Get Your Premium Membership

Famous Betraying Poems by Famous Poets

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

See also:

by Burns, Robert
...Chloris’ dearest charm—
 She says, she lo’es me best of a’.


Like harmony her motion,
 Her pretty ankle is a spy,
Betraying fair proportion,
 Wad make a saint forget the sky:
Sae warming, sae charming,
 Her faultless form and gracefu’ air;
Ilk feature—auld Nature
 Declar’d that she could do nae mair:
Hers are the willing chains o’ love,
 By conquering Beauty’s sovereign law;
And still my Chloris’ dearest charm—
 She says, she lo’es me best of a’.


Let others love t...Read more of this...



by Lehman, David
...ounter-
 terrorism unit of army intelligence.
Contrary to what the spook novels say, he found it possible to
 avoid betraying either his country or his lover.
This was the life: strange bedrooms, the perfume of other men's
 wives.
As a spy he has a unique mission: to get his name on the front 
 page of the nation's newspaper of record. Only by doing that 
 would he get the message through to his immediate superior.
If he goes to jail, he will do so proudly...Read more of this...

by Reeser, Jennifer
...In the upstairs hallway, complacent sunlight
stings the walls with gold and translucent almond
over Turkish runners betraying patterns
faded with travel.

At their raveled edges, my daughter slumbers
in the room from which this lost sun arranges
through a window high on an eastern sill of
drapes and black lacquer.

Past the pillowcase where her blonde head swivels
in a dream of chocolate, or paint and horses,
I imagined rest on the gingham, but it
proved only shad...Read more of this...

by Herrick, Robert
...s, both odd and even;
Many a glance too has been sent
From out the eye, love's firmament;
Many a jest told of the key's betraying
This night, and locks picked: yet we're not a-Maying!

Come, let us go while we are in our prime,
And take the harmless folly of the time!
We shall grow old apace, and die
Before we know our liberty.
Our life is short, and our days run
As fast away as does the sun;
And, as a vapour or a drop of rain,
Once lost can ne'er be found again;
So when ...Read more of this...

by Tolkien, J R R
...He chanted a song of wizardry,
Of piercing, opening, of treachery,
Revealing, uncovering, betraying.
Then sudden Felagund there swaying
Sang in answer a song of staying,
Resisting, battling against power,
Of secrets kept, strength like a tower,
And trust unbroken, freedom, escape;
Of changing and of shifting shape
Of snares eluded, broken traps,
The prison opening, the chain that snaps.
Backwards and forwards swayed their song.
Reelin...Read more of this...



by Wilde, Oscar
...nd the seeds,
The night that covers and the lights that fade,
The spear that pierces and the side that bleeds,
The lips betraying and the life betrayed;
The deep hath calm: the moon hath rest: but we
Lords of the natural world are yet our own dread enemy.

Is this the end of all that primal force
Which, in its changes being still the same,
From eyeless Chaos cleft its upward course,
Through ravenous seas and whirling rocks and flame,
Till the suns met in heaven and began
...Read more of this...

by Shakespeare, William
...e is born of love?
Then, gentle cheater, urge not my amiss,
Lest guilty of my faults thy sweet self prove.
For thou betraying me, I do betray
My nobler part to my gross body's treason;
My soul doth tell my body that he may
Triumph in love; flesh stays no farther reason,
But, rising at thy name, doth point out thee
As his triumphant prize. Proud of this pride,
He is contented thy poor drudge to be,
To stand in thy affairs, fall by thy side.
No want of conscience ho...Read more of this...

by Shakespeare, William
...ence is born of love?
Then, gentle cheater, urge not my amiss,
Lest guilty of my faults thy sweet self prove:
For, thou betraying me, I do betray
My nobler part to my gross body's treason;
My soul doth tell my body that he may
Triumph in love; flesh stays no father reason;
But, rising at thy name, doth point out thee
As his triumphant prize. Proud of this pride,
He is contented thy poor drudge to be,
To stand in thy affairs, fall by thy side.
No want of conscience hol...Read more of this...

by Kipling, Rudyard
...furnish or deny to each
 His consolation.

 Or, if impelled to interfere
 Exhort, uplift, advise,
 Lend not a base, betraying ear
 To all the victim's cries.

 Only the Lord can understand
 When those first pangs begin,
 How much is reflex action and
 How much is really sin.

 E'en from good words thyself refrain,
 And tremblingly admit
 There is no anodyne for pain
 Except the shock of it.

 So, when thine own dark hour shall fall,
 Unchallenged canst thou sa...Read more of this...

by Kipling, Rudyard
...,
 Have been used by every Hobden since a Hobden swapped a
 hedge.

Shall I dog his morning progress o'er the track-betraying dew?
Demand his dinner-basket into which my pheasant flew?
Confiscate his evening ****** under which my conies ran,
And summons him to judgment? I would sooner summons Pan.

His dead are in the churchyard--thirty generations laid.
Their names were old in history when Domesday Book was made;
 And the passion and the piety and prowess of his ...Read more of this...

by Pushkin, Alexander
...ot, but kiss too well:
Shield thee, love, from evil preying,
From new heart-wounds---that it can,
From forgetting, from betraying
Guards thee this my talisman."...Read more of this...

by Cavafy, Constantine P
...Honor to those who in the life they lead
define and guard a Thermopylae.
Never betraying what is right,
consistent and just in all they do
but showing pity also, and compassion;
generous when they're rich, and when they're poor,
still generous in small ways,
still helping as much as they can;
always speaking the truth,
yet without hating those who lie.
And even more honor is due to them
when they foresee (as many do foresee)
that E...Read more of this...

by Finch, Anne Kingsmill
...t. 
But when this Barrier I have gain'd, 
And trust it will be well maintain'd; 
Who knows, but some imprudent She 
Betraying what's secur'd by me, 
Shall yield thro' Verse, or stronger Charms, 
To Treat anew on easier Terms? 


And I be negligently told– 
You was too Young, and I too Old, 
To have our distant Maxims hold....Read more of this...

Dont forget to view our wonderful member Betraying poems.


Book: Reflection on the Important Things