Famous Bewildered Poems by Famous Poets

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

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A Letter From Li Po

...s way to spring,
from Sandy Hook and Kitty Hawk they wing,
and he remembers, with the pipes and flutes,
drunk with joy, bewildered by the chance
that brought a friend, and friendship, how, in vain,
he strove to speak, ‘and in long sentences,' his pain.
Exiled are we. Were exiles born. The ‘far away,'
language of desert, language of ocean, language of sky,
as of the unfathomable worlds that lie
between the apple and the eye,
these are the only words we learn to say.
Each morni...Read more of this...
by Aiken, Conrad


At The Door

...ike the hand your father offered
Once in forgiveness and afterward
Kept to himself.

Or you can stand there briefly, as bewildered
As by the door of a walk-in time-lock safe,
Stand there and stare
At the whole concept of shutness, like a rat
Whose maze has been rebaffled overnight,
Stand still and quiver, unable to turn
Around or go left or right.

Or you can grasp it with a sly, soundless discretion,
Open it inch by inch, testing each fraction
Of torque on the spindles, on t...Read more of this...
by Wagoner, David

Craving for Spring

..., and apple- and almond- and apricot- and quince-blossom,
storms and cumulus clouds of all imaginable blossom
about our bewildered faces,
though we do not worship.

I wish it were spring
cunningly blowing on the fallen sparks, odds and ends of the old, scattered fire,
and kindling shapely little conflagrations
curious long-legged foals, and wide-eared calves, and naked sparrow-bubs.

I wish that spring
would start the thundering traffic of feet
new feet on the earth, beating ...Read more of this...
by Lawrence, D. H.

Dream On

...rect like champions.
They are smooth-spoken and witty.
When alone, rare occasion, they stare
into the mirror for hours, bewildered.
There was something they meant to say, but didn't: 
"And if we put the statue of the rhinoceros
next to the tweezers, and walk around the room three times,
learn to yodel, shave our heads, call 
our ancestors back from the dead--" 
poetrywise it's still a bust, bankrupt.
You haven't scribbled a syllable of it.
You're a nowhere man misfiring
the v...Read more of this...
by Tate, James

Dream On

...rect like champions.
They are smooth-spoken and witty.
When alone, rare occasion, they stare
into the mirror for hours, bewildered.
There was something they meant to say, but didn't: 
"And if we put the statue of the rhinoceros
next to the tweezers, and walk around the room three times,
learn to yodel, shave our heads, call 
our ancestors back from the dead--" 
poetrywise it's still a bust, bankrupt.
You haven't scribbled a syllable of it.
You're a nowhere man misfiring
the v...Read more of this...
by Taylor, Edward


Endymion: Book I

...ping fit;
Or upward ragged precipices flit
To save poor lambkins from the eagle's maw;
Or by mysterious enticement draw
Bewildered shepherds to their path again;
Or to tread breathless round the frothy main,
And gather up all fancifullest shells
For thee to tumble into Naiads' cells,
And, being hidden, laugh at their out-peeping;
Or to delight thee with fantastic leaping,
The while they pelt each other on the crown
With silvery oak apples, and fir cones brown--
By all the ech...Read more of this...
by Keats, John

Endymion: Book II

...aid to smutch
Even with mealy gold the waters clear.
But, at that very touch, to disappear
So fairy-quick, was strange! Bewildered,
Endymion sought around, and shook each bed
Of covert flowers in vain; and then he flung
Himself along the grass. What gentle tongue,
What whisperer disturb'd his gloomy rest?
It was a nymph uprisen to the breast
In the fountain's pebbly margin, and she stood
'Mong lilies, like the youngest of the brood.
To him her dripping hand she softly kist,
A...Read more of this...
by Keats, John

Hugh Selwyn Mauberly (Part I)

...e, the same
Still darts out faun-like from the half-ruin'd face,
Questing and passive ....
"Ah, poor Jenny's case" ...

Bewildered that a world
Shows no surprise
At her last maquero's 
Adulteries.

"Siena Mi Fe', Disfecemi Maremma" 

Among the pickled fœtuses and bottled bones,
Engaged in perfecting the catalogue,
I found the last scion of the
Senatorial families of Strasbourg, Monsieur Verog.

For two hours he talked of Gallifet;
Of Dowson; of the Rhymers' Club;
Told me how ...Read more of this...
by Pound, Ezra

Hyperion

...ntheming a lonely grief.
Leave them, O Muse! for thou anon wilt find
Many a fallen old Divinity
Wandering in vain about bewildered shores.
Meantime touch piously the Delphic harp,
And not a wind of heaven but will breathe
In aid soft warble from the Dorian flute;
For lo! 'tis for the Father of all verse.
Flush everything that hath a vermeil hue,
Let the rose glow intense and warm the air,
And let the clouds of even and of morn
Float in voluptuous fleeces o'er the hills;
Let t...Read more of this...
by Keats, John

Last Lines

...Jan 7th

A dreadful darkness closes in
On my bewildered mind;
O let me suffer and not sin,
Be tortured yet resigned. 

Through all this world of whelming mist
Still let me look to Thee,
And give me courage to resist
The Tempter till he flee.

Weary I am -- O give me strength
And leave me not to faint;
Say Thou wilt comfort me at length
And pity my complaint.

I've begged to serve Thee heart and soul,
T...Read more of this...
by Bronte, Anne

Lazarus

...you afraid?
Are you afraid, who have felt everything— 
And seen…?” 

But Lazarus only shook his head, 
Staring with his bewildered shining eyes 
Hard into Mary’s face. “I do not know,
Mary,” he said, after a long time. 
“When I came back, I knew the Master’s eyes 
Were looking into mine. I looked at his, 
And there was more in them than I could see. 
At first I could see nothing but his eyes;
Nothing else anywhere was to be seen— 
Only his eyes. And they looked into mine— 
Lo...Read more of this...
by Robinson, Edwin Arlington

Mazeppa

...roe -
Nor faster falls the blinding snow
Which whelms the peasant near the door
Whose threshold he shall cross no more,
Bewildered with the dazzling blast,
Than through the forest-paths he passed -
Untired, untamed, and worse than wild;
All furious as a favoured child
Balked of its wish; or fiercer still 
A woman piqued - who has her will.

XIII

'The wood was passed; 'twas more than noon,
But chill the air, although in June;
Or it might be my veins ran cold -
Prolonged endur...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)

Music

...not whence
And go we know not where,
And every inarticulate prayer
Beating about the depths of pain or bliss,
Like some bewildered bird
That seeks its nest but knows not where it is,
And every dream that haunts, with dim delight,
The drowsy hour between the day and night,
The wakeful hour between the night and day,--
Imprisoned, waits for thee,
Impatient, yearns for thee,
The queen who comes to set the captive free
Thou lendest wings to grief to fly away,
And wings to joy to ...Read more of this...
by Dyke, Henry Van

Persuasion

...character
Of oracles that quick a thousand lays,
Looked in your eyes, and seen accounted there
Solomons legioned for bewildered praise.
Now have I learnt love as love is. I take
Your hand, and with no inquisition learn
All that your eyes can tell, and that's to make
A little reckoning and brief, then turn
Away, and in my heart I hear a call,
'I love, I love, I love'; and that is all.
V 	When all the hungry pain of love I bear,
And in poor lightless thought but burn...Read more of this...
by Drinkwater, John

Rosalind and Helen: a Modern Eclogue

...hat to the evil world is due,
And therefore sternly did refuse
To link me with the infamy
Of one so lost as Helen. Now,
Bewildered by my dire despair,
Wondering I blush, and weep that thou
Shouldst love me still--thou only!--There,
Let us sit on that gray stone
Till our mournful talk be done. 

HELEN
Alas! not there; I cannot bear
The murmur of this lake to hear.
A sound from there, Rosalind dear,
Which never yet I heard elsewhere
But in our native land, recurs,
Even here whe...Read more of this...
by Shelley, Percy Bysshe

The Farewell XXVIII

...but a crystal is mist in decay? 

This would I have you remember in remembering me: 

That which seems most feeble and bewildered in you is the strongest and most determined. 

Is it not your breath that has erected and hardened the structure of your bones? 

And is it not a dream which none of you remember having dreamt that building your city and fashioned all there is in it? 

Could you but see the tides of that breath you would cease to see all else, 

And if you could h...Read more of this...
by Gibran, Kahlil

The Four Winds

...
Smote the mighty Mishe-Mokwa
In the middle of the forehead, 
Right between the eyes he smote him.
With the heavy blow bewildered, 
Rose the Great Bear of the mountains; 
But his knees beneath him trembled, 
And he whimpered like a woman, 
As he reeled and staggered forward, 
As he sat upon his haunches; 
And the mighty Mudjekeewis, 
Standing fearlessly before him, 
Taunted him in loud derision, 
Spake disdainfully in this wise:
"Hark you, Bear! you are a coward; 
And no Bra...Read more of this...
by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth

The Lady of the Lake

...ermit from his cell,
     To drop a bead with every knell!
     And bugle, lute, and bell, and all,
     Should each bewildered stranger call
     To friendly feast and lighted hall.
     XVI.

     'Blithe were it then to wander here!
     But now—beshrew yon nimble deer—
     Like that same hermit's, thin and spare,
     The copse must give my evening fare;
     Some mossy bank my couch must be,
     Some rustling oak my canopy.
     Yet pass we that; the war a...Read more of this...
by Scott, Sir Walter

The Son Of The Evening Star

...ere happy, 
All were joyous but Osseo. 
Neither food nor drink he tasted, 
Neither did he speak nor listen; 
But as one bewildered sat he,
Looking dreamily and sadly, 
First at Oweenee, then upward 
At the gleaming sky above them.
"Then a voice was heard, a whisper, 
Coming from the starry distance, 
Coming from the empty vastness, 
Low, and musical, and tender; 
And the voice said: 'O Osseo!
O my son, my best beloved! 
Broken are the spells that bound you, 
All the charms of...Read more of this...
by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth

The Three Voices

...

Her voice was very full and rich,
And, when at length she asked him "Which?"
It mounted to its highest pitch. 

He a bewildered answer gave,
Drowned in the sullen moaning wave,
Lost in the echoes of the cave. 

He answered her he knew not what:
Like shaft from bow at random shot,
He spoke, but she regarded not. 

She waited not for his reply,
But with a downward leaden eye
Went on as if he were not by 

Sound argument and grave defence,
Strange questions raised on "Why?" a...Read more of this...
by Carroll, Lewis

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