Famous Permission Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Balin and Balan

...; 
A churl, a clown!' and in him gloom on gloom 
Deepened: he sharply caught his lance and shield, 
Nor stayed to crave permission of the King, 
But, mad for strange adventure, dashed away. 

He took the selfsame track as Balan, saw 
The fountain where they sat together, sighed 
'Was I not better there with him?' and rode 
The skyless woods, but under open blue 
Came on the hoarhead woodman at a bough 
Wearily hewing. 'Churl, thine axe!' he cried, 
Descended, and disjointed i...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord


By A Swimming Pool Outside Syracusa

...ghts to traverse my brain
with greater gentleness, shall we say,

or, to put it less literally,
this drink has extended permission
to my mind to feel—what's the word?—
a friendship with the vast sky
which is very—give me a minute—very blue
but with much great paleness
at this special time of day, or as we say in America, now....Read more of this...
by Collins, Billy

Confession (to Alina Osipova 1826)

...0.95 - 4.99)
Copyright retained by Genia Gurarie.
email: egurarie@princeton.edu
http://www.princeton.edu/~egurarie/
For permission to reproduce, write personally to the translator....Read more of this...
by Pushkin, Alexander

Devils

...ly 29, 1995.
Copyright retained by Genia Gurarie.
email: egurarie@princeton.edu
http://www.princeton.edu/~egurarie/
For permission to reproduce, write personally to the translator....Read more of this...
by Pushkin, Alexander

Dickinson Poems by Number

...well—

They summoned Us to die—
With sweet alacrity
We stood upon our stapled feet—
Condemned—but just—to see—

Permission to recant—
Permission to forget—
We turned our backs upon the Sun
For perjury of that—

Not Either—noticed Death—
Of Paradise—aware—
Each other's Face—was all the Disc
Each other's setting—saw—

479

She dealt her pretty words like Blades—
How glittering they shone—
And every One unbared a Nerve
Or wantoned with a Bone—

She never...Read more of this...
by Dickinson, Emily


Impossible To Tell

...ossible to tell
In words how Elliot's eyebrows flailed and snorted

Like shaggy mammoths as--the Chinese widow
Granting permission--the little rabbi sang
The blessing for performing a circumcision

And removed the dead man's foreskin, chanting blessings
In Finnish and Swahili, and bathed the corpse
From head to foot, and with a final prayer

In Babylonian, gasping with exhaustion,
He seized the dead man's head and kissed the lips
And dropped it again and leaping back commande...Read more of this...
by Pinsky, Robert

Paradise Lost: Book 01

...ch-fiend lay, 
Chained on the burning lake; nor ever thence 
Had risen, or heaved his head, but that the will 
And high permission of all-ruling Heaven 
Left him at large to his own dark designs, 
That with reiterated crimes he might 
Heap on himself damnation, while he sought 
Evil to others, and enraged might see 
How all his malice served but to bring forth 
Infinite goodness, grace, and mercy, shewn 
On Man by him seduced, but on himself 
Treble confusion, wrath, and veng...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Paradise Lost: Book 09

...is part, do thine. 
So spake the patriarch of mankind; but Eve 
Persisted; yet submiss, though last, replied. 
With thy permission then, and thus forewarned 
Chiefly by what thy own last reasoning words 
Touched only; that our trial, when least sought, 
May find us both perhaps far less prepared, 
The willinger I go, nor much expect 
A foe so proud will first the weaker seek; 
So bent, the more shall shame him his repulse. 
Thus saying, from her husband's hand her hand 
Soft ...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Paradise Regained: The First Book

...ur Saviour, with unaltered brow:—
"Thy coming hither, though I know thy scope,
I bid not, or forbid. Do as thou find'st
Permission from above; thou canst not more."
 He added not; and Satan, bowling low
His gray dissimulation, disappeared,
Into thin air diffused: for now began
Night with her sullen wing to double-shade 
The desert; fowls in their clay nests were couched;
And now wild beasts came forth the woods to roam....Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Paradise Regained: The Fourth Book

...e thou hast dared to utter
The abominable terms, impious condition.
But I endure the time, till which expired
Thou hast permission on me. It is written,
The first of all commandments, 'Thou shalt worship
The Lord thy God, and only Him shalt serve.'
And dar'st thou to the Son of God propound
To worship thee, accursed? now more accursed
For this attempt, bolder than that on Eve, 
And more blasphemous; which expect to rue.
The kingdoms of the world to thee were given!
Permitted ...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

shapeshifter poems

...n heart this poem
is the poem at the end of the world 

Credit: Copyright © 1987 by Lucille Clifton. Reprinted with the permission of BOA Editions, Ltd., www.boaeditions.org....Read more of this...
by Clifton, Lucille

sisters

...ng ourselves
be sisters.

only where you sing,
I poet.

Credit: Copyright © 1987 by Lucille Clifton. Reprinted with the permission of BOA Editions, Ltd., www.boaeditions.org....Read more of this...
by Clifton, Lucille

The Drowned Man

...rarie, 11/95
Copyright retained by Genia Gurarie.
email: egurarie@princeton.edu
http://www.princeton.edu/~egurarie/
For permission to reproduce, write personally to the translator....Read more of this...
by Pushkin, Alexander

The Flower

...mmer of 1995
Copyright retained by Genia Gurarie.
email: egurarie@princeton.edu
http://www.princeton.edu/~egurarie/
For permission to reproduce, write personally to the translator....Read more of this...
by Pushkin, Alexander

The Law of the Jungle

...t to his lair, or he dies.
The Kill of the Wolf is the meat of the Wolf. He may do what he will;
But, till he has given permission, the Pack may not eat of that Kill.
Cub-Right is the right of the Yearling. From all of his Pack he may claim
Full-gorge when the killer has eaten; and none may refuse him the same.
Lair-Right is the right of the Mother. From all of her year she may claim
One haunch of each kill for her litter, and none may deny her the same.
Cave-Right is the rig...Read more of this...
by Kipling, Rudyard

The Marriage Of Geraint

...: 
And therefore, till the King himself should please 
To cleanse this common sewer of all his realm, 
He craved a fair permission to depart, 
And there defend his marches; and the King 
Mused for a little on his plea, but, last, 
Allowing it, the Prince and Enid rode, 
And fifty knights rode with them, to the shores 
Of Severn, and they past to their own land; 
Where, thinking, that if ever yet was wife 
True to her lord, mine shall be so to me, 
He compassed her with sweet ...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord

The Sudden Light And The Trees

...e stoop,
a pistol in his hand, waiting,

he said, for me. A sparrow had gotten in
to our common basement.
Could he have permission

to shoot it? The bullets, he explained,
might go through the floor.
I said I'd catch it, wait, give me

a few minutes and, clear-eyed, brilliantly
afraid, I trapped it
with a pillow. I remember how it felt

when I got my hand, and how it burst
that hand open
when I took it outside, a strength

that must have come out of hopelessness
and the sudde...Read more of this...
by Dunn, Stephen

The Water-Nymph

...mmer of 1995
Copyright retained by Genia Gurarie.
email: egurarie@princeton.edu
http://www.princeton.edu/~egurarie/
For permission to reproduce, write personally to the translator....Read more of this...
by Pushkin, Alexander

The Way Things Should

...2002 by Daniel Ladinsky. Reprinted by permission of the author. ...Read more of this...
by Rumi, Jalal ad-Din Muhammad

To a Lady with a Guitar

...ly thou 5 
Make the delighted spirit glow  
Till joy denies itself again 
And too intense is turn'd to pain.
For by permission and command 
Of thine own Prince Ferdinand 10 
Poor Ariel sends this silent token 
Of more than ever can be spoken; 
Your guardian spirit Ariel who 
From life to life must still pursue 
Your happiness for thus alone 15 
Can Ariel ever find his own. 
From Prospero's enchanted cell  
As the mighty verses tell  
To the throne of Naples he 
...Read more of this...
by Shelley, Percy Bysshe

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