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Famous Doubting Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Sidney, Sir Philip
....
Thus much my heart compeld my mouth to say;
But now, spite of my heart, my mouth will stay,
Loathing all lies, doubting this flatterie is:
And no spurre can his resty race renewe,
Without, how farre this praise is short of you,
Sweet Lipp, you teach my mouth with one sweet kisse. 
LXXXI 

O kisse, which dost those ruddie gemmes impart,
Or gemmes or fruits of new-found Paradise,
Breathing all blisse, and sweetning to the heart,
Teaching dumbe lips a noble...Read more of this...



by Coleridge, Samuel Taylor
...nd rises lightly from the bed;
Puts on her silken vestments white,
And tricks her hair in lovely plight,
And nothing doubting of her spell
Awakens the lady Christabel.
'Sleep you, sweet lady Christabel?
I trust that you have rested well.'

And Christabel awoke and spied
The same who lay down by her side-
O rather say, the same whom she
Raised up beneath the old oak tree!
Nay, fairer yet! and yet more fair!
For she belike hath drunken deep
Of all the bles...Read more of this...

by Kipling, Rudyard
...losing theirs and blaming it on you; 
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, 
But make allowance for their doubting too: 
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, 
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies, 
Or being hated don't give way to hating, 
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise; 

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master; 
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim, 
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster 
And tre...Read more of this...

by Lowell, Amy
...availled for, and those
Life's brightest stars rise from a troubled sea?
Must years go by in sad uncertainty
Leaving us doubting whose the conquering blows,
Are we or Fate the victors? Time which shows
All inner meanings will reveal, but we
Shall never know the upshot. Ours to be
Wasted with longing, shattered in the throes,
The agonies of splendid dreams, which day
Dims from our vision, but each night brings back;
We strive to hold their grandeur, and essay
To be the thi...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...gh the porch 
No more relieves the glare of yon high torch, 
Each pulse beats quicker, and all bosoms seem 
To bound as doubting from too black a dream, 
Such as we know is false, yet dread in sooth, 
Because the worst is ever nearest truth. 
And they are gone — but Ezzelin is there, 
With thoughtful visage and imperious air; 
But long remain'd not; ere an hour expired 
He waved his hand to Otho, and retired. 

XXIX. 

The crowd are gone, the revellers at rest; 
T...Read more of this...



by Milton, John
...
Of Ceres ripe for harvest waving bends 
Her bearded grove of ears, which way the wind 
Sways them; the careful plowman doubting stands, 
Left on the threshing floor his hopeless sheaves 
Prove chaff. On the other side, Satan, alarmed, 
Collecting all his might, dilated stood, 
Like Teneriff or Atlas, unremoved: 
His stature reached the sky, and on his crest 
Sat Horrour plumed; nor wanted in his grasp 
What seemed both spear and shield: Now dreadful deeds 
Might have ens...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...e Virgin pure
In Galilee, that she should bear a son,
Great in renown, and called the Son of God.
Then told'st her, doubting how these things could be
To her a virgin, that on her should come
The Holy Ghost, and the power of the Highest
O'ershadow her. This Man, born and now upgrown, 
To shew him worthy of his birth divine
And high prediction, henceforth I expose
To Satan; let him tempt, and now assay
His utmost subtlety, because he boasts
And vaunts of his great cunn...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...hand
Or counsel to assist, lest I, who erst
Thought none my equal, now be overmatched."
 So spake the old Serpent, doubting, and from all
With clamour was assured their utmost aid
At his command; when from amidst them rose
Belial, the dissolutest Spirit that fell, 
The sensualest, and, after Asmodai,
The fleshliest Incubus, and thus advised:—
 "Set women in his eye and in his walk,
Among daughters of men the fairest found.
Many are in each region passing fair
As the ...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...
Exempt from many a care and chance to which
Eye-sight exposes daily men abroad.
I to the Lords will intercede, not doubting 
Thir favourable ear, that I may fetch thee
From forth this loathsom prison-house, to abide
With me, where my redoubl'd love and care
With nursing diligence, to me glad office,
May ever tend about thee to old age
With all things grateful chear'd, and so suppli'd,
That what by me thou hast lost thou least shalt miss.

Sam: No, no, of my condition...Read more of this...

by Lowell, Amy
...
Over and over again her questions, till
He quite convinced her, every now and then
She kissed him, shivering as though doubting still.
But later when they were composed and when
She dared relax her probings, "Lottachen,"
He asked, "how is it your love has withstood
My inadvertence? I was made of wood."
She told him, and no doubt she meant it truly,
That he was sun, and grass, and wind, and sky
To her. And even if conscience were unruly
She salved it by neat sophi...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...>
His brow was bent, his eye was glazed;
He raised his arm, and fiercely raised,
And sternly shook his hand on high,
As doubting to return or fly;
Impatient of his flight delayed,
Here loud his raven charger neighed -
Down glanced that hand and, and grasped his blade;
That sound had burst his waking dream,
As slumber starts at owlet's scream.
The spur hath lanced his courser's sides;
Away, away, for life he rides:
Swift as the hurled on high jerreed
Springs to the touch h...Read more of this...

by Holmes, Oliver Wendell
...

