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Best Famous Perverted Poems

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Written by Robinson Jeffers | Create an image from this poem

Contemplation Of The Sword

 Reason will not decide at last; the sword will decide.
The sword: an obsolete instrument of bronze or steel, 
 formerly used to kill men, but here
In the sense of a symbol. The sword: that is: the storms 
 and counter-storms of general destruction; killing 
 of men,
Destruction of all goods and materials; massacre, more or 
 less intentional, of children and women;
Destruction poured down from wings, the air made accomplice, 
 the innocent air
Perverted into assasin and poisoner.

The sword: that is: treachery and cowardice, incredible 
 baseness, incredible courage, loyalties, insanities.
The sword: weeping and despair, mass-enslavement, 
 mass-tourture, frustration of all hopes
That starred man's forhead. Tyranny for freedom, horror for 
 happiness, famine for bread, carrion for children.
Reason will not decide at last, the sword will decide.

Dear God, who are the whole splendor of things and the sacred 
 stars, but also the cruelty and greed, the treacheries
And vileness, insanities and filth and anguish: now that this 
 thing comes near us again I am finding it hard
To praise you with a whole heart.
I know what pain is, but pain can shine. I know what death is, 
 I have sometimes
Longed for it. But cruelty and slavery and degredation, 
 pestilence, filth, the pitifulness
Of men like hurt little birds and animals . . . if you were 
 only
Waves beating rock, the wind and the iron-cored earth,
With what a heart I could praise your beauty.
You will not repent, nor cancel life, nor free man from anguish
For many ages to come. You are the one that tortures himself to 
 discover himself: I am
One that watches you and discovers you, and praises you in little 
 parables, idyl or tragedy, beautiful
Intolerable God.
The sword: that is:
I have two sons whom I love. They are twins, they were born 
 in nineteen sixteen, which seemed to us a dark year
Of a great war, and they are now of the age
That war prefers. The first-born is like his mother, he is so 
 beautiful
That persons I hardly know have stopped me on the street to 
 speak of the grave beauty of the boy's face.
The second-born has strength for his beauty; when he strips 
 for swimming the hero shoulders and wrestler loins
Make him seem clothed. The sword: that is: loathsome disfigurements, 
 blindness, mutilation, locked lips of boys
Too proud to scream.
Reason will not decide at last: the sword will decide.


Written by Rg Gregory | Create an image from this poem

from crossing the line

 (1) a great man

there was a great man
so great he couldn't be criticised in the light
who died
and for a whole week people turned up their collars over their ears
and wept with great gossiping

houses wore their roofs at a mournful angle
and television announcers carried their eyes around in long drooping bags
there was a hush upon the voice of the land
as soft as the shine on velvet

the whole nation stretched up into the dusty attic for its medals and black ties
 and prayers
and seriously polished its black uncomfortable shoes
and no one dared creak in the wrong places

anybody who thought he was everybody
except those who were nearly dying themselves
wanted to come to the funeral
and in its mourning the nation rejoiced to think
that once again it had cut into the world's time
with its own sick longing for the past

the great man and the great nation
had the same bulldog vision of each other's face
and neither of them had barked convincingly for a very long time

so the nation turned out on a cold bleak day
and attended its own funeral with uncanny reverence
and the other nations put tears over their laughing eyes
v-signs and rude gestures spoke with the same fingers


(2) aden

tourists dream of bombs 
that will not kill them

into the rock
the sand-claws
the winking eye
and harsh shell
of aden

waiting for the pinch

jagged sun
lumps of heat
bumping on the stunned ship
knuckledustered rock
clenched over steamer point

waiting for the sun to stagger
loaded down the hill
before we bunch ashore

calm
eyes within their windows
we walk
(a town must live
must have its acre of normality
let hate sport
its bright shirt in the shadows)
we shop
collect our duty-murdered goods
compare bargains
laugh grieve
at benefit or loss
aden dead-pan
leans against our words
which hand invisible
knows how to print a bomb
ejaculate a knife
does tourist greed embroil us in
or shelter us from guilt

backstreet
a sailor drunk
gyrates within a wall of adenese
collapses spews
they roll about him
in a dark pool

