Famous Supply Poems by Famous Poets

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

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A Satyre Against Mankind

...or food,
Man undoes man, to do himself no good.
With teeth and claws, by nature armed, they hunt
Nature's allowance, to supply their want.
But man, with smiles, embraces. friendships. Praise,
Inhumanely his fellow's life betrays;
With voluntary pains works his distress,
Not through necessity, but wantonness.
For hunger or for love they bite, or tear,
Whilst wretched man is still in arms for fear.
For fear he arms, and is of arms afraid:
From fear, to fear, successively betray...Read more of this...
by Wilmot, John


Absalom And Achitophel

...ly him with new plots, shall be my care;
Or plunge him deep in some expensive war;
Which, when his treasure can no more supply,
He must, with the remains of kingship, buy.
His faithful friends, our jealousies and fears
Call Jebusites; and Pharaoh's pensioners:
Whom, when our fury from his aid has torn,
He shall be naked left to public scorn.
The next successor, whom I fear and hate,
My arts have made obnoxious to the state;
Turn'd all his virtues to his overthrow,
And gain'd ...Read more of this...
by Dryden, John

An Essay On Criticism

...
Life, Force, and Beauty, must to all impart,
At once the Source, and End, and Test of Art
Art from that Fund each just Supply provides,
Works without Show, and without Pomp presides:
In some fair Body thus th' informing Soul
With Spirits feeds, with Vigour fills the whole,
Each Motion guides, and ev'ry Nerve sustains;
It self unseen, but in th' Effects, remains.
Some, to whom Heav'n in Wit has been profuse.
Want as much more, to turn it to its use,
For Wit and Judgment often...Read more of this...
by Pope, Alexander

Cleon

...igue has brought 
Deduction to it." We struggle, fain to enlarge 
Our bounded physical recipiency, 
Increase our power, supply fresh oil to life, 
Repair the waste of age and sickness: no, 
It skills not! life's inadequate to joy, 
As the soul sees joy, tempting life to take. 
They praise a fountain in my garden here 
Wherein a Naiad sends the water-bow 
Thin from her tube; she smiles to see it rise. 
What if I told her, it is just a thread 
From that great river which the hi...Read more of this...
by Browning, Robert

Elegy Written In A Country Churchyard

...ores the passing tribute of a sigh.

Their name, their years, spelt by th' unlettered Muse,
The place of fame and elegy supply:
And many a holy text around she strews,
That teach the rustic moralist to die.

For who, to dumb Forgetfulness a prey,
This pleasing anxious being e'er resigned,
Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day,
Nor cast one longing ling'ring look behind?

On some fond breast the parting soul relies,
Some pious drops the closing eye requires;
Ev'n from th...Read more of this...
by Gray, Thomas


Essay on Man

..., my ST. JOHN!(1) leave all meaner things 
To low ambition, and the pride of Kings. 
Let us (since Life can little more supply 
Than just to look about us and to die) 
Expatiate(2) free o'er all this scene of Man; 
A mighty maze! but not without a plan; 
A Wild, where weeds and flow'rs promiscuous shoot, 
Or Garden, tempting with forbidden fruit. 
Together let us beat this ample field, 
Try what the open, what the covert yield; 
The latent tracts(3), the giddy heights explore...Read more of this...
by Pope, Alexander

Lara

...
The feign'd retreat, the nightly ambuscade, 
The daily harass, and the fight delay'd, 
The long privation of the hoped supply, 
The tentless rest beneath the humid sky, 
The stubborn wall that mocks the leaguer's art, 
And palls the patience of his baffled heart, 
Of these they had not deem'd: the battle-day 
They could encounter as a veteran may; 
But more preferr'd the fury of the strife, 
And present death, to hourly suffering life: 
And famine wrings, and fever sweeps aw...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)

Last Instructions to a Painter

...him in France to play at cards and treat. 
Draw no commission lest the court should lie, 
That, disavowing treaty, asks supply. 
He needs no seal but to St James's lease, 
Whose breeches wear the instrument of peace; 
Who, if the French dispute his power, from thence 
Can straight produce them a plenipotence.. 
Nor fears he the Most Christian should trepan 
Two saints at once, St Germain, St Alban, 
But thought the Golden Age was now restored, 
When men and women took each ot...Read more of this...
by Marvell, Andrew

Monadnoc

...lous,—
Recallest us,
And makest sane.
Mute orator! well-skilled to plead,
And send conviction without phrase,
Thou dost supply
The shortness of our days,
And promise, on thy Founder's truth,
Long morrow to this mortal youth....Read more of this...
by Emerson, Ralph Waldo

Ode on Solitude

...breathes his native air, 
In his own grounds. 

II. 
Whose herds with milk, whose fields with bread, 
Whose flocks supply him with attire, 
Whose trees in summer yield him shade, 
In winter fire. 

III. 
Blest! who can unconcern'dly find 
Hours, days, and years slide swift away, 
In health of body, peace of mind, 
Quiet by day, 

IV. 
Sound sleep by night; study and ease 
Together mix'd; sweet recreation, 
And innocence, which most does please, 
With medita...Read more of this...
by Pope, Alexander

Paradise Lost: Book 02

...reated vast and round--a place of bliss 
In the purlieus of Heaven; and therein placed 
A race of upstart creatures, to supply 
Perhaps our vacant room, though more removed, 
Lest Heaven, surcharged with potent multitude, 
Might hap to move new broils. Be this, or aught 
Than this more secret, now designed, I haste 
To know; and, this once known, shall soon return, 
And bring ye to the place where thou and Death 
Shall dwell at ease, and up and down unseen 
Wing silently the ...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Paradise Lost: Book 10

...es and seed at once to free 
From what we fear for both, let us make short, -- 
Let us seek Death; -- or, he not found, supply 
With our own hands his office on ourselves: 
Why stand we longer shivering under fears, 
That show no end but death, and have the power, 
Of many ways to die the shortest choosing, 
Destruction with destruction to destroy? -- 
She ended here, or vehement despair 
Broke off the rest: so much of death her thoughts 
Had entertained, as dyed her cheeks w...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Paradise Lost: Book 11

...h-wind rose, and, with black wings 
Wide-hovering, all the clouds together drove 
From under Heaven; the hills to their supply 
Vapour, and exhalation dusk and moist, 
Sent up amain; and now the thickened sky 
Like a dark cieling stood; down rushed the rain 
Impetuous; and continued, till the earth 
No more was seen: the floating vessel swum 
Uplifted, and secure with beaked prow 
Rode tilting o'er the waves; all dwellings else 
Flood overwhelmed, and them with all their pomp...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Starting from Paumanok

...y are to be the most
 spiritual poems;
And I will make the poems of my body and of mortality, 
For I think I shall then supply myself with the poems of my Soul, and of
 immortality. 

I will make a song for These States, that no-one State may under any
 circumstances be subjected to another State; 
And I will make a song that there shall be comity by day and by night between
 all The States, and between any two of them: 
And I will make a song for the ears of the President, f...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt

Sword Blades and Poppy Seed

...Sleeps in the fine black grains, and there
Are seeds for every romance, or light
Whiff of a dream for a summer night.
I supply to every want and taste."
'Twas slowly said, in no great haste
He seemed to push his wares, but I
Dumfounded listened. By and by
A log on the fire broke in two.
He looked up quickly, "Sir, and you?"
I groped for something I should say;
Amazement held me numb. "To-day
You sweated at a fruitless task."
He spoke for me, "What do you ask?
How can I serve ...Read more of this...
by Lowell, Amy

The Lady of the Lake

...
     He seems, who in the field or chase
     A baron's train would nobly grace—'
     'Out, out, De Vaux! can fear supply,
     And jealousy, no sharper eye?
     Afar, ere to the hill he drew,
     That stately form and step I knew;
     Like form in Scotland is not seen,
     Treads not such step on Scottish green.
     'Tis James of Douglas, by Saint Serle!
     The uncle of the banished Earl.
     Away, away, to court, to show
     The near approach of dread...Read more of this...
by Scott, Sir Walter

The Rape of the Lock

...harming Indian Screen.
A third interprets Motions, Looks, and Eyes;
At ev'ry Word a Reputation dies.
Snuff, or the Fan, supply each Pause of Chat,
With singing, laughing, ogling, and all that.

Mean while declining from the Noon of Day,
The Sun obliquely shoots his burning Ray; 
The hungry Judges soon the Sentence sign,
And Wretches hang that Jury-men may Dine;
The Merchant from th'exchange returns in Peace,
And the long Labours of the Toilette cease ----
Belinda now, whom Th...Read more of this...
by Pope, Alexander

The White Cliffs

...ton Harbour a certain night,
When your great-great-grandmother— also a Sue—
Shook enough tea from her husband's shoe
To supply her house for a week or two.
The war of 1812 seems to me
About as just as a war could be.
How could we help but come to grips
With a nation that stopped and searched our ships,
And took off our seamen for no other reason
Except that they needed crews that season.
I can get angry still at the tale
Of their letting the Alabama sail,
And Palmerston being...Read more of this...
by Miller, Alice Duer

Verses on the Death of Doctor Swift

...come; he ran his race;
We hope he's in a better place."
Why do we grieve that friends should die?
No loss more easy to supply.
One year is past: a different scene:
No further mention of the Dean;
Who now, alas, no more is missed
Than if he never did exist.
Where's now this fav'rite of Apollo?
Departed: -and his works must follow;
Must undergo the common fate;
His kind of wit is out of date.

Some country squire to Lintot goes,
Inquires for "Swift in Verse and Prose".
Says Li...Read more of this...
by Swift, Jonathan

What Has Happened?

...ing friendly.
The policeman points out the way to the man in the cloth cap.
The landlord comes to see whether the water supply is working.
The journalists write the word People with capital letters.
The singers sing at the opera for nothing.
Ships' captains check the food in the crew's galley,
Car owners get in beside their chauffeurs.
Doctors sue the insurance companies.
Scholars show their discoveries and hide their decorations.
Farmers deliver potatoes to the barracks.
The...Read more of this...
by Brecht, Bertolt

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