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Famous Avenging Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Burns, Robert
...urdering eyes already they devour;
 See Brunswick spent, a wretched prey,
 His life one poor despairing day,
Where each avenging hour still ushers in a worse!
 Such havock, howling all abroad,
 Their utter ruin bring,
 The base apostates to their God,
 Or rebels to their King.


 Note 1. The last birthday of Prince Charles Edward. [back]...Read More



by Burns, Robert
...warfare wage
 With Amalek’s ungracious progeny;
 Or how the royal bard did groaning lie
Beneath the stroke of Heaven’s avenging ire;
 Or Job’s pathetic plaint, and wailing cry;
Or rapt Isaiah’s wild, seraphic fire;
Or other holy seers that tune the sacred lyre.


Perhaps the Christian volume is the theme,
 How guiltless blood for guilty man was shed;
How He, who bore in Heaven the second name,
 Had not on earth whereon to lay His head:
 How His first followers and servan...Read More

by Spenser, Edmund
...yes unsound;
And underneath his feet are to be found
Thunder and lightning and tempestuous fire,
The instruments of his avenging ire.

There in his bosom Sapience doth sit,
The sovereign darling of the Deity,
Clad like a queen in royal robes, most fit
For so great power and peerless majesty,
And all with gems and jewels gorgeously
Adorn'd, that brighter than the stars appear,
And make her native brightness seem more clear.

And on her head a crown of purest gold
Is se...Read More

by Moore, Thomas
...Avenging and bright fall the swift sword of Erin
On him who the brave sons of Usna betray'd! -- 
For every fond eye he hath waken'd a tear in 
A drop from his heart-wounds shall weep o'er her blade. 

By the red cloud that hung over Conor's dark dwelling,
When Ulad's three champions lay sleeping in gore -- 
By the billows of war, which so often, high swe...Read More

by Aldington, Richard
...wretchedness of childhood 
Put me out of love with God. 
I can't believe in God's goodness; 
I can believe 
In many avenging gods. 
Most of all I believe 
In gods of bitter dullness, 
Cruel local gods 
Who scared my childhood. 

II 

I've seen people put 
A chrysalis in a match-box, 
"To see," they told me, "what sort of moth would come." 
But when it broke its shell 
It slipped and stumbled and fell about its prison 
And tried to climb to the light 
For space...Read More



by Wilcox, Ella Wheeler
...isfiguring wounds
Spoke of the hellish hate of human hounds; 
Past bleaching skeleton and rifled grave, 
On pressed th' avenging host, to rescue and to save.

VII.

Uncertain Nature, like a fickle friend, 
(Worse than the foe on whom we may depend) 
Turned on these dauntless souls a brow of wrath
And hurled her icy jav'lins in their path.
With treacherous quicksands, and with storms that blight, 
Entrapped their footsteps and confused their sight.
'Yet on, ' u...Read More

by Keats, John
...sters of grapes, the which they raven'd quick
And roar'd for more; with many a hungry lick
About their shaggy jaws. Avenging, slow,
Anon she took a branch of mistletoe,
And emptied on't a black dull-gurgling phial:
Groan'd one and all, as if some piercing trial
Was sharpening for their pitiable bones.
She lifted up the charm: appealing groans
From their poor breasts went sueing to her ear
In vain; remorseless as an infant's bier
She whisk'd against their eyes the soot...Read More

by Trumbull, John
...raitor;
Spread desolation o'er their head,
And plagues in providence's stead;
Perform'd with equal skill and beauty
Th' avenging Angel's tour of duty:
Then bade these prison-walls arise,
Like temple tow'ring to the skies,
Where British Clemency renown'd
Might fix her seat on hallow'd ground,
(That Virtue, as each herald saith,
Of whole blood kin to Punic Faith)
Where all her godlike pow'rs unveiling,
She finds a grateful shrine to dwell in:
And at this altar for her honor,
Ch...Read More

by Wheatley, Phillis
...to be,
And the soft sinews form the supple knee,
The youth sore wounded by the Delian god
Attempts t' extract the crime-avenging rod,
But, whilst he strives the will of fate t' avert,
Divine Apollo sends a second dart;
Swift thro' his throat the feather'd mischief flies,
Bereft of sense, he drops his head, and dies.

Young Ilioneus, the last, directs his pray'r,
And cries, "My life, ye gods celestial! spare."
Apollo heard, and pity touch'd his heart,
But ah! too late,...Read More

by Milton, John
...with thee along, 
Thy offspring, to the place of evil, Hell; 
Thou and thy wicked crew! there mingle broils, 
Ere this avenging sword begin thy doom, 
Or some more sudden vengeance, winged from God, 
Precipitate thee with augmented pain. 
So spake the Prince of Angels; to whom thus 
The Adversary. Nor think thou with wind 
Of aery threats to awe whom yet with deeds 
Thou canst not. Hast thou turned the least of these 
To flight, or if to fall, but that they rise ...Read More

by Milton, John
...l; 
Glory they sung to the Most High, good will 
To future men, and in their dwellings peace; 
Glory to Him, whose just avenging ire 
Had driven out the ungodly from his sight 
And the habitations of the just; to Him 
Glory and praise, whose wisdom had ordained 
Good out of evil to create; instead 
Of Spirits malign, a better race to bring 
Into their vacant room, and thence diffuse 
His good to worlds and ages infinite. 
So sang the Hierarchies: Mean while the Son 
On hi...Read More

by Ginsberg, Allen
...or Death's planet through the 
 sea beyond Uranus
whose chthonic ore fathers this magma-teared Lord of 
 Hades, Sire of avenging Furies, billionaire Hell-
 King worshipped once
with black sheep throats cut, priests's face averted from
 underground mysteries in single temple at Eleusis,
Spring-green Persephone nuptialed to his inevitable
 Shade, Demeter mother of asphodel weeping dew,
her daughter stored in salty caverns under white snow, 
 black hail, grey winter rain or Pola...Read More

by Turner Smith, Charlotte
...the wind
Is loaded to your ears, with the deep groans
Of martyr'd Saints and suffering Royalty,
While to your eyes the avenging power of Heaven
Appears in aweful anger to prepare
The storm of vengeance, fraught with plagues and death.
Even he of milder heart, who was indeed
The simple shepherd in a rustic scene,
And, 'mid the vine-clad hills of Languedoc,
Taught to the bare-foot peasant, whose hard hands
Produc'd 4 the nectar he could seldom taste,
Submission to the Lord...Read More

by Byron, George (Lord)
...ho falls in battle 'gainst a Giaour
Is worthiest an immortal bower.


But thou, false Infidel! shalt writhe
Beneath avenging Monkir's scythe;
And from its torment 'scape alone
To wander round lost Eblis' throne;
And fire unquenched, unquenchable,
Around, within, thy heart shall dwell;
Nor ear can hear nor tongue can tell
The tortures of that inward hell!
But first, on earth as vampire sent,
Thy corse shall from its tomb be rent:
Then ghastly haunt thy native place,
And su...Read More

by Bridges, Robert Seymour
...nce my love's delight,
That drew'st a mortgage on my heart's estate,
Whose baneful clause is never out of date,
Nor can avenging time restore my right:
Whom first to lose sounded that note of spite,
Whereto my doleful days were tuned by fate:
That art the well-loved cause of all my hate,
The sun whose wandering makes my hopeless night: 
Thou being in all my lacking all I lack,
It is thy goodness turns my grace to crime,
Thy fleetness from my goal which holds me back;
Wherefor...Read More

by Homer,
...tched parent's pain,
  And give Chryseis to these arms again;
  If mercy fail, yet let my presents move,
  And dread avenging Phoebus, son of Jove."

  The Greeks in shouts their joint assent declare,
  The priest to reverence, and release the fair.
  Not so Atrides; he, with kingly pride,
  Repulsed the sacred sire, and thus replied:

  "Hence on thy life, and fly these hostile plains,
  Nor ask, presumptuous, what the king detains
  Hence, with thy laure...Read More

by Schiller, Friedrich von
...eyes before.

Hell, if my sight those looks a moment misses--
Hell, when my sight upon those looks is turned--
The avenging furies madden in thy kisses,
That slept in his what time my lips they burned.
Out from their graves his oaths spoke back in thunder!
The perjury stalked like murder in the sun--
Forever--God!--sense, reason, soul, sunk under--
The deed was done!

Francis, O Francis! league on league shall chase thee
The shadows hurrying grimly on thy flight--
St...Read More

by Scott, Sir Walter
...am to Roderick Dhu
     A clansman born, a kinsman true;
     Each word against his honour spoke
     Demands of me avenging stroke;
     Yet more,—upon thy fate, 'tis said,
     A mighty augury is laid.
     It rests with me to wind my horn,—
     Thou art with numbers overborne;
     It rests with me, here, brand to brand,
     Worn as thou art, to bid thee stand:
     But, not for clan, nor kindred's cause,
     Will I depart from honour's laws;
     To assail...Read More

by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...arms, or if yourself 
Should have them, tell me, seeing I have sworn 
That I will break his pride and learn his name, 
Avenging this great insult done the Queen.' 

Then cried Earl Yniol, 'Art thou he indeed, 
Geraint, a name far-sounded among men 
For noble deeds? and truly I, when first 
I saw you moving by me on the bridge, 
Felt ye were somewhat, yea, and by your state 
And presence might have guessed you one of those 
That eat in Arthur's hall in Camelot. 
Nor s...Read More

by Trumbull, John
...ins,
Nor art conceals thine inward pains,
And haggard vengeance haunts thy name,
And guilt consigns thee o'er to shame,
Avenging furies round thee wait,
And e'en thy foes bewail thy fate.


But see, with gentler looks and air,
Sophia comes. Ye youths beware!
Her fancy paints her still in prime,
Nor sees the moving hand of time;
To all her imperfections blind,
Hears lovers sigh in every wind,
And thinks her fully ripen'd charms,
Like Helen's, set the world in arms....Read More

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