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Famous Defile Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Watts, Isaac
...r pray,
Who call ill Names, and fight.

I hate to hear a wanton Song,
Their Words offend my Ears:
I should not dare defile my Tongue
With Language such as theirs.

Away from Fools I'll turn my Eyes,
Nor with the Scoffers go;
I would be walking with the Wise,
That wiser I may grow.

From one rude Boy that's us'd to mock
Ten learn the wicked Jest;
One sickly Sheep infects the Flock,
And poysons all the rest....Read more of this...



by Kipling, Rudyard
...-- ask the Yusufzaies
What comes of all our 'ologies.

A scrimmage in a Border Station --
 A canter down some dark defile --
Two thousand pounds of education
 Drops to a ten-rupee jezail --
The Crammer's boast, the Squadron's pride,
Shot like a rabbit in a ride!

No proposition Euclid wrote,
 No formulae the text-books know,
Will turn the bullet from your coat,
 Or ward the tulwar's downward blow
Strike hard who cares -- shoot straight who can --
The odds are on the chea...Read more of this...

by Wilcox, Ella Wheeler
...g mother saved from death, to be 
The slave and plaything of a filthy knave, 
Whose sins would startle hell, whose clay defile a grave.



XIX.
Their cause was right, their methods all were wrong.
Pity and censure both to them belong.
Their woes were many, but their crimes were more.
The soulless Satan holds not in his store
Such awful tortures as the Indians' wrath
Keeps for the hapless victim in his path.
And if the last lone remnants of that race
We...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...e charge of the Soul. 

Was it doubted that those who corrupt their own bodies conceal themselves;
And if those who defile the living are as bad as they who defile the dead? 
And if the body does not do as much as the Soul? 
And if the body were not the Soul, what is the Soul? 

2
The love of the Body of man or woman balks account—the body itself balks account; 
That of the male is perfect, and that of the female is perfect.

The expression of the face balks account; ...Read more of this...

by Fu, Du
...can all restrain mouth Offer goodbye return cane riding crop Temporary part end turn head Vast expanse mud defile person Listen country many dogs Although not free yoke Sometimes come rest rush about Near you like white snow Grasp hot upset how be  The boy draws shining water from the well, He nimbly lifts the bucket to his hand. He sprinkles water without soaking the earth, And sweeps so well as...Read more of this...



by Naidu, Sarojini
...d green garlands of leaves? 
Would you scare the white, nested, wild pigeons of joy from my eaves? 
Would you touch and defile with dead fingers the robes of my priest? 
Would you weave your dim moan with the chantings of love at my feast? 

Go back to your grave, O my Dream, under forests of snow, 
Where a heart-riven child hid you once, seven eons ago. 
Who bade you arise from your darkness? I bid you depart! 
Profane not the shrines I have raised in the clefts of my he...Read more of this...

by Pinsky, Robert
...of Zero.

Untrusting I court you. Wavering
I seek your face, I read
That Crusoe's knife
Reeked of you, that to defile you
The soldier makes the rabbi spit on the torah.
"I'll drown my book" says Shakespeare.

Drowned walker, revenant.
After my mother fell on her head, she became
More than ever your sworn enemy. She spoke
Sometimes like a poet or critic of forty years later.
Or she spoke of the world as Thersites spoke of the heroes,
"I think they ...Read more of this...

by Wyatt, Sir Thomas
...d hence from me she dwelleth not a mile.
In cold and storm she lieth warm and dry
In bed of down; the dirt doth not defile

Her tender foot, she laboureth not as I.
Richly she feedeth and at the richman's cost,
And for her meat she needs not crave nor cry.

By sea, by land, of the delicates, the most
Her cater seeks, and spareth for no peril.
She feedeth on boiled bacon meet and roast,

And hath thereof neither charge nor travail;
And when she list, the liquor...Read more of this...

by Carman, Bliss
...eart is false and vile.’ 
Christ said, ‘By love alone 
In man’s heart is God known; 
Obey the word no falsehood can defile.’… 

And since that day we prove 
Only how great is love, 
Nor to this hour its greatness half believe. 
For to what other power 
Will life give equal dower, 
Or chaos grant one moment of reprieve! 

Look down the ages’ line, 
Where slowly the divine 
Evinces energy, puts forth control; 
See mighty love alone 
Transmuting stock and stone, 
Inf...Read more of this...

by Kipling, Rudyard
...his vast designs--
To be scorn of our muleteers
 And the jest of our halted line.

By the picket-pins that the dogs defile,
 In the dung and the dust He lay,
Till the priests ran and chattered awhile
 And we wiped Him and took Him away.

