Famous Secretary Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Hiram Scates

by Edgar Lee Masters
 I tried to win the nomination
For president of the County-board
And I made speeches all over the County
Denouncing Solomon Purple, my rival,
As an enemy of the people,
In league with the master-foes of man.
Young idealists, broken warriors,
Hobbling on one crutch of hope,
Souls that stake their all on the truth,
Losers of worlds at heaven's bidding,
Flocked about me and followed my voice
As the...Read more of this...

Toads Revisited

by Philip Larkin
 Walking around in the park
Should feel better than work:
The lake, the sunshine,
The grass to lie on,

Blurred playground noises
Beyond black-stockinged nurses -
Not a bad place to be.
Yet it doesn't suit me.

Being one of the men
You meet of an afternoon:
Palsied old step-takers,
Hare-eyed clerks with the jitters,

Waxed-fleshed out-patients
Still vague from accidents,
And characters in long coats
Deep in the litter-baskets -

All dodging the toad...Read more of this...

Holy-Cross Day

by Robert Browning
 ON WHICH THE JEWS WERE FORCED TO
ATTEND AN ANNUAL CHRISTIAN SERMON
IN ROME.

[``Now was come about Holy-Cross Day,
and now must my lord preach his first sermon
to the Jews: as it was of old cared for in tine
merciful bowels of the Church, that, so to
speak, a crumb at least from her conspicuous
table here in Rome should be, though but
once yearly, cast...Read more of this...

Flee On Your Donkey

by Anne Sexton
 Because there was no other place
to flee to,
I came back to the scene of the disordered senses,
came back last night at midnight,
arriving in the thick June night
without luggage or defenses,
giving up my car keys and my cash,
keeping only a pack of Salem cigarettes
the way a child holds on to a toy.
I signed myself in where a stranger
puts the inked-in...Read more of this...

Farewell to Secretary Shu-yun at the Hsieh Tiao Villa in Hsuan-Chou

by Li Po
 Since yesterday had throw me and bolt,
Today has hurt my heart even more.
The autumn wildgeese have a long wing for escort
As I face them from this villa, drinking my wine.
The bones of great writers are your brushes, in the school of heaven,
And I am Lesser Hsieh growing up by your side.
We both are exalted to distant thought,
Aspiring to the...Read more of this...

Shit List; Or Omnium-gatherum Of Diversity Into Unity

by A R Ammons
 You'll rejoice at how many kinds of **** there are:
gosling **** (which J. Williams said something
was as green as), fish **** (the generality), trout

****, rainbow trout **** (for the nice), mullet ****,
sand dab ****, casual sloth ****, elephant ****
(awesome as process or payload), wildebeest ****,

horse **** (a favorite), caterpillar **** (so many dark
kinds, neatly pelleted as mint seed), baby...Read more of this...

Shut Up And Eat Your Toad

by Edward Taylor
 The disorganization to which I currently belong
has skipped several meetings in a row
which is a pattern I find almost fatally attractive.
Down at headquarters there's a secretary
and a janitor who I shall call Suzie
and boy can she ever shoot straight.
She'll shoot you straight in the eye if you ask her to.
I mow the grass every other Saturday
and that's the day...Read more of this...

An Early Audience at the Palace of Light. (Harmonizing a poem for Secretary Jia Zhi.)

by Wang Wei
 The red-capped Cock-Man has just announced morning; 
The Keeper of the Robes brings Jade-Cloud Furs; 
Heaven's nine doors reveal the palace and its courtyards; 
And the coats of many countries bow to the Pearl Crown. 
Sunshine has entered the giants' carven palms; 
Incense wreathes the Dragon Robe: 
The audience adjourns-and the five-coloured edict 
Sets girdle-beads clinking toward the Lake...Read more of this...

The Bee Meeting

by Sylvia Plath
 Who are these people at the bridge to meet me? They are the villagers----
The rector, the midwife, the sexton, the agent for bees.
In my sleeveless summery dress I have no protection,
And they are all gloved and covered, why did nobody tell me?
They are smiling and taking out veils tacked to ancient hats.

I am nude as a chicken neck, does...Read more of this...

