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Famous Exposed Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry
...ilder, by means of old timber, etc., makes a large apartment in his stack, with an opening in the side which is fairest exposed to the wind: this he calls a “fause-house.”—R. B. [back]
Note 8. Burning the nuts is a favorite charm. They name the lad and lass to each particular nut, as they lay them in the fire; and according as they burn quietly together, or start from beside one another, the course and issue of the courtship will be.—R. B. [back]
Note 9. Whoever would, with s...Read more of this...
by Burns, Robert



...se 
And in convulsions tore the drowned world! 
'Till by the winds assuag'd they quickly fell 
And all their ragged bed exposed to view. 
Perhaps far wand'ring towards the northren pole, 
The straits of Zembla and the Frozen Zone, 
And where the eastern Greenland almost joins 
America's north point, the hardy tribes 
Of banish'd Jews, Siberians, Tartars wild 
Came over icy mountains, or on floats 
First reach'd these coasts hid from the world beside. 
And yet another argument...Read more of this...
by Brackenridge, Hugh Henry
...rate hope wrinkled his quivering lips.
For sleep, he knew, kept most relentlessly
Its precious charge, and silent death exposed,
Faithless perhaps as sleep, a shadowy lure,
With doubtful smile mocking its own strange charms.

Startled by his own thoughts, he looked around.
There was no fair fiend near him, not a sight
Or sound of awe but in his own deep mind.
A little shallop floating near the shore
Caught the impatient wandering of his gaze. 
It had been long abandoned, for ...Read more of this...
by Shelley, Percy Bysshe
...breath, our drop of dew, with shield enough 
Against that sight till we can bear its stress. 
Under a vertical sun, the exposed brain 
And lidless eye and disemprisoned heart 
Less certainly would wither up at once 
Than mind, confronted with the truth of him. 
But time and earth case-harden us to live; 
The feeblest sense is trusted most; the child 
Feels God a moment, ichors o'er the place, 
Plays on and grows to be a man like us. 


With me, faith means perpetual unbelief ...Read more of this...
by Browning, Robert
...the wounded air roared in
paroxysms of pain.
We, saved by our own cunning and knowledge.

By sending others to the more exposed positions
Urging them loudly to fight on
Ourselves withdrawing in certainty of the cause lost.

Having the choice of our own death and that of a friend
We chose his, coldly thinking: Let it be done quickly.

We sealed gas chamber doors, stole bread
Knowing the next day would be harder to bear than the day before.

As befits human beings, we explored ...Read more of this...
by Milosz, Czeslaw



...morning. I had to go outside. It was foggy and cold in San
Francisco. I wondered about the fog and felt very human and exposed.
I decided to go visit another girl. We had not been friends for over a year. Once we
were very close. I wondered what she was thinking about now.
I went to her house. She didn't have a door bell. That was a small victory. One must
keep track of all the small victories. I do, anyway.
She answered the door. She was holding a robe in front of her. She ...Read more of this...
by Brautigan, Richard
...eat, 
Of loveliness; 

When under kindred shape, like loves and hates 
And a kindred nature, 
Proclaim us to be mates, 
Exposed to equal fates 
Eternally; 

And each may other help, and service do, 
Drawing Love's bands more tight, 
Service he ne'er shall rue 
While one and one make two, 
And two are one; 

In such case only doth man fully prove 
Fully as man can do, 
What power there is in Love 
His inmost soul to move 
Resistlessly. 
________________________________

Two st...Read more of this...
by Thoreau, Henry David
...g us at dusk.
I never bore it well when people went.
The first night after guests have gone, the house
Seems haunted or exposed. I always take
A personal interest in the locking up
At bedtime; but the strangeness soon wears off.”
He fetched a dingy lantern from behind
A door. “There’s that we didn’t lose! And these!”—
Some matches he unpocketed. “For food—
The meals we’ve had no one can take from us.
I wish that everything on earth were just
As certain as the meals we’ve had....Read more of this...
by Frost, Robert
...ial, flown with insolence and wine. 
Witness the streets of Sodom, and that night 
In Gibeah, when the hospitable door 
Exposed a matron, to avoid worse rape. 
 These were the prime in order and in might: 
The rest were long to tell; though far renowned 
Th' Ionian gods--of Javan's issue held 
Gods, yet confessed later than Heaven and Earth, 
Their boasted parents;--Titan, Heaven's first-born, 
With his enormous brood, and birthright seized 
By younger Saturn: he from mightie...Read more of this...
by Milton, John
...e of subtlety. Though Heaven be shut, 
And Heaven's high Arbitrator sit secure 
In his own strength, this place may lie exposed, 
The utmost border of his kingdom, left 
To their defence who hold it: here, perhaps, 
Some advantageous act may be achieved 
By sudden onset--either with Hell-fire 
To waste his whole creation, or possess 
All as our own, and drive, as we were driven, 
The puny habitants; or, if not drive, 
Seduce them to our party, that their God 
May prove their ...Read more of this...
by Milton, John
...ngs 
To worst abuse, or to their meanest use. 
Beneath him with new wonder now he views, 
To all delight of human sense exposed, 
In narrow room, Nature's whole wealth, yea more, 
A Heaven on Earth: For blissful Paradise 
Of God the garden was, by him in the east 
Of Eden planted; Eden stretched her line 
From Auran eastward to the royal towers 
Of great Seleucia, built by Grecian kings, 
Of where the sons of Eden long before 
Dwelt in Telassar: In this pleasant soil 
His far...Read more of this...
by Milton, John
...Maker wise, 
As not secure to single or combined. 
Frail is our happiness, if this be so, 
And Eden were no Eden, thus exposed. 
To whom thus Adam fervently replied. 
O Woman, best are all things as the will 
Of God ordained them: His creating hand 
Nothing imperfect or deficient left 
Of all that he created, much less Man, 
Or aught that might his happy state secure, 
Secure from outward force; within himself 
The danger lies, yet lies within his power: 
Against his will he...Read more of this...
by Milton, John
...chless might 
Issuing from me: on your joint vigour now 
My hold of this new kingdom all depends, 
Through Sin to Death exposed by my exploit. 
If your joint power prevail, the affairs of Hell 
No detriment need fear; go, and be strong! 
So saying he dismissed them; they with speed 
Their course through thickest constellations held, 
Spreading their bane; the blasted stars looked wan, 
And planets, planet-struck, real eclipse 
Then suffered. The other way Satan went down 
The...Read more of this...
by Milton, John
...along the coast! 
O to continue and be employ’d there all my life!
O the briny and damp smell—the shore—the salt weeds exposed at low water, 
The work of fishermen—the work of the eel-fisher and clam-fisher. 

O it is I! 
I come with my clam-rake and spade! I come with my eel-spear; 
Is the tide out? I join the group of clam-diggers on the flats,
I laugh and work with them—I joke at my work, like a mettlesome young man. 

In winter I take my eel-basket and eel-spear and trav...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt
...me, I did not know I possess’d them; 
It sails me—I dab with bare feet—they are lick’d by the indolent
 waves; 
I am exposed, cut by bitter and angry hail—I lose my breath, 
Steep’d amid honey’d morphine, my windpipe throttled in fakes of
 death;
At length let up again to feel the puzzle of puzzles, 
And that we call BEING. 

27
To be, in any form—what is that? 
(Round and round we go, all of us, and ever come back thither;) 
If nothing lay more develop’d, the qua...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt
...wed.
     Still wouldst thou speak?—then hear the truth!
     Fitz-James, there is a noble youth—
     If yet he is!—exposed for me
     And mine to dread extremity—
     Thou hast the secret of my bears;
     Forgive, be generous, and depart!'
     XVIII.

     Fitz-James knew every wily train
     A lady's fickle heart to gain,
     But here he knew and felt them vain.
     There shot no glance from Ellen's eye,
     To give her steadfast speech the lie;
     ...Read more of this...
by Scott, Sir Walter
...is foe his force confest, 
And to be shorn lay slumbering on her breast. 
But when this fatal counsel, found too late, 
Exposed its author to the public hate, 
When his just sovereign by no impious way 
Could be seduced to arbitrary sway, 
Forsaken of that hope, he shifts his sail, 
Drives down the current with the popular gale, 
And shows the fiend confessed without a veil. 
He preaches to the crowd that power is lent, 
But not conveyed to kingly government, 
That claims suc...Read more of this...
by Dryden, John
...

 A little ways up from the shack was an outhouse with its

door flung violently open. The inside of the outhouse was

exposed like a human face and the outhouse seemed to say,

"The old guy who built me crapped in here 9,745 times and

he's dead now and I don't want anyone else to touch me. He

was a good guy. He built me with loving care. Leave me

alone. I'm a monument now to a good ass gone under. There's

no mystery here. That's why the door's open. If you have to

crap...Read more of this...
by Brautigan, Richard
...libels, lying travels!
Not sparing his own clergy-cloth,
But eats into it, like a moth!"

"His vein, ironically grave,
Exposed the fool and lashed the knave.
To steal a hint was never known,
But what he writ was all his own.
He never thought an honour done him
Because a duke was proud to own him;
Would rather slip aside and choose
To talk with wits in dirty shoes;
Despised the fools with stars and garters,
So often seen caressing Chartres.
He never courted men in station,
No...Read more of this...
by Swift, Jonathan
...when your hero falls from grace
all fairy tales r uncovered
myths exposed and pain magnified
the greatest pain discovered
u taught me 2 be strong
but im confused 2 c u so weak
u said never 2 give up
and it hurts 2 c u welcome defeat

when ure hero falls so do the stars
and so does the perception of tomorrow
without my hero there is only
me alone 2 deal with my sorrow
your heart ceases 2 work
and your soul is no...Read more of this...
by Shakur, Tupac

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Book: Reflection on the Important Things