Famous Deadening Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Sonnet On Famous And Familiar Sonnets And Experiences

by Delmore Schwartz
 (With much help from Robert Good, William Shakespeare, 
John Milton, and little Catherine Schwartz) 


Shall I compare her to a summer play?
She is too clever, too devious, too subtle, too dark:
Her lies are rare, but then she paves the way
Beyond the summer's sway, within the jejune park
Where all souls' aspiration to true nobility
Obliges Statues in the Frieze of Death
And...Read more of this...

Speak God Of Visions

by Emily Brontë
 O, thy bright eyes must answer now,
When Reason, with a scornful brow,
Is mocking at my overthrow!
O, thy sweet tongue must plead for me,
And tell why I have chosen thee!

Stern Reason is to judgment come,
Arrayed in all her forms of gloom:
Wilt thou, my advocate, be dumb?
No, radiant angel, speak and say
Why I did cast the world away;

Why I have presevered...Read more of this...

I Dont Know If History Repeats Itself

by Yehuda Amichai
 I don't Know if history repeats itself
But I do know that you don't.

I remember that city was didvided 
Not only between Jews and Arabs,
But Between me and you,
When we were there together.

We made ourselves a womb of dangers
We built ourselves a house of deadening wars
Like men of far north 
Who build themselves a safe warm house of deadening ice.

The...Read more of this...

Plead For Me

by Emily Brontë
 Oh, thy bright eyes must answer now,
When Reason, with a scornful brow,
Is mocking at my overthrow!
Oh, thy sweet tongue must plead for me
And tell, why I have chosen thee! 

Stern Reason is to judgment come,
Arrayed in all her forms of gloom:
Wilt thou, my advocate, be dumb?
No, radiant angel, speak and say,
Why I did cast the world away. 

Why I...Read more of this...

1915

by Robert Graves
 I’ve watched the Seasons passing slow, so slow, 
In the fields between La Bass?e and Bethune; 
Primroses and the first warm day of Spring, 
Red poppy floods of June, 
August, and yellowing Autumn, so 
To Winter nights knee-deep in mud or snow, 
And you’ve been everything. 

Dear, you’ve been everything that I most lack 
In these soul-deadening trenches—pictures, books,...Read more of this...

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