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Famous Foiled Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Burns, Robert
...e 10. Stephen Young of Barr.—R. B. [back]
Note 11. James Young, in New Cumnock, who had lately been foiled in an ecclesiastical prosecution against a Lieutenant Mitchel—R. B. [back]
Note 12. David Grant, Ochiltree.—R. B. [back]
Note 13. George Smith, Galston.—R. B. [back]
Note 14. John Shepherd Muirkirk.—R. B. [back]
Note 15. Dr. Andrew Mitchel, Monkton.—R. B. [back]
Note 16. W...Read more of this...



by Raleigh, Sir Walter
...f that grows; 
A school of guile, a net of deep deceit, 
A gilded hook that holds a poisoned bait. 

A fortress foiled, which reason did defend, 
A siren song, a fever of the mind, 
A maze wherein affection finds no end, 
A raging cloud that runs before the wind, 
A substance like the shadow of the sun, 
A goal of grief for which the wisest run. 

A quenchless fire, a nurse of trembling fear, 
A path that leads to peril and mishap, 
A true retreat of sorr...Read more of this...

by Swinburne, Algernon Charles
...signs
The spirit knows them and divines.
In bonds, in banishment, in grief,
Scoffed at and scourged with unbelief,
Foiled with false trusts and thwart designs,
Stripped of green days and hopes in leaf,
Their mere bare body of glory shines
Higher, and man gazing surelier sees
What light, what comfort is of these.

So I now gazing; till the sense
Being set on fire of confidence
Strains itself sunward, feels out far
Beyond the bright and morning star,
Beyond the extreme...Read more of this...

by Rosenberg, Isaac
...lique eyes, guttering burned!
His body lodged a rat where men nursed souls.
The world flashed grape-green eyes of a foiled cat
To him. On fragments of an old shrunk power,
On shy and maimed, on women wrung awry,
He lay, a bullying hulk, to crush them more.
But when one, fearless, turned and clawed like bronze,
Cringing was easy to blunt these stern paws,
And he would weigh the heavier on those after.

Who rests in God's mean flattery now? Your wealth
Is but hi...Read more of this...

by Bradstreet, Anne
...do fling,
Or whilst allured with bell and glass,
The net be spread, and caught, alas.
Or lest by lime-twigs they be foiled,
Or by some greedy hawks be spoiled.
O would my young, ye saw my breast,
And knew what thoughts there sadly rest,
Great was my pain when I you fed,
Long did I keep you soft and warm,
And with my wings kept off all harm,
My cares are more and fears than ever,
My throbs such now as 'fore were never.
Alas, my birds, you wisdom want,
Of perils you...Read more of this...



by Frost, Robert
...>
He stood on the safe side of the line talking—
Which is sheer Matthew Arnoldism,
The cult of one who owned himself "a foiled
Circuitous wanderer," and "took dejectedly
His seat upon the intellectual throne"—
Agreed in 'frowning on these improvised
Altars the woods are full of nowadays,
Again as in the days when Ahaz sinned
By worship under green trees in the open.
Scarcely a mile but that I come on one,
A black-checked stone and stick of rain-washed charcoal.
Even t...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...an spake; and him Beelzebub 
Thus answered:--"Leader of those armies bright 
Which, but th' Omnipotent, none could have foiled! 
If once they hear that voice, their liveliest pledge 
Of hope in fears and dangers--heard so oft 
In worst extremes, and on the perilous edge 
Of battle, when it raged, in all assaults 
Their surest signal--they will soon resume 
New courage and revive, though now they lie 
Grovelling and prostrate on yon lake of fire, 
As we erewhile, astounded and...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...s here, as with his golden those in Heaven. 
What sit we then projecting peace and war? 
War hath determined us and foiled with loss 
Irreparable; terms of peace yet none 
Vouchsafed or sought; for what peace will be given 
To us enslaved, but custody severe, 
And stripes and arbitrary punishment 
Inflicted? and what peace can we return, 
But, to our power, hostility and hate, 
Untamed reluctance, and revenge, though slow, 
Yet ever plotting how the Conqueror least 
May r...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...n from his seat, 
Half sunk with all his pines. Amazement seised 
The rebel Thrones, but greater rage, to see 
Thus foiled their mightiest; ours joy filled, and shout, 
Presage of victory, and fierce desire 
Of battle: Whereat Michael bid sound 
The Arch-Angel trumpet; through the vast of Heaven 
It sounded, and the faithful armies rung 
Hosanna to the Highest: Nor stood at gaze 
The adverse legions, nor less hideous joined 
The horrid shock. Now storming fury rose, 
...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...n harmonious sound to the ear. 
Yet these subject not; I to thee disclose 
What inward thence I feel, not therefore foiled, 
Who meet with various objects, from the sense 
Variously representing; yet, still free, 
Approve the best, and follow what I approve. 
To love, thou blamest me not; for Love, thou sayest, 
Leads up to Heaven, is both the way and guide; 
Bear with me then, if lawful what I ask: 
Love not the heavenly Spirits, and how their love 
Express they? by ...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...sing
Recovered Paradise to all mankind,
By one man's firm obedience fully tried
Through all temptation, and the Tempter foiled
In all his wiles, defeated and repulsed,
And Eden raised in the waste Wilderness.
 Thou Spirit, who led'st this glorious Eremite
Into the desