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Famous Denied Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry
...catomb prepar'd for these, 
Or human sacrifice when hecatomb 
Consum'd in vain with ceremony dire, 
And rites abhorr'd, denied the wish'd success. 
Reason is dark, else why heroic deem'd 
Fell suicide, as if 'twere fortitude 
And higher merit to recede from life, 
Shunning the ills of poverty, or pain, 
Or wasting sickness, or the victor's sword, 
Than to support with patience fully tried 
As Job, thence equall'd with him in renown. 


Shut from the light of revelation clear ...Read more of this...
by Brackenridge, Hugh Henry



...thy breast the milken way,
Thy fingers Cupids shafts, thy voyce the angels lay:
And all I said so well, as no man it denied.

But now that hope is lost, vnkindnesse kils delight;
Yet thought and speech do liue, though metamorphos'd quite,
For rage now rules the raines which guided were by pleasure;
I thinke now of thy faults, who late thought of thy praise,
That speech falles now to blame, which did thy honour raise,
The same key open can, which can lock vp a treasu...Read more of this...
by Sidney, Sir Philip
...the hero-king than his heart desired,
could his will have wielded the welcome respite
but once in his life! But Wyrd denied it,
and victory’s honors. -- His arm he lifted
lord of the Geats, the grim foe smote
with atheling’s heirloom. Its edge was turned
brown blade, on the bone, and bit more feebly
than its noble master had need of then
in his baleful stress. -- Then the barrow’s keeper
waxed full wild for that weighty blow,
cast deadly flames; wide drove and far
...Read more of this...
by Anonymous,
...o does his duty by his own,
Made himself theirs; and tho' for Annie's sake,
Fearing the lazy gossip of the port,
He oft denied his heart his dearest wish,
And seldom crost her threshold, yet he sent
Gifts by the children, garden-herbs and fruit,
The late and early roses from his wall,
Or conies from the down, and now and then,
With some pretext of fineness in the meal
To save the offence of charitable, flour
From his tall mill that whistled on the waste. 

But Philip did not ...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...death of earth.

Water and fire succeed
The town, the pasture and the weed.
Water and fire deride
The sacrifice that we denied.
Water and fire shall rot
The marred foundations we forgot,
Of sanctuary and choir.
 This is the death of water and fire.

In the uncertain hour before the morning
 Near the ending of interminable night
 At the recurrent end of the unending
After the dark dove with the flickering tongue
 Had passed below the horizon of his homing
 While the dead leave...Read more of this...
by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)



...s here." 
 The
 gentle Sage 
 At this went forward. Feared I? Half I knew 
 Despair, and half contentment. Yes and no 
 Denied each other; and of so great a woe 
 Small doubt is anguish. 
 In their orgulous
 rage 
 The fiends out-crowded from the gates to meet 
 My Master; what he spake I could not hear; 
 But nothing his words availed to cool their heat, 
 For inward thronged they with a jostling rear 
 That clanged the gates before he reached, and he 
 Turned backward slowl...Read more of this...
by Alighieri, Dante
...they could against the House conspire, 
Load them with envy, and with sitting tire. 
And the loved King, and never yet denied, 
Is brought to beg in public and to chide; 
But when this failed, and months enow were spent, 
They with the first day's proffer seem content, 
And to Land-Tax from the Excise turn round, 
Bought off with eighteen-hundred-thousand pound. 
Thus like fair theives, the Commons' purse they share, 
But all the members' lives, consulting, spare. 

Blither ...Read more of this...
by Marvell, Andrew
..., and longing unexpressed,
In pain most human, and in rapture brief
Almost divine.
Love would possess, yet deepens when denied;
And love would give, yet hungers to receive;
Love like a prince his triumph would achieve;
And like a miser in the dark his joys would hide.
Love is most bold:
He leads his dreams like armed men in line;
Yet when the siege is set, and he must speak,
Calling the fortress to resign
Its treasure, valiant love grows weak,
And hardly dares his purpose to ...Read more of this...
by Dyke, Henry Van
...ith her enclosure green, 
 As with a rural mound, the champaign head 
 Of a steep wilderness, whose hairy sides 
Access denied; and overhead upgrew 
 Insuperable height of loftiest shade, 
 Cedar, and pine, and fir, and branching palm, 
 A sylvan scene, and, as the ranks ascend, 
 Shade above shade, a woody theatre 
 Of stateliest view. Yet higher than their tops 
 The verdurous wall of Paradise upsprung; 

