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Famous Surplus Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Plath, Sylvia
...am too appear for,
Is this the elect one, the one with black eye-pits and a scar?

Measuring the flour, cutting off the surplus,
Adhering to rules, to rules, to rules.

Is this the one for the annunciation?
My god, what a laugh!'

But it shimmers, it does not stop, and I think it wants me.
I would not mind if it were bones, or a pearl button.

I do not want much of a present, anyway, this year.
After all I am alive only by accident.

I would have killed my...Read more of this...



by Davies, William Henry
...lease my eyes.

No headstrong wine -- since, when I drink, the spring 
Into my eager ears will softly sing.

No surplus clothes -- since every simple beast 
Can teach me to be happy with the least....Read more of this...

by Fu, Du
...id="english"> Kunwu Yusu come winding Purple pavilion peak dark enter Meipi Fragrant rice peck surplus parrot grain Emerald wutong perch old male phoenix female phoenix branch Beautiful woman gather green spring mutual ask Transcendent companion same boat evening more move Colour brush before travel invade air image White head recite gaze bitter low hang From Kunwu, Yusu river winds round and rou...Read more of this...

by Bidart, Frank
...right into the center of the city, the Capitol Tower
on the right, and beyond it, Hollywood Boulevard
blazing

--pimps, surplus stores, footprints of the stars

--descending through the city
 fast as the law would allow

through the lights, then rising to the stack
out of the city
to the stack where lanes are stacked six deep

 and you on top; the air
 now clean, for a moment weightless

 without memories, or
 need for a past.



The need for the past

is so much at the c...Read more of this...

by Kipling, Rudyard
...an' six 'undred men.

'Ere comes the clerk with 'is lantern an' keys
 (Time, an 'igh time to be trekkin 'again!)
" Surplus of everything--draw what you please
 "For the section, the pompom, an' six 'unrdred men."

"What are our orders an' where do we lay? .
 (Time, an 'igh time to be trekkin' again!)
"You came after dark--you will leave before day,
 "You section, you pompom, you six' undred men!"

Down the tin street, 'alf awake an 'unfed,
'Ark to 'em blessin' th...Read more of this...



by Francis, Robert
...lace and one is rare,
One everywhere, one scarcely anywhere.

So fair unfair a world. Had we the wit
To use the surplus for the deficit,
We'd make a fairer fairer world of it....Read more of this...

by Emanuel, James A
...uietness brushed up to colors,
urgings green, thrustings yellow.

A vine-like touch, her promise seemed all profit,
surplus to lay aside and store,
quick harvest if he collapsed his stand,
pulled down his crates, rolled away his canvas:
full bounty if he washed his hands and followed,
trailing her fragrances
of melons in their prime, of berries bursting.

She turned to go, her scent adrift
as if from glistenings in soil turned off a spade.
His yearning had no time...Read more of this...

by Wei, Wang
...Autumn hill gather surplus shine 
Fly bird chase before companion. 
Colour green moment bright, 
Sunset mist no fixed place. 


The autumn hill gathers remaining light, 
A flying bird chases its companion before. 
The green colour is momentarily bright, 
Sunset mist has no fixed place....Read more of this...

by Lawrence, D. H.
...hape to win, 
From the thick of life wake up another will?

Surely, and if that I would spill 
The vivid, ah, the fiery surplus of life, 
From off my brimming measure, to fill 
You, and flush you rife 
With increase, do you call it evil, and always evil?...Read more of this...

by Wei, Wang
...New house Mengcheng entrance 
Old tree surplus sorrow willow 
Come person again for who 
Only sorrow former person be 


Who will come after, I do not know, 
He must feel sorrow for those in the past....Read more of this...

by Scott, Duncan Campbell
...ent stands,
Tortured by perpetual drouth.

Once the form was drenched with spray,
Deluged with the rainbow flushes;
Surplus water dashed away
To the lotus and the rushes.

Time was clothed in rippling fashion,.
Opulence of light and air,
Beauty changing into passion
Every hour and everywhere.

And the yearning of that race
Was for something deep and tender,
Life replete with power, with grace,
Touched with vision and with splendour.

Now no rain dissolves ...Read more of this...

by Kipling, Rudyard
...
Open the old cigar-box -- let me consider anew --
Old friends, and who is Maggie that I should abandon you?

A million surplus Maggies are willing to bear the yoke;
And a woman is only a woman, but a good Cigar is a Smoke.

Light me another Cuba -- I hold to my first-sworn vows.
If Maggie will have no rival, I'll have no Maggie for Spouse!...Read more of this...

by Levine, Philip
...e would praise 
the steel helmet 
boarding a train 
for no war, 
not because 
he would find 
the unjewelled crown 
in a surplus store 
where hands were sold. 

They did not lie down 
face to face 
because of the waste 
of being so close 
and they were too tired 
of being each other 
to try to be lovers 
and because they had 
to sit up straight 
so they could eat....Read more of this...

by Crane, Stephen
...as
Weeps too, old, helpless man.
The bustling fates
Heap his hands with corpses
Until he stands like a child
With a surplus of toys."...Read more of this...

by Herbert, George
...spire,
What willing nature speaks, what forced by fire;
Both th' old discoveries, and the new-found seas,
The stock and surplus, cause and history:
All these stand open, or I have the keys:
Yet I love thee.

I know the ways of Honour, what maintains
The quick returns of courtesy and wit:
In vies of favours whether party gains,
When glory swells the heart, and moldeth it
To all expressions both of hand and eye,
Which on the world a true-love-knot may tie,
And bear the bund...Read more of this...

by Jackson, Laura Riding
...
As when the world-wideness began
Worlds to describe
The excessiveness of man.

But man's right portion rejects
The surplus in the whole.
This much, made secret first,
Now makes
The knowable, which was
Thought's previous flesh,
And gives instruction of substance to its intelligence
As far as flesh itself,
As bodies upon themselves to where
Understanding is the head
And the identity of breath and breathing are established
And the voice opening to cry: I know,
Closes ar...Read more of this...

by Moore, Thomas
...["Now what, we ask, is become of this Sinking Fund - these eight millions of surplus above expenditure, which were to reduce the interest of the national debt by the amount of four hundred thousand pounds annually? Where, indeed, is the Sinking Fund itself?" - The Times] 

Take your bell, take your bell,
Good Crier, and tell
To the Bulls and the Bears, till their ears are stunn'd,
That, lost or stolen,
Or fall'n through a hole in
The...Read more of this...

by Laurence Dunbar, Paul
...d weather,
An' so did I, so we agreed we 'd jest walk home together.
We both wuz silent, fur of words we nuther had a surplus,
'Till she spoke out quite sudden like, "You missed that word on purpose."
Well, I declare it frightened me; at first I tried denyin',
But Nettie, she jest smiled an' smiled, she knowed that I was lyin'.
Sez she: "That book is yourn by right;" sez I: "It never could be—
I—I—you—ah—" an' there I stuck, an' well she understood me.
So we agreed th...Read more of this...

by Chaucer, Geoffrey
...at Greek requeste,
A tyme of trewe, and tho they gonnen trete,
Hir prisoneres to chaungen, moste and leste,
And for the surplus yeven sommes grete. 
This thing anoon was couth in every strete,
Bothe in thassege, in toune, and every-where,
And with the firste it cam to Calkas ere.

Whan Calkas knew this tretis sholde holde,
In consistorie, among the Grekes, sone 
He gan in thringe forth, with lordes olde,
And sette him there-as he was wont to done;
And with a chaunged ...Read more of this...

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