Hushing the matter before it was known,
 They returned to our fathers afar,
And hastily set Him afresh on His throne
 Because he had won us the war.

Wherefore with knees that feign to quake--
 Bent head and shaded brow--
To this ...Read more of this...

by Wyatt, Sir Thomas
...hence from me she dwelleth not a mile. 
In cold and storm she lieth warm and dry 
In bed of down, and dirt doth not defile 
Her tender foot, she laboreth not as I. 
Richly she feedeth and at the rich man's cost, 
And for her meat she needs not crave nor cry. 
By sea, by land, of the delicates the most 
Her cater seeks and spareth for no peril. 
She feedeth on boiled, baken meat, and roast, 
And hath thereof neither charge nor travail. 
And, when she list, ...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...oppress’d—I hate him that oppresses me, 
I will either destroy him, or he shall release me.

Damn him! how he does defile me! 
How he informs against my brother and sister, and takes pay for their blood! 
How he laughs when I look down the bend, after the steamboat that carries away my woman! 

Now the vast dusk bulk that is the whale’s bulk, it seems mine; 
Warily, sportsman! though I lie so sleepy and sluggish, the tap of my flukes is death.

15
A show of the summe...Read more of this...

by Bible, The
...is the voice of my beloved
           that knocketh, saying, Open to me, my sister, my love, my
           dove, my undefiled: for my head is filled with dew, and my
           locks with the drops of the night.

22:005:003 I have put off my coat; how shall I put it on? I have washed
           my feet; how shall I defile them?

22:005:004 My beloved put in his hand by the hole of the door, and my
           bowels were moved for him.

22:005:005 I rose up ...Read more of this...

by Schiller, Friedrich von
...

But she turns her face away,
Horror-struck, and speaks the while
"Bloody tiger-feasts ne'er may
Of a god the lips defile,
He needs victims free from stain,
Fruits matured by autumn's sun;
With the pure gifts of the plain
Honored is the Holy One!"

And she takes the heavy shaft
From the hunter's cruel hand;
With the murderous weapon's haft
Furrowing the light-strown sand,--
Takes from out her garland's crown,
Filled with life, one single grain,
Sinks it in the furrow dow...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...Tartar's in the gap,
Conspicuous by his yellow cap;
The rest in lengthening line the while
Wind slowly through the long defile:
Above, the mountain rears a peak,
Where vultures whet the thirsty beak,
And theirs may be a feast tonight,
Shall tempt them down ere morrow's light;
Beneath, a river's wintry stream
Has shrunk before the summer beam,
And left a channel bleak and bare,
Save shrubs that spring to perish there:
Each side the midway path there lay
Small broken crags of g...Read more of this...

by Benet, Stephen Vincent
..., half the town WAS wrecked, no doubt -- 
Their crazy anger to assuage 
By dragging it about. 

The end? Foul birds defile my skull. 
The new king's praises fill the land. 
He clings to precept, simple, dull; 
HIS pyramids on bases stand. 
But -- Lord, how usual!...Read more of this...

by Lanier, Sidney
...That he hath put them to so foul employ
As catching villainous breath of strolling priests
That mouth at knighthood and defile the Church."
The knife . . . . . [Rest of line lost.]
To place the edge . . . [Rest of line lost.]
Mary! the blood! it oozes sluggishly,
Scorning to come at call of blade so base.
Sathanas! He that cuts the ear has left
The blade sticking at midway, for to turn
And ask the Duke "if 'tis not done
Thus far...Read more of this...

by Scott, Sir Walter
...Mother, hear a suppliant child!
                                              Ave Maria!

     Ave Maria! undefiled!
          The flinty couch we now must share
     Shall seem with down of eider piled,
          If thy protection hover there.
     The murky cavern's heavy air
          Shall breathe of balm if thou hast smiled;
     Then, Maiden! hear a maiden's prayer,
          Mother, list a suppliant child!
                                           ...Read more of this...

by Masefield, John
...hy seeds that still
Queen Helen’s beauty, Caesar’s will,
And slay them even as they kill;

Fashion an altar for a rood,
Defile a continent with blood,
And watch a brother starve for food:

Love like a madman, shaking, blind,
Till self is burnt into a kind
Possession of another mind;

Brood upon beauty, till the grace
Of beauty with the holy face
Brings peace into the bitter place;

Prove in the lifeless granites, scan
The stars for hope, for guide, for plan;
Live as a woman o...Read more of this...

by MacLeish, Archibald
...more
The steep road southward, and heard faint the sound
Of swords, of horses, the disastrous war,
And crossed the dark defile at last, and found
At Roncevaux upon the darkening plain
The dead against the dead and on the silent ground
The silent slain---...Read more of this...

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Book: Reflection on the Important Things