the sun moves off
as we do

streets squashed with shops
criss-cross of customers
a rush of people nightwards
a white woman
striding like a cliff
dirt - goats in the gutter
crunched beggars
a small to breed a fungus
cafes with open mouths
men like broken teeth
or way back in the dark
like tonsils

an air of shapeless threat
fluffs in our pulse
a boundary crossed
the rules are not the same
brushed by eyes
the touch is silent
silence breeds
we feel the breath of fury
(soon to roar)
retreat within our skins
return to broader streets

bazaars glower
almost at candlelight
we clutch our goods
a dim delusion of festivity
a christ neurotic
dying to explode

how much of this is aden
how much our masterpiece
all atmospheres are inbuilt

an armoured car looms by

the ship like mother
brooding in the sea
receives us with a sigh
aden winks and ogles in the dark
the sport of hate released

slowly away at midnight
rumours of bombs and riots
in the long wake
a disappointed sleep

nothing to write home about
except the heat


(3) crossing the line (xii)

  give me not england
in its glory dead nightmared with rotting seed
palmerston's perverted gunboat up the
yangtse's **** - lloyd george and winston churchill
rubbing men like salt into surly wounds
(we won those wars and neatly fucked ourselves)
eden at suez a jacked-up piece of wool
macmillan sprinkling cliches where the black
blood boils (the ashes of his kind) - home
as wan as godot (shagged by birth) wilson
for whom the wind blew sharply once or twice
sailing eastwards in the giant's stetson hat
saving jims from the red long john
   give me
not england but the world with england in it
with people as promiscuous as planes (the colours
shuffled)
 don't ask for wars to end or men
to have their deaths wrapped up as christmas gifts
expect myself to die a coward - proclaim no lives
as kisses - offer no roses to the blind
no sanctions to the damned - will not shake hands 
with him who rapes my wife or chokes my daughter
only when drunk or mad will think myself
the master of my purse - will lust for ease
seek to assuage my griefs in others' tears
will make more chaos than i put to rights

but in my fracture i shall strive to stand
a ruined arch whose limbs stretch half
towards a point that drew me upwards - that
ungot intercourse in space that prickless star
is what i ache for (what i want in man
and thus i give him)
  the image of that cross
is grit within him - the arch reflects in
microscopic waves through fleshly aeons
beaming messages to nerves and typing fingers

both ends of me are broken - in frantic storms
hanging over cliffs i fight to mend them
the job cannot be done - i die though
if i stop
 how cynical i may be (how apt
with metaphor or joke to thrust my fate
grotesquely into print) the fact is that
i live until i stop - i can't sit down then
crying let me die or death is good
(the freedom from myself my bones are seeking)

i must go on - tread every road that comes
risk every plague because i must believe
the end is bright (however filled with vomit
every brook) - if not for me then for
those who clamber on my bones
   my hope
is what i owe them - they owe their life to me
Written by Alec Derwent (A D) Hope | Create an image from this poem

The Commination

 He that is filthy let him be filthy still. 
Rev. 22.11 

Like John on Patmos, brooding on the Four 
Last Things, I meditate the ruin of friends 
Whose loss, Lord, brings this grand new curse to mind 
Now send me foes worth cursing, or send more 
- Since means should be proportionate to ends - 
For mine are few and of the piddling kind: 

Drivellers, snivellers, writers of bad verse, 
Backbiting bitches, snipers from a pew, 
Small turds from the great **** of self-esteem; 
On such as these I would not waste my curse. 
God send me soon the enemy or two 
Fit for the wrath of God, of whom I dream: 

Some Caliban of Culture, some absurd 
Messiah of the Paranoiac State, 
Some Educator wallowing in his slime, 
Some Prophet of the Uncreating Word 
Monsters a man might reasonably hate, 
Masters of Progress, Leaders of our Time; 

But chiefly the Suborners: Common Tout 
And Punk, the Advertiser, him I mean 
And his smooth hatchet-man, the Technocrat. 
Them let my malediction single out, 
These modern Dives with their talking screen 
Who lick the sores of Lazarus and grow fat, 

Licensed to pimp, solicit and procure 
Here in my house, to foul my feast, to bawl 
Their wares while I am talking with my friend, 
To pour into my ears a public sewer 
Of all the Strumpet Muses sell and all 
That prostituted science has to vend. 

In this great Sodom of a world, which turns 
The treasure of the Intellect to dust 
And every gift to some perverted use, 
What wonder if the human spirit learns 
Recourses of despair or of disgust, 
Abortion, suicide and self-abuse. 

But let me laugh, Lord; let me crack and strain 
The belly of this derision till it burst; 
For I have seen too much, have lived too long 
A citizen of Sodom to refrain, 
And in the stye of Science, from the first, 
Have watched the pearls of Circe drop on dung. 

Let me not curse my children, nor in rage 
Mock at the just, the helpless and the poor, 
Foot-fast in Sodom's rat-trap; make me bold 
To turn on the Despoilers all their age 
Invents: damnations never felt before 
And hells more horrible than hot and cold. 

And, since in Heaven creatures purified 
Rational, free, perfected in their kinds 
Contemplate God and see Him face to face 
In Hell, for sure, spirits transmogrified, 
Paralysed wills and parasitic minds 
Mirror their own corruption and disgrace. 

Now let this curse fall on my enemies 
My enemies, Lord, but all mankind's as well 
Prophets and panders of their golden calf; 
Let Justice fit them all in their degrees; 
Let them, still living, know that state of hell, 
And let me see them perish, Lord, and laugh. 

Let them be glued to television screens 
Till their minds fester and the trash they see 
Worm their dry hearts away to crackling shells; 
Let ends be so revenged upon their means 
That all that once was human grows to be 
A flaccid mass of phototropic cells; 

Let the dog love his vomit still, the swine 
Squelch in the slough; and let their only speech 
Be Babel; let the specious lies they bred 
Taste on their tongues like intellectual wine 
Let sung commercials surfeit them, till each 
Goggles with nausea in his nauseous bed. 

And, lest with them I learn to gibber and gloat, 
Lead me, for Sodom is my city still, 
To seek those hills in which the heart finds ease; 
Give Lot his leave; let Noah build his boat, 
And me and mine, when each has laughed his fill, 
View thy damnation and depart in peace.
Written by Alec Derwent (A D) Hope | Create an image from this poem

Commination

 He that is filthy let him be filthy still. 
Rev. 22.11 

Like John on Patmos, brooding on the Four 
Last Things, I meditate the ruin of friends 
Whose loss, Lord, brings this grand new curse to mind 
Now send me foes worth cursing, or send more 
- Since means should be proportionate to ends - 
For mine are few and of the piddling kind: 

Drivellers, snivellers, writers of bad verse, 
Backbiting bitches, snipers from a pew, 
Small turds from the great **** of self-esteem; 
On such as these I would not waste my curse. 
God send me soon the enemy or two 
Fit for the wrath of God, of whom I dream: 

Some Caliban of Culture, some absurd 
Messiah of the Paranoiac State, 
Some Educator wallowing in his slime, 
Some Prophet of the Uncreating Word 
Monsters a man might reasonably hate, 
Masters of Progress, Leaders of our Time; 

But chiefly the Suborners: Common Tout 
And Punk, the Advertiser, him I mean 
And his smooth hatchet-man, the Technocrat. 
Them let my malediction single out, 
These modern Dives with their talking screen 
Who lick the sores of Lazarus and grow fat, 

Licensed to pimp, solicit and procure 
Here in my house, to foul my feast, to bawl 
Their wares while I am talking with my friend, 
To pour into my ears a public sewer 
Of all the Strumpet Muses sell and all 
That prostituted science has to vend. 

In this great Sodom of a world, which turns 
The treasure of the Intellect to dust 
And every gift to some perverted use, 
What wonder if the human spirit learns 
Recourses of despair or of disgust, 
Abortion, suicide and self-abuse. 

But let me laugh, Lord; let me crack and strain 
The belly of this derision till it burst; 
For I have seen too much, have lived too long 
A citizen of Sodom to refrain, 
And in the stye of Science, from the first, 
Have watched the pearls of Circe drop on dung. 

Let me not curse my children, nor in rage 
Mock at the just, the helpless and the poor, 
Foot-fast in Sodom's rat-trap; make me bold 
To turn on the Despoilers all their age 
Invents: damnations never felt before 
And hells more horrible than hot and cold. 

