Famous Evidence Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Evidence poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous evidence poems. These examples illustrate what a famous evidence poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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...were seen,
Sword, famine, flames and death before them prey'd.
Those faithful found, who undismay'd did bear
A noble evidence to truth, were slain.
Why should I sing of these or here record,
As if 'twere praise, in poesy or song,
Or sculptur'd stone, to eternize the names,
Which writ elsewhere in the fair book of life,
Shall live unsullied when each strain shall die:
Shall undefac'd remain when sculptur'd stone,
And monument, and bust, and storied urn
Perpetuates i...Read more of this...
by
Brackenridge, Hugh Henry
...I love you as a brother. You may speak of me as you choose, for Tomorrow shall take you away and will use your talk as evidence for his judgment, and you shall receive justice.
You may deprive me of whatever I possess, for my greed instigated the amassing of wealth and you are entitled to my lot if it will satisfy you.
You may do unto me whatever you wish, but you shall not be able to touch my Truth.
You may shed my blood and burn my body, but you cannot kill or hurt m...Read more of this...
by
Gibran, Kahlil
...his rabbinical degree,
Unknown to foreign university.
His judgment yet his mem'ry did excel:
Which piec'd his wondrous evidence so well:
And suited to the temper of the times;
Then groaning under Jebusitic crimes.
Let Israel's foes suspect his Heav'nly call,
And rashly judge his writ apocryphal;
Our laws for such affronts have forfeits made:
He takes his life, who takes away his trade.
Were I myself in witness Corah's place,
The wretch who did me such a dire disgrace,
Should...Read more of this...
by
Dryden, John
...r the vile end of a deceiving peace—
That I began to fancy there was on me
The stupor that explorers have alleged
As evidence of nature’s final mercy
When tigers have them down upon the earth
And wild hot breath is heavy on their faces.
I could not feel his breath, but I could hear it;
Though fear had made an anvil of my heart
Where demons, for the joy of doing it,
Were sledging death down on it. And I saw
His eyes now, as they were, for the first time—
Aflame as the...Read more of this...
by
Robinson, Edwin Arlington
...oul
In the grand moments when she probes herself--
If finally I have a life to show,
The thing I did, brought out in evidence
Against the thing done to me underground
By hell and all its brood, for aught I know?
I say, whence sprang this? shows it faith or doubt?
All's doubt in me; where's break of faith in this?
It is the idea, the feeling and the love,
God means mankind should strive for and show forth
Whatever be the process to that end,--
And not historic kno...Read more of this...
by
Browning, Robert
...t have tried,
With a flat facetiousness, to demonstrate
What they had only snapped at and thereby
Made out of my best evidence no more
Than comfortable food for their conceit;
But patient wisdom frowned on argument,
With a side nod for silence, and I smoked
A series of incurable dry pipes
While Morgan fiddled, with obnoxious care,
Things that I wished he wouldn’t. Killigrew,
Drowsed with a fond abstraction, like an ass,
Lay blinking at me while he grinned and made
R...Read more of this...
by
Robinson, Edwin Arlington
...eck and not the story of the wreck
the thing itself and not the myth
the drowned face always staring
toward the sun
the evidence of damage
worn by salt and away into this threadbare beauty
the ribs of the disaster
curving their assertion
among the tentative haunters.
This is the place.
And I am here, the mermaid whose dark hair
streams black, the merman in his armored body.
We circle silently
about the wreck
we dive into the hold.
I am she: I am he
whose drowned face sleeps...Read more of this...
by
Rich, Adrienne
...hen she did not turn, spoke gently,
“What are you seeing out the window, lady?”
“Never was I beladied so before.
Would evidence of having been called lady
More than so many times make me a lady
In common law, I wonder.”
“But I ask,
What are you seeing out the window, lady?”
“What I’ll be seeing more of in the years
To come as here I stand and go the round
Of many plates with towels many times.”
“And what is that? You only put me off.”
“Rank weeds that love the water from...Read more of this...
by
Frost, Robert
...read--it was fine, it had the
fineness,
the powder of life dusted over it, by chance, of course, yet
still looking
for evidence of fingerprints. Someone had handled it
even before he formulated it, though the thought was his and
his alone.
It's fine, in summer, to visit the seashore.
There are lots of little trips to be made.
A grove of fledgling aspens welcomes the traveler.Nearby
are the public toilets where weary pilgrims have carved
their names and addresses, and perhap...Read more of this...
by
Ashbery, John
...lose thee were to lose myself.
So Adam; and thus Eve to him replied.
O glorious trial of exceeding love,
Illustrious evidence, example high!
Engaging me to emulate; but, short
Of thy perfection, how shall I attain,
Adam, from whose dear side I boast me sprung,
And gladly of our union hear thee speak,
One heart, one soul in both; whereof good proof
This day affords, declaring thee resolved,
Rather than death, or aught than death more dread,
Shall separate us, linked...Read more of this...
by
Milton, John
...mony
Still moves with thine, joined in connexion sweet,
That thou on earth hadst prospered, which thy looks
Now also evidence, but straight I felt,
Though distant from thee worlds between, yet felt,
That I must after thee, with this thy son;
Such fatal consequence unites us three!
Hell could no longer hold us in our bounds,
Nor this unvoyageable gulf obscure
Detain from following thy illustrious track.
Thou hast achieved our liberty, confined
Within Hell-gates till...Read more of this...
by
Milton, John
...wn to Union Square, located in the very heart of San Fran-
cisco. The Communist City Hall riots in 1960 had presented
evidence of it, the police let hundreds of Communists escape,
but the trout fishing in America peace parade was the final
indictment: police protection.
Thousands of Communists marched right into the heart of
San Francisco, and Communist speakers incited them for
hours and the young people wanted to blow up Colt Tower, but
the Communist clergy told th...Read more of this...
by
Brautigan, Richard
...ds up so that it is soon
Much later, I can know only the straight way out,
The distance between us. Long ago
The strewn evidence meant something,
The small accidents and pleasures
Of the day as it moved gracelessly on,
A housewife doing chores. Impossible now
To restore those properties in the silver blur that is
The record of what you accomplished by sitting down
"With great art to copy all that you saw in the glass"
So as to perfect and rule out the extraneous
Forever. In t...Read more of this...
by
Ashbery, John
...or lack of it,
Saw the same sun go down year after year;
All which at last was my discovery.
And only mine, so far as evidence
Enlightens one more darkness. You have known
All round you, all your days, men who are nothing—
Nothing, I mean, so far as time tells yet
Of any other need it has of them
Than to make sextons hardy—but no less
Are to themselves incalculably something,
And therefore to be cherished. God, you see,
Being sorry for them in their fashioning,
Indem...Read more of this...
by
Robinson, Edwin Arlington
...whole city full,
Home she had none.
Sisterly, brotherly,
Fatherly, motherly
Feelings had changed:
Love, by harsh evidence,
Thrown from its eminence;
Even God's providence
Seeming estranged.
Where the lamps quiver
So far in the river,
With many a light
From window and casement,
From garret to basement,
She stood, with amazement,
Houseless by night.
The bleak wind of March
Made her tremble and shiver;
But not the dark arch,
Or the black flowing river:
Ma...Read more of this...
by
Hood, Thomas
...ather
die than love, how your innocence
would hurt and how I gather
guilt like a young intern
his symptons, his certain evidence.
That October day we went
to Gloucester the red hills
reminded me of the dry red fur fox
coat I played in as a child; stock still
like a bear or a tent,
like a great cave laughing or a red fur fox.
We drove past the hatchery,
the hut that sells bait,
past Pigeon Cove, past the Yacht Club, past Squall's
Hill, to the house that waits
still, on the t...Read more of this...
by
Sexton, Anne
...r did seek.
2.46 My foe should weltering, with his bowels reek.
2.47 I had no Suits at law, neighbours to vex,
2.48 Nor evidence for land did me perplex.
2.49 I fear'd no storms, nor all the winds that blows.
2.50 I had no ships at Sea, no fraughts to loose.
2.51 I fear'd no drought, nor wet; I had no crop,
2.52 Nor yet on future things did place my hope.
2.53 This was mine innocence, but oh the seeds
2.54 Lay raked up of all the cursed weeds,
2.55 Which sprouted forth in my ...Read more of this...
by
Bradstreet, Anne
...:
This gentle king had *caught a great motife* *been greatly moved
Of this witness, and thought he would inquere by the evidence*
Deeper into this case, the truth to lear.* *learn
Alas! Constance, thou has no champion,
Nor fighte canst thou not, so well-away!
But he that starf for our redemption, *died
And bound Satan, and yet li'th where he lay,
So be thy stronge champion this day:
For, but Christ upon thee miracle kithe,* *show
Withoute guilt thou shalt be slain *as swithe...Read more of this...
by
Chaucer, Geoffrey
...he were not by
Sound argument and grave defence,
Strange questions raised on "Why?" and "Whence?"
And wildly tangled evidence.
When he, with racked and whirling brain,
Feebly implored her to explain,
She simply said it all again.
Wrenched with an agony intense,
He spake, neglecting Sound and Sense,
And careless of all consequence:
"Mind - I believe - is Essence - Ent -
Abstract - that is - an Accident -
Which we - that is to say - I meant - "
When, with quick breat...Read more of this...
by
Carroll, Lewis
...ou hast
To urge against him,' said the Archangel. 'Why,'
Replied the spirit, 'since old scores are past,
Must I turn evidence? In faith, not I.
Besides, I beat him hollow at the last,
With all his Lords and Commons: in the sky
I don't like ripping up old stories, since
His conduct was but natural in a prince.
LXXI
'Foolish, no doubt, and wicked, to oppress
A poor unlucky devil without a shilling;
But then I blame the man himself much less
Than Bute and Grafton, ...Read more of this...
by
Byron, George (Lord)
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