Famous Contentions Poems by Famous Poets

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

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As I Sat Alone by Blue Ontario's Shores

...ou sped through fleeting customs, popularities? 
Can you hold your hand against all seductions, follies, whirls, fierce contentions? are
 you
 very strong? are you really of the whole people? 
Are you not of some coterie? some school or mere religion? 
Are you done with reviews and criticisms of life? animating now to life itself? 
Have you vivified yourself from the maternity of These States?
Have you too the old, ever-fresh forbearance and impartiality? 
Do you hold the lik...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt


Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie

...flowers of the garden,
Stationed the dove-cots were, as love's perpetual symbol,
Scenes of endless wooing, and endless contentions of rivals.
Silence reigned o'er the place. The line of shadow and sunshine
Ran near the tops of the trees; but the house itself was in shadow,
And from its chimney-top, ascending and slowly expanding
Into the evening air, a thin blue column of smoke rose.
In the rear of the house, from the garden gate, ran a pathway
Through the great groves of oa...Read more of this...
by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth

Hugh Selwyn Mauberly (Part I)

...d and uneducated mistress
He exercises his talents
And the soil meets his distress.

The haven from sophistications and contentions
Leaks through its thatch;
He offers succulent cooking;
The door has a creaking latch.

XI. 

"Conservatrix of Milésien"
Habits of mind and feeling,
Possibly. But in Ealing
With the most bank-clerkly of Englishmen?

No, "Milésian" is an exaggeration.
No instinct has survived in her
Older than those her grandmother
Told her would fit her station.

...Read more of this...
by Pound, Ezra

Invocation

...d invisible 
 Amid the depths of discord's sea— 
 That seem, alas! so dark to me! 
 Oppressive to a mighty state, 
 Contentions, feuds, the people's hate— 
 But who dare question that which fate 
 Has ordered to have been? 
 Haply the earthquake may unfold 
 The resting-place of purest gold, 
 And haply surges up have rolled 
 The pearls that were unseen! 
 
 G.W.M. REYNOLDS. 


 




...Read more of this...
by Hugo, Victor

On Death

..., not Soul do prey; 
No Vice there Tempts, no Terrors there afright, 
No Coz'ning Sin affords a false delight: 
No vain Contentions do that Peace annoy, 
No feirce Alarms break the lasting Joy. 

 Ah since from thee so many Blessings flow, 
Such real Good as Life can never know; 
Come when thou wilt, in thy afrighting'st Dress, 
Thy Shape shall never make thy Welcome less. 
Thou mayst to Joy, but ne'er to Fear give Birth, 
Thou Best, as well as Certain'st thing on Earth. 
Fly...Read more of this...
by Killigrew, Anne


Paradise Lost: Book 01

...mind, 
And high disdain from sense of injured merit, 
That with the Mightiest raised me to contend, 
And to the fierce contentions brought along 
Innumerable force of Spirits armed, 
That durst dislike his reign, and, me preferring, 
His utmost power with adverse power opposed 
In dubious battle on the plains of Heaven, 
And shook his throne. What though the field be lost? 
All is not lost--the unconquerable will, 
And study of revenge, immortal hate, 
And courage never to s...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

The Female of the Species

...right as femme (and baron), her equipment is the same.

She is wedded to convictions -- in default of grosser ties;
Her contentions are her children, Heaven help him who denies! --
He will meet no suave discussion, but the instant, white-hot, wild,
Wakened female of the species warring as for spouse and child.

Unprovoked and awful charges -- even so the she-bear fights,
Speech that drips, corrodes, and poisons -- even so the cobra bites,
Scientific vivisection of one nerve t...Read more of this...
by Kipling, Rudyard

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