, they called it recreance; 
And when he chose through his own glass to scan
Sick Europe, and reduced, unyieldingly, 
The monk within the cassock to the man 
Within the monk, they called it heresy. 

And when he made so perilously bold 
As to be scattered forth in black and white,
Good fathers looked askance at him and rolled...Read more of this...
by Robinson, Edwin Arlington


The Black Sheep

...broke her heart with my folly, I was always the white-haired one.
(That fatted calf that they're cooking will surely be overdone.)

I'll go back and yarn to the Bishop; I'll dance with the village belle;
I'll hand round tea to the ladies, and everything will be well.
Where I have been won't matter; what I have seen I won't tell.

I'll soar to their ken like a comet. They'll see me with never a stain;
But will they reform me? --far from it. We pay for our pleasure with pain;
B...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William

The City Bushman

...nd bright', 
And he isn't always singing in the humpies on the run -- 
And the camp-fire's `cheery blazes' are a trifle overdone; 
We have grumbled with the bushmen round the fire on rainy days, 
When the smoke would blind a bullock and there wasn't any blaze, 
Save the blazes of our language, for we cursed the fire in turn 
Till the atmosphere was heated and the wood began to burn. 
Then we had to wring our blueys which were rotting in the swags, 
And we saw the sugar leakin...Read more of this...
by Lawson, Henry

The Electric Slide Boogie

...ep-stepping
around the corner of the parlor
past the sweet clink
of dining room glasses
and the edged aroma of slightly overdone
dutch-apple pie
all laced together
with the rich dark laughter
of Gloria
and her higher-octave sisters

How hard it is to sleep 
in the middle of life....Read more of this...
by Lorde, Audre

The Flaâneur

...t the thought of risks 
Our little spinning ball may run, 
To pop like corn that children parch, 
From summer something overdone, 
And roll, a cinder, through the skies. 

Grudge not to-day the scanty fee 
To him who farms the firmament, 
To whom the Milky Way is free; 
Who holds the wondrous crystal key, 
The silent Open Sesame 
That Science to her sons has lent; 
Who takes his toll, and lifts the bar 
That shuts the road to sun and star. 
If Venus only comes to time, 
(And ...Read more of this...
by Holmes, Oliver Wendell


The Man from Iron Bark

...used to go. 
And when at last the barber spoke, and said "'Twas all in fun' 
Twas just a little harmless joke, a trifle overdone." 
"A joke!" he cried, "By George, that's fine; a lively sort of lark; 
I'd like to catch that murdering swine some night in Ironbark." 

And now while round the shearing floor the list'ning shearers gape, 
He tells the story o'er and o'er, and brags of his escape. 
"Them barber chaps what keeps a tote, By George, I've had enough, 
One tried to cut ...Read more of this...
by Paterson, Andrew Barton

The Man From Ironbark

...used to go.
And when at last the barber spoke, and said " 'Twas all in fun—
'Twas just a little harmless joke, a trifle overdone."
"A joke!" he cried, "By George, that's fine; a lively sort of lark;
I'd like to catch that murdering swine some night in Ironbark."

And now while round the shearing-floor the listening shearers gape,
He tells the story o'er and o'er, and brags of his escape.
"Them barber chaps what keeps a tote, by George, I've had enough,
One tried to cut my blo...Read more of this...
by Paterson, Andrew Barton

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