Famous Defeating Poems by Famous Poets

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

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A Humble Heroine

...ritish resolved to defend it whatever did befall. 

So the French were beaten and were glad to run,
And the British for defeating them golden opinions have won
Ah through brave Captain Maclaine and his heroes bold,
Likewise Mrs Reston, whose name should be written in letters of gold....Read more of this...
by McGonagall, William Topaz


At Corfu

...
began when they stripped the postage stamps
of their lies and romance.

The chaff of the hillsides
rises like a cramp, defeating a paring of moon . . . its
hot, modest conjunction of planets . . . 

And with this sudden hard rain
the bells on the ferry boat
begin a long elicit angelus.

Two small Turkish boys run out into the storm--
here, by superstition,
they must laugh and sing--like condemned lovers,

ashen and kneeling,
who are being washed

by their dead grandmothers' ...Read more of this...
by Dubie, Norman

Aunt Imogen

...ure or the pain submits itself, 
And we are wiser than we were before.
And Imogen was wiser; though at first 
Her dream-defeating wisdom was indeed 
A thankless heritage: there was no sweet, 
No bitter now; nor was there anything 
To make a daily meaning for her life—
Till truth, like Harlequin, leapt out somehow 
From ambush and threw sudden savor to it— 
But the blank taste of time. There were no dreams, 
No phantoms in her future any more: 
One clinching revelation of what...Read more of this...
by Robinson, Edwin Arlington

Courtship

...tell her
your ***** is big, but that you cannot get yourself
to use it. Its demands are ridiculous, you say,
even self-defeating, but to be honored, somehow,
briefly, inconspicuously in the dark.

When she closes her eyes in horror,
you take it all back. You tell her you're almost
a girl yourself and can understand why she is shocked.
When she is about to walk away, you tell her
you have no *****, that you don't

know what got into you. You get on your knees.
She suddenly be...Read more of this...
by Strand, Mark

Paradise Lost: Book 12

...ou shouldest have died, 
In sin for ever lost from life; this act 
Shall bruise the head of Satan, crush his strength, 
Defeating Sin and Death, his two main arms; 
And fix far deeper in his head their stings 
Than temporal death shall bruise the victor's heel, 
Or theirs whom he redeems; a death, like sleep, 
A gentle wafting to immortal life. 
Nor after resurrection shall he stay 
Longer on earth, than certain times to appear 
To his disciples, men who in his life 
Still fo...Read more of this...
by Milton, John


The Worst And The Best

...old dog scratching
peanuts in a celluloid bag
that's the best 
spraying roaches
a clean pair of stockings
natural guts defeating natural talent
that's the best 
in front of firing squads
throwing crusts to seagulls 
slicing tomatoes 
that's the best 
rugs with cigarette burns
cracks in sidewalks
waitresses still sane
that's the best

my hands dead
my heart dead
silence
adagio of rocks
the world ablaze
that's the best 
for me....Read more of this...
by Bukowski, Charles

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