Famous Tendency Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Tendency poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous tendency poems. These examples illustrate what a famous tendency poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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...e
to seize on as exemplifying any so-called virtue
(holding on despite adversity, perhaps) or
any no-more-than-human tendency—
stubborn adherence, say,
to a wholly wrongheaded tenet. Though to
hold on in any case means taking less and less
for granted, some few things seem nearly
certain, as that the longest day
will come again, will seem to hold its breath,
the months-long exhalation of diminishment
again begin. Last night you woke me
for a look at Jupiter,
that v...Read more of this...
by
Clampitt, Amy
...
A brief career of Cheer
And Fraud and Fear.
Of Ignominy's due
Let all addicted to
Beware.
The most obliging Trap
Its tendency to snap
Cannot resist --
Temptation is the Friend
Repugnantly resigned
At last....Read more of this...
by
Dickinson, Emily
...set a dragon's scales on edge with their thwangings
schools never are you know the paradise of your dreams
they have a tendency in everyone to bring out the beast
or maybe when you get there you should do a dragon-dance
and get everyone hopping around the place breathing fire
or burn up a prince or two - to show how that game is played
taking their minds off the fact you have a back like a saw-blade
and a tail so fierce it would keep the bravest child at a distance
but what...Read more of this...
by
Gregory, Rg
...later.
I hold a five-year diary that my mother kept
for three years, telling all she does not say
of your alcoholic tendency. You overslept,
she writes. My God, father, each Christmas Day
with your blood, will I drink down your glass
of wine? The diary of your hurly-burly years
goes to my shelf to wait for my age to pass.
Only in this hoarded span will love persevere.
Whether you are pretty or not, I outlive you,
bend down my strange face to yours and forgive you....Read more of this...
by
Sexton, Anne
...elite."
Herein can dwell no pretence and no seeming;
No stilted pride thrives in this atmosphere,
Which stimulates a tendency to dreaming.
The shores of the ideal world, from here,
Seem sometimes to be tangible and near.
We have no use for formal codes of fashion;
No "Etiquette f Courts" we emulate;
We know it needs sincerity and passion
To carry out the plans of God, or fate;
We do not strive to seem inanimate.
We call no time lost that we give to pleasure;
Life'...Read more of this...
by
Wilcox, Ella Wheeler
...brutely draw
Still to the proprietor,
Silver to silver creep and wind,
And kind to kind,
Nor less the eternal poles
Of tendency distribute souls.
There need no vows to bind
Whom not each other seek but find.
They give and take no pledge or oath,
Nature is the bond of both.
No prayer persuades, no flattery fawns,
Their noble meanings are their pawns.
Plain and cold is their address,
Power have they for tenderness,
And so thoroughly is known
Each others' purpose by his own,
Th...Read more of this...
by
Emerson, Ralph Waldo
...ther
and bites you to death.
Or perhaps you are saved in the nick of time
and she is tormented by the knowledge of her tendency:
That she daren't hug a man
unless she wants to risk clawing him up.
This puts you both in a difficult position--
panting lovers who are prevented from touching
not by bars but by circumstance:
You have terrible fights and say cruel things
for having the hots does not give you a sweet temper.
One night you are walking down a dark street
And hear t...Read more of this...
by
Field, Edward
...fate!
Where thy soul sends them, thitherward they tend.
There's nothing here below which does not find
Its tendency. O'er plains the rivers wind,
And reach the sea; the bee, by instinct driven,
Finds out the honeyed flowers; the eagle flies
To seek the sun; the vulture where death lies;
The swallow to the spring; the prayer to Heaven!
And when thy voice is raised to God for me,
I'm like the slave whom in the vale we see
Seated to rest, his...Read more of this...
by
Hugo, Victor
...say without dismay,
Visit the theatre without delay,
Because the theatre is a school of morality,
And hasn't the least tendency to lead to prodigality....Read more of this...
by
McGonagall, William Topaz
...uts and
pretend you drink wine as you sit quietly by the window. You
may kick your leg back and forth. You may have a tendency
to not want to look there too long and turn to find darkness in
the room because it had become nighttime.
Why to be alone. You are pretty are you not/you are as
pretty as you are not, or does that make sense.
You are not pretty, that is how you can be alone. And
then you are pretty like fungus and alga, you are no one
without some one, in t...Read more of this...
by
Edson, Russell
...r young can dare
To drive him from his nest.
I humbly ask it,--how can he
Give of his title proof,
Save by his happy tendency
To soil the church's roof?...Read more of this...
by
von Goethe, Johann Wolfgang
...ncourage and never condemn.
And as for the working women, many are driven to the point of starvation,
All through the tendency of the legislation;
Besides, upon members of parliament they have no claim
As a deputation, which is a very great shame.
Yes, the Home Secretary of the present day,
Against working women's deputations, has always said- nay;
Because they haven't got the parliamentary Franchise-,
That is the reason why he does them despise.
And that, in my opinion...Read more of this...
by
McGonagall, William Topaz
...sation.
I can't believe the code they choose
Is a means of communication.
Oh to be with people over sixty
Despite their tendency to prolixty!
The hours a working parent keeps
Mean less than Latin to them,
Wherefore they disappear in jeeps
Till three and four A.M.
Oh, to be with people you pour a cup for
Instead of people you have to wait up for!
I've tried to read young mumbling lips
Till I've developed a slant-eye,
And my hearing fails at the constant wails
Of, If I can'...Read more of this...
by
Nash, Ogden
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