Famous Subsistence Poems by Famous Poets

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

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A Panegyric To Sir Lewis Pemberton

...n give, and what retract a grace;
What gesture, courtship, comeliness agrees,
With those thy primitive decrees,
To give subsistence to thy house, and proof
What Genii support thy roof,
Goodness and greatness, not the oaken piles;
For these, and marbles have their whiles
To last, but not their ever; virtue's hand
It is which builds 'gainst fate to stand.
Such is thy house, whose firm foundations trust
Is more in thee than in her dust,
Or depth; these last may yield, and yearly...Read more of this...
by Herrick, Robert


Cleon

...Watch-tower and treasure-fortress of the soul, 
Which whole surrounding flats of natural life 
Seemed only fit to yield subsistence to; 
A tower that crowns a country. But alas, 
The soul now climbs it just to perish there! 
For thence we have discovered ('tis no dream-- 
We know this, which we had not else perceived) 
That there's a world of capability 
For joy, spread round about us, meant for us, 
Inviting us; and still the soul craves all, 
And still the flesh replies, "T...Read more of this...
by Browning, Robert

Cows In Art Class

...y
children
age
diet
conversation
sex
the moon
the absence or
presence of sun
or good times.
a woman must be nursed
into subsistence
by love
where a man can become
stronger
by being hated. 
I am drinking tonight in Spangler's Bar
and I remember the cows
I once painted in Art class
and they looked good
they looked better than anything
in here. I am drinking in Spangler's Bar
wondering which to love and which
to hate, but the rules are gone:
I love and hate only
myself-
they sta...Read more of this...
by Bukowski, Charles

Snowbound a Winter Idyl

...c Dartmouth's college halls. 
Born the wild Northern hills among, 
From whence his yeoman father wrung 
By patient toil subsistence scant, 
Not competence and yet not want, 
He early gained the power to pay 
His cheerful, self-reliant way; 
Could doff at ease his scholar's gown 
To peddle wares from town to town; 
Or through the long vacation's reach 
In lonely lowland districts teach, 
Where all the droll experience found 
At stranger hearths in boarding round, 
The moonlit ...Read more of this...
by Whittier, John Greenleaf

The Dream Of Wearing Shorts Forever

...mperate zone
they are also ideal for going home, into space,
into time, to farm the mind's Sabine acres
for product and subsistence. 

Now that everyone who yearned to wear long pants
has essentially achieved them,
long pants, which have themselves been underwear
repeatedly, and underground more than once,
it is time perhaps to cherish the culture of shorts, 

to moderate grim vigour
with the knobble of bare knees,
to cool bareknuckle feet in inland water,
slapping flies with...Read more of this...
by Murray, Les


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