Famous Defies Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Defies poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous defies poems. These examples illustrate what a famous defies poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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...ne trifling particular, Truth, should have miss’d him;
For, spite of his fine theoretic positions,
Mankind is a science defies definitions.
Some sort all our qualities each to its tribe,
And think human nature they truly describe;
Have you found this, or t’other? There’s more in the wind;
As by one drunken fellow his comrades you’ll find.
But such is the flaw, or the depth of the plan,
In the make of that wonderful creature called Man,
No two virtues, whatever relation the...Read more of this...
by
Burns, Robert
...eary steps o’ woe!
The trout in yonder wimpling burn
That glides, a silver dart,
And, safe beneath the shady thorn,
Defies the angler’s art—
My life was ance that careless stream,
That wanton trout was I;
But Love, wi’ unrelenting beam,
Has scorch’d my fountains dry.
That little floweret’s peaceful lot,
In yonder cliff that grows,
Which, save the linnet’s flight, I wot,
Nae ruder visit knows,
Was mine, till Love has o’er me past,
And blighted a’ my bloom;
And now, ...Read more of this...
by
Burns, Robert
...zen main.
To-day, sweet posies mark her track,
While birds sing gayly in the trees;
To-morrow morn, her sealskin sack
Defies the piping polar breeze.
So Doris is to-day enthused
By Thisbe's soft, responsive sighs,
And on the morrow is confused
By Thisbe's cold, repellent eyes....Read more of this...
by
Field, Eugene
...they are.
I ask if you know what their movement means.
You wish our situation not so far.
And everywhere, the audience defies
convention and conformity, some dressed
as though they had been made to improvise
at the last minute, some in black-tie best.
You’re happy, in new satin, having run
your fingers countless times from hip to hem –
Anastasia, whereas I am anyone
in tan, beside a jade and garnet gem.
With clarity and ease like these a-stage,
comparison with any else in ...Read more of this...
by
Reeser, Jennifer
...lthy Cocoon, why hide you so
What all the world suspect?
An hour, and gay on every tree
Your secret, perched in ecstasy
Defies imprisonment!
An hour in Chrysalis to pass,
Then gay above receding grass
A Butterfly to go!
A moment to interrogate,
Then wiser than a "Surrogate,"
The Universe to know!...Read more of this...
by
Dickinson, Emily
...will not be stayed.
His hot tyranny
Burns up every other tie;
Therefore comes an hour from Jove
Which his ruthless will defies,
And the dogs of Fate unties.
Shiver the palaces of glass,
Shrivel the rainbow-colored walls
Where in bright art each god and sibyl dwelt
Secure as in the Zodiack's belt;
And the galleries and halls
Wherein every Siren sung,
Like a meteor pass.
For this fortune wanted root
In the core of God's abysm,
Was a weed of self and schism:
And ever the Dæmonic...Read more of this...
by
Emerson, Ralph Waldo
...ure a benefit, amuse the town,
And proudly glitter in a title page.
Now, wrapt in ninefold fur, his squeamish grace
Defies the fury of the howling storm;
And whilst the tempest whistles round his face,
Exults to find his mantled carcase warm.
Now rumbling coaches furious drive along,
Full of the majesty of city dames,
Whose jewels sparkling in the gaudy throng,
Raise strange emotions and invidious flames.
Now Merit, happy in the calm of place,
To mortals as a hi...Read more of this...
by
Chatterton, Thomas
...and Mozart
must thank the Twentieth Century, for
it made you pattern, form
whose infinite
repeatability within matter
defies matter—
Malibran. Henry Irving. The young
Joachim. They are lost, a mountain of
newspaper clippings, become words
not their own words. The art of the performer....Read more of this...
by
Bidart, Frank
...r of Ridge beyond
Was no discovery.
How far is it to Hell?
As far as Death this way --
How far left hand the Sepulchre
Defies Topography....Read more of this...
by
Dickinson, Emily
...their cunning, all their strength engage,
Yet she serenely on thy bosom lies,
Smiles at their arts, and all their force defies....Read more of this...
by
Wheatley, Phillis
...xes up among the doughboys half-a-dozen poison-snakes:
Where the wily free-selector walks in armour-plated pants,
And defies the stings of scorpions, and the bites of bull-dog ants:
Where the adder and the viper tear each other by the throat,—
There it was that William Johnson sought his snake-bite antidote.
