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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...n’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 so I got
Sat down next to her and started to chat but people would
Keep chipping in, especially the young men, definitely upper-class
Gate-crashers who kept scowling at her and she kept snapping
Back at them and I said, "There seems...Read more of this...
by
Tebb, Barry
...d 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 continue to sing.
It is summer-gone that I see, it is summer-gone.
The sweet flowers indrying and dying down,
The grasses forgetting their blaze and consenting to brown.
It is a real chill out. The fall cri...Read more of this...
by
Brooks, Gwendolyn
...er Sunny-Tempered Boy.
54 However, she was Not so Gay when REUB Refused to Stop his Play!
55 When SHADRACH Cared to be Polite, they Called him Gentlemanly, Quite;
56 His Manners were Correct and Nice; he Never Asked for Jelly Twice!
57 Still, when he Tried to Misbehave, O, how Much Trouble SHADRACH Gave!
58 Don't Think that TIMOTHY was Ill because he Sometimes Kept so Still.
59 He knew his Mother Did Not Care to Hear him Talking Everywhere.
60 He did not Tease, he did Not C...Read more of this...
by
Burgess, Gelett
...ss’d.
13
Rhymes and rhymers pass away—poems distill’d from foreign poems pass away,
The swarms of reflectors and the polite pass, and leave ashes;
Admirers, importers, obedient persons, make but the soul of literature;
America justifies itself, give it time—no disguise can deceive it, or conceal from
it—it is impassive enough,
Only toward the likes of itself will it advance to meet them,
If its poets appear, it will in due time advance to meet them—there is no fear of
...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...a drive."
"He saw you, then? What did he do? Did he frown?"
"He just kept nodding his head up and down.
You know how politely he always goes by.
But he thought a big thought--I could tell by his eye--
Which being expressed, might be this in effect:
'I have left those there berries, I shrewdly suspect,
To ripen too long. I am greatly to blame.'"
"He's a thriftier person than some I could name."
"He seems to be thrifty; and hasn't he need,
With the mouths of all those...Read more of this...
by
Frost, Robert
...hurt—
That—is not Steel's Affair—
A vulgar grimace in the Flesh—
How ill the Creatures bear—
To Ache is human—not polite—
The Film upon the eye
Mortality's old Custom—
Just locking up—to Die.
486
I was the slightest in the House—
I took the smallest Room—
At night, my little Lamp, and Book—
And one Geranium—
So stationed I could catch the Mint
That never ceased to fall—
And just my Basket—
Let me think—I'm sure
That this was all—
I never spoke—unle...Read more of this...
by
Dickinson, Emily
...ing with vivid faces
From counter or desk among grey
Eighteenth-century houses.
I have passed with a nod of the head
Or polite meaningless words,
Or have lingered awhile and said
Polite meaningless words,
And thought before I had done
Of a mocking tale or a gibe
To please a companion
Around the fire at the club,
Being certain that they and I
But lived where motley is worn:
All changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.
That woman's days were spent
In ignorant good-...Read more of this...
by
Yeats, William Butler
...oolish virgins,
Your heart will sicken at the marriage feasts
Knowing they watch you from the darkened gardens
Being polite to your official guests....Read more of this...
by
Hope, Alec Derwent (A D)
...o second, Arbuthnot! thy art and care,
And teach the being you preserv'd, to bear.
But why then publish? Granville the polite,
And knowing Walsh, would tell me I could write;
Well-natur'd Garth inflamed with early praise,
And Congreve lov'd, and Swift endur'd my lays;
The courtly Talbot, Somers, Sheffield read,
Ev'n mitred Rochester would nod the head,
And St. John's self (great Dryden's friends before)
With open arms receiv'd one poet more.
Happy my studies, when by these a...Read more of this...
by
Pope, Alexander
...f it is true, what the Prophets write,
That the heathen gods are all stocks and stones,
Shall we, for the sake of being polite,
Feed them with the juice of our marrow-bones?
And if Bezaleel and Aholiab drew
What the finger of God pointed to their view,
Shall we suffer the Roman and Grecian rods
To compel us to worship them as gods?
