Famous Blot Out Poems by Famous Poets

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

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From "Byron"

by Joaquin Miller
In men whom men condemn as ill
I find so much of goodness still,
In men whom men pronounce divine
I find so much of sin and blot,
I do not dare to draw a line
Between the two, where God has not....Read more of this...

Amateur Poet

by Robert William Service
 You see that sheaf of slender books
Upon the topmost shelf,
At which no browser ever looks,
Because they're by . . . myself;
They're neatly bound in navy blue,
But no one ever heeds;
Their print is clear and candid too,
Yet no one ever reads.

Poor wistful books! How much they cost
To me in time and gold!
I count them now as labour lost,
For none I...Read more of this...

Death Of A Cockroach

by Robert William Service
 I opened wide the bath-room door,
And all at once switched on the light,
When moving swift across the floor
I saw a streak of ebon bright:
Then quick, with slipper in my hand,
Before it could escape,--I slammed.
I missed it once, I missed it twice,
But got it ere it gained its lair.
I fear my words were far from nice,
Though d----s with me are...Read more of this...

The Flaâneur

by Oliver Wendell Holmes
 I love all sights of earth and skies, 
From flowers that glow to stars that shine; 
The comet and the penny show, 
All curious things, above, below, 
Hold each in turn my wandering eyes: 
I claim the Christian Pagan's line, 
Humani nihil, -- even so, -- 
And is not human life divine? 
When soft the western breezes blow, 
And...Read more of this...

Hymn To Death

by William Cullen Bryant
 Oh! could I hope the wise and pure in heart
Might hear my song without a frown, nor deem
My voice unworthy of the theme it tries,--
I would take up the hymn to Death, and say
To the grim power, The world hath slandered thee
And mocked thee. On thy dim and shadowy brow
They place an iron crown, and call thee king
Of terrors,...Read more of this...

I wish that God would reconstruct the world, I wish

by Omar Khayyam
I wish that God would reconstruct the world, I wish
that He would actually reconstruct it and that I might see
Him at the work. I wish that He would blot my name
from the register of life, or that out of His mysterious
treasure, He would swell the joys of my existence....Read more of this...

Sestina: Altaforte

by Ezra Pound
 LOQUITUR: En Bertans de Born. Dante Alighieri put this man in hell
for that he was a stirrer up of strife. Eccovi! Judge ye! Have I dug
him up again? The scene is at his castle, Altaforte. "Papiols" is his
jongleur. "The Leopard," the device of Richard Coeur de Lion.

I

Damn it all! all this our South stinks peace.
You whoreson dog, Papiols, come!...Read more of this...

Friends Departed

by Henry Vaughan
 They are all gone into the world of light! 
And I alone sit ling'ring here; 
Their very memory is fair and bright, 
And my sad thoughts doth clear. 

It glows and glitters in my cloudy breast,
Like stars upon some gloomy grove, 
Or those faint beams in which this hill is drest 
After the sun's remove. 

I see them walking...Read more of this...

Good Friday

by George Herbert
 O my chief good, 
How shall I measure out thy blood? 
How shall I count what thee befell, 
And each grief tell? 

Shall I thy woes
Number according to thy foes? 
Or, since one star show'd thy first breath, 
Shall all thy death? 

Or shall each leaf, 
Which falls in Autumn, score a grief? 
Or cannot leaves, but fruit be...Read more of this...

Sonnet XXI: A Witless Galant

by Michael Drayton
 A witless gallant a young wench that woo'd 
(Yet his dull spirit her not one jot could move), 
Entreated me, as e'er I wish'd his good, 
To write him but one sonnet to his love; 
When I, as fast as e'er my pen could trot, 
Pour'd out what first from quick invention came, 
Nor never stood one word thereof...Read more of this...

A Ramble in St. Jamess Park

by John Wilmot
 Much wine had passed, with grave discourse
Of who fucks who, and who does worse
(Such as you usually do hear
From those that diet at the Bear),
When I, who still take care to see
Drunkenness relieved by lechery,
Went out into St. James's Park
To cool my head and fire my heart.
But though St. James has th' honor on 't,
'Tis consecrate to prick and...Read more of this...

Harlan Sewall

by Edgar Lee Masters
 You never understood, O unknown one,
Why it was I repaid
Your devoted friendship and delicate ministrations
First with diminished thanks,
Afterward by gradually withdrawing my presence from you,
So that I might not be compelled to thank you,
And then with silence which followed upon
Our final Separation.
You had cured my diseased soul. But to cure it
You saw my disease, you knew my secret,
And that...Read more of this...

Rome Unvisited

by Oscar Wilde
 I.


The corn has turned from grey to red,
Since first my spirit wandered forth
From the drear cities of the north,
And to Italia's mountains fled.

And here I set my face towards home,
For all my pilgrimage is done,
Although, methinks, yon blood-red sun
Marshals the way to Holy Rome.

O Blessed Lady, who dost hold
Upon the seven hills thy reign!
O Mother without blot or stain,
Crowned...Read more of this...

A Minor Poet

by Amy Levy
 "What should such fellows as I do,
Crawling between earth and heaven?"


Here is the phial; here I turn the key
Sharp in the lock. Click!--there's no doubt it turned.
This is the third time; there is luck in threes--
Queen Luck, that rules the world, befriend me now
And freely I'll forgive you many wrongs!
Just as the draught began to work, first time,
Tom Leigh,...Read more of this...

The Poet Fears Failure

by Erica Jong
 The poet fears failure
& so she says
"Hold on pen--
what if the critics
hate me?"
& with that question
she blots out more lines
than any critic could.

The critic is only doing his job:
keeping the poet lonely.
He barks
like a dog at the door
when the master comes home.

It's in his doggy nature.
If he didn't know the poet
for the boss,
he wouldn't bark so loud.

& the poet?
It's...Read more of this...

Byron

by Joaquin Miller
 IN men whom men condemn as ill 
I find so much of goodness still, 
In men whom men pronounce divine 
I find so much of sin and blot, 
I do not dare to draw a line 
Between the two, where God has not....Read more of this...

The Fallen Angels

by Anne Sexton
 They come on to my clean
sheet of paper and leave a Rorschach blot.
They do not do this to be mean,
they do it to give me a sign
they want me, as Aubrey Beardsley once said,
to shove it around till something comes.
Clumsy as I am,
I do it.
For I am like them -
both saved and lost,
tumbling downward like Humpty Dumpty
off the alphabet.

Each...Read more of this...

They are all Gone into the World of Light

by Henry Vaughan
 1 They are all gone into the world of light!
2 And I alone sit ling'ring here;
3 Their very memory is fair and bright,
4 And my sad thoughts doth clear.

5 It glows and glitters in my cloudy breast,
6 Like stars upon some gloomy grove,
7 Or those faint beams in which this hill is drest,
8 After the sun's remove.

9 I see...Read more of this...

Sonnet XCV

by William Shakespeare
 How sweet and lovely dost thou make the shame
Which, like a canker in the fragrant rose,
Doth spot the beauty of thy budding name!
O, in what sweets dost thou thy sins enclose!
That tongue that tells the story of thy days,
Making lascivious comments on thy sport,
Cannot dispraise but in a kind of praise;
Naming thy name blesses an ill report.
O, what a...Read more of this...

The French Revolution (excerpt)

by William Blake
 Thee the ancientest peer, Duke of Burgundy, rose from the monarch's right hand, red as wines
From his mountains; an odor of war, like a ripe vineyard, rose from his garments,
And the chamber became as a clouded sky; o'er the council he stretch'd his red limbs,
Cloth'd in flames of crimson; as a ripe vineyard stretches over sheaves of corn,
The fierce...Read more of this...

Friend! trouble not yourself about your lot,

by Omar Khayyam
Friend! trouble not yourself about your lot,
Let futile care and sorrow be forgot;
Since this life's vesture crumbles into dust,
What matters stain of word or deed, or blot?...Read more of this...

The Faerie Queene Book III Canto VI

by Edmund Spenser
The birth of faire Belphoebe and
Of Amoret is told.
The Gardins of Adonis fraught
With pleasures manifold.
 
And gentle sprite deforme with rude rusticity.
 But to this faire Belphoebe in her berth
The heauens so fauourable were and free,
Looking with myld aspect vpon the earth,
In th'Horoscope of her natiuitee,
That all the gifts of grace and chastitee
On her they poured forth of plenteous horne;
Ioue...Read more of this...

Lambert Hutchins

by Edgar Lee Masters
 I have two monuments besides this granite obelisk:
One, the house I built on the hill,
With its spires, bay windows, and roof of slate;
The other, the lake-front in Chicago,
Where the railroad keeps a switching yard,
With whistling engines and crunching wheels,
And smoke and soot thrown over the city,
And the crash of cars along the boulevard, --
A blot like a hog-pen on...Read more of this...

155. Epistle to Mrs. Scott of Wauchope House

by Robert Burns
 GUDEWIFE,I MIND it weel in early date,
When I was bardless, young, and blate,
 An’ first could thresh the barn,
Or haud a yokin’ at the pleugh;
An, tho’ forfoughten sair eneugh,
 Yet unco proud to learn:
When first amang the yellow corn
 A man I reckon’d was,
An’ wi’ the lave ilk merry morn
 Could rank my rig and lass,
 Still shearing, and...Read more of this...

The Rhyme Of The Restless Ones

by Robert William Service
 We couldn't sit and study for the law;
 The stagnation of a bank we couldn't stand;
For our riot blood was surging, and we didn't need much urging
 To excitements and excesses that are banned.
So we took to wine and drink and other things,
 And the devil in us struggled to be free;
Till our friends rose up in wrath, and...Read more of this...

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