Famous Candid Poems by Famous Poets

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

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70. Epistle to the Rev. John M'Math

...oundrels, even wi’ holy robes,
 But hellish spirit.


O Ayr! my dear, my native ground,
Within thy presbyterial bound
A candid liberal band is found
 Of public teachers,
As men, as Christians too, renown’d,
 An’ manly preachers.


Sir, in that circle you are nam’d;
Sir, in that circle you are fam’d;
An’ some, by whom your doctrine’s blam’d
 (Which gies you honour)
Even, sir, by them your heart’s esteem’d,
 An’ winning manner.


Pardon this freedom I have ta’en,
An’ if imperti...Read more of this...
by Burns, Robert


A Poem

...brook is limpid murmuring gold
the smoke is trailing meandering gold
the killers are killers
of conscience grace and candid souls
if ever they marked
the wave of anguish
a dash, a span
among the torrents of water and sweat
the rocks in hearts
the dark sinister rocks would fall.

(Translated from Urdu By Balraj Komal, Posted By Anila A.) ...Read more of this...
by Amjad, Majeed

Amateur Poet

...ks,
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 ever sold;
No copy could I give away,
For all my friends would shrink,
And look at me as if to say:
"What waste of printer's ink!"

And as I gaze at them on high,
Although my eyes are sad,
I cannot help but breathe a ...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William

An Essay on Man in Four Epistles: Epistle 1

...s soar;
Eye Nature's walks, shoot folly as it flies,
And catch the manners living as they rise;
Laugh where we must, be candid where we can;
But vindicate the ways of God to man.I. 

Say first, of God above, or man below,
What can we reason, but from what we know?
Of man what see we, but his station here,
From which to reason, or to which refer?
Through worlds unnumber'd though the God be known,
'Tis ours to trace him only in our own.
He, who through vast immensity can pierce...Read more of this...
by Pope, Alexander

Ariosto. Orlando Furioso Canto X 91-99

...y 
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 whi...Read more of this...
by Seeger, Alan


Bishop Blougrams Apology

...ou. How one acts 
Is, both of us agree, our chief concern: 


And how you'll act is what I fain would see 
If, like the candid person you appear, 
You dare to make the most of your life's scheme 
As I of mine, live up to its full law 
Since there's no higher law that counterchecks. 
Put natural religion to the test 
You've just demolished the revealed with--quick, 
Down to the root of all that checks your will, 
All prohibition to lie, kill and thieve, 
Or even to be an athei...Read more of this...
by Browning, Robert

Daisy

...s of sand! 
And yet they made my wild, wild heart 
Fly down to her little hand. 

For standing artless as the air, 
And candid as the skies, 
She took the berries with her hand, 
And the love with her sweet eyes. 

The fairest things have fleetest end, 
Their scent survives their close: 
But the rose's scent is bitterness 
To him that loved the rose. 

She looked a little wistfully, 
Then went her sunshine way-- 
The sea's eye had a mist on it, 
And the leaves fell from the d...Read more of this...
by Thompson, Francis

Essay on Man

...oar; 
Eye Nature's walks, shoot Folly as it flies, 
And catch the Manners living as they rise; 
Laugh where we must, be candid where we can; 
But vindicate(4) the ways of God to Man. 
1. Say first, of God above, or Man below, 
What can we reason, but from what we know? 
Of Man what see we, but his station here, 
From which to reason, or to which refer? 
Thro' worlds unnumber'd tho' the God be known, 
'Tis ours to trace him only in our own. 
He, who thro' vast immensity can pi...Read more of this...
by Pope, Alexander

Forth went the candid man

...Forth went the candid man
And spoke freely to the wind --
When he looked about him he was in a far strange country.

Forth went the candid man
And spoke freely to the stars --
Yellow light tore sight from his eyes.

"My good fool," said a learned bystander,
"Your operations are mad."

"You are too candid," cried the candid man,
And when his stick left the head of the learn...Read more of this...
by Crane, Stephen

Heavenly Father -- take to thee

..."Heavenly Father" -- take to thee
The supreme iniquity
Fashioned by thy candid Hand
In a moment contraband --
Though to trust us -- seems to us
More respectful -- "We are Dust" --
We apologize to thee
For thine own Duplicity --...Read more of this...
by Dickinson, Emily

Her Death And After

...scandal bear,
And the penalty for the crime!"

--When I had left, and the swinging trees
Rang above me, as lauding her candid say,
Another was I. Her words were enough:
Came smooth, came rough,
I felt I could live my day.

Next night she died; and her obsequies
In the Field of Tombs, by the Via renowned,
Had her husband's heed. His tendance spent,
I often went
And pondered by her mound.

All that year and the next year whiled,
And I still went thitherward in the gloam;
But t...Read more of this...
by Hardy, Thomas

Hymns Of The Marshes

...te and the sad discussion of sin,
By the length and the breadth and the sweep of the marshes of Glynn.

Ye marshes, how candid and simple and nothing-withholding and free
Ye publish yourselves to the sky and offer yourselves to the sea!
Tolerant plains, that suffer the sea and the rains and the sun,
Ye spread and span like the catholic man who hath mightily won
God out of knowledge and good out of infinite pain
And sight out of blindness and purity out of a stain.

As the mar...Read more of this...
by Lanier, Sidney

I Like For You To Be Still

...le, as a ring
You are like the night
With its stillness and constellations
Your silence is that of a star
As remote and candid

I like for you to be still
It is as though you are absent
Distant and full of sorrow
So you would've died
One word then, One smile is enough
And I'm happy;
Happy that it's not true...Read more of this...
by Neruda, Pablo

Master Hugues Of Saxe-Gotha

...thrusts in his nose,
So the cry's open, the kennel's a-yelp,
Argument's hot to the close.

XIV.

One dissertates, he is candid;
Two must discept,--has distinguished;
Three helps the couple, if ever yet man did;
Four protests; Five makes a dart at the thing wished:
Back to One, goes the case bandied.

XV.

One says his say with a difference
More of expounding, explaining!
All now is wrangle, abuse, and vociferance;
Now there's a truce, all's subdued, self-restraining:
Five, th...Read more of this...
by Browning, Robert

Sestina

...u go home and write: "He kissed her Anne Sexton, and she 
 returned the favor, caressing his Ted Berrigan." 

Donna was candid. "When the spirit of Ted Berrigan 
comes over me, I can't resist," she told Marvin Bell, 
while he stood dejected at the xerox machine. Anne Sexton
came by to circulate the rumor that Robert Duncan 
had flung his drink on a student who had called him Philip Levine. 
The cop read him the riot act. "I don't care," he said, "if you're Walt 
 Whitman." 

...Read more of this...
by Lehman, David

The Ballad Of The Proverbs

...cry Christmas, it comes.

So you scoff and laugh, and the fun is gone.
So you crave and spend, and lose your shirt.
So candid you are, no blow can be too low.
So good as a gift should a promise be.
So, if you love God, you obey the Church.
So, when you give much, you borrow much.
So, shifting winds turn to storm.
So loud you cry Christmas, it comes.

Prince, so long as a fool persists, he grows wiser;
so, round the world he goes, but return he will,
so humbled and beaten bac...Read more of this...
by Villon, Francois

The King and the Shepherd

...allay thy envy'd Gains, 
Unthought of, on the parcimonious Plains. 
So prov'd the Event, and Whisp'rers now defame 
The candid Judge, and his Proceedings blame. 
By Wrongs, they say, a Palace he erects, 
The Good oppresses, and the Bad protects. 
To view this Seat the King himself prepares, 
Where no Magnificence or Pomp appears, 
But Moderation, free from each Extream, 
Whilst Moderation is the Builder's Theme. 
Asham'd yet still the Sycophants persist, 
That Wealth he had c...Read more of this...
by Finch, Anne Kingsmill

The Lonely God

...he will be 
Strong, pure and proud an enemy to meet, 
Tremendous on a battle-field, or sweet 
To walk by as friend with candid mind. 
--Dear enemy or friend so hard to find, 
I yet shall find you, yet shall put My breast 
In enmity or love against your breast: 
Shall smite or clasp with equal ecstasy 
The enemy or friend who grows to Me. 

The topmost blossom of his growing I 
Shall take unto Me, cherish and lift high 
Beside myself upon My holy throne: -- 
It is not good for...Read more of this...
by Stephens, James

To His Noble Friend Mr. Richard Lovelace Upon His Poems

...r fair fortune chose, 
And as complexions alter with the climes, 
Our wits have drawn the infection of our times. 
That candid age no other way could tell 
To be ingenious, but by speaking well. 
Who best could praise had then the greatest praise, 
'Twas more esteemed to give than bear the bays: 
Modest ambition studied only then 
To honour not herself but worthy men. 
These virtues now are banished out of town, 
Our Civil Wars have lost the civic crown. 
He highest builds, w...Read more of this...
by Marvell, Andrew

Trickle Drops

...TRICKLE, drops! my blue veins leaving! 
O drops of me! trickle, slow drops, 
Candid, from me falling—drip, bleeding drops, 
From wounds made to free you whence you were prison’d, 
From my face—from my forehead and lips,
From my breast—from within where I was conceal’d—press forth, red drops—confession drops;

Stain every page—stain every song I sing, every word I say, bloody drops; 
Let them know your scarlet heat—let them glisten; 
...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt

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