As on the gauzy wings of fancy flying
From some far orb I track our watery sphere,
Home of the struggling, suffering, doubting, dying,
The silvered globule seems a glistening tear.

But Nature lends her mirror of illusion
To win from saddening scenes our age-dimmed eyes,
And misty day-dreams blend in sweet confusion
The wintry landscape and the summer skies.

So when the iron portal shuts behind us,
And life forgets us in its noise and whirl,
Visions that shunned th...Read more of this...

by Scott, Sir Walter
...nly might
     Chase that worst phantom of the night!—
     Again returned the scenes of youth,
     Of confident, undoubting truth;
     Again his soul he interchanged
     With friends whose hearts were long estranged.
     They come, in dim procession led,
     The cold, the faithless, and the dead;
     As warm each hand, each brow as gay,
     As if they parted yesterday.
     And doubt distracts him at the view,—
     O were his senses false or true?
     Dr...Read more of this...

by Trumbull, John
...od,
Mid loftiest branches of the wood,
In airy height, that scorn'd to know
Each flitting wing that waved below.
So doubting, on a point so nice
He deem'd it best to take advice.


Hard by there dwelt an aged Owl,
Of all his friends the gravest fowl;
Who from the cares of business free,
Lived, hermit, in a hollow tree;
To solid learning bent his mind,
In trope and syllogism he shined,
'Gainst reigning follies spent his railing;
Too much a Stoic--'twas his failing....Read more of this...

by Pope, Alexander
...low.
Some secret Truths from Learned Pride conceal'd,
To Maids alone and Children are reveal'd:
What tho' no Credit doubting Wits may give?
The Fair and Innocent shall still believe. 
Know then, unnumbered Spirits round thee fly,
The light Militia of the lower Sky;
These, tho' unseen, are ever on the Wing,
Hang o'er the Box, and hover round the Ring.
Think what an Equipage thou hast in Air,
And view with scorn Two Pages and a Chair.
As now your own, our Beings...Read more of this...

by Poe, Edgar Allan
...
Darkness there and nothing more. 

Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing, 25 
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortals ever dared to dream before; 
But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token, 
And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, "Lenore?" 
This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, "Lenore:" 
Merely this and nothing more. 30 

Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me b...Read more of this...

by Thomson, James
...lm?

LATE, in the louring Sky, red, fiery, Streaks 
Begin to flush about; the reeling Clouds
Stagger with dizzy Aim, as doubting yet
Which Master to obey: while rising, slow,
Sad, in the Leaden-colour'd East, the Moon
Wears a bleak Circle round her sully'd Orb. 
Then issues forth the Storm, with loud Control,
And the thin Fabrick of the pillar'd Air
O'erturns, at once. Prone, on th'uncertain Main,
Descends th'Etherial Force, and plows its Waves,
With dreadful Rift: fr...Read more of this...

by Petrarch, Francesco
...ect doth espy;Then looks again, and doth his own haste blameSo in a doubting pause, this cruel dameA little stay'd, and said, "The rest I callTo mind, and know I have o'ercome them all:"Then with less fierce aspect, she said, "Thou guideOf this fair crew, hast not my strength assay'd,Let her advis...Read more of this...

by Bronte, Charlotte
...ld be so, 
But soon as comes a warning word 
Of danger­straight thine anxious brow 
Bends over me a mournful shade, 
As doubting if my powers are made 
To ford the floods of woe. 

Know, then it is my spirit swells, 
And drinks, with eager joy, the air 
Of freedom­where at last it dwells,
Chartered, a common task to share 
With thee, and then it stirs alert,
And pants to learn what menaced hurt
Demands for thee its care. 

Remember, I have crossed the deep, 
And stood...Read more of this...

by Bronte, Charlotte
...ld be so, 
But soon as comes a warning word 
Of danger­straight thine anxious brow 
Bends over me a mournful shade, 
As doubting if my powers are made 
To ford the floods of woe. 

Know, then it is my spirit swells, 
And drinks, with eager joy, the air 
Of freedom­where at last it dwells,
Chartered, a common task to share 
With thee, and then it stirs alert,
And pants to learn what menaced hurt
Demands for thee its care. 

Remember, I have crossed the deep, 
And stood...Read more of this...

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Book: Reflection on the Important Things