Famous Confound Poems by Famous Poets

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

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The First Walpurgis-night

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 A DRUID.


 SWEET smiles the May!

 The forest gay

From frost and ice is freed;

 No snow is found,

 Glad songs resound

Across the verdant mead.

 Upon the height

 The snow lies light,

Yet thither now we go,
There to extol our Father's name,

Whom we for ages know.
Amid the smoke shall gleam the flame;

Thus pure the heart will grow.

THE DRUIDS.

Amid the smoke shall...Read more of this...

My Cuckoo Clock

by Robert William Service
 I bought a cuckoo clock
 And glad was I
To hear its tick and tock,
 Its dulcet cry.
But Jones, whose wife is young
 And pretty too,
Winced when that bird gave tongue:
 Cuckoo! Cuckoo!

I have a lady friend
 Whom I would wed,
For dalliance should end
 In bridal bed.
Until the thought occurred:
 Can she be true?
And then I heard that bird:
 Cuckoo!...Read more of this...

280. The Kirk of Scotland's Alarm: A Ballad

by Robert Burns
 ORTHODOX! orthodox, who believe in John Knox,
 Let me sound an alarm to your conscience:
A heretic blast has been blown in the West,
 That what is no sense must be nonsense,
Orthodox! That what is no sense must be nonsense.


Doctor Mac! Doctor Mac, you should streek on a rack,
 To strike evil-doers wi’ terror:
To join Faith and Sense, upon any...Read more of this...

Psalm 8 part 1

by Isaac Watts
 v.1,2, paraphrased. 
L. M.
The hosanna of children.

Almighty Ruler of the skies,
Through the wide earth thy name is spread;
And thine eternal glories rise
O'er all the heav'ns thy hands have made.

To thee the voices of the young
A monument of honor raise;
And babes, with uninstructed tongue,
Declare the wonders of thy praise.

Thy power assists their tender age
To bring proud rebels to the ground,
To...Read more of this...

Psalm XXXV: Now Plead My Cause Almighty God

by Isaac Watts
 Now plead my cause, Almighty God,
With all the sons of strife;
And fight against the men of blood,
Who fight against my life.

Draw out thy spear and stop their way,
Lift thine avenging rod;
But to my soul in mercv say,
"I am thy Savior God!"

They plant their snares to catch my feet,
And nets of mischief spread;
Plunge the destroyers in the pit
That their own...Read more of this...

The Rape of the Lock: Canto 3

by Alexander Pope
 Close by those meads, for ever crown'd with flow'rs, 
Where Thames with pride surveys his rising tow'rs,
There stands a structure of majestic frame,
Which from the neighb'ring Hampton takes its name.
Here Britain's statesmen oft the fall foredoom
Of foreign tyrants and of nymphs at home;
Here thou, great Anna! whom three realms obey,
Dost sometimes counsel take--and sometimes tea.
Hither the heroes and the...Read more of this...

O limpid wine, wine full of sheen! Fool that I am, I'd

by Omar Khayyam
O limpid wine, wine full of sheen! Fool that I am, I'd
drink thee in such quantity, that all perceiving me from
far would my identity confound with thine, and say to
me: O master wine! tell me, whence do you come?...Read more of this...

The Task: Book I The Sofa (excerpts)

by William Cowper
 Thou know'st my praise of nature most sincere,
And that my raptures are not conjur'd up
To serve occasions of poetic pomp,
But genuine, and art partner of them all.
How oft upon yon eminence our pace
Has slacken'd to a pause, and we have borne
The ruffling wind, scarce conscious that it blew,
While admiration, feeding at the eye,
And still unsated, dwelt upon the scene.
Thence...Read more of this...

Psalm 44

by Isaac Watts
 v.1-8,8,15-26 
C. M.
The church's complaint in persecution.

Lord, we have heard thy works of old,
Thy works of power and grace,
When to our ears our fathers told
The wonders of their days.

How thou didst build thy churches here,
And make thy gospel known;
Amongst them did thine arm appear,
Thy light and glory shone.

In God they boasted all the day,
And in a cheerful throng
Did thousands...Read more of this...

Psalm 35 part 1

by Isaac Watts
 v.1-9 
C. M.
Prayer and faith of persecuted saints.

Now plead my cause, Almighty God,
With all the sons of strife;
And fight against the men of blood,
Who fight against my life.

Draw out thy spear and stop their way,
Lift thine avenging rod;
But to my soul in mercy say,
"I am thy Savior God!"

They plant their snares to catch my feet,
And nets of mischief spread;
Plunge...Read more of this...

The Boy

by Marilyn Hacker
 It is the boy in me who's looking out
the window, while someone across the street
mends a pillowcase, clouds shift, the gutter spout
pours rain, someone else lights a cigarette?

(Because he flinched, because he didn't whirl
around, face them, because he didn't hurl
the challenge back—"Fascists?"—not "Faggots"—Swine!
he briefly wonders—if he were a girl . . .)
He writes a line. He crosses out a...Read more of this...

The Discontent

by Anne Killigrew
 I.
HEre take no Care, take here no Care, my Muse,
 Nor ought of Art or Labour use:
 But let thy Lines rude and unpolisht go,
Nor Equal be their Feet, nor Num'rous let them flow.
 The ruggeder my Measures run when read,
They'l livelier paint th'unequal Paths fond Mortals tread.
 Who when th'are tempted by the smooth Ascents,
 Which flatt'ring Hope...Read more of this...

