Famous Enmity Poems by Famous Poets

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

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On Seeing A Piece Of Our Artillery Brought Into Action

by Wilfred Owen
 Be slowly lifted up, thou long black arm,
Great gun towering towards Heaven, about to curse;
Sway steep against them, and for years rehearse
Huge imprecations like a blasting charm!
Reach at that Arrogance which needs thy harm,
And beat it down before its sins grow worse;
Spend our resentment, cannon,--yea, disburse
Our gold in shapes of flame, our breaths in storm.

Yet, for men's sakes whom...Read more of this...

Foes

by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
 Thank Fate for foes! I hold mine dear 
As valued friends. He cannot know 
The zest of life who runneth here 
His earthly race without a foe.

I saw a prize, "Run," cried my friend; 
"'T is thine to claim without a doubt." 
But ere I half-way reached the end, 
I felt my strength was giving out.

My foe looked on...Read more of this...

Quiet Work

by Matthew Arnold
 One lesson, Nature, let me learn of thee, 
One lesson which in every wind is blown, 
One lesson of two duties kept at one 
Though the loud world proclaim their enmity-- 

Of toil unsever'd from tranquility! 
Of labor, that in lasting fruit outgrows 
Far noisier schemes, accomplish'd in repose, 
Too great for haste, too high for rivalry. 

Yes, while...Read more of this...

An Island

by Edwin Arlington Robinson
 Take it away, and swallow it yourself. 
Ha! Look you, there’s a rat. 
Last night there were a dozen on that shelf, 
And two of them were living in my hat. 
Look! Now he goes, but he’ll come back—
Ha? But he will, I say … 
Il reviendra-z-à Pâques, 
Ou à la Trinité …
Be very sure that he’ll return again;...Read more of this...

The Wilderness

by Edwin Arlington Robinson
 Come away! come away! there’s a frost along the marshes, 
And a frozen wind that skims the shoal where it shakes the dead black water;
There’s a moan across the lowland and a wailing through the woodland 
Of a dirge that sings to send us back to the arms of those that love us. 
There is nothing left but ashes...Read more of this...

Hymn 107

by Isaac Watts
 The fall and recovery of man; or, Christ and Satan at enmity.

Gen. 3:1,15,17; Gal. 4:4; Col. 2:15. 

Deceived by subtle snares of hell,
Adam, our head, our father, fell;
When Satan, in the serpent hid,
Proposed the fruit that God forbid.

Death was the threat'ning: death began
To take possession of the man
His unborn race received the wound,
And heavy curses smote the ground.

But Satan...Read more of this...

Sonnet 55: Not marble nor the gilded monuments

by William Shakespeare
 Not marble, nor the gilded monuments
Of princes shall outlive this powerful rhyme,
But you shall shine more bright in these contents
Than unswept stone besmeared with sluttish time.
When wasteful war shall statues overturn,
And broils root out the work of masonry,
Nor Mars his sword, nor war's quick fire shall burn
The living record of your memory.
'Gainst death and all-oblivious enmity
Shall you pace forth;...Read more of this...

Auguries Of Innocence

by William Blake
 To see a world in a grain of sand
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour.
A robin redbreast in a cage
Puts all heaven in a rage.
A dove-house filled with doves and pigeons
Shudders hell through all its regions.
A dog starved at his master's gate
Predicts the ruin of the state.
A horse...Read more of this...

James Simmons R.i.p

by Barry Tebb
 You were the one I wanted most to know

So like yet unlike, like fire and snow,

The casual voice, the sharp invective,

The barbed wit, the lapsed Irish Protestant

Who never gave a ****, crossed the palms

Of the great and good with coins hot with contempt

For the fakers and the tricksters whose poetry

Deftly bent to fashion’s latest slant.



You wrote from the heart,...Read more of this...

I had no time to Hate

by Emily Dickinson
 I had no time to Hate --
Because
The Grave would hinder Me --
And Life was not so
Ample I
Could finish -- Enmity --

Nor had I time to Love --
But since
Some Industry must be --
The little Toil of Love --
I thought
Be large enough for Me --...Read more of this...

On A Political Prisoner

by William Butler Yeats
 She that but little patience knew,
From childhood on, had now so much
A grey gull lost its fear and flew
Down to her cell and there alit,
And there endured her fingers' touch
And from her fingers ate its bit.

Did she in touching that lone wing
Recall the years before her mind
Became a bitter, an abstract thing,
Her thought some popular enmity:
Blind and leader of...Read more of this...

Not marble nor the guilded monuments (Sonnet 55)

by William Shakespeare
 Not marble nor the gilded monuments
Of princes shall outlive this powerful rhyme;
But you shall shine more bright in these contents
Than unswept stone, besmear'd with sluttish time.
When wasteful war shall statues overturn,
And broils root out the work of masonry,
Nor Mars his sword nor war's quick fire shall burn
The living record of your memory.
'Gainst death and all-oblivious enmity
Shall you pace forth;...Read more of this...

I had no time to hate because

by Emily Dickinson
I had no time to hate, because
The grave would hinder me,
And life was not so ample I
Could finish enmity.

Nor had I time to love, but since
Some industry must be,
The little toil of love, I thought,
Was large enough for me....Read more of this...

Octaves

by Edwin Arlington Robinson
 I 

We thrill too strangely at the master's touch;
We shrink too sadly from the larger self
Which for its own completeness agitates
And undetermines us; we do not feel -- 
We dare not feel it yet -- the splendid shame
Of uncreated failure; we forget,
The while we groan, that God's accomplishment
Is always and unfailingly at hand. 

II 

Tumultuously void of a clean...Read more of this...

The World

by Edwin Arlington Robinson
 Some are the brothers of all humankind, 
And own them, whatsoever their estate; 
And some, for sorrow and self-scorn, are blind 
With enmity for man's unguarded fate. 

For some there is a music all day long 
Like flutes in Paradise, they are so glad; 
And there is hell's eternal under-song 
Of curses and the cries of men gone mad....Read more of this...

Sonnet 55

by William Shakespeare
Not marble, nor the gilded monuments
Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme;
But you shall shine more bright in these contènts
Than unswept stone, besmeared with sluttish time.
When wasteful war shall statues overturn,
And broils root out the work of masonry,
Nor Mars his sword nor war's quick fire shall burn
The living record of your memory.
'Gainst death and all-oblivious enmity
Shall you pace forth; your...Read more of this...

At A Vacation Exercise In The Colledge Part Latin Part English. The Latin Speeches Ended The English Thus Began

by John Milton
 Hail native Language, that by sinews weak
Didst move my first endeavouring tongue to speak,
And mad'st imperfect words with childish tripps,
Half unpronounc't, slide through my infant-lipps,
Driving dum silence from the portal dore,
Where he had mutely sate two years before:
Here I salute thee and thy pardon ask,
That now I use thee in my latter task:
Small loss it is that thence can...Read more of this...

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