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Famous Wardrobe Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Larkin, Philip
...o different whined at than withstood.

Slowly light strengthens, and the room takes shape.
It stands plain as a wardrobe, what we know,
Have always known, know that we can't escape,
Yet can't accept. One side will have to go.
Meanwhile telephones crouch, getting ready to ring
In locked-up offices, and all the uncaring 
Intricate rented world begins to rouse.
The sky is white as clay, with no sun.
Work has to be done.
Postmen like doctors go from ho...Read more of this...



by Berryman, John
.... He slipt & fell.
It's golden here in the snow.
A mild crack: a far rifle. Bogart's duds
truck back to Wardrobe. Fancy the brain from hell
held out so long. Let go....Read more of this...

by Doty, Mark
...burnished
like a tidal stream
on which an excitation

of minnows boils
and blooms, artifice
made to show us

the lavish wardrobe
of things, the world's
glaze of appearances

worked into the thin
and gleaming stuff
of craft. A story:

at the puppet opera
--where one man animated
the entire cast

while another ghosted
the voices, basso
to coloratura -- Jimmy wept

at the world of tiny gestures,
forgot, he said,
these were puppets,

forgot these wire
and plaster fabrications...Read more of this...

by Auden, Wystan Hugh (W H)
...been and how silly,and was life-forgiven and more humble, able to approach the Future as a friendwithout a wardrobe of excuses, withouta set mask of rectitude or anembarrassing over-familiar gesture. No wonder the ancient cultures of conceitin his technique of unsettlement foresawthe fall of princes, the collapse oftheir lucrative patterns of frustration: if he succeeded, why, the Generalised Lifewould become impossible, the monoli...Read more of this...

by Tebb, Barry
...otographs of grandchildren,

Stacks of wood for the stove, washing hung precisely

In the kitchen, a Sunday suit in the wardrobe.

An unwrinkling of smiles, the hard handshake

Of work-roughened hands.



One night he smashed up the tidy flat.

The TV screen was powder

The clock ticked on the neat lawn

‘Murder in Seacroft Hospital’

Emblazoned on the kitchen wall.



I went with you and your sister in her car to Roundhay Wing.

Your sister had to leave f...Read more of this...



by Milton, John
...illing as the canker to the rose,
Or taint-worm to the weanling herds that graze,
Or frost to flowers, that their gay wardrobe wear,
When first the white-thorn blows;
Such, Lycidas, thy loss to shepherd's ear.
 Where were ye, Nymphs, when the remorseless deep
Closed o'er the head of your loved Lycidas?
For neither were ye playing on the steep
Where your old bards, the famous Druids, lie,
Nor on the shaggy top of Mona high,
Nor yet where Deva spreads her wizard s...Read more of this...

by Service, Robert William
...ess I condemn
 To lie in rigid fold.
I have a portrait of myself
 Proud-printed in the Press,
In garb now doomed to wardrobe shelf,--
 My evening dress.

So let this be my last request,
 That when I come to die,
In tails I may be deftly drest,
 With white waistcoat and tie.
No, not for me a vulgar shroud
 My carcass to caress;--
Oh let me do my coffin proud
 In evening dress!...Read more of this...

by Levine, Philip
...and let whatever dream 
of a childhood home or a rightful place 
you had withdraw into the long shadows 
of the tilted wardrobe and the one chair. 
Before you've even washed your face you 
see it on the bedoilied chiffonier -- there, 
balanced precariously on the orange you bought 
at yesterday's market and saved for now. 
Someone entered soundlessly while you slept 
and left you sleeping and left this postcard 
from me and thought to close the door 
with no more fus...Read more of this...

by Cocteau, Jean
...
to lose her course

My ink nicks
and there

and there

 and there

and
there

sleeps 
deep poetry

The mirror-paneled wardrobe 
washing down ice-floes
the little eskimo girl

dreaming
in a heap 
of moist *******
her nose was
 flattened
against the window-pane 
of dreary Christmases

A white bear
adorned with chromatic moire

dries himself in the midnight sun

Liners

The huge luxury item

Slowly founders
all its lights aglow

and so
sinks the evening-dress ball
into the tho...Read more of this...

by Dickinson, Emily
...She died -- this was the way she died.
And when her breath was done
Took up her simple wardrobe
And started for the sun.

Her little figure at the gate
The Angels must have spied,
Since I could never find her
Upon the mortal side....Read more of this...

by Shakespeare, William
...rth they thinly placèd are,
Or captain jewels in the carcanet.
So is the time that keeps you as my chest,
Or as the wardrobe which the robe doth hide,
To make some special instant special-blest
By new unfolding his imprisoned pride.
Blessèd are you whose worthiness gives scope,
Being had to triumph, being lacked to hope....Read more of this...

by Shakespeare, William
...rth they thinly placed are,
Or captain jewels in the carcanet.
So is the time that keeps you as my chest,
Or as the wardrobe which the robe doth hide,
To make some special instant special blest,
By new unfolding his imprison'd pride.
Blessed are you, whose worthiness gives scope,
Being had, to triumph, being lack'd, to hope....Read more of this...

by Schiller, Friedrich von
...d,
And a diligent hand
Employed she employs;
Gives order to store,
And the much makes the more;
Locks the chest and the wardrobe, with lavender smelling,
And the hum of the spindle goes quick through the dwelling;
And she hoards in the presses, well polished and full,
The snow of the linen, the shine of the wool;
Blends the sweet with the good, and from care and endeavor
Rests never!
Blithe the master (where the while
From his roof he sees them smile)
Eyes the lands, and coun...Read more of this...

by Dickinson, Emily
...h all things new --

The time was scarce profaned, by speech --
The symbol of a word
Was needless, as at Sacrament,
The Wardrobe -- of our Lord --

Each was to each The Sealed Church,
Permitted to commune this -- time --
Lest we too awkward show
At Supper of the Lamb.

The Hours slid fast -- as Hours will,
Clutched tight, by greedy hands --
So faces on two Decks, look back,
Bound to opposing lands --

And so when all the time had leaked,
Without external sound
Each bound ...Read more of this...

by Verhaeren, Emile
...right and fragile mirror from its place by the window, and your bunch of keys dances along the drawer of the beech-wood wardrobe.
I listen, and you are poking the fire and arousing the embers; and you are arranging about the silent walls the silence of the chairs.
You remove the fleeting dust from the workbasket with the narrow feet, and your ring strikes and resounds on the quivering sides of a wine-glass.
And I am more happy than ever this evening at your tender presence...Read more of this...

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