Famous Agonizing Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Agonizing poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous agonizing poems. These examples illustrate what a famous agonizing poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Mary Darby Robinson
He that's ungrateful, has no guilt but one;
All other crimes may pass for virtues in him.
- YOUNG.
I COULD have borne affliction's sharpest thorn;
The sting of malicepoverty's deep wound;
The sneers of vulgar pride, the idiot's scorn;
Neglected Love, false Friendship's treach'rous sound;
I could, with patient smile, extract the dart
Base calumny had planted in my heart;
The fangs of...Read more of this...
by
Li Po
I met Tu Fu on a mountaintop
in August when the sun was hot.
Under the shade of his big straw hat
his face was sad--
in the years since we last parted,
he'd grown wan, exhausted.
Poor old Tu Fu, I thought then,
he must be agonizing over poetry again....Read more of this...
by
William Topaz McGonagall
Good people of high and low degree,
I pray ye all to list to me,
And I'll relate a terrible tale of the sea
Concerning the unfortunate steamer, Mohegan,
That against the Manacles Rocks, ran.
'Twas on Friday, the 14th of October, in the year of ninety-eight,
Which alas! must have been a dreadful sight;
She sailed out of the river Thames on Thursday,
While the...Read more of this...
by
Paul Laurence Dunbar
Little brown face full of smiles,
And a baby's guileless wiles,
Liza May, Liza May.
Eyes a-peeping thro' the fence
With an interest intense,
Liza May.
Ah, the gate is just ajar,
And the meadow is not far,
Liza May, Liza May.
And the road feels very sweet,
To your little toddling feet,
Liza May.
Ah, you roguish runaway,
What will toiling mother say,
Liza May, Liza May?
What care you who smile to greet
Everyone...Read more of this...
by
Mary Darby Robinson
SWEET CHILD OF REASON! maid serene;
With folded arms, and pensive mien,
Who wand'ring near yon thorny wild,
So oft, my length'ning hours beguil'd;
Thou, who within thy peaceful call,
Canst laugh at LIFE'S tumultuous care,
While calm repose delights to dwell
On beds of fragrant roses there;
Where meek-ey'd PATIENCE waits to greet
The woe-worn Trav'ller's weary feet,...Read more of this...
by
Emile Verhaeren
I
Oh, splendour of our joy and our delight,
Woven of gold amid the silken air!
See the dear house among its gables light,
And the green garden, and the orchard there!
Here is the bench with apple-trees o'er head
Whence the light spring is shed.
With touch of petals falling slow and soft;
Here branches luminous take flight aloft,
Hovering, like some bounteous presage, high
Against this landscape's clear...Read more of this...
by
Li Bai
I met Du Fu on a mountaintop
in August when the sun was hot.
Under the shade of his big straw hat
his face was sad--
in the years since we last parted,
he'd grown wane, exhausted.
Poor old Du Fu, I thought then,
he must be agonizing over poetry again....Read more of this...
by
Mary Darby Robinson
TERRIFIC FIEND! thou Monster fell,
Condemn'd in haunts profane to dwell,
Why quit thy solitary Home,
O'er wide Creation's paths to roam?
Pale Tyrant of the timid Heart,
Whose visionary spells can bind
The strongest passions of the mind,
Freezing Life's current with thy baneful Art.
Nature recoils when thou art near,
For round thy form all plagues are...Read more of this...
by
Robert Burns
OF all the numerous ills that hurt our peace,
That press the soul, or wring the mind with anguish
Beyond comparison the worst are those
By our own folly, or our guilt brought on:
In ev’ry other circumstance, the mind
Has this to say, “It was no deed of mine:”
But, when to all the evil of misfortune
This sting is added, “Blame thy foolish self!”
Or...Read more of this...
by
Thomas Gray
Pindaric Ode
"Ruin seize thee, ruthless King!
Confusion on thy banners wait!
Tho' fanned by Conquest's crimson wing,
They mock the air with idle state.
Helm, nor hauberk's twisted mail,
Nor e'en thy virtues, Tyrant, shall avail
To save thy secret soul from nightly fears,
From Cambria's curse, from Cambria's tears!"
Such were the sounds that o'er the crested pride
Of the first Edward scattered wild dismay,
As down the...Read more of this...
by
Robert Lowell
Only teaching on Tuesdays, book-worming
in pajamas fresh from the washer each morning,
I hog a whole house on Boston's
"hardly passionate Marlborough Street,"
where even the man
scavenging filth in the back alley trash cans,
has two children, a beach wagon, a helpmate,
and is "a young Republican."
I have a nine months' daughter,
young enough to be my granddaughter.
Like the sun she rises in her flame-flamingo...Read more of this...
by
Friedrich von Schiller
Pale, at its ghastly noon,
Pauses above the death-still wood--the moon;
The night-sprite, sighing, through the dim air stirs;
The clouds descend in rain;
Mourning, the wan stars wane,
Flickering like dying lamps in sepulchres!
Haggard as spectres--vision-like and dumb,
Dark with the pomp of death, and moving slow,
Towards that sad lair the pale procession come
Where the grave closes on the night below.
With dim, deep-sunken eye,
Crutched...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
The Soul unto itself
Is an imperial friend --
Or the most agonizing Spy --
An Enemy -- could send --
Secure against its own --
No treason it can fear --
Itself -- its Sovereign -- of itself
The Soul should stand in Awe --...Read more of this...
by
Lewis Carroll
"AND did you really walk," said I,
"On such a wretched night?
I always fancied Ghosts could fly -
If not exactly in the sky,
Yet at a fairish height."
"It's very well," said he, "for Kings
To soar above the earth:
But Phantoms often find that wings -
Like many other pleasant things -
Cost more than they are worth.
"Spectres of course are rich, and...Read more of this...
by
Countee Cullen
We shall not always plant while others reap
The golden increment of bursting fruit,
Not always countenance, abject and mute,
That lesser men should hold their brothers cheap;
Not everlastingly while others sleep
Shall we beguile their limbs with mellow flute,
Not always bend to some more subtle brute;
We were not made to eternally weep.
The night whose sable breast relieves the stark,
White stars is...Read more of this...
by
Mary Darby Robinson
Lead me, Sicilian Maids, to haunted bow'rs,
While yon pale moon displays her faintest beams
O'er blasted woodlands, and enchanted streams,
Whose banks infect the breeze with pois'nous flow'rs.
Ah! lead me, where the barren mountain tow'rs,
Where no sounds echo, but the night-owl's screams,
Where some lone spirit of the desart gleams,
And lurid horrors wing the fateful hours!
Now goaded frenzy grasps my shrinking brain,
Her...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
Just Once! Oh least Request!
Could Adamant refuse
So small a Grace
So scanty put,
Such agonizing terms?
Would not a God of Flint
Be conscious of a sigh
As down His Heaven dropt remote
"Just Once" Sweet Deity?...Read more of this...
by
Mary Darby Robinson
Come, bright-eyed maid,
Pure offspring of the tranquil mind,
Haste, my fev'rish temples bind
With olive wreaths of em'rald hue
Steep'd in morn's ethereal dew,
Where in mild HELVETIA's shade,
Blushing summer round her flings
Warm gales and sunny show'rs that hang upon her wings.
I'll seek thee in ITALIA's bow'rs,
Where supine on beds of flow'rs
Melody's soul-touching throng
Strike the soft lute or...Read more of this...
by
Robert Burns
O THOU pale orb that silent shines
While care-untroubled mortals sleep!
Thou seest a wretch who inly pines.
And wanders here to wail and weep!
With woe I nightly vigils keep,
Beneath thy wan, unwarming beam;
And mourn, in lamentation deep,
How life and love are all a dream!
I joyless view thy rays adorn
The faintly-marked, distant hill;
I joyless view thy trembling...Read more of this...
by
Thomas Gray
WEAVE the warp, and weave the woof,
The winding-sheet of Edward's race.
Give ample room, and verge enough
The characters of hell to trace.
Mark the year, and mark the night,
When Severn shall re-echo with affright
The shrieks of death, thro' Berkley's roofs that ring,
Shrieks of an agonizing King!
She-wolf of France, with unrelenting fangs,
That tear'st the bowels of thy mangled mate,
From thee be born,...Read more of this...
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