Famous Consumption Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Consumption poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous consumption poems. These examples illustrate what a famous consumption poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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...as, there’s ground for great suspicion
She’ll ne’er get better.
Enthusiasm’s past redemption,
Gane in a gallopin’ consumption:
Not a’ her quacks, wi’ a’ their gumption,
Can ever mend her;
Her feeble pulse gies strong presumption,
She’ll soon surrender.
Auld Orthodoxy lang did grapple,
For every hole to get a stapple;
But now she fetches at the thrapple,
An’ fights for breath;
Haste, gie her name up in the chapel, 2
Near unto death.
It’s you an’ Taylor 3 ...Read more of this...
by
Burns, Robert
...
Wedged in the throat,
bulging taxis and bony cabs bristled.
Pedestrians have trodden my chest
flatter than consumption.
The city has locked the road in gloom.
But when ¨C
nevertheless! ¨C
the street coughed up the crush on the square,
pushing away the portico that was treading on its throat,
it looked as if:
in choirs of an archangel¡¯s chorale,
god, who has been plundered, was advancing in
wrath!
But the street, squatting down, ...Read more of this...
by
Mayakovsky, Vladimir
...b, and dost not feel
14 My weak'ned fainting body now to reel?
15 This physic-purging-potion I have taken
16 Will bring Consumption or an Ague quaking,
17 Unless some Cordial thou fetch from high,
18 Which present help may ease my malady.
19 If I decease, dost think thou shalt survive?
20 Or by my wasting state dost think to thrive?
21 Then weigh our case, if 't be not justly sad.
22 Let me lament alone, while thou art glad.
New England.
23 And thus, alas,...Read more of this...
by
Bradstreet, Anne
...
He waited not (as ghosts oft use)
To be `dearheaven'd!' and `oh'd!'
But briskly said: "Good-evenin'; what's the news?
Consumption? After boa'd?
"Or mebbe you're intendin' of
Investments? Orange-plantin'? Pine?
Hotel? or Sanitarium? What above
This yea'th CAN be your line?
"Speakin' of sanitariums, now,
Jest look 'ee here, my friend:
I know a little story, -- well, I swow,
Wait till you hear the end!
"Some year or more ago, I s'pose,
I roamed from Maine to Floridy,
And, -...Read more of this...
by
Lanier, Sidney
...banks, on which
The happy people free from second death
Shall find secure repose; no fierce disease
No fevers, slow consumption, direful plague
Death's ancient ministers, again renew
Perpetual war with man: Fair fruits shall bloom
Fair to the eye, sweet to the taste, if such
Divine inhabitants could need the taste
Of elemental food, amid the joys
Fit for a heav'nly nature. Music's charms
Shall swell the lofty soul and harmony
Triumphant reign; thro' ev'ry grov...Read more of this...
by
Brackenridge, Hugh Henry
...swelter;
The livid cancer spread its hideous claws, clinging upon thy breasts, seeking to strike
thee
deep within;
Consumption of the worst—moral consumption—shall rouge thy face with hectic:
But thou shalt face thy fortunes, thy diseases, and surmount them all,
Whatever they are to-day, and whatever through time they may be,
They each and all shall lift, and pass away, and cease from thee;
While thou, Time’s spirals rounding—out of thyself, thyself still extricating,...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
......”
It’s no great honor, then,
for my monuments
to rise from such roses
above the public squares,
where consumption coughs,
where whores, hooligans and syphilis
walk.
Agitprop
sticks
in my teeth too,
and I’d rather
compose
romances for you -
more profit in it
and more charm.
But I
subdued
myself,
setting my heel
on the throat
of my own song.
Listen,
comrades of posterity,
to the agitator
the rabble-rouser.
Stifling
the torrents...Read more of this...
by
Mayakovsky, Vladimir
...Ay, thou art for the grave; thy glances shine
Too brightly to shine long; another Spring
Shall deck her for men's eyes---but not for thine---
Sealed in a sleep which knows no wakening.
The fields for thee have no medicinal leaf,
And the vexed ore no mineral of power;
And they who love thee wait in anxious grief
Till the slow plague shall bring t...Read more of this...
by
Bryant, William Cullen
...es in distress.
But, alas! three years after her famous exploit,
Which, to the end of time, will never be forgot,
Consumption, that fell destroyer, carried her away
To heaven, I hope, to be an angel for ever and aye.
Before she died, scores of suitors in marriage sought her hand;
But no, she'd rather live in Longstone light-house on Farne island,
And there she lived and died with her father and mother,
And for her equal in true heroism we cannot find another....Read more of this...
by
McGonagall, William Topaz
...to poise,
The quarrel lov'd, but did the cause abhor,
And did not strike to hurt but make a noise.
12
War, our consumption, was their gainfull trade;
We inward bled whilst they prolong'd our pain;
He fought to end our fighting and assay'd
To stanch the blood by breathing of the vein.
13
Swift and resistless through the land he pass'd
Like that bold Greek who did the east subdue,
And made to battles such heroic haste
As if on wings of victory he flew....Read more of this...
by
Dryden, John
...unishment
As hewing this would doe by consequent.
Nothing but age could tame it: Age came on,
And loe a lingering consumption
Devour'd the entralls, where an hollow cave
Without the workman's helpe beganne to have
The figure of a Tent: a pretty cell
Where grand Silenus might not scorne to dwell,
And owles might feare to harbour, though they brought
Minerva's warrant for to bear them out
In this their bold attempt. Looke down into
The twisted curles, the wreathing to...Read more of this...
by
Strode, William
...time—Do you see those errors, diseases, weaknesses,
lies,
thefts?
Do you see that lost character?—Do you see decay, consumption, rum-drinking, dropsy,
fever, mortal cancer or inflammation?
Do you see death, and the approach of death?...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...,
4.100 And the restraining lame Sciatica;
4.101 The Quinsy and the Fevers often distaste me,
4.102 And the Consumption to the bones doth waste me,
4.103 Subject to all Diseases, that's the truth,
4.104 Though some more incident to age, or youth;
4.105 And to conclude, I may not tedious be,
4.106 Man at his best estate is vanity.
Old Age.
5.1 What you have been, ev'n such have I before,
5.2 And all you say, say I, and something m...Read more of this...
by
Bradstreet, Anne
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