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Famous Trade Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Dickinson, Emily
...rt away,
Without the formula of sound,
   It passes, and we stay:

A quality of loss
   Affecting our content,
As trade had suddenly encroached
   Upon a sacrament....Read more of this...



by Wilcox, Ella Wheeler
...>

God formed fair woman for her true estate-
Man's tender comrade, and his equal mate, 
Not his competitor in toil and trade.
While coarser man, with greater strength was made
To fight her battles and her rights protect.
Ay! to protect the rights of earth's elect
(The virgin maiden and the spotless wife) 
From immemorial time has man laid down his life.

V.

And now brave Custer's valiant army pressed
Across the dangerous desert of the West, 
To rescue fair w...Read more of this...

by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...dious to men and to maidens,
Tedious even to me, that at length I bethought me, and sent him
Unto the town of Adayes to trade for mules with the Spaniards.
Thence he will follow the Indian trails to the Ozark Mountains,
Hunting for furs in the forests, on rivers trapping the beaver.
Therefore be of good cheer; we will follow the fugitive lover;
He is not far on his way, and the Fates and the streams are against him.
Up and away to-morrow, and through the red dew o...Read more of this...

by Hugo, Victor
...to the yoke. The Polish King was fain 
 To help the Russian Spotocus—his aid 
 Was like the help that in their common trade 
 A sturdy butcher gives a weaker one. 
 The King it is who seizes, and this done, 
 The Emp'ror pillages, usurping right 
 In war Teutonic, settled but by might. 
 The King in Jutland cynic footing gains, 
 The weak coerced, the while with cunning pains 
 The strong are duped. But 'tis a law they make 
 That their accord themselves should neve...Read more of this...

by Sexton, Anne
...
I watered and fed the plant. 

* 

My undertaker waits for me. 
he is probably twenty-three now, 
learning his trade. 
He'll stitch up the gren, 
he'll fasten the bones down 
lest they fly away. 
I am flying today. 
I am not tired today. 
I am a motor. 
I am cramming in the sugar. 
I am running up the hallways. 
I am squeezing out the milk. 
I am dissecting the dictionary. 
I am God, la de dah. 
Peanut butter is the American fo...Read more of this...



by Angelou, Maya
...is heard
on the distant hill 
for the caged bird
sings of freedom

The free bird thinks of another breeze
and the trade winds soft through the sighing trees
and the fat worms waiting on a dawn-bright lawn
and he names the sky his own.

But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams
his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream
his wings are clipped and his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing

The caged bird sings
with a fearful trill
of things unknown
...Read more of this...

by Alighieri, Dante
...ety, for the width of way 
 Suffices." 
 But my guide the answer took, 
 "Why dost thou cry? or leave thine ordered trade 
 For that which nought belongs thee? Hinder not 
 His destined path. For where he goeth is willed, 
 Where that is willed prevaileth." 
 Now
 was filled 
 The darker air with wailing. Wailing shook 
 My soul to hear it. Where we entered now 
 No light attempted. Only sound arose, 
 As ocean with the tortured air contends, 
 What ti...Read more of this...

by Marvell, Andrew
...he mother tore. 
A thousand hands she has and thousand eyes, 
Breaks into shops and into cellars pries, 
And on all trade like cassowar she feeds: 
Chops off the piece wheres'e'er she close the jaw, 
Else swallows all down her indented maw. 
She stalks all day in streets concealed from sight 
And flies, like bats with leathern wings, by night; 
She wastes the country and on cities preys. 
Her, of a female harpy, in dog days, 
Black Birch, of all the earth-born rac...Read more of this...

by Frost, Robert
...led having an idea to sell.

It never could have happened in New Hampshire.

The only person really soiled with trade
I ever stumbled on in old New Hampshire
Was someone who had just come back ashamed
From selling things in California.
He'd built a noble mansard roof with balls
On turrets, like Constantinople, deep
In woods some ten miles from a railroad station,
As if to put forever out of mind
The hope of being, as we say, received.
I found him standing at t...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...new, I sing; 
You captains, voyagers, explorers, yours! 
You engineers! you architects, machinists, your! 
You, not for trade or transportation only,
But in God’s name, and for thy sake, O soul.) 

4
Passage to India! 
Lo, soul, for thee, of tableaus twain, 
I see, in one, the Suez canal initiated, open’d, 
I see the procession of steamships, the Empress Eugenie’s leading the van;
I mark, from on deck, the strange landscape, the pure sky, the level sand in the distance;

...Read more of this...

by Whittier, John Greenleaf
...ver-brink. 
The woodchuck, like a hermit gray, 
Peered from the doorway of his cell; 
The muskrat plied the mason's trade, 
And tier by tier his mud-walls laid; 
And from the shagbark overhead 
The grizzled squirrel dropped his shell. 

