Famous Challenging Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Challenging poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous challenging poems. These examples illustrate what a famous challenging poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Rudyard Kipling
To the City of Bombay
The Cities are full of pride,
Challenging each to each --
This from her mountain-side,
That from her burthened beach.
They count their ships full tale --
Their corn and oil and wine,
Derrick and loom and bale,
And rampart's gun-flecked line;
City by City they hail:
"Hast aught to match with mine?"
And the men that breed from them
...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
I lived on Dread --
To Those who know
The Stimulus there is
In Danger -- Other impetus
Is numb -- and Vitalless --
As 'twere a Spur -- upon the Soul --
A Fear will urge it where
To go without the Sceptre's aid
Were Challenging Despair....Read more of this...
by
Claude McKay
No engines shrieking rescue storm the night,
And hose and hydrant cannot here avail;
The flames laugh high and fling their challenging light,
And clouds turn gray and black from silver-pale.
The fire leaps out and licks the ancient walls,
And the big building bends and twists and groans.
A bar drops from its place; a rafter falls
Burning...Read more of this...
by
Luis G. Dato
I am sweetly perplexed by love sallies, releases,
By the countless retreats and the numberless captures,
By the petulant coldness and agreeable raptures,
By the whisper of phrases that hurts and then pleases,
I am drunk by the prodigal total of leases
From her body and spirit, her soul and her senses,
I revel in approaches and artless offenses,
In her challenging taunts and her tenderly teases.
Now...Read more of this...
by
John Greenleaf Whittier
The blast from Freedom's Northern hills, upon its Southern way,
Bears greeting to Virginia from Massachusetts Bay:
No word of haughty challenging, nor battle bugle's peal,
Nor steady tread of marching files, nor clang of horsemen's steel,
No trains of deep-mouthed cannon along our highways go;
Around our silent arsenals untrodden lies the snow;
And to the land-breeze of our ports, upon their errands far,
A...Read more of this...
by
Aleksandr Blok
I wait for you. The years in silence pass
And as the image, one, I wait for you again.
The distance is in flame -- and clear one as glass,
I, silent, wait -- with sadness, love and pain.
The distance is in flame, and you are coming fast,
But I'm afraid that you will change your image yet,...Read more of this...
by
Ted Hughes
His illness was something could not vomit him up.
Unwinding the world like a ball of wool
Found the last end tied round his own finger.
Decided to get death, but whatever
Walked into his ambush
Was always his own body.
Where is this somebody who has me under?
He dived, he journeyed, challenging, he climbed and with a glare
Of hair on end...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
I lived on dread; to those who know
The stimulus there is
In danger, other impetus
Is numb and vital-less.
As't were a spur upon the soul,
A fear will urge it where
To go without the spectre's aid
Were challenging despair....Read more of this...
by
Rudyard Kipling
To the City of Bombay
The Cities are full of pride,
Challenging each to each --
This from her mountain-side,
That from her burthened beach.
They count their ships full tale --
Their corn and oil and wine,
Derrick and loom and bale,
And rampart's gun-flecked line;
City by City they hail:
"Hast aught to match with mine?"
And the men that breed from them
...Read more of this...
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