Famous Complaint Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Complaint poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous complaint poems. These examples illustrate what a famous complaint poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Gibran, Kahlil
...ng
To you the breath of this dying youth? Is there any
Secret communication between angels that will carry to
You my complaint?
Where are you, my beautiful star? The obscurity of life
Has cast me upon its bosom; sorrow has conquered me.
Sail your smile into the air; it will reach and enliven me!
Breathe your fragrance into the air; it will sustain me!
Where are you, me beloved?
Oh, how great is Love!
And how little am I!...Read more of this...
by
Shakespeare, William
...FROM off a hill whose concave womb reworded
A plaintful story from a sistering vale,
My spirits to attend this double voice accorded,
And down I laid to list the sad-tuned tale;
Ere long espied a fickle maid full pale,
Tearing of papers, breaking rings a-twain,
Storming her world with sorrow's wind and rain.
Upon her head a platted hive of straw,
Whic...Read more of this...
by
Robinson, Edwin Arlington
...we make it so, an antidote
For the same poison that afflicted us.’
I’m witness to the poison, but the cure
Of my complaint is not, for me, in Time.
There may be doctors in eternity
To deal with it, but they are not here now.
There’s no specific for my three diseases
That I could swallow, even if I should find it,
And I shall never find it here on earth.”
“Mightn’t it be as well, my friend,” I said,
“For you to contemplate the uncompleted
With not suc...Read more of this...
by
Ginsberg, Allen
...Take my love, it is not true,
So let it tempt no body new;
Take my lady, she will sigh
For my bed where'er I lie;
Take them, said the skeleton,
But leave my bones alone.
Take my raiment, now grown cold,
To give to some poor poet old;
Take the skin that hoods this truth
If his age would wear my youth;
Take them, said the skeleton,
But ...Read more of this...
by
Stojanovic, Dejan
...ale and a violin.
Nature rewards and punishes
By offering unpredictable ways;
Art is apotheosis;
Often, the complaint of beauty.
Nature is an outcry,
Unpolished truth;
The art—a euphemism—
Tamed wilderness. ...Read more of this...
by
Keats, John
...de home
Of thy capacious bosom ever flow.
Thou frownest, and old Eolus thy foe
Skulks to his cavern, 'mid the gruff complaint
Of all his rebel tempests. Dark clouds faint
When, from thy diadem, a silver gleam
Slants over blue dominion. Thy bright team
Gulphs in the morning light, and scuds along
To bring thee nearer to that golden song
Apollo singeth, while his chariot
Waits at the doors of heaven. Thou art not
For scenes like this: an empire stern hast thou;
...Read more of this...
by
Bronte, Anne
...e 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,
To sacrifice to Thee
No niggard portion, but the whole
Of my identity.
I hoped amid the brave and strong
My portioned task might lie,
To toil amid the labouring throng
With purpose pure and high.
But Thou hast fixed another part,
And Thou hast fixed it well;
I said so with my breaking heart
...Read more of this...
by
Shelley, Percy Bysshe
...nt
On the dark, the silent stream; 10
The champak odours fail
Like sweet thoughts in a dream;
The nightingale's complaint
It dies upon her heart,
As I must die on thine, 15
O belov¨¨d, as thou art!
O lift me from the grass!
I die, I faint, I fail!
Let thy love in kisses rain
On my lips and eyelids pale. 20
My cheek is cold and white, alas!
My heart beats loud and fast;
O press it close to thine again
Where it will break at last! ...Read more of this...
by
Koch, Kenneth
...d on the Appia
Antica one tomb
May hide a number of other tombs. In love, one reproach may hide another,
One small complaint may hide a great one.
One injustice may hide another—one colonial may hide another,
One blaring red uniform another, and another, a whole column. One bath
may hide another bath
As when, after bathing, one walks out into the rain.
One idea may hide another: Life is simple
Hide Life is incredibly complex, as in the prose of Gertrude Stei...Read more of this...
by
Milton, John
...he partner of my life;
Whose failing, while her faith to me remains,
I should conceal, and not expose to blame
By my complaint: but strict necessity
Subdues me, and calamitous constraint;
Lest on my head both sin and punishment,
However insupportable, be all
Devolved; though should I hold my peace, yet thou
Wouldst easily detect what I conceal.--
This Woman, whom thou madest to be my help,
And gavest me as thy perfect gift, so good,
So fit, so acceptable, so di...Read more of this...
by
Milton, John
...h th' afflicted in his pangs thir sound
Little prevails, or rather seems a tune,
Harsh, and of dissonant mood from his complaint,
Unless he feel within
Some sourse of consolation from above;
Secret refreshings, that repair his strength,
And fainting spirits uphold.