Next, the dear aunt, whose smile of cheer 
And voice in dreams I see and hear, -- 
The sweetest woman ever Fate 
Perverse denied a household mate, 
Who, lonely, homeless, not the less 
Found peace in love's unselfishness, 
And welcome ...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...northerner—a planter nonchalant and hospitable, down
 by the Oconee I live; 
A Yankee, bound by my own way, ready for trade, my joints the limberest joints
 on earth, and the sternest joints on earth; 
A Kentuckian, walking the vale of the Elkhorn, in my deer-skin leggings—a
 Louisianian or Georgian; 
A boatman over lakes or bays, or along coasts—a Hoosier, Badger, Buckeye;
At home on Kanadian snow-shoes, or up in the bush, or with fishermen off
 Newfoundland; 
At ho...Read more of this...

by Chesterton, G K
...broken-hearted king,
But our king Alfred, lost from fame,
Fallen among foes or bonds of shame,
In I know not what mean trade or name,
Has still some song to sing;

"Our monks go robed in rain and snow,
But the heart of flame therein,
But you go clothed in feasts and flames,
When all is ice within;

"Nor shall all iron dooms make dumb
Men wondering ceaselessly,
If it be not better to fast for joy
Than feast for misery.

"Nor monkish order only
Slides down, as field to fen...Read more of this...

by Goldsmith, Oliver
...more:
His best companions, innocence and health;
And his best riches, ignorance of wealth.

But times are altered; trade's unfeeling train
Usurp the land and dispossess the swain;
Along the lawn, where scattered hamlet's rose,
Unwieldy wealth and cumbrous pomp repose,
And every want to opulence allied,
And every pang that folly pays to pride.
Those gentle hours that plenty bade to bloom,
Those calm desires that asked but little room,
Those healthful sports that grace...Read more of this...

by Blake, William
...igion and Government— 
They by the sword of Justice fell, 
And Him their cruel murderer tell. 
He left His father’s trade to roam, 
A wand’ring vagrant without home; 
And thus He others’ labour stole, 
That He might live above control. 
The publicans and harlots He 
Selected for His company, 
And from the adulteress turn’d away 
God’s righteous law, that lost its prey.’ 
Was Jesus chaste? or did He 
Give any lessons of chastity? 
The Morning blush?d fiery red: 
Ma...Read more of this...

by Masefield, John
...they're less excellent than lice, 
That touching one of them will dirt you, 
Dirt you with the stain of mean 
Cheating trade and going between, 
Pinching, starving, scraping, hoarding 
To see if Sue, the prentice lean, 
Dares to touch the margarine. 
Fawning, cringing, oiling boots, 
Raging in the crowd's pursuits, 
Flinging stones at all the Stephens, 
Standing firm with all the evens 
Making hell for all the odd, 
All the lonely ones of God, 
Those poor lonely ones who...Read more of this...

by Wordsworth, William
...ther.   His father said, that to a distant town  He must repair, to ply the artist's trade.  What tears of bitter grief till then unknown?  What tender vows our last sad kiss delayed!  To him we turned:—we had no other aid.  Like one revived, upon his neck I wept,  And her whom he had loved in joy, he said  He well could love in grief: his faith he kept;&...Read more of this...

by Bridges, Robert Seymour
...eth sorrow, it doth bless. 

50
The world comes not to an end: her city-hives
Swarm with the tokens of a changeless trade,
With rolling wheel, driver and flagging jade,
Rich men and beggars, children, priests and wives.
New homes on old are set, as lives on lives;
Invention with invention overlaid:
But still or tool or toy or book or blade
Shaped for the hand, that holds and toils and strives. 
The men to-day toil as their fathers taught,
With little better'd mean...Read more of this...

by Miller, Alice Duer
...hours, 
The crimson Turkey carpet, worn and frayed, 
The heavy dishes—gold with birds and flowers— 
Fruits of the China trade. 
I saw the jack o' lanterns, friendly, frightening,
Shine from our gateposts every Hallow-e'en; 
I saw the oak tree, shattered once by lightning,
Twisted, stripped clean.

I saw the Dioscuri— two black kittens,
Stalking relentlessly an empty spool;
I saw a little girl in scarlet mittens
Trudging through snow to school. 

XXVII 
John read t...Read more of this...

by Akhmatova, Anna
...but prophesize.

Do not think I'm in delirium
Or with boredom I do whine
Loudly I speak of pain:
It's the very trade of mine.

And I know how to teach,
That the unexpected happened,
How to tame for centuries
Her, whose love is so rapid.

You want glory? Ask from me
For advice for this your plight,
Only it is but a trap,
There's no joy here and no light.

Well, go home, and forget
This our meeting, I implore,
And for your sin, my dear one,
I...Read more of this...

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Book: Shattered Sighs