And, since in Heaven creatures purified 
Rational, free, perfected in their kinds 
Contemplate God and see Him face to face 
In Hell, for sure, spirits transmogrified, 
Paralysed wills and parasitic minds 
Mirror their own corruption and disgrace. 

Now let this curse fall on my enemies 
My enemies, Lord, but all mankind's as well 
Prophets and panders of their golden calf; 
Let Justice fit them all in their degrees; 
Let them, still living, know that state of hell, 
And let me see them perish, Lord, and laugh. 

Let them be glued to television screens 
Till their minds fester and the trash they see 
Worm their dry hearts away to crackling shells; 
Let ends be so revenged upon their means 
That all that once was human grows to be 
A flaccid mass of phototropic cells; 

Let the dog love his vomit still, the swine 
Squelch in the slough; and let their only speech 
Be Babel; let the specious lies they bred 
Taste on their tongues like intellectual wine 
Let sung commercials surfeit them, till each 
Goggles with nausea in his nauseous bed. 

And, lest with them I learn to gibber and gloat, 
Lead me, for Sodom is my city still, 
To seek those hills in which the heart finds ease; 
Give Lot his leave; let Noah build his boat, 
And me and mine, when each has laughed his fill, 
View thy damnation and depart in peace.
Written by Anne Kingsmill Finch | Create an image from this poem

The Spleen

 What art thou, SPLEEN, which ev'ry thing dost ape?
Thou Proteus to abus'd Mankind,
Who never yet thy real Cause cou'd find,
Or fix thee to remain in one continued Shape.
Still varying thy perplexing Form,
Now a Dead Sea thou'lt represent,
A Calm of stupid Discontent,
Then, dashing on the Rocks wilt rage into a Storm. 
Trembling sometimes thou dost appear,
Dissolv'd into a Panick Fear;
On Sleep intruding dost thy Shadows spread,
Thy gloomy Terrours round the silent Bed,
And croud with boading Dreams the Melancholy Head:
Or, when the Midnight Hour is told,
And drooping Lids thou still dost waking hold, 
Thy fond Delusions cheat the Eyes,
Before them antick Spectres dance,
Unusual Fires their pointed Heads advance,
And airy Phantoms rise.
Such was the monstrous Vision seen,
When Brutus (now beneath his Cares opprest,
And all Rome's Fortunes rolling in his Breast,
Before Philippi's latest Field,
Before his Fate did to Octavius lead)
Was vanquish'd by the Spleen. 

Falsly, the Mortal Part we blame
Of our deprest, and pond'rous Frame,
Which, till the First degrading Sin
Let Thee, its dull Attendant, in, 
Still with the Other did comply,
Nor clogg'd the Active Soul, dispos'd to fly,
And range the Mansions of it's native Sky. 
Nor, whilst in his own Heaven he dwelt,
Whilst Man his Paradice possest,
His fertile Garden in the fragrant East,
And all united Odours smelt,
No armed Sweets, until thy Reign,
Cou'd shock the Sense, or in the Face
A flusht, unhandsom Colour place.
Now the Jonquille o'ercomes the feeble Brain;
We faint beneath the Aromatick Pain, {6}
Till some offensive Scent thy Pow'rs appease,
And Pleasure we resign for short, and nauseous Ease. 

In ev'ry One thou dost possess,
New are thy Motions, and thy Dress:
Now in some Grove a list'ning Friend
Thy false Suggestions must attend,
Thy whisper'd Griefs, thy fancy'd Sorrows hear,
Breath'd in a Sigh, and witness'd by a Tear; 
Whilst in the light, and vulgar Croud,
Thy Slaves, more clamorous and loud,
By Laughters unprovok'd, thy Influence too confess.
In the Imperious Wife thou Vapours art,
Which from o'erheated Passions rise
In Clouds to the attractive Brain,
Until descending thence again,
Thro' the o'er-cast, and show'ring Eyes,
Upon her Husband's soften'd Heart,
He the disputed Point must yield,
Something resign of the contested Field;
Til Lordly Man, born to Imperial Sway,
Compounds for Peace, to make that Right away,
And Woman, arm'd with Spleen, do's servilely Obey. 

The Fool, to imitate the Wits,
Complains of thy pretended Fits,
And Dulness, born with him, wou'd lay
Upon thy accidental Sway; 
Because, sometimes, thou dost presume
Into the ablest Heads to come:
That, often, Men of Thoughts refin'd,
Impatient of unequal Sence,
Such slow Returns, where they so much dispense,
Retiring from the Croud, are to thy Shades inclin'd.
O'er me, alas! thou dost too much prevail:
I feel thy Force, whilst I against thee rail; 
I feel my Verse decay, and my crampt Numbers fail.
Thro' thy black Jaundice I all Objects see,
As Dark, and Terrible as Thee,
My Lines decry'd, and my Employment thought
An useless Folly, or presumptuous Fault:
Whilst in the Muses Paths I stray,
Whilst in their Groves, and by their secret Springs
My Hand delights to trace unusual Things,
And deviates from the known, and common way;
Nor will in fading Silks compose
Faintly th' inimitable Rose, 
Fill up an ill-drawn Bird, or paint on Glass 
The Sov'reign's blurr'd and undistinguish'd Face, 
The threatning Angel, and the speaking Ass.

Patron thou art to ev'ry gross Abuse,
The sullen Husband's feign'd Excuse,
When the ill Humour with his Wife he spends,
And bears recruited Wit, and Spirits to his Friends. 
The Son of Bacchus pleads thy Pow'r, 
As to the Glass he still repairs,
Pretends but to remove thy Cares,
Snatch from thy Shades one gay, and smiling Hour,
And drown thy Kingdom in a purple Show'r. 
When the Coquette, whom ev'ry Fool admires,
Wou'd in Variety be Fair,
And, changing hastily the Scene
From Light, Impertinent, and Vain,
Assumes a soft, a melancholy Air, 
And of her Eyes rebates the wand'ring Fires,
The careless Posture, and the Head reclin'd,
The thoughtful, and composed Face,
Proclaiming the withdrawn, the absent Mind,
Allows the Fop more liberty to gaze,
Who gently for the tender Cause inquires;
The Cause, indeed, is a Defect in Sense,
Yet is the Spleen alleg'd, and still the dull Pretence.
But these are thy fantastic Harms,
The Tricks of thy pernicious Stage,
Which do the weaker Sort engage;
Worse are the dire Effects of thy more pow'rful Charms.
By Thee Religion, all we know,
That shou'd enlighten here below,
Is veil'd in Darkness, and perplext
With anxious Doubts, with endless Scruples vext,
And some Restraint imply'd from each perverted Text. 

Whilst Touch not, Taste not, what is freely giv'n,
Is but thy niggard Voice, disgracing bounteous Heav'n. 
From Speech restrain'd, by thy Deceits abus'd,
To Desarts banish'd, or in Cells reclus'd,
Mistaken Vot'ries to the Pow'rs Divine, 
Whilst they a purer Sacrifice design,
Do but the Spleen obey, and worship at thy Shrine. 
In vain to chase thee ev'ry Art we try,
In vain all Remedies apply,
In vain the Indian Leaf infuse,
Or the parch'd Eastern Berry bruise;
Some pass, in vain, those Bounds, and nobler Liquors use.
Now Harmony, in vain, we bring,
Inspire the Flute, and touch the String. 
From Harmony no help is had;
Musick but soothes thee, if too sweetly sad,
And if too light, but turns thee gayly Mad. 

Tho' the Physicians greatest Gains,
Altho' his growing Wealth he sees
Daily increas'd by Ladies Fees,
Yet dost thou baffle all his studious Pains. 
Not skilful Lower thy Source cou'd find,
Or thro' the well-dissected Body trace
The secret, the mysterious ways,
By which thou dost surprize, and prey upon the Mind. 
Tho' in the Search, too deep for Humane Thought,
With unsuccessful Toil he wrought,
'Til thinking Thee to've catch'd, Himself by thee was caught,
Retain'd thy Pris'ner, thy acknowleg'd Slave,
And sunk beneath thy Chain to a lamented Grave.


Written by Mary Darby Robinson | Create an image from this poem

January 1795

 Pavement slipp'ry, people sneezing,
Lords in ermine, beggars freezing ;
Titled gluttons dainties carving,
Genius in a garret starving.

Lofty mansions, warm and spacious ;
Courtiers clinging and voracious ;
Misers scarce the wretched heeding ;
Gallant soldiers fighting, bleeding.

Wives who laugh at passive spouses ;
Theatres, and meeting-houses ;
Balls, where simp'ring misses languish ;
Hospitals, and groans of anguish.

Arts and sciences bewailing ;
Commerce drooping, credit failing ;
Placemen mocking subjects loyal ;
Separations, weddings royal.

Authors who can't earn a dinner ;
Many a subtle rogue a winner ;
Fugitives for shelter seeking ;
Misers hoarding, tradesmen breaking.

Taste and talents quite deserted ;
All the laws of truth perverted ;
Arrogance o'er merit soaring ;
Merit silently deploring.

Ladies gambling night and morning ;
Fools the works of genius scorning ;
Ancient dames for girls mistaken,
Youthful damsels quite forsaken.

Some in luxury delighting ;
More in talking than in fighting ;
Lovers old, and beaux decrepid ;
Lordlings empty and insipid.

Poets, painters, and musicians ;
Lawyers, doctors, politicians :
Pamphlets, newspapers, and odes,
Seeking fame by diff'rent roads.

Gallant souls with empty purses ;
Gen'rals only fit for nurses ;
School-boys, smit with martial spirit,
Taking place of vet'ran merit.

Honest men who can't get places,
Knaves who shew unblushing faces ;
Ruin hasten'd, peace retarded ;
Candour spurn'd, and art rewarded.
Written by George (Lord) Byron | Create an image from this poem

Remember Him Whom Passions Power

 Remember him, whom Passion's power
Severely---deeply---vainly proved:
Remember thou that dangerous hour,
When neither fell, though both were loved.

That yielding breast, that melting eye,
Too much invited to be blessed:
That gentle prayer, that pleading sigh,
The wilder wish reproved, repressed.

Oh! let me feel that all I lost
But saved thee all that Conscience fears;
And blush for every pang it cost
To spare the vain remorse of years.

Yet think of this when many a tongue,
Whose busy accents whisper blame,
Would do the heart that loved thee wrong,
And brand a nearly blighted name.

Think that, whate'er to others, thou
Hast seen each selfish thought subdued:
I bless thy purer soul even now,
Even now, in midnight solitude.

Oh, God! that we had met in time,
Our hearts as fond, thy hand more free;
When thou hadst loved without a crime,
And I been less unworthy thee!

Far may thy days, as heretofore,
From this our gaudy world be past!
And that too bitter moment o'er,
Oh! may such trial be thy last.

This heart, alas! perverted long,
Itself destroyed might there destroy;
To meet thee in the glittering throng,
Would wake Presumption's hope of joy.

Then to the things whose bliss or woe,
Like mine, is wild and worthless all,
That world resign---such scenes forego,
Where those who feel must surely fall.

Thy youth, thy charms, thy tenderness---
Thy soul from long seclusion pure;
From what even here hath passed, may guess
What there thy bosom must endure.

Oh! pardon that imploring tear,
Since not by Virtue shed in vain,
My frenzy drew from eyes so dear;
For me they shall not weep again.

Though long and mournful must it be,
The thought that we no more may meet;
Yet I deserve the stern decree,
And almost deem the sentence sweet.

Still---had I loved thee less---my heart
Had then less sacrificed to thine;
It felt not half so much to part
As if its guilt had made thee mine.
Written by Alan Seeger | Create an image from this poem

Ariosto. Orlando Furioso Canto X 91-99

 Ruggiero, to amaze the British host, 
And wake more wonder in their wondering ranks, 
The bridle of his winged courser loosed, 
And clapped his spurs into the creature's flanks; 
High in the air, even to the topmost banks 
Of crudded cloud, uprose the flying horse, 
And now above the Welsh, and now the Manx, 
And now across the sea he shaped his course, 
Till gleaming far below lay Erin's emerald shores. 


There round Hibernia's fabled realm he coasted, 
Where the old saint had left the holy cave, 
Sought for the famous virtue that it boasted 
To purge the sinful visitor and save. 
Thence back returning over land and wave, 
Ruggiero came where the blue currents flow, 
The shores of Lesser Brittany to lave, 
And, looking down while sailing to and fro, 
He saw Angelica chained to the rock below. 


'Twas on the Island of Complaint -- well named, 
For there to that inhospitable shore, 
A savage people, cruel and untamed, 
Brought the rich prize of many a hateful war. 
To feed a monster that bestead them sore, 
They of fair ladies those that loveliest shone, 
Of tender maidens they the tenderest bore, 
And, drowned in tears and making piteous moan, 
Left for that ravening beast, chained on the rocks alone. 


Thither transported by enchanter's art, 
Angelica from dreams most innocent 
(As the tale mentioned in another part) 
Awoke, the victim for that sad event. 
Beauty so rare, nor birth so excellent, 
Nor tears that make sweet Beauty lovelier still, 
Could turn that people from their harsh intent. 
Alas, what temper is conceived so ill 
But, Pity moving not, Love's soft enthralment will? 


On the cold granite at the ocean's rim 
These folk had chained her fast and gone their way; 
Fresh in the softness of each delicate limb 
The pity of their bruising violence lay. 
Over her beauty, from the eye of day 
To hide its pleading charms, no veil was thrown. 
Only the fragments of the salt sea-spray 
Rose from the churning of the waves, wind-blown, 
To dash upon a whiteness creamier than their own. 


Carved out of candid marble without flaw, 
Or alabaster blemishless and rare, 
Ruggiero might have fancied what he saw, 
For statue-like it seemed, and fastened there 
By craft of cunningest artificer; 
Save in the wistful eyes Ruggiero thought 
A teardrop gleamed, and with the rippling hair 
The ocean breezes played as if they sought 
In its loose depths to hide that which her hand might not. 


Pity and wonder and awakening love 
Strove in the bosom of the Moorish Knight. 
Down from his soaring in the skies above 
He urged the tenor of his courser's flight. 
Fairer with every foot of lessening height 
Shone the sweet prisoner. With tightening reins 
He drew more nigh, and gently as he might: 
"O lady, worthy only of the chains 
With which his bounden slaves the God of Love constrains, 


"And least for this or any ill designed, 
Oh, what unnatural and perverted race 
Could the sweet flesh with flushing stricture bind, 
And leave to suffer in this cold embrace 
That the warm arms so hunger to replace?" 
Into the damsel's cheeks such color flew 
As by the alchemy of ancient days 
If whitest ivory should take the hue 
Of coral where it blooms deep in the liquid blue. 


Nor yet so tightly drawn the cruel chains 
Clasped the slim ankles and the wounded hands, 
But with soft, cringing attitudes in vain 
She strove to shield her from that ardent glance. 
So, clinging to the walls of some old manse, 
The rose-vine strives to shield her tender flowers, 
When the rude wind, as autumn weeks advance, 
Beats on the walls and whirls about the towers 
And spills at every blast her pride in piteous showers. 


And first for choking sobs she might not speak, 
And then, "Alas!" she cried, "ah, woe is me!" 
And more had said in accents faint and weak, 
Pleading for succor and sweet liberty. 
But hark! across the wide ways of the sea 
Rose of a sudden such a fierce affray 
That any but the brave had turned to flee. 
Ruggiero, turning, looked. To his dismay, 
Lo, where the monster came to claim his quivering prey!
Written by Edgar Lee Masters | Create an image from this poem

Herman Altman

 Did I follow Truth wherever she led,
And stand against the whole world for a cause,
And uphold the weak against the strong?
If I did I would be remembered among men
As I was known in life among the people,
And as I was hated and loved on earth,
Therefore, build no monument to me,
And carve no bust for me,
Lest, though I become not a demi-god,
The reality of my soul be lost,
So that thieves and liars,
Who were my enemies and destroyed me,
And the children of thieves and liars,
May claim me and affirm before my bust
That they stood with me in the days of my defeat.
Build me no monument
Lest my memory be perverted to the uses
Of lying and oppression.
My lovers and their children must not be dispossessed of me;
I would be the untarnished possession forever
Of those for whom I lived.

Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry