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Famous Plainness Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry
...y shown
As jointed armour, stiffened pleat,
And that faint hint of the absurd -
The little dogs under their feet.

Such plainness of the pre-baroque
Hardly involves the eye, until
It meets his left-hand gauntlet, still
Clasped empty in the other; and
One sees, with a sharp tender shock,
His hand withdrawn, holding her hand.

They would not think to lie so long.
Such faithfulness in effigy
Was just a detail friends would see:
A sculptor's sweet commissioned grace
Thrown off in...Read more of this...
by Larkin, Philip



...inc'd at Sight we find,
That gives us back the Image of our Mind:
As Shades more sweetly recommend the Light,
So modest Plainness sets off sprightly Wit:
For Works may have more Wit than does 'em good,
As Bodies perish through Excess of Blood.

Others for Language all their Care express,
And value Books, as Women Men, for Dress:
Their Praise is still--The Stile is excellent:
The Sense, they humbly take upon Content.
Words are like Leaves; and where they most abound,
Much Frui...Read more of this...
by Pope, Alexander
...behold 
Plum'd like our Birds, and sparkling all in Gold; 
Courtiers, that will thy rustick Garb despise, 
And mock thy Plainness with disdainful Eyes. 
But above all, that Structure see thou fly, 
Where hoarded Vanities and Witchcrafts lie; 
To shun that Path be thy peculiar Care. 
I ask, what of that Place the Dangers are: 
To which he soon replies, there shalt thou meet 
Of soft Enchantresses th' Enchantments sweet, 
Who subt'ly will thy solid Sense bereave, 
And a false G...Read more of this...
by Finch, Anne Kingsmill
...ling, as tranquil, as sure?

What bard,
At the height of his vision, can deem
Of God, of the world, of the soul,
With a plainness as near,
As flashing as Moses felt
When he lay in the night by his flock
On the starlit Arabian waste?
Can rise and obey
The beck of the Spirit like him?

This tract which the river of Time
Now flows through with us, is the plain.
Gone is the calm of its earlier shore.
Bordered by cities and hoarse
With a thousand cries is its stream.
And we on its...Read more of this...
by Arnold, Matthew

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry