Famous Imitation Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Imitation poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous imitation poems. These examples illustrate what a famous imitation poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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...s to do like the best,
But wanting common sense, th' ingredient
In choosing well not least expedient,
Converts abortive imitation
To universal affectation.
Thus he not only eats and talks
But feels and smells, sits down and walks,
Nay looks, and lives, and loves by rote,
In an old tawdry birthday coat.
The second was a Grays Inn wit,
A great inhabiter of the pit,
Where critic-like he sits and squints,
Steals pocket handkerchiefs, and hints
From 's neighbor, and the c...Read more of this...
by
Wilmot, John
...w in thy death.
The Muses' garden, with pedantic weeds
O'erspread, was purg'd by thee; the lazy seeds
Of servile imitation thrown away,
And fresh invention planted; thou didst pay
The debts of our penurious bankrupt age;
Licentious thefts, that make poetic rage
A mimic fury, when our souls must be
Possess'd, or with Anacreon's ecstasy,
Or Pindar's, not their own; the subtle cheat
Of sly exchanges, and the juggling feat
Of two-edg'd words, or whatsoever wrong
B...Read more of this...
by
Carew, Thomas
...refines!
Before his sacred Name flies ev'ry Fault,
And each exalted Stanza teems with Thought!
The Vulgar thus through Imitation err;
As oft the Learn'd by being Singular;
So much they scorn the Crowd, that if the Throng
By Chance go right, they purposely go wrong;
So Schismatics the plain Believers quit,
And are but damn'd for having too much Wit.
Some praise at Morning what they blame at Night;
But always think the last Opinion right.
A Muse by these is like a Mis...Read more of this...
by
Pope, Alexander
...Thou fair hair'd angel of the evening,
Now, while the sun rests on the mountains light,
Thy bright torch of love; Thy radiant crown
Put on, and smile upon our evening bed!
Smile on our loves; and when thou drawest the
Blue curtains, scatter thy silver dew
On every flower that shuts its sweet eyes
In timely sleep. Let thy west wind sleep on
The lake; s...Read more of this...
by
Blake, William
....
"If you've seen one, you've seen the moll,"
Jorie said when asked about C. "Everything she's written
is an imitation of E." Some poems can be written
only when the poet has fortified herself with gin.
Others come easily to one as feckless as Moll
Flanders. Jorie beamed. "It happened here,"
she said. She had worn her best lingerie,
and D. made the expected pass at her. "My hair
was big that night, not that I make a fetish of hair...Read more of this...
by
Lehman, David
...the lands of my childhood empty
Or gone. Market stalls under wrought
Iron balconies strewn with roses and
Green imitation grass, a girl as beautiful
As the sun who might be Margaret’s
Daughter or Margaret herself half a
Lifetime earlier, with straw-gold hair
The colour of lank February grass.
2
Cook’s Moor End Works with three broken
Windows, lathes and benches open to the
Wind of my eyes this Sunday morning as I
Fly over the cobbles of Leeds nine t...Read more of this...
by
Tebb, Barry
...ing alone beside an open book,
And trace these characters upon the sands?
A style is found by sedentary toil
And by the imitation of great masters.
Ille. Because I seek an image, not a book.
Those men that in their writings are most wise,
Own nothing but their blind, stupefied hearts.
I call to the mysterious one who yet
Shall walk the wet sands by the edge of the stream
And look most like me, being indeed my double,
And prove of all imaginable things
The mos...Read more of this...
by
Yeats, William Butler
...The women are all wearing imitation silk scarves,
Blackpool or Biarritz, sipping Woman, masticating
The morning’s post, new babies and bathrooms, going
To file, snip, fiddle and smile through fish-eyes,
Crinkly green gloss, store it in stocking-tops
For next year abroad, that Pill, so perfect!
Flashing smiles from shiny domes and polished eye-lenses,
The men are glossy all o...Read more of this...
by
Tebb, Barry
...MY faint spirit was sitting in the light
Of thy looks, my love;
It panted for thee like the hind at noon
For the brooks, my love.
Thy barb, whose hoofs outspeed the tempest's flight,
Bore thee far from me;
My heart, for my weak feet were weary soon,
Did companion thee.
Ah! fleeter far than fleetest storm or steed,
Or the death they...Read more of this...
by
Shelley, Percy Bysshe
...MY faint spirit was sitting in the light
Of thy looks my love;
It panted for thee like the hind at noon
For the brooks my love.
Thy barb whose hoofs outspeed the tempest's flight 5
Bore thee far from me;
My heart for my weak feet were weary soon
Did companion thee.
Ah! fleeter far than fleetest storm or steed
Or the death they ...Read more of this...
by
Shelley, Percy Bysshe
...I saw the Death, and she was seating
By quiet entrance at my own home,
I saw the doors were opened in my tomb,
And there, and there my hope was a-flitting
I'll die, and traces of my past
In days of future will be never sighted,
Look of my eyes will never be delighted
By dear look, in my existence last.
Farewell the somber world, where, precipice above...Read more of this...
by
Pushkin, Alexander
...A dark unfathomed tide
Of interminable pride -
A mystery, and a dream,
Should my early life seem;
I say that dream was fraught
With a wild and waking thought
Of beings that have been,
Which my spirit hath not seen,
Had I let them pass me by,
With a dreaming eye!
Let none of earth inherit
That vision of my spirit;
Those thoughts I would control,...Read more of this...
by
Poe, Edgar Allan
...all
That structure in the dialect of men
Interpreted,) which not long after, he
Affecting all equality with God,
In imitation of that mount whereon
Messiah was declared in sight of Heaven,
The Mountain of the Congregation called;
For thither he assembled all his train,
Pretending so commanded to consult
About the great reception of their King,
Thither to come, and with calumnious art
Of counterfeited truth thus held their ears.
Thrones, Dominations, Princedoms...Read more of this...
by
Milton, John
...nd
Out of such prison, though Spirits of purest light,
Purest at first, now gross by sinning grown.
The rest, in imitation, to like arms
Betook them, and the neighbouring hills uptore:
So hills amid the air encountered hills,
Hurled to and fro with jaculation dire;
That under ground they fought in dismal shade;
Infernal noise! war seemed a civil game
To this uproar; horrid confusion heaped
Upon confusion rose: And now all Heaven
Had gone to wrack, with ruin ove...Read more of this...
by
Milton, John
...ads, "Ingredients: Non-fat milk
solids, soya flour, whole milk solids, sucrose, starch, corn
oil, coconut oil, yeast, imitation vanilla, " but the can's only
a graveyard now for a Cobra Lily that has turned dry and
brown and has black freckles.
As a kind of funeral wreath, there is a red, white and
blue button sticking in the plant and the words on it say, "I'm
for Nixon."
The main energy for the ballet comes from a description
of the Cobra Lily. The de...Read more of this...
by
Brautigan, Richard
...you stop repeating me, screamed the father.
Will you stop repeating me, screamed his son.
Oh well, I suppose imitation is the sincerest form of
flattery, sighed the father.
Oh well, I suppose imitation is the sincerest form of
flattery, sighed his son....Read more of this...
by
Edson, Russell
...le.
III. THE HOPE OF THEIR RELIGION
A good old ***** in the slums of the town
Heavy bass. With a literal imitation of camp-meeting racket, and trance.
Preached at a sister for her velvet gown.
Howled at a brother for his low-down ways,
His prowling, guzzling, sneak-thief days.
Beat on the Bible till he wore it out
Starting the jubilee revival shout.
And some had visions, as they stood on chairs,
And sang of Jacob, and the golden stairs,
And they...Read more of this...
by
Lindsay, Vachel
...th sample coffins in the show window
And signs everywhere satisfaction is guaranteed,
Shooting galleries where men kill imitation pigeons,
And there were doctors for the sick,
And lawyers for people waiting in jail,
And a dog catcher and a superintendent of streets,
And telephones, water-works, trolley cars,
And newspapers with a splatter of telegrams from sister cities of Kalamazoo the round world over.
And the loafer lagging along said:
Kalamazoo, you ain’t in a class ...Read more of this...
by
Sandburg, Carl
...ster's degree.
25. The regular number of monks or friars in a convent was
fixed at twelve, with a superior, in imitation of the apostles and
their Master; and large religious houses were held to consist of
so many convents. ...Read more of this...
by
Chaucer, Geoffrey
...original performance, but you--you're only a bug-
house peddler of second-hand gospel--you're only
shoving out a phoney imitation of the goods this
Jesus wanted free as air and sunlight.
You tell people living in shanties Jesus is going to fix it
up all right with them by giving them mansions in
the skies after they're dead and the worms have
eaten 'em.
You tell $6 a week department store girls all they need
is Jesus; you take a steel trust wop, dead without
having l...Read more of this...
by
Sandburg, Carl
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