God of our Fathers, what is man!
That thou towards him with hand so various,
Or might I say contrarious,
Temperst thy providence through his short course,
Not evenly, as thou rul'st
The Angelic orders and inf...Read more of this...
by
Bronte, Anne
...trove;
And still hast borne, and didst not faint," -
Oh, this would be reward indeed!'
'Press forward, then, without complaint;
Labour and love - and such shall be thy meed.'...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...d some corpse—the flag-tops are draped with black muslin.)
I hear the violoncello (’tis the young man’s heart’s complaint;)
I hear the key’d cornet—it glides quickly in through my ears;
It shakes mad-sweet pangs through my belly and breast.
I hear the chorus—it is a grand opera;
Ah, this indeed is music! This suits me.
A tenor large and fresh as the creation fills me;
The orbic flex of his mouth is pouring and filling me full.
I hear the...Read more of this...
by
Wordsworth, William
...d a crackling noise. This circumstance is alluded to in the first stanza of the following poem.] THE COMPLAINT, etc. Before I see another day, Oh let my body die away! In sleep I heard the northern gleams; The stars they were among my dreams; In sleep did I behold the skies, I saw the crackling flashes drive; And yet they are upon my eyes,&nb...Read more of this...
by
Bridges, Robert Seymour
...in to read, even by those shadows quaint,
How rude catastrophe had dim'd his day,
And blighted all his cheer with stern complaint:
To arms! to arms! what more the voice would say
Was swallow'd in the valleys, and grew faint
Upon the thin air, as he pass'd away.
54
Since not the enamour'd sun with glance more fond
Kisses the foliage of his sacred tree,
Than doth my waking thought arise on thee,
Loving none near thee, like thee nor beyond;
Nay, since I am sworn thy slave,...Read more of this...
by
Chaucer, Geoffrey
...e temple sat Mischance,
With discomfort and sorry countenance;
Eke saw I Woodness* laughing in his rage, *Madness
Armed Complaint, Outhees*, and fierce Outrage; *Outcry
The carrain* in the bush, with throat y-corve**, *corpse **slashed
A thousand slain, and not *of qualm y-storve*; *dead of sickness*
The tyrant, with the prey by force y-reft;
The town destroy'd, that there was nothing left.
Yet saw I brent* the shippes hoppesteres, *burnt
The hunter strangled with th...Read more of this...
by
Killigrew, Anne
...he sad Relief
Of Sighs and Tears, to ease oppressing Grief.
Near to the Mourning Nimph she chose a Seat,
And these Complaints did to the Shades repeat.
Ah wretched, truly wretched Humane Race!
Your Woes from what Beginning shall I trace,
Where End, from your first feeble New-born Cryes,
To the last Tears that wet your dying Eyes?
Man, Common Foe, assail'd on ev'ry hand,
Finds that no Ill does Neuter by him stand,
Inexorable Death, Lean Poverty,
Pale Sickness,...Read more of this...
by
Petrarch, Francesco
...esire should little think;But ah! concealment makes not sorrow less,Complaint embitters not the mind's distress,Feeling with fiction cannot swell and shrink,But surely then at least the veil was raised,You only present when your verse I praised,And whispering sang, 'Love dares not more to say.'Read more of this...
by
Auden, Wystan Hugh (W H)
...He was found by the Bureau of Statistics to beOne against whom there was no official complaint,And all the reports on his conduct agreeThat, in the modern sense of an old-fashioned word, he was asaint,For in everything he did he served the Greater Community.Except for the War till the day he retiredHe worked in a factory and never got fired,But satisfied his employers, Fudge Motors Inc.Yet he wasn't a scab or ...Read more of this...
by
Padel, Ruth
...ken. You're so much in
The world; while I just live here, bent on jam
And harvest, songs and books. That's not complaint.
We live such different lives. So - this is the end. It's taken
All night. I'm scared to read it back. I'm faint
With shame and fear. But this is what I am. My crumpled bed,
My words, my open self. All I can do is trust
The whole damn lot of it to you."
*
She sighs. The paper trembles as she presses down
Th...Read more of this...
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