Famous Tax Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Tax poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous tax poems. These examples illustrate what a famous tax poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Wilmot, John
...oes his needful flattery direct
Not to oppress and ruin, but protect:
Since flattery, which way soever laid,
Is still a tax: on that unhappy trade.
If so upright a statesman you can find,
Whose passions bend to his unbiased mind,
Who does his arts and policies apply
To raise his country, not his family;
Nor while his pride owned avarice withstands,
Receives close bribes, from friends corrupted hands.
Is there a churchman who on God relies
Whose life, his faith and do...Read more of this...
by
Carroll, Lewis
...There are certain things--as, a spider, a ghost,
The income-tax, gout, an umbrella for three--
That I hate, but the thing that I hate the most
Is a thing they call the Sea.
Pour some salt water over the floor--
Ugly I'm sure you'll allow it to be:
Suppose it extended a mile or more,
That's very like the Sea.
Beat a dog till it howls outright--
Cruel, but all very well for a spree:
Suppose that he did so...Read more of this...
by
Pope, Alexander
...ach Word you speak,
And stares, Tremendous! with a threatning Eye
Like some fierce Tyrant in Old Tapestry!
Fear most to tax an Honourable Fool,
Whose Right it is, uncensur'd to be dull;
Such without Wit are Poets when they please.
As without Learning they can take Degrees.
Leave dang'rous Truths to unsuccessful Satyrs,
And Flattery to fulsome Dedicators,
Whom, when they Praise, the World believes no more,
Than when they promise to give Scribling o'er.
'Tis best so...Read more of this...
by
Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...eadowy morning-breath
Of England, blown across her ghostly wall:
And that same morning officers and men
Levied a kindly tax upon themselves,
Pitying the lonely man, and gave him it:
Then moving up the coast they landed him,
Ev'n in that harbor whence he sail'd before.
There Enoch spoke no word to anyone,
But homeward--home--what home? had he a home?
His home, he walk'd. Bright was that afternoon,
Sunny but chill; till drawn thro' either chasm,
Where either haven ope...Read more of this...
by
Marvell, Andrew
...chide;
But when this failed, and months enow were spent,
They with the first day's proffer seem content,
And to Land-Tax from the Excise turn round,
Bought off with eighteen-hundred-thousand pound.
Thus like fair theives, the Commons' purse they share,
But all the members' lives, consulting, spare.
Blither than hare that hath escaped the hounds,
The House prorogued, the Chancellor rebounds.
Not so decrepit Aeson, hashed and stewed,
With bitter herbs, ro...Read more of this...
by
Nash, Ogden
...ot together
And thought up Science.
Platinum blondes
(They were once peroxide),
Peruvian bonds
And carbon monoxide,
Tax evaders
And Vitamin A,
Vice crusaders,
And tattletale gray -
These, with many another phobia,
We owe to that famous Twelfth of Octobia.
O misery, misery, mumble and moan!
Someone invented the telephone,
And interrupted a nation's slumbers,
Ringing wrong but similar numbers.
Someone devised the silver screen
And the intimate Hollywood magazine,
An...Read more of this...
by
Trumbull, John
...?
Have they not rack'd their whole inventions
To feed their brats on posts and pensions;
Made their Scotch friends with taxes groan,
And pick'd poor Ireland to the bone:
Yet have on hand, as well deserving,
Ten thousand bastards, left for starving?
And can you now, with conscience clear,
Refuse them an asylum here,
And not maintain, in manner fitting,
These genuine sons of mother Britain?
"T' evade these crimes of blackest grain
You prate of liberty in vain,
And strive to h...Read more of this...
by
Brautigan, Richard
...store said, "You're better off dead, you Commie bastard. "
I got a receipt for the candy bar to be used for income tax
purposes.
The old ten-cent deduction.
I didn't learn anything about fishing in that store. The
people were awfully nervous, especially a young man who
was folding overalls. He had about a hundred pairs left to
fold and he was really nervous.
We went over to a restaurant and I had a hamburger and
my woman had a cheeseburger ...Read more of this...
by
Brautigan, Richard
...or a place to settle down where the hunting and fish-
ing is good. I'11 get twelve hundred dollars back in income
tax returns by not working any more this year. That's two
hundred a month for not working. I don't understand this
country, " he said.
The surgeon's wife and children were in a trailer nearby.
The trailer had come in the night before, pulled by a brand-
new Rambler station wagon. He had two children, a boy two-
and-a-half years old...Read more of this...
by
Milton, John
...then mean;
This with the other should, at least, have paird,
These two proportiond ill drove me transverse.
Chor: Tax not divine disposal, wisest Men
Have err'd, and by bad Women been deceiv'd;
And shall again, pretend they ne're so wise.