Dream Song 66: All virtues enter into this world:)

by John Berryman
 'All virtues enter into this world:')
A Buddhist, doused in the street, serenely burned.
The Secretary of State for War,
winking it over, screwed a redhaired whore.
Monsignor Capovilla mourned. What a week.
A journalism doggy took a leak

against absconding coon ('but take one virtue,
without which a man can hardly hold his own')
the sun in the willow
shivers itself & shakes itself green-yellow
(Abba Pimen groaned,...Read more of this...

To The Right Honourable William Earl Of Dartmouth His Majestys Principal Secretary Of The State For North-America

by Phillis Wheatley
 HAIL, happy day, when, smiling like the morn,
Fair Freedom rose New-England to adorn:
The northern clime beneath her genial ray,
Dartmouth, congratulates thy blissful sway:
Elate with hope her race no longer mourns,
Each soul expands, each grateful bosom burns,
While in thine hand with pleasure we behold
The silken reins, and Freedom's charms unfold.
Long lost to realms beneath the northern skies
She shines supreme, while...Read more of this...

Shut Up And Eat Your Toad

by James Tate
 The disorganization to which I currently belong
has skipped several meetings in a row
which is a pattern I find almost fatally attractive.
Down at headquarters there's a secretary
and a janitor who I shall call Suzie
and boy can she ever shoot straight.
She'll shoot you straight in the eye if you ask her to.
I mow the grass every other Saturday
and that's the day...Read more of this...

Lord Lundy

by Hilaire Belloc
 Who was too Freely Moved to Tears, and thereby ruined his Political Career 

Lord Lundy from his earliest years
Was far too freely moved to Tears.
For instance if his Mother said,
"Lundy! It's time to go to Bed!"
He bellowed like a Little Turk.
Or if his father Lord Dunquerque
Said "Hi!" in a Commanding Tone,
"Hi, Lundy! Leave the Cat alone!"
Lord Lundy, letting go...Read more of this...

Womens Suffrage

by William Topaz McGonagall
 Fellow men! why should the lords try to despise
And prohibit women from having the benefit of the parliamentary Franchise?
When they pay the same taxes as you and me,
I consider they ought to have the same liberty. 

And I consider if they are not allowed the same liberty,
From taxation every one of them should be set free;
And if they are...Read more of this...

The Solution

by Bertolt Brecht
 After the uprising of the 17th June
The Secretary of the Writers Union
Had leaflets distributed in the Stalinallee
Stating that the people
Had forfeited the confidence of the government
And could win it back only
By redoubled efforts. Would it not be easier
In that case for the government
To dissolve the people
And elect another?...Read more of this...

A Farewell to Secretary Shu-yun at the Hsieh Tiao Villa in Hsuan-Chou

by Li Bai
Since yesterday had throw me and bolt,
Today has hurt my heart even more.
The autumn wildgeese have a long wing for escort
As I face them from this villa, drinking my wine.
The bones of great writers are your brushes, in the school of heaven,
And I am Lesser Hsieh growing up by your side.
We both are exalted to distant thought,
Aspiring to the sky...Read more of this...

Secretary

by Robert William Service
 My Master is a man of might
 With manners like a hog;
He makes me slave from morn to night
 And treats me like a dog.
He thinks there's nothing on this earth
 His money cannot buy,
And claims to get full wages worth
 From hirelings such as I.

But does he? Though a Man of State,
 And fabulously rich,
He little guesses that...Read more of this...

The Right to Grief

by Carl Sandburg
 To Certain Poets About to Die

TAKE your fill of intimate remorse, perfumed sorrow,
Over the dead child of a millionaire,
And the pity of Death refusing any check on the bank
Which the millionaire might order his secretary to
scratch off
And get cashed.

Very well,
You for your grief and I for mine.
Let me have a sorrow my own if I want to.

I shall cry...Read more of this...

Potomac River Mist

by Carl Sandburg
 ALL the policemen, saloonkeepers and efficiency experts in Toledo knew Bern Dailey; secretary ten years when Whitlock was mayor.
Pickpockets, yeggs, three card men, he knew them all and how they flit from zone to zone, birds of wind and weather, singers, fighters, scavengers.

The Washington monument pointed to a new moon for us and a gang from over the river...Read more of this...

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