Johnson was a free-selector, and his brain went rather *****,
For the constant sight of serpents filled him with a deadly fear;
So he tramped his free-selection, m...Read more of this...
by
Paterson, Andrew Barton
...ll Sense of the Pain,
And pursue, thro' her Death, a Revenge on the Swain.
Since the Gods, and my Passion, at once he defies;
Since his Vanity lives, whilst my Character dies;
No more (did she say) will I trifle with Fate,
But commit to the Waves both my Love and my Hate.
And now to comply with that furious Desire,
Just ready to plunge, and alone to expire,
Some Reflection on Death, and its Terrors untry'd,
Some Scorn for the Shepherd, some Flashings of Pride
At len...Read more of this...
by
Finch, Anne Kingsmill
...Virtue runs before the muse
And defies her skill,
She is rapt, and doth refuse
To wait a painter's will.
Star-adoring, occupied,
Virtue cannot bend her,
Just to please a poet's pride,
To parade her splendor.
The bard must be with good intent
No more his, but hers,
Throw away his pen and paint,
Kneel with worshippers.
Then, perchance, a sunny ray
From the heaven of fire,
His lost tools m...Read more of this...
by
Emerson, Ralph Waldo
...end of his journey he ne'er can attain.
Full many a century o'er it has passed,
The might of the storm and of time it defies!
Neath the rainbow of Heaven stands free to the last,--
In the ocean it dips, and soars up to the skies.
It was not vain glory that bade its ********,
It serves as a refuge, a shield, a protection;
Its like on the earth never yet has been known
And yet by man's hand it is fashioned alone.
VIII.
Among all serpents there is one,
Born of no earthly br...Read more of this...
by
Schiller, Friedrich von
...billard Vistas ! as if
they were names for tracts of three-bedroom houses with
wall-to-wall carpets and plumbing that defies the imagination,
Then it came to me up there on Salt Creek, capital pun-
ishment being what it is, an act of state business with no
song down the railroad track after the train has gone and no
vibration on the rails, that they should take the head of a
coyote killed by one of those God-damn cyanide things up on
Salt Creek and hollow it out and ...Read more of this...
by
Brautigan, Richard
...t all your force:
These shifts refuted, answer thy appellant
Though by his blindness maim'd for high attempts,
Who now defies thee thrice to single fight,
As a petty enterprise of small enforce.
Har: With thee a Man condemn'd, a Slave enrol'd,
Due by the Law to capital punishment?
To fight with thee no man of arms will deign.
Sam: Cam'st thou for this, vain boaster, to survey me,
To descant on my strength, and give thy verdit?
Come nearer, part not hence so slight inform'd...Read more of this...
by
Milton, John
...suffering
Of struggling, lost humanity?
The torturing pain, the pining grief,
The sin-degraded misery,
The anguish that defies relief?'
'Look back again - What dost thou see?'
'I see one kneeling on the sod,
With infant hands upraised to Heaven,
A young heart feeling after God,
Oft baffled, never backward driven.
Mistaken oft, and oft astray,
It strives to find the narrow way,
But gropes and toils alone:
That inner life of strife and tears,
Of kindling hopes and lowering...Read more of this...
by
Bronte, Anne
...,Nor aught avails to check or to excite,For Love's own nature curb and spur defies.Thus, when perforce the bridle he has won,And helpless at his mercy I remain,Against my will he speeds me to mine end'Neath yon cold laurel, whose false boughs uponHangs the harsh fruit, which, tasted, spreads the painI s...Read more of this...
by
Petrarch, Francesco
...etween the tractor ruts in mud.
On the green, a junior Douglas Fairbanks,
swinging on the chestnut's unlit chandelier,
defies the corporation spears--
a single rank around the bole,
rusty with blood.
Green, tacky phalluses curve up, romance
A gust--the old flag blazes on its pole.
In the village bakery
the pastry babies pass
from milky slump to crusty cadaver,
from crib to coffin--without palaver.
All's over in a flash,
too silently...
Tonight the arum lilies fold
back nap...Read more of this...
by
Raine, Craig
...han once
Humility seemed imminent,
How many a lonely time in vain
The Second Coming came and went.
Whether he still defies or not
The failure of an angry task
That relegates him out of time
To chaos, I can only ask.
But as I knew him, so he was;
And somewhere among men to-day
Those old, unyielding eyes may flash,
And flinch—and look the other way....Read more of this...
by
Robinson, Edwin Arlington
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