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Famous Physician Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Burns, Robert
...brother of the sovereign Order of the Ferula; but, by intuition and inspiration, is at once an apothecary, surgeon, and physician.—R. B. [back]
Note 4. Burchan’s Domestic Medicine.—R. B. [back]
Note 5. The grave-digger.—R. B. [back]...Read more of this...



by Chaucer, Geoffrey
...eckoning.
Mother! of whom our joy began to spring,
Be ye my judge, and eke my soule's leach;*                    *physician
For ay in you is pity abounding
To each that will of pity you beseech.

                               S.

Sooth is it that He granteth no pity
Withoute thee; for God of his goodness
Forgiveth none, *but it like unto thee;*               *unless it please
He hath thee made vicar and mistress                               thee*
Of ...Read more of this...

by Browning, Robert
...nviction rests 
That he was dead (in fact they buried him) 
--That he was dead and then restored to life 
By a Nazarene physician of his tribe: 
--'Sayeth, the same bade "Rise," and he did rise. 
"Such cases are diurnal," thou wilt cry. 
Not so this figment!--not, that such a fume, 
Instead of giving way to time and health, 
Should eat itself into the life of life, 
As saffron tingeth flesh, blood, bones and all! 
For see, how he takes up the after-life. 
The man-...Read more of this...

by Robinson, Edwin Arlington
...at comes of mine and thine? 
A thousand here and there may shriek and freeze, 
Or they may starve in fine. 
The Old Physician has a crimson cure 
For such as these,
And ages after ages will endure 
The minims of it that are victories. 
The wreath may go from brow to brow, 
The state may flourish, flame, and cease; 
But through the fury and the flood somehow
The demons are acquainted and at ease, 
And somewhat hard to please. 
Mine, I believe, is laughing at me now...Read more of this...

by Robinson, Edwin Arlington
...well for you, my friend,” 
Said Avon, “to be quiet while I go on? 
When I am done, then you may talk all night— 
Like a physician who can do no good,
But knows how soon another would have his fee 
Were he to tell the truth. Your fee for this 
Is in my gratitude and my affection; 
And I’m not eager to be calling in 
Another to take yours away from you,
Whatever it’s worth. I like to think I know. 
Well then, again. The carriage rolled away 
With him inside; and...Read more of this...



by Sexton, Anne
...ut words they exist. 
Without words on my touch bread 
and be handed bread 
and make no sound. 

O Mary, tender physician, 
come with powders and herbs 
for I am in the center. 
It is very small and the air is gray 
as in a steam house. 
I am handed wine as a child is handed milk. 
It is presented in a delicate glass 
with a round bowl and a thin lip. 
The wine itself is pitch-colored, musty and secret. 
The glass rises in its own toward my mouth 
...Read more of this...

by McKay, Claude
...courge, 
To soothe and deaden my heart's unhealing rent. 
But you have torn a nerve out of my frame, 
A gut that no physician can replace, 
And reft my life of happiness and aim. 
Oh what new purpose shall I now embrace? 
What substance hold, what lovely form pursue, 
When my thought burns through everything to you?...Read more of this...

by Smart, Christopher
...is precious in the sight of God, tho his appearance is against him. 

Let Darda with a Leech bless the Name of the Physician of body and soul. 

Let Mahol praise the Maker of Earth and Sea with the Otter, whom God has given to dive and to burrow for his preservation. 

Let David bless with the Bear -- The beginning of victory to the Lord -- to the Lord the perfection of excellence -- Hallelujah from the heart of God, and from the hand of the artist inimitable, an...Read more of this...

by Arnold, Matthew
...ch served for that Titanic strife.

When Goethe's death was told, we said:
Sunk, then, is Europe's sagest head.
Physician of the iron age,
Goethe has done his pilgrimage.
He took the suffering human race,
He read each wound, each weakness clear;
And struck his finger on the place,
And said: Thou ailest here, and here!