Which to our general sire gave prospect large 
Into his nether empire...Read more of this...
by Milton, John
...talk between, 
Food of the mind, or this sweet intercourse 
Of looks and smiles; for smiles from reason flow, 
To brute denied, and are of love the food; 
Love, not the lowest end of human life. 
For not to irksome toil, but to delight, 
He made us, and delight to reason joined. 
These paths and bowers doubt not but our joint hands 
Will keep from wilderness with ease, as wide 
As we need walk, till younger hands ere long 
Assist us; But, if much converse perhaps 
Thee satiat...Read more of this...
by Milton, John
...xt, the dear aunt, whose smile of cheer 
And voice in dreams I see and hear, -- 
The sweetest woman ever Fate 
Perverse denied a household mate, 
Who, lonely, homeless, not the less 
Found peace in love's unselfishness, 
And welcome wheresoe'er she went, 
A calm and gracious element, 
Whose presence seemed the sweet income 
And womanly atmosphere of home, -- 
Called up her girlhood memories, 
The huskings and the apple-bees, 
The sleigh-rides and the summer sails, 
Weaving th...Read more of this...
by Whittier, John Greenleaf
...neither preference or denial; 
The black with his woolly head, the felon, the diseas’d, the illiterate person, are not
 denied;

The birth, the hasting after the physician, the beggar’s tramp, the drunkard’s stagger,
 the
 laughing party of mechanics, 
The escaped youth, the rich person’s carriage, the fop, the eloping couple,
The early market-man, the hearse, the moving of furniture into the town, the return back
 from
 the
 town, 
They pass—I also pass—anything passes—none ...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt
...XVIII. 

"What could I be? Proscribed at home, 
And taunted to a wish to roam; 
And listless left — for Giaffir's fear 
Denied the courser and the spear — 
Though oft — oh, Mohammed! how oft! — 
In full Divan the despot scoff'd, 
As if my weak unwilling hand 
Refused the bridle or the brand: 
He ever went to war alone, 
And pent me here untried — unknown; 
To Haroun's care with women left, 
By hope unblest, of fame bereft. 
While thou — whose softness long endear'd, 
Though i...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)
...lar ice 
211 Clipped frigidly blue-black meridians, 
212 Morose chiaroscuro, gauntly drawn. 

213 How many poems he denied himself 
214 In his observant progress, lesser things 
215 Than the relentless contact he desired; 
216 How many sea-masks he ignored; what sounds 
217 He shut out from his tempering ear; what thoughts, 
218 Like jades affecting the sequestered bride; 
219 And what descants, he sent to banishment! 
220 Perhaps the Arctic moonlight really gave 
...Read more of this...
by Stevens, Wallace
...his flock to pick the scanty blade,
Those fenceless fields the sons of wealth divide,
And even the bare-worn common is denied.
If to the city sped—what waits him there?
To see profusion that he must not share;
To see ten thousand baneful arts combined
To pamper luxury, and thin mankind;
To see those joys the sons of pleasure know
Extorted from his fellow creature's woe.
Here, while the courtier glitters in brocade,
There the pale artist plies the sickly trade;
Here, while th...Read more of this...
by Goldsmith, Oliver
...s grew upon him day by day,  Till all his substance fell into decay.  His little range of water was denied; [3]  All but the bed where his old body lay.  All, all was seized, and weeping, side by side,  We sought a home where we uninjured might abide. [Footnote 3: Several of the Lakes in the north of England are let out to different Fishermen, in parcels marked out by imaginary lines drawn from rock to rock.] &nb...Read more of this...
by Wordsworth, William
...strained a little?
The eyes, half-turned aside?
The jade ring on her wrist, still almost swinging? . . .
The secret was denied,

He chose his favorite pen and drew these verses,
And slept; and as he slept
A dream came into his heart, his lover entered,
And chided him, and wept.

And in the morning, waking, he remembered,
And thought the dream was strange.
Why did his darkened lover rise from the garden?
He turned, and felt a change,

As if a someone hidden smiled and watched ...Read more of this...
by Aiken, Conrad
...!
     As dies in hissing gore the spark,
     Quench thou his light, Destruction dark!
     And be the grace to him denied,
     Bought by this sign to all beside!
     He ceased; no echo gave again
     The murmur of the deep Amen.
     XII.

     Then Roderick with impatient look
     From Brian's hand the symbol took:
     'Speed, Malise, speed' he said, and gave
     The crosslet to his henchman brave.
     'The muster-place be Lanrick mead—
     Instant th...Read more of this...
by Scott, Sir Walter
...fall
But thraldom to our bodies, and penance,
And afterward in hell to be y-draw,
For we *renied Mahound our creance?* *denied Mahomet our belief*
But, lordes, will ye maken assurance,
As I shall say, assenting to my lore*? *advice
And I shall make us safe for evermore."

They sworen and assented every man
To live with her and die, and by her stand:
And every one, in the best wise he can,
To strengthen her shall all his friendes fand.* *endeavour
And she hath this emprise ...Read more of this...
by Chaucer, Geoffrey
...ial; yet their native soil,Insensate to their long illustrious toil,To each denied the honours of a tomb,But deathless fame reversed the rigid doom,And show'd their worth in more conspicuous lightThrough the surrounding shades of envious night.Great Phocion next, who mourn'd an equal fate,Expell'd and exiled from his parent ...Read more of this...
by Petrarch, Francesco

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Book: Reflection on the Important Things