On my Aunt Mrs A. K. Drownd under London-Bridge in the QUEENS Bardge Anno 1641

by Anne Killigrew
 THe Darling of a Father Good and Wise, 
The Vertue, which a Vertuous Age did prize; 
The Beauty Excellent even to those were Faire, 
Subscrib'd unto, by such as might compare; 
The Star that 'bove her Orb did always move, 
And yet the Noblest did not Hate, but Love; 
And those who most upon their Title stood, 
Vail'd also...Read more of this...

Venus and Adonis

by William Shakespeare
 Lo, here the gentle lark, weary of rest,
From his moist cabinet mounts up on high,
And wakes the morning, from whose silver breast
The sun ariseth in his majesty;
Who doth the world so gloriously behold
That cedar-tops and hills seem burnish'd gold.

Venus salutes him with this fair good-morrow;
"O thou clear god, and patron of all light,
From whom each lamp and shining star...Read more of this...

Sonnet LX

by William Shakespeare
 Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore,
So do our minutes hasten to their end;
Each changing place with that which goes before,
In sequent toil all forwards do contend.
Nativity, once in the main of light,
Crawls to maturity, wherewith being crown'd,
Crooked elipses 'gainst his glory fight,
And Time that gave doth now his gift confound.
Time doth transfix the flourish set on...Read more of this...

Of the Terrible Doubt of Appearances

by Walt Whitman
 OF the terrible doubt of appearances, 
Of the uncertainty after all—that we may be deluded, 
That may-be reliance and hope are but speculations after all, 
That may-be identity beyond the grave is a beautiful fable only, 
May-be the things I perceive—the animals, plants, men, hills, shining and flowing
 waters,
The skies of day and night—colors, densities, forms—May-be these are, (as
...Read more of this...

Psalm 83

by Isaac Watts
 A complaint against persecutors.

And will the God of grace
Perpetual silence keep?
The God of justice hold his peace,
And let his vengeance sleep?

Behold, what cursed snares
The men of mischief spread!
The men that hate thy saints and thee
Lift up their threat'ning head.

Against thy hidden ones
Their counsels they employ,
And malice, with her watchful eye,
Pursues them to destroy.

The noble and the base
Into thy pastures...Read more of this...

Elegy IV: The Perfume

by John Donne
 Once, and but once found in thy company,
All thy supposed escapes are laid on me;
And as a thief at bar is questioned there
By all the men that have been robed that year,
So am I (by this traiterous means surprized)
By thy hydroptic father catechized.
Though he had wont to search with glazed eyes,
As though he came to kill a cockatrice,
Though he...Read more of this...

Dream Song 12: Sabbath

by John Berryman
 There is an eye, there was a slit.
Nights walk, and confer on him fear.
The strangler tree, the dancing mouse
confound his vision; then they loosen it.
Henry widens. How did Henry House
himself ever come here?

Nights run. Tes yeux bizarres me suivent
when loth at landfall soft I leave.
The soldiers, Coleridge Rilke Poe,
shout commands I never heard.
They march about, dying & absurd.
Toddlers are...Read more of this...

Sonnet 69: Those parts of thee that the worlds eye doth view

by William Shakespeare
 Those parts of thee that the world's eye doth view
Want nothing that the thought of hearts can mend;
All tongues, the voice of souls, give thee that due,
Utt'ring bare truth, even so as foes commend.
Thy outward thus with outward praise is crowned,
But those same tongues that give thee so thine own
In other accents do this praise confound
By seeing farther than...Read more of this...

Sonnet 60: Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore

by William Shakespeare
 Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore,
So do our minutes hasten to their end;
Each changing place with that which goes before,
In sequent toil all forwards do contend.
Nativity once in the main of light,
Crawls to maturity, wherewith being crowned,
Crookèd eclipses 'gainst his glory fight,
And Time that gave doth now his gift confound.
Time doth transfix the flourish set on...Read more of this...

The Eagle The Sow And The Cat

by Anne Kingsmill Finch
 THE Queen of Birds, t'encrease the Regal Stock, 
Had hatch'd her young Ones in a stately Oak, 
Whose Middle-part was by a Cat possest, 
And near the Root with Litter warmly drest, 
A teeming Sow had made her peaceful Nest. 
(Thus Palaces are cramm'd from Roof to Ground, 
And Animals, as various, in them found.) 
When to the Sow,...Read more of this...

t of the Fifth Scene in the Second Act of Athalia

by Anne Kingsmill Finch
 Enter, as in the Temple of Jerusalem,
ATHALIA, MATHAN, ABNER

[Mathan]
WHY, to our Wonder, in this Place is seen, 
Thus discompos'd, and alter'd, Juda's Queen? 
May we demand, what Terrors seize your Breast, 
Or, why your Steps are to this House addrest, 
Where your unguarded Person stands expos'd 
To secret Foes, within its Walls inclos'd? 
Can it be thought that you...Read more of this...

Reformation

by Anne Kingsmill Finch
 A Gentleman, most wretched in his Lot, 
A wrangling and reproving Wife had got, 
Who, tho' she curb'd his Pleasures, and his Food, 
Call'd him My Dear, and did it for his Good, 
Ills to prevent; She of all Ills the worst, 
So wisely Froward, and so kindly Curst. 
The Servants too experiment her Lungs, 
And find they've Breath...Read more of this...

A Word for the Hour

by John Greenleaf Whittier
 The firmament breaks up. In black eclipse
Light after light goes out. One evil star,
Luridly glaring through the smoke of war,
As in the dream of the Apocalypse,
Drags others down. Let us not weakly weep
Nor rashly threaten. Give us grace to keep
Our faith and patience; wherefore should we leap
On one hand into fratricidal fight,
Or, on the other, yield eternal right,
Frame lies...Read more of this...

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