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Famous Surgeon Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Burns, Robert
...essionally a brother of the sovereign Order of the Ferula; but, by intuition and inspiration, is at once an apothecary, surgeon, and physician.—R. B. [back]
Note 4. Burchan’s Domestic Medicine.—R. B. [back]
Note 5. The grave-digger.—R. B. [back]...Read more of this...



by Sexton, Anne
...ole and all they do is hum
like computers doing up our taxes, dollar by dollar.
Each body is in its bunker. The surgeon applies his gum.
Each body is fitted quickly into its ice-cream pack
and then stitched up again for the long voyage
back....Read more of this...

by Plath, Sylvia
...their terrible faults.
This is the side of a man: his red ribs,

The nerves bursting like trees, and this is the surgeon:
One mirrory eye----

A facet of knowledge.
On a striped mattress in one room

An old man is vanishing.
There is no help in his weeping wife.

Where are the eye-stones, yellow and vvaluable,
And the tongue, sapphire of ash.


(4)

A wedding-cake face in a paper frill.
How superior he is now.

It is like posse...Read more of this...

by Service, Robert William
...ly says wi' a frown:
"I'll bet it's as sore as the divvle, especially whin ye sit down.
I think it's a case for the Surgeon; ye'd better consult Doctor Hoyle.
I've no hisitation in sayin' yer boil is a hill of a boil."

So Misses she thanks 'im for sayin' her boil is a hill of a boil,
And 'unts all around till she comes on a door that is marked: "Doctor Hoyle."
But by now she 'as fair got the wind up, and trembles in every limb;
But she thinks: "After all, 'e'...Read more of this...

by Donne, John
...nt?
So kiss good turtles, so devoutly nice
Are priests in handling reverent sacrifice,
And such in searching wounds the surgeon is
As we, when we embrace, or touch, or kiss.
Leave her, and I will leave comparing thus,
She, and comparisons are odious....Read more of this...



by Sexton, Anne
...sterious
until they grew mournful and weak.
O my hunger! My hunger!
I was the one
who opened the warm eyelid
like a surgeon
and brought forth young girls
to grunt like fish.

I told you,
I said—
but I was lying—
that the kife was for my mother . . .
and then I delivered her.

The curtains flutter out
and slump against the bars.
They are my two thin ladies
named Blanche and Rose.
The grounds outside
are pruned like an estate at Newport.
Far ...Read more of this...

by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
...ly thing you know
And what you own is what you do not own
And where you are is where you are not.


IV

The wounded surgeon plies the steel
That questions the distempered part;
Beneath the bleeding hands we feel
The sharp compassion of the healer's art
Resolving the enigma of the fever chart.

 Our only health is the disease
If we obey the dying nurse
Whose constant care is not to please
But to remind of our, and Adam's curse,
And that, to be restored, our sickness mu...Read more of this...

by Lawrence, D. H.
...r>

Here in this swarthy, secret tent,
Where black boughs flap the ground,
You shall draw the thorn from my discontent,
Surgeon me sound. 

This rare, rich night! For in here 
Under the yew-tree tent 
The darkness is loveliest where I could sear 
You like frankincense into scent. 

Here not even the stars can spy us,
Not even the white moths write
With their little pale signs on the wall, to try us
And set us affright.

Kiss but then the dust from off my lips,
But...Read more of this...

by Service, Robert William
...arm as a stack of hay.
Curse on my feet that slip so, my poor tired, stumbling feet;
 I guess they're a job for the surgeon, they feel so queerlike to lift--
I'll rest them just for a moment--oh, but to rest is sweet!
 The awful wind cannot get me, deep, deep down in the drift."

 "Father, a bitter cry I heard,
 Out of the night so dark and wild.
 Why is my heart so strangely stirred?
 'Twas like the voice of our erring child." 
 "Mother, mother, you only hear...Read more of this...

by Brautigan, Richard
...aid, newspaper

spread out all over the bathroom floor, and something good

cooking on the hot plate.









 THE SURGEON





I watched my day begin on Little Redfish Lake as clearly as

the first light of dawn or the first ray of the sunrise, though

the dawn and the sunrise had long since passed and it was

now late in the morning.

 The surgeon took a knife from the sheath at his belt and

cut the throat of the chub with a very gentle motion, showing

poetically...Read more of this...

by Brautigan, Richard
...duringthe

summer.

 Sometimes she would make me lunch, little egg sandwich-

es with the crusts cut off as if by a surgeon, and she'd give

me slices of banana dunked in mayonnaise.

 The old woman lived by herself in a house that was like a

twin sister to her. The house was four stories high and had

at least thirty rooms and the old lady was five feet high and

weighed about eighty-two pounds.

 She had a big radio from the 1920s in the living room and

it...Read more of this...

by Pastan, Linda
...m speak?
Only a single leaf had turned so far.

I know more than I did once.
I used to think he'd always be the surgeon.
Only a single leaf had turned so far,
Even his body kept its secrets.

I used to think he'd always be the surgeon,
My mother was the perfect surgeon's wife.
Even his body kept its secrets.
I thought they both would live forever.

My mother was the perfect surgeon's wife,
I can still see her face at thirty.
I thought they both...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...s case, 
He turns his quid of tobacco, while his eyes blurr with the manuscript; 
The malform’d limbs are tied to the surgeon’s table, 
What is removed drops horribly in a pail; 
The quadroon girl is sold at the auction-stand—the drunkard nods by the
 bar-room stove;
The machinist rolls up his sleeves—the policeman travels his beat—the
 gate-keeper marks who pass; 
The young fellow drives the express-wagon—(I love him, though I do not know
 him;) 
The half-breed str...Read more of this...

by McGonagall, William Topaz
...;
Nor he didn't shake with fear, nor yet did he mourne,
But patiently sat down to wait his own turn. 

And when the Surgeon saw him, he instantly ran,
But Nelson said, Surgeon, attend to that man;
Attend to the sailor you were at, for he requires your aid,
Then I will take my turn, don't be the least afraid. 

And when his turn came, it was found that his wound was but slight,
And when known, it filled the sailors hearts with delight;
And they all hoped he would soon ...Read more of this...

by Plath, Sylvia
...so sick?
The barren body of hawthon, etherizing its children.

Is it some operation that is taking place?
It is the surgeon my neighbors are waiting for,
This apparition in a green helmet,
Shining gloves and white suit.
Is it the butcher, the grocer, the postman, someone I know?

I cannot run, I am rooted, and the gorse hurts me
With its yellow purses, its spiky armory.
I could not run without having to run forever.
The white hive is snug as a virgin,
Sealing ...Read more of this...

by Lowell, Amy
...Pibold has a tenor voice,
He shifts his quid of tobacco and sings:
"The second in command was blear-eyed Ned:
While the surgeon his limb 
was a-lopping,
A nine-pounder came and smack went his head,
Pull away, pull away, pull 
away! I say;
Rare news for my Meg of Wapping!"
Every Sunday
People come in crowds
(After church-time, of course)
In curricles, and gigs, and wagons,
And some have brought cold chicken and flagons
Of wine,
And beer in stoppered jugs.
"Dear! Dear! But ...Read more of this...

by Chaucer, Geoffrey
...for to preach,
As of a souter* a shipman, or a leach**. *cobbler 
Say forth thy tale, and tarry not the time: **surgeon 
Lo here is Deptford, and 'tis half past prime:
Lo Greenwich, where many a shrew is in.
It were high time thy tale to begin."

"Now, sirs," quoth then this Osewold the Reeve,
I pray you all that none of you do grieve,
Though I answer, and somewhat set his hove*, *hood 
For lawful is *force off with force to shove.* *to repel fo...Read more of this...

by Hood, Thomas
...
A happy wife, altho' she led 
The life of any dog.

But just when Tim had lived a month
In honey with his wife, 
A surgeon ope'd his Milton eyes,
Like oysters, with a knife. 

But when his eyes were opened thus, 
He wished them dark again : 
For when he looked upon his wife, 
He saw her very plain.

Her face was bad, her figure worse,
He couldn't bear to eat :
For she was anything but like 
A grace before his meat.

Now Tim he was a feeling man : 
For when hi...Read more of this...

by Brautigan, Richard
...to the ground. When the jar was full he turned the

water off with a sudden but delicate motion like a famous brain surgeon

removing a disordered portion of the imagination. Then he screwed the

lid tightly onto the top of the jar and gave it a good shake.

The first part of the ceremony was over.

Like the inspired priest of an exotic cult, he had performed the first part

of the ceremony well.

His mother came around the side of the house and said in a ...Read more of this...

by Tebb, Barry
...r to others,

Fallen comrades, Edna,

The grandchildren

His pension went on.

The houseman agreed to speak

To the surgeon privately.

Edna went first and

At her funeral John,

In frustrated fury,

Hit him over the head

With an empty fish tank.

When secondaries started

I was not told

And in the hospice

He barely lasted

His first weekend....Read more of this...

Dont forget to view our wonderful member Surgeon poems.


Book: Shattered Sighs