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Famous Housewife Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry
...ds,
The happy tenants share his rounds;
Coila’s fair Rachel’s care to-day,
And blooming Keith’s engaged with Gray)
From housewife cares a minute borrow,
(That grandchild’s cap will do to-morrow,)
And join with me a-moralizing;
This day’s propitious to be wise in.


 First, what did yesternight deliver?
“Another year has gone for ever.”
And what is this day’s strong suggestion?
“The passing moment’s all we rest on!”
Rest on—for what? what do we here?
Or why regard the ...Read more of this...
by Burns, Robert



...ice their number, they relinquished the fight 

Then to a certain house Bruce quickly hied,
And sitting by the door the housewife he spied;
And she asked him who he was, and he said, A wanderer,
Then she said, All wanderers are welcome here, kind sir. 

Then the King said, Good dame, tell me the reason why,
How you respect all wanderers that chance to pass by,
And for whose sake you bear such favour to homeless men?
Then she said, King Robert the Bruce, if you want to ken...Read more of this...
by McGonagall, William Topaz
...hunters after an old meat,
Blood-spoor of the austere tragedies.

Mother Medea in a green smock
Moves humbly as any housewife through
Her ruined apartments, taking stock
Of charred shoes, the sodden upholstery:
Cheated of the pyre and the rack,
The crowd sucks her last tear and turns away....Read more of this...
by Plath, Sylvia
...e along believes

that any moment I'll fall
on my side and drum my toes
like a typewriter or squeal
and **** like a new housewife

discovering television,
or that I'll turn like a beast
cleverly to hook his teeth
with my teeth. No. Not this pig....Read more of this...
by Levine, Philip
...train puts out the light
And high over lorries and cattle the Halt unwinking
Waits through the Wiltshire night.

O housewife safe in the comprehensive churning
Of the Warminster launderette!
O husband down at the depot with car in car-park!
The Halt is waiting yet.

And when all the horrible roads are finally done for,
And there's no more petrol left in the world to burn,
Here to the Halt from Salisbury and from Bristol
Steam trains will return....Read more of this...
by Betjeman, John



...hoing horn,
No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed.

For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn,
Or busy housewife ply her evening-care;
No children run to lisp their sire's return,
Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share.

Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield,
Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke:
How jocund did they drive their team afield!
How bowed the woods beneath their sturdy stroke!

Let not Ambition mock their useful toil,
Their h...Read more of this...
by Gray, Thomas
...precious dower she would bring to her husband in marriage,
Better than flocks and herds, being proofs of her skill as a housewife.
Soon she extinguished her lamp, for the mellow and radiant moonlight
Streamed through the windows, and lighted the room, till the heart of the maiden
Swelled and obeyed its power, like the tremulous tides of the ocean.
Ah! she was fair, exceeding fair to behold, as she stood with
Naked snow-white feet on the gleaming floor of her chamber!
...Read more of this...
by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...t for winds -- provincial.
Except by Butterflies
Unnoticed as a single dew
That on the Acre lies.

The smallest Housewife in the grass,
Yet take her from the Lawn
And somebody has lost the face
That made Existence -- Home!...Read more of this...
by Dickinson, Emily
...e her his own
When I loved her, long before.

The rooms within had the piteous shine
The home-things wear which the housewife miss;
From the stairway floated the rise and fall
Of an infant's call,
Whose birth had brought her to this.

Her life was the price she would pay for that whine--
For a child by the man she did not love.
"But let that rest forever," I said,
And bent my tread
To the chamber up above.

She took my hand in her thin white own,
And smiled he...Read more of this...
by Hardy, Thomas
...Some women marry houses.
It's another kind of skin; it has a heart, 
a mouth, a liver and bowel movements.
The walls are permanent and pink.
See how she sits on her knees all day, 
faithfully washing herself down.
Men enter by force, drawn back like Jonah
into their fleshy mothers.
A woman is her mother.
That's the main thing....Read more of this...
by Sexton, Anne
...ndow --
Brave -- shines the sun through the freckled pane --
Fearless -- the cobweb swings from the ceiling --
Indolent Housewife -- in Daisies -- lain!...Read more of this...
by Dickinson, Emily
...ehind the Shelf

The Sexton keeps the Key to --
Putting up
Our Life -- His Porcelain --
Like a Cup --

Discarded of the Housewife --
Quaint -- or Broke --
A newer Sevres pleases --
Old Ones crack --

I could not die -- with You --
For One must wait
To shut the Other's Gaze down --
You -- could not --

And I -- Could I stand by
And see You -- freeze --
Without my Right of Frost --
Death's privilege?

Nor could I rise -- with You --
Because Your Face
Would put out Jesus' --
Tha...Read more of this...
by Dickinson, Emily
...and tell 
His love-tale close beside my cell; 
The idle butterfly 25 
Should rest him there and there be heard 
The housewife bee and humming-bird. 

And what if cheerful shouts at noon 
Come from the village sent  
Or song of maids beneath the moon 30 
With fairy laughter blent? 
And what if in the evening light  
Betroth¨¨d lovers walk in sight 
Of my low monument? 
I would the lovely scene around 35 
Might know no sadder sight nor sound. 

I know th...Read more of this...
by Bryant, William Cullen
...ber what the Master said, 
Try to believe that we need have no fear. 
Let me, the selfish and the careless one, 
Be housewife and a mother for tonight;
For I am not so fearful as you are, 
And I was not so eager.” 

Martha sank 
Down at her sister’s feet and there sat watching 
A flower that had a small familiar name
That was as old as memory, but was not 
The name of what she saw now in its brief 
And infinite mystery that so frightened her 
That life became a terror...Read more of this...
by Robinson, Edwin Arlington
...ong ago
The strewn evidence meant something,
The small accidents and pleasures
Of the day as it moved gracelessly on,
A housewife doing chores. Impossible now
To restore those properties in the silver blur that is
The record of what you accomplished by sitting down
"With great art to copy all that you saw in the glass"
So as to perfect and rule out the extraneous
Forever. In the circle of your intentions certain spars
Remain that perpetuate the enchantment of self wit...Read more of this...
by Ashbery, John
...She sweeps with many-colored Brooms --
And leaves the Shreds behind --
Oh Housewife in the Evening West --
Come back, and dust the Pond!

You dropped a Purple Ravelling in --
You dropped an Amber thread --
And how you've littered all the East
With duds of Emerald!

And still, she plies her spotted Brooms,
And still the Aprons fly,
Till Brooms fade softly into stars --
And then I come away --...Read more of this...
by Dickinson, Emily
...AN>Pour'd forth its beauteous scintillating beam:Beside her kindled hearth the housewife dame,Half-dress'd, and slipshod, 'gan her distaff ply:And now the wonted hour of woe drew nigh,That wakes to tears the lover from his dream:When my sweet hope unto my mind appear'd,Not in the custom'd way unto my sight;<...Read more of this...
by Petrarch, Francesco
...filled with the gold of the grain,
Now a yard to the court, now a wing to the centre!
Within sits another,
The thrifty housewife;
The mild one, the mother--
Her home is her life.
In its circle she rules,
And the daughters she schools
And she cautions the boys,
With a bustling command,
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 ...Read more of this...
by Schiller, Friedrich von
...t, when they came from bathing, thou wast gone!

At some lone homestead in the Cumner hills,
Where at her open door the housewife darns,
Thou hast been seen, or hanging on a gate
To watch the threshers in the mossy barns.
Children, who early range these slopes and late
For cresses from the rills,
Have known thee eyeing, all an April-day,
The springing pastures and the feeding kine;
And marked thee, when the stars come out and shine,
Through the long dewy grass move slow a...Read more of this...
by Arnold, Matthew
...my thought.

You curl your hair and paint yourself; not me;
the wind curls my hair, the sun paints me.

You are a housewife, resigned, submissive,
tied to the prejudices of men; not me;
unbridled, I am a runaway Rocinante
snorting horizons of God's justice.

You in yourself have no say; everyone governs you;
your husband, your parents, your family,
the priest, the dressmaker, the theatre, the dance hall,
the auto, the fine furnishings, the feast, champagne,
hea...Read more of this...
by Burgos, Julia de

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry