Famous Debated Poems by Famous Poets

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

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A Word made Flesh is seldom

by Emily Dickinson
 A Word made Flesh is seldom
And tremblingly partook
Nor then perhaps reported
But have I not mistook
Each one of us has tasted
With ecstasies of stealth
The very food debated
To our specific strength --

A Word that breathes distinctly
Has not the power to die
Cohesive as the Spirit
It may expire if He --
"Made Flesh and dwelt among us"
Could condescension be
Like this consent of Language
This loved...Read more of this...

Dream Song 126: A Thurn

by John Berryman
 A Thurn

Among them marble where the man may lie
lie chieftains grand in final phase, or pause,
'O rare Ben Jonson',
dictator too, & the thinky other Johnson,
dictator too, backhanders down of laws,
men of fears, weird & sly.

Not of these least is borne to rest.
If grandeur & mettle prompted his lone journey
neither oh crowded shelved 
nor this slab I celebrates attest
his complex...Read more of this...

Porphyrias Lover

by Robert Browning
 The rain set early in tonight, 
 The sullen wind was soon awake, 
It tore the elm-tops down for spite, 
 And did its worst to vex the lake: 
 I listened with heart fit to break. 
When glided in Porphyria; straight 
 She shut the cold out and the storm, 
And kneeled and made the cheerless grate 
...Read more of this...

Twas Crisis -- All the length had passed --

by Emily Dickinson
 'Twas Crisis -- All the length had passed --
That dull -- benumbing time
There is in Fever or Event --
And now the Chance had come --

The instant holding in its claw
The privilege to live
Or warrant to report the Soul
The other side the Grave.

The Muscles grappled as with leads
That would not let the Will --
The Spirit shook the Adamant --
But could...Read more of this...

She staked her Feathers -- Gained an Arc --

by Emily Dickinson
 She staked her Feathers -- Gained an Arc --
Debated -- Rose again --
This time -- beyond the estimate
Of Envy, or of Men --

And now, among Circumference --
Her steady Boat be seen --
At home -- among the Billows -- As
The Bough where she was born --...Read more of this...

Song of Man XXV

by Kahlil Gibran
 I was here from the moment of the 
Beginning, and here I am still. And 
I shall remain here until the end 
Of the world, for there is no 
Ending to my grief-stricken being. 


I roamed the infinite sky, and 
Soared in the ideal world, and 
Floated through the firmament. But 
Here I am, prisoner of measurement. 


I heard...Read more of this...

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