Famous Polite Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Your words

by Ehsan Sehgal
"Be careful with your words and actions even in joking, that can hurt someone who loves you from the depth of the heart, when someone becomes silent, less active that means person is hurt, be polite, show excuse, give the courage so that person can back again as was, if you love too." 
Ehsan Sehgal...Read more of this...

Half-Ballad of Waterval

by Rudyard Kipling
 (Non-commissioned Officers in Charge of Prisoners)
When by the labor of my 'ands
 I've 'elped to pack a transport tight 
With prisoners for foreign lands, 
 I ain't transported with delight.
 I know it's only just an' right,
 But yet it somehow sickens me,
For I 'ave learned at Waterval
 The meanin' of captivity.

Be'ind the pegged barb-wire strands,
 Beneath the tall...Read more of this...

Take your Heaven further on

by Emily Dickinson
 Take your Heaven further on --
This -- to Heaven divine Has gone --
Had You earlier blundered in
Possibly, e'en You had seen
An Eternity -- put on --
Now -- to ring a Door beyond
Is the utmost of Your Hand --
To the Skies -- apologize --
Nearer to Your Courtesies
Than this Sufferer polite --
Dressed to meet You --
See -- in White!...Read more of this...

Not Fear

by Rafael Guillen
 Not fear. Maybe, out there somewhere,
the possibility of fear; the wall
that might tumble down, because it's for sure
that behind it is the sea.
Not fear. Fear has a countenance;
It's external, concrete,
like a rifle, a shot bolt,
a suffering child,
like the darkness that's hidden
in every human mouth.
Not fear. Maybe only the brand
of the offspring of fear.

It's a narrow, interminable street
with all the...Read more of this...

The Death Baby

by Anne Sexton
 1. DREAMS

I was an ice baby.
I turned to sky blue.
My tears became two glass beads.
My mouth stiffened into a dumb howl.
They say it was a dream
but I remember that hardening.

My sister at six
dreamt nightly of my death:
"The baby turned to ice.
Someone put her in the refrigerator
and she turned as hard as a Popsicle."

I remember the stink of the liverwurst.
How...Read more of this...

I cant tell you -- but you feel it

by Emily Dickinson
 I can't tell you -- but you feel it --
Nor can you tell me --
Saints, with ravished slate and pencil
Solve our April Day!

Sweeter than a vanished frolic
From a vanished green!
Swifter than the hoofs of Horsemen
Round a Ledge of dream!

Modest, let us walk among it
With our faces veiled --
As they say polite Archangels
Do in meeting God!

Not for me -- to...Read more of this...

The Federal Bus Conductor and the Old Lady

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 'The man who brought the railway through -- our friend the engineer.' 
They cheer his pluck and enterprise and engineering skill! 
'Twas my old husband found the pass behind that big red hill. 
Before the engineer was born we'd settled with our stock 
Behind that great big mountain chain, a line of range and rock -- 
A line that...Read more of this...

Silent Letters

by Charles Webb
  Treacherous as trap door spiders,
they ambush children's innocence.
"Why is there g h in light? It isn't fair!"
Buddha declared the world illusory
as the p sound in psyche. Sartre
said the same of God from France,
Olympus of silent letters, n'est -ce pas?

Polite conceals an e in the same way
"How are you?" hides "I don't care."
Physics asserts the desk I lean on,
the...Read more of this...

The Boss of the Admiral Lynch

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 Did you ever hear tell of Chili? I was readin' the other day 
Of President Balmaceda and of how he was sent away. 
It seems that he didn't suit 'em -- they thought that they'd like a change, 
So they started an insurrection and chased him across the range. 
They seem to be restless people -- and, judging by...Read more of this...

There was an Old Person of Cadiz

by Edward Lear
There was an Old Person of Cadiz,Who was always polite to all ladies;But in handing his daughter, he fell into the water,Which drowned that Old Person of Cadiz. ...Read more of this...

The First Surveyor

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 'The man who brought the railway through -- our friend the engineer.' 
They cheer his pluck and enterprise and engineering skill! 
'Twas my old husband found the pass behind that big red hill. 
Before the engineer was born we'd settled with our stock 
Behind that great big mountain chain, a line of range and rock -- 
A line that...Read more of this...

An Apology for the Bottle Volcanic

by Vachel Lindsay
 Sometimes I dip my pen and find the bottle full of fire, 
The salamanders flying forth I cannot but admire.
It's Etna, or Vesuvius, if those big things were small,
And then 'tis but itself again, and does not smoke at all.
And so my blood grows cold. I say, "The bottle held but ink,
And, if you thought it otherwise, the worser...Read more of this...

Two Campers In Cloud Country

by Sylvia Plath
 (Rock Lake, Canada)

In this country there is neither measure nor balance
To redress the dominance of rocks and woods,
The passage, say, of these man-shaming clouds.

No gesture of yours or mine could catch their attention,
No word make them carry water or fire the kindling
Like local trolls in the spell of a superior being.

Well, one wearies of the Public Gardens: one wants...Read more of this...

Familiarity

by Robert William Service
 Familiarity some claim
 Can breed contempt,
So from it let it be your aim
 To be exempt.
Let no one exercise his brawn
 To slap your back,
Lest he forget your name is John,
 And call you Jack.

To those who crash your private pew
 Be sour as krout;
Don't let them see the real 'you,'
 And bawl you out.
Don't call your Cousin William--Bill,
...Read more of this...

Musketaquid

by Ralph Waldo Emerson
 Because I was content with these poor fields, 
Low, open meads, slender and sluggish streams, 
And found a home in haunts which others scorned, 
The partial wood-gods overpaid my love, 
And granted me the freedom of their state, 
And in their secret senate have prevailed 
With the dear, dangerous lords that rule our life, 
Made moon and planets parties...Read more of this...

Respondez!

by Walt Whitman
 RESPONDEZ! Respondez! 
(The war is completed—the price is paid—the title is settled beyond recall;) 
Let every one answer! let those who sleep be waked! let none evade! 
Must we still go on with our affectations and sneaking? 
Let me bring this to a close—I pronounce openly for a new distribution of roles;
Let that which stood in front go behind!...Read more of this...

A Sunset of the City

by Gwendolyn Brooks
 Already I am no longer looked at with lechery or love.
My daughters and sons have put me away with marbles and dolls,
Are gone from the house.
My husband and lovers are pleasant or somewhat polite
And night is night.

It is a real chill out,
The genuine thing.
I am not deceived, I do not think it is still summer
Because sun stays and birds...Read more of this...

A Meeting With The Princess

by Barry Tebb
 Just a family get-together in a terrace house in Bradford

High tea with a few stuffy aunts I hadn’t seen for years

Their husbands in tow like lost dogs sniffing round for food

But she came all the same, ushered in politely as a friend

Of a friend or somebody’s cousin twice removed though

Everybody was a bit put out at first except me...Read more of this...

Blueberries

by Robert Frost
 "You ought to have seen what I saw on my way 
To the village, through Mortenson's pasture to-day: 
Blueberries as big as the end of your thumb, 
Real sky-blue, and heavy, and ready to drum 
In the cavernous pail of the first one to come! 
And all ripe together, not some of them green 
And some of them ripe!...Read more of this...

The Crickets sang

by Emily Dickinson
 The Crickets sang
And set the Sun
And Workmen finished one by one
Their Seam the Day upon.

The low Grass loaded with the Dew
The Twilight stood, as Strangers do
With Hat in Hand, polite and new
To stay as if, or go.

A Vastness, as a Neighbor, came,
A Wisdom, without Face, or Name,
A Peace, as Hemispheres at Home
And so the Night became....Read more of this...

Julot The Apache

by Robert William Service
 You've heard of Julot the apache, and Gigolette, his mome. . . .
Montmartre was their hunting-ground, but Belville was their home.
A little chap just like a boy, with smudgy black mustache, --
Yet there was nothing juvenile in Julot the apache.
From head to heel as tough as steel, as nimble as a cat,
With every trick of twist and kick, a...Read more of this...

A Question

by Ellis Parker Butler
 Whene’er I feed the barnyard folk
 My gentle soul is vexed;
My sensibilities are torn
 And I am sore perplexed.

The rooster so politely stands
 While waiting for his food,
But when I feed him, what a change!
 He then is rough and rude.

He crowds his gentle wives aside
 Or pecks them on the head;
Sometimes I think it would be best
 If...Read more of this...

Politeness

by Robert William Service
 The English and the French were met
Upon the field of future battle;
The foes were formidably set
And waiting for the guns to rattle;
When from the serried ranks of France
The English saw with woeful presage
Under a flaming flag advance
A trumpeter who bore a message.

'Twas from their Marshal, quite polite,
Yet made the English leader shiver.
"We're perched," said he, "upon the height,
While you're...Read more of this...

An Alphabet of Famous Goops

by Gelett Burgess
 AN ALPHABET OF FAMOUS GOOPS.
Which you 'll Regard with Yells and Whoops.
Futile Acumen! 
For you Yourselves are Doubtless Dupes
Of Failings Such as Mar these Groups --
We all are Human!

1 ABEDNEGO was Meek and Mild; he Softly Spoke, he Sweetly Smiled.
2 He never Called his Playmates Names, and he was Good in Running Games;
3 But he was Often in Disgrace...Read more of this...

Musketaquid

by Ralph Waldo Emerson
 Because I was content with these poor fields,
Low open meads, slender and sluggish streams,
And found a home in haunts which others scorned,
The partial wood-gods overpaid my love,
And granted me the freedom of their state,
And in their secret senate have prevailed
With the dear dangerous lords that rule our life,
Made moon and planets parties to their bond,
And pitying through my solitary...Read more of this...

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