Famous Profession Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Profession poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous profession poems. These examples illustrate what a famous profession poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Burns, Robert
...hold our grand procession;
To get a blad o’ Johnie’s morals,
And taste a swatch o’ Manson’s barrels
I’ the way of our profession.
The Master and the Brotherhood
Would a’ be glad to see you;
For me I would be mair than proud
To share the mercies wi’ you.
If Death, then, wi’ skaith, then,
Some mortal heart is hechtin,
Inform him, and storm him,
That Saturday you’ll fecht him.ROBERT BURNS.Mossgiel, An. M. 5790....Read more of this...
by
Burns, Robert
...isdom’s a fool when he’s fou;
Sir Knave is a fool in a session;
He’s there but a ’prentice I trow,
But I am a fool by profession.
My grannie she bought me a beuk,
An’ I held awa to the school;
I fear I my talent misteuk,
But what will ye hae of a fool?
For drink I would venture my neck;
A hizzie’s the half of my craft;
But what could ye other expect
Of ane that’s avowedly daft?
I ance was tied up like a stirk,
For civilly swearing and quaffin;
I ance was abus...Read more of this...
by
Berryman, John
...Collating bones: I would have liked to do.
Henry would have been hot at that.
I missed his profession.
As a little boy I always thought
'I'm an archeologist'; who
could be more respected peaceful serious than that?
Hell talkt my brain awake.
Bluffed to the ends of me pain
& I took up a pencil;
like this I'm longing with. One sign
would snow me back, back.
is there anyone in the audience who has lived in vain?
A Chinese tooth! Afr...Read more of this...
by
Lawson, Henry
...e or the clever things you do --
Then I'll play no second fiddle: I'm a prouder man than you!
If you think that your profession has the more gentility,
And that you are condescending to be seen along with me;
If you notice that I'm shabby while your clothes are spruce and new --
You have only got to hint it: I'm a prouder man than you!
If you have a swell companion when you see me on the street,
And you think that I'm too common for your toney friend to meet,
So tha...Read more of this...
by
Atwood, Margaret
...Love is not a profession
genteel or otherwise
sex is not dentistry
the slick filling of aches and cavities
you are not my doctor
you are not my cure,
nobody has that
power, you are merely a fellow/traveller
Give up this medical concern,
buttoned, attentive,
permit yourself anger
and permit me mine
which needs neither
your approval nor your suprise
which does not ne...Read more of this...
by
Meredith, George
...ing one's own makes us juggle no little;
But, to increase it, hard juggling's the rule.
You that are sneering at my profession,
Haven't you juggled a vast amount?
There's the Prime Minister, in one Session,
Juggles more games than my sins'll count.
I've murdered insects with mock thunder:
Conscience, for that, in men don't quail.
I've made bread from the bump of wonder:
That's my business, and there's my tale.
Fashion and rank all praised the professor:
Ay! a...Read more of this...
by
Belloc, Hilaire
...d to Lord Lundy then,
As happens to so many men:
Towards the age of twenty-six,
They shoved him into politics;
In which profession he commanded
The Income that his rank demanded
In turn as Secretary for
India, the Colonies, and War.
But very soon his friends began
To doubt is he were quite the man:
Thus if a member rose to say
(As members do from day to day),
"Arising out of that reply . . .!"
Lord Lundy would begin to cry.
A Hint at harmless little jobs
W...Read more of this...
by
Neruda, Pablo
...ottle
of vinegar; is back
in her kitchen.
The artichoke drowns in a pot.
So you have it:
a vegetable, armed,
a profession
(call it an artichoke)
whose end
is millennial.
We taste of that
sweetness,
dismembering scale after scale.
We eat of a halcyon paste:
it is green at the artichoke heart....Read more of this...
by
Raleigh, Sir Walter
...To Griggs, that learned man, in many a bygone session,
His kids were his delight, and physics his profession;
Now Griggs, grown old and glum, and less intent on knowledge,
Physics himself at home, and sends his kids to college....Read more of this...
by
Lawson, Henry
...y, they are never very spruce --
Going cheerfully and carelessly and smoothly to the deuce.
Some are wanderers by profession, `turning up' and gone as soon,
Travelling second-class, or steerage (when it's cheap they go saloon);
Free from `ists' and `isms', troubled little by belief or doubt --
Lazy, purposeless, and useless -- knocking round and hanging out.
They will take what they can get, and they will give what they can give,
God alone knows how they manage...Read more of this...
by
Patchen, Kenneth
...xclaim at the commonplace alone
To cause the unseen eyes to open
To admire only the abrsurd
To be concerned with every profession save his own
To raise a fortuitous stink on the boulevards of truth and beauty
To desire an electrifiable intercourse with a female alligator
To lift the flesh above the suffering
To forgive the beautiful its disconsolate deceit
To flash his vengeful badge at every abyss
To HAPPEN
It is the artist’s duty to be alive
To drag people into glitteri...Read more of this...
by
Byron, George (Lord)
...described in the text as sheathed behind with silver are those of an Arnaut robber, who was my host (he had quitted the profession) at his Pyrgo, near Gastouni in the Morea; they were plated in scales one over the other, like the back of an armadillo.
(29) The characters on all Turkish scimitars contain sometimes the name of the place of their manufacture, but more generally a text from the Koran, in letters of gold. Amongst those in my possession is one with a blad...Read more of this...
by
Ondaatje, Michael
...w bark dust
On your pillow.
Your breasts and shoulders would reek
You could never walk through markets
without the profession of my fingers
floating over you. The blind would
stumble certain of whom they approached
though you might bathe
under rain gutters, monsoon.
Here on the upper thigh
at this smooth pasture
neighbour to you hair
or the crease
that cuts your back. This ankle.
You will be known among strangers
as the cinnamon peeler's wife.
I cou...Read more of this...
by
Lindsay, Vachel
...ow it ends,
Let each nation-mender flay the red bar-tender, —
Abhor
The transgression
Of the red bar-tender, —
Ruin
The profession
Of the red bar-tender:
Force him into business where his work does good.
Let him learn how to plough, let him learn to chop wood,
Let him learn how to plough, let him learn to chop wood.
"The moral,
The conclusion,
The verdict now you know:—
'The saloon must go,
The saloon must go,
The saloon,
The saloon,
The saloon,
Must go.'"
"You ...Read more of this...
by
Service, Robert William
.... ."
Says I: "blokes don't look at me feet."
Says Polly Crump: "You cough all day;
It just don't do in our profession;
A girl's got to be pert and gay
To give a guy a good impression;
For if ye cough he's shy of you. . . ."
Says I: "An' wots a gel to do?"
Says Polly Crump: "I'm pink an' fat,
But you are bones an' pale as plaster;
At this dam' rate you're goin' at
You'll never live to be a laster.
You'll have the daisy roots for door. .Read more of this...
by
Lanier, Sidney
...th nice precision," and the Duke
Leans down to see, and cries, "'tis marvellous nice,
Shaved as thou wert ear-barber by profession!"
Whereat one witling cries, "'tis monstrous fit,
In sooth, a shaven-pated priest should have
A shaven-eared audience;" and another,
"Give thanks, thou Jacques, to this most gracious Duke
That rids thee of the life-long dread of loss
Of thy two ears, by cropping them at once;
And now henceforth full safely thou may'st dare
The powerfullest Lord in...Read more of this...
by
Pound, Ezra
...r hair a bit.
O God, O Venus, O Mercury, patron of thieves,
Lend me a little tobacco-shop,
or install me in any profession
Save this damn'd profession of writing,
where one needs one's brains all the time....Read more of this...
by
Smart, Christopher
...In ev'ry age, and each profession,
Men err the most by prepossession;
But when the thing is clearly shown,
And fairly stated, fully known,
We soon applaud what we deride,
And penitence succeeds to pride.--
A certain Baron on a day
Having a mind to show away,
Invited all the wits and wags,
Foot, Massey, Shuter, Yates, and Skeggs,
And built a large commodious stage,
F...Read more of this...
by
Chaucer, Geoffrey
...he saide thus,
'Blessed be they that poor in spirit be'
And so forth all the gospel may ye see,
Whether it be liker our profession,
Or theirs that swimmen in possession;
Fy on their pomp, and on their gluttony,
And on their lewedness! I them defy.
Me thinketh they be like Jovinian,
Fat as a whale, and walking as a swan;
All vinolent* as bottle in the spence;** *full of wine **store-room
Their prayer is of full great reverence;
When they for soules say the Psalm of Dav...Read more of this...
by
Bradstreet, Anne
...cree;
Bestow much cost there's nothing lost,
to make salvation sure,
O great's the gain, though got with pain,
comes by profession pure.
The race is run, the field is won,
the victory's mine I see;
Forever known, thou envious foe,
the foil belongs to thee....Read more of this...
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