They stole them from the temple of the Lord
And worshipp'd them that they might make inspir?d art abhorr'd;
The wood and stone were call'd the ...Read more of this...
by
Blake, William
...elt our captive's charms;
Her arts victorious triumph'd o'er our arms;
Britain to soft refinements less a foe,
Wit grew polite, and numbers learn'd to flow.
Waller was smooth; but Dryden taught to join
The varying verse, the full-resounding line,
The long majestic march, and energy divine.
Though still some traces of our rustic vein
And splayfoot verse remain'd, and will remain.
Late, very late, correctness grew our care,
When the tir'd nation breath'd from civil war.
Exact R...Read more of this...
by
Pope, Alexander
...t
with all the windows darkened,
a thread spun out from a sticky hand,
friendly, yes, not a friend.
It's a nightmare
of polite ritual wearing a frightwig.
Not fear. Fear is a door slammed in your face.
I'm speaking here of a labyrinth
of doors already closed, with assumed
reasons for being, or not being,
for categorizing bad luck
or good, bread, or an expression
— tenderness and panic and frigidity - for the children
growing up. And the silence.
And the cities, sparkling, emp...Read more of this...
by
Guillen, Rafael
...h 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 exposed beside the river.
We have the vantage, you'll agree,
And your look-out is melancholy;
But being famed for courtesy
We'll let you fire the starting volley."
The English General was moved,
In fact his eyes were almost tearful;
Then he too his politenes...Read more of this...
by
Service, Robert William
...Let death be inaugurated!
Let nothing remain but the ashes of teachers, artists, moralists, lawyers, and
learn’d and
polite persons!
Let him who is without my poems be assassinated!
Let the cow, the horse, the camel, the garden-bee—let the mudfish, the lobster, the
mussel, eel, the sting-ray, and the grunting pig-fish—let these, and the like of
these, be
put on a perfect equality with man and woman!
Let churches accommodate serpents, vermin, and the corpses of those w...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...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 brush that fluffs my hair,
are only dots that punctuate a nullity
complete as the g sound in gnome,
the c e in Worcestershire.
Passions lurk under the saint's bed,
mute as the end of love.
They glide toward us, yellow eyes
gleaming, hushed as th...Read more of this...
by
Webb, Charles
...self, a duplicate of every one, skulking and hiding it goes,
Formless and wordless through the streets of the cities, polite and bland in the parlors,
In the cars of rail-roads, in steamboats, in the public assembly,
Home to the houses of men and women, at the table, in the bed-room, everywhere,
Smartly attired, countenance smiling, form upright, death under the breast-bones, hell
under
the
skull-bones,
Under the broadcloth and gloves, under the ribbons and artificial...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...key,
we'll shoot words straight from the hip,
we'll play it as it lays.
Yes,
when death comes with its hood
we won't be polite.
6. BABY
Death,
you lie in my arms like a cherub,
as heavy as bread dough.
Your milky wings are as still as plastic.
Hair soft as music.
Hair the color of a harp.
And eyes made of glass,
as brittle as crystal.
Each time I rock you
I think you will break.
I rock. I rock.
Glass eye, ice eye,
primordial eye,
lava eye,
pin eye,
break eye,
how you star...Read more of this...
by
Sexton, Anne
...ttler here!
Present me to the Governor and that young engineer!
Well, just you tell his Excellence, and put the thing polite,
I'm sorry, but I can't come down -- I'm dining out tonight!"...Read more of this...
by
Paterson, Andrew Barton
...ttler here!
Present me to the Governor and that young engineer!
Well, just you tell his Excellence, and put the thing polite,
I'm sorry, but I can't come down -- I'm dining out tonight!"...Read more of this...
by
Paterson, Andrew Barton
...
And that the 'sons of God', like those of clay,
Must keep him company; and we might show
From the same book, in how polite a way
The dialogue is held between the Powers
Of Good and Evil — but 'twould take up hours.
XXXIV
And this is not a theologic tract,
To prove with Hebrew and with Arabic,
If Job be allegory or a fact,
But a true narrative; and thus I pick
From out the whole but such and such an act
As sets aside the slightest thought of trick.
'Tis every t...Read more of this...
by
Byron, George (Lord)
Dont forget to view our wonderful member Polite poems.