He look'd on Europe's dying hour
Of fitful dream and feverish power;
His eye plunged down the weltering strife,
The turmoil of expiring life--
He s...Read more of this...

by Trumbull, John
...'gainst the pole,
Glued by the tar t' his rear applied,
Like barnacle on vessel's side.
But though his body lack'd physician,
His spirit was in worse condition.
He found his fears of whips and ropes
By many a drachm outweigh'd his hopes.
As men in jail without mainprize
View every thing with other eyes,
And all goes wrong in church and state,
Seen through perspective of the grate:
So now M'Fingal's Second-sight
Beheld all things in gloomier light;
His visual nerv...Read more of this...

by Lehman, David
..." "I like
a man who knows what he wants" "Well, I'll
tell you. She was a handsome, self-assured woman,
a practicing physician, 48, bright, in great shape,
played tennis every Friday night,
didn't drink, smoke, or take drugs,
and was looking for a Romeo with brains.
So naturally I didn't phone her"...Read more of this...

by Keats, John
...Physician Nature! Let my spirit blood! 
O ease my heart of verse and let me rest; 
Throw me upon thy Tripod, till the flood 
Of stifling numbers ebbs from my full breast. 
A theme! a theme! great nature! give a theme; 
Let me begin my dream. 
I come -- I see thee, as thou standest there, 
Beckon me not into the wintry air.

Ah! dearest love, swee...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...ery rank and religion; 
A farmer, mechanic, artist, gentleman, sailor, quaker; 
A prisoner, fancy-man, rowdy, lawyer, physician, priest.

I resist anything better than my own diversity; 
I breathe the air, but leave plenty after me, 
And am not stuck up, and am in my place. 

(The moth and the fish-eggs are in their place; 
The suns I see, and the suns I cannot see, are in their place;
The palpable is in its place, and the impalpable is in its place.) 
...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...ith his woolly head, the felon, the diseas’d, the illiterate person, are not
 denied;

The birth, the hasting after the physician, the beggar’s tramp, the drunkard’s stagger,
 the
 laughing party of mechanics, 
The escaped youth, the rich person’s carriage, the fop, the eloping couple,
The early market-man, the hearse, the moving of furniture into the town, the return back
 from
 the
 town, 
They pass—I also pass—anything passes—none can be interdicted; 
None but are accepted...Read more of this...

by Herbert, George
...harper that confound; 
Reproaches, which are free, while I am bound.
Was ever grief like mine? 

Now heal thy self, Physician; now come down.
Alas! I did so, when I left my crown
And father's smile for you, to feel his frown: 
Was ever grief like mine? 

In healing not my self, there doth consist
All that salvation, which ye now resist; 
Your safety in my sickness doth subsist: 
Was ever grief like mine? 

Betwixt two thieves I spend my utmost breath, 
As he that for ...Read more of this...

by Chaucer, Geoffrey
...ger; and Eli, well ye wit,* *know
In Mount Horeb, ere he had any speech
With highe God, that is our live's leech,* *physician, healer
He fasted long, and was in contemplance.
Aaron, that had the temple in governance,
And eke the other priestes every one,
Into the temple when they shoulde gon
To praye for the people, and do service,
They woulde drinken in no manner wise
No drinke, which that might them drunken make,
But there in abstinence pray and wake,
Lest that they...Read more of this...

by Wheatley, Phillis
...Grim monarch! see, depriv'd of vital breath,
A young physician in the dust of death:
Dost thou go on incessant to destroy,
Our griefs to double, and lay waste our joy?
"Enough" thou never yet wast known to say,
Though millions die, the vassals of thy sway:
Nor youth, nor science, nor the ties of love,
Nor aught on earth thy flinty heart can move.
The friend, the spouse from his dire dart to save,
I...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...hout a corpse! 

The dull nights go over, and the dull days also, 
The soreness of lying so much in bed goes over, 
The physician, after long putting off, gives the silent and terrible look for an answer,
The children come hurried and weeping, and the brothers and sisters are sent for, 
Medicines stand unused on the shelf—(the camphor-smell has long pervaded the rooms,) 
The faithful hand of the living does not desert the hand of the dying, 
The twitching lips press lightly o...Read more of this...

by Sandburg, Carl
...ing hours and in her sleep moaned restlessly attempting to clean imaginary soiled spots off her hands.
Now the head physician touches his chin with a crooked forefinger....Read more of this...

by Nash, Ogden
...Now when I have a cold
I am careful with my cold, 
I consult a physician 
And I do as I am told. 
I muffle up my torso 
In woolly woolly garb, 
And I quaff great flagons 
Of sodium bicarb. 
I munch on aspirin, 
I lunch on water, 
And I wouldn’t dream of osculating
Anybody’s daughter, 
And to anybody’s son 
I wouldn’t say howdy, 
For I am a sufferer 
Magna cum laude. 
I don’t like germs, 
But I’ll keep the ge...Read more of this...

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Book: Shattered Sighs