Deject not then so overmuch thy self,
Who hast of sorrow thy full load besides;
Yet truth to say, I oft have heard men wonder
Why thou shouldst wed Philistian women rather
Then of thine own Tribe fairer, or as fair,
At least of th...Read more of this...
by
Wilmot, John
...needful flattery direct,
Not to oppress, and ruine, but protect;
Since flattery, which way so ever laid,
Is still a Tax on that unhappy Trade.
If so upright a States-Man, you can find,
Whose passions bend to his unbyass'd Mind;
Who does his Arts, and Pollicies apply,
To raise his Country, not his Family;
Nor while his Pride own'd Avarice withstands,
Receives close Bribes, from Friends corrupted hands.
Is there a Church-Man who on God relyes?
Whose Life, hi...Read more of this...
by
Ginsberg, Allen
...omeless on Jessore road under grey sun
A million are dead, the million who can
Walk toward Calcutta from East Pakistan
Taxi September along Jessore Road
Oxcart skeletons drag charcoal load
past watery fields thru rain flood ruts
Dung cakes on treetrunks, plastic-roof huts
Wet processions Families walk
Stunted boys big heads don't talk
Look bony skulls & silent round eyes
Starving black angels in human disguise
Mother squats weeping & points to her sons
Standing thin legged...Read more of this...
by
Bukowski, Charles
...y, at a hospital, at an
aircraft plant, at a penny arcade, at a
barbershop, at a job you didn't want
anyway.
income tax, sickness, servility, broken
arms, broken heads -- all the stuffing
come out like an old pillow.
we have everything and we have nothing.
some do it well enough for a while and
then give way. fame gets them or disgust
or age or lack of proper diet or ink
across the eyes or children in college
or new cars or broken backs while skiing
in Switze...Read more of this...
by
Emerson, Ralph Waldo
...me not unkind and rude,
That I walk alone in grove and glen;
I go to the god of the wood
To fetch his word to men.
Tax not my sloth that I
Fold my arms beside the brook;
Each cloud that floated in the sky
Writes a letter in my book.
Chide me not, laborious band,
For the idle flowers I brought;
Every aster in my hand
Goes home loaded with a thought.
There was never mystery,
But 'tis figured in the flowers,
Was never secret history,
But birds tell it in the bower...Read more of this...
by
Byron, George (Lord)
...r> He and Riga are the two most celebrated of the Greek revolutionists.
(36) "Rayahs," all who pay the capitation tax, called the "Haratch."
(37) This first of voyages is one of the few with which the Mussulmans profess much acquaintance.
(38) The wandering life of the Arabs, Tartars, and Turkomans, will be found well detailed in any book of Eastern travels. That it possesses a charm peculiar to itself, cannot be denied. A young French renegado confe...Read more of this...
by
Service, Robert William
...lf hid that I couldn't get rid, because of a promise given;
It was lashed to the sleigh, and it seemed to say:
"You may tax your brawn and brains,
But you promised true, and it's up to you to cremate those last remains."
Now a promise made is a debt unpaid, and the trail has its own stern code.
In the days to come, though my lips were dumb, in my heart how I cursed that load.
In the long, long night, by the lone firelight, while the huskies, round in a ring,
Howl...Read more of this...
by
Berry, Wendell
...drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting for their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free....Read more of this...
by
Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...e forum, and half-crushed among the rest
A dwarf-like Cato cowered. On the other side
Hortensia spoke against the tax; behind,
A train of dames: by axe and eagle sat,
With all their foreheads drawn in Roman scowls,
And half the wolf's-milk curdled in their veins,
The fierce triumvirs; and before them paused
Hortensia pleading: angry was her face.
I saw the forms: I knew not where I was:
They did but look like hollow shows; nor more
Sweet Ida: palm to palm s...Read more of this...
by
Miller, Alice Duer
...ember in London how I saw
Pale shabby people standing in a long
Line in the twilight and the misty rain
To pay their tax. I then saw England plain.
XXII
Johnnie and I were married. England then
Had been a week at war, and all the men
Wore uniform, as English people can,
Unconscious of it. Percy, the best man,
As thin as paper and as smart as paint,
Bade us good-by with admirable restraint,
Went from the church to catch his train to hell;
And died-...Read more of this...
by
Swift, Jonathan
...rapparees,]
And keep the peace to pick up fees;
In every job to have a share,
A goal or barrack to repair;
And turn the tax for public roads
Commodious to their own abodes."
"Perhaps I may allow the Dean
Had too much satire in his vein,
And seemed determined not to starve it,
Because no age could more deserve it.
Yet malice never was his aim;
He lashed the vice, but spared the name;
No individual could resent
Where thousands equally were meant.
His satire points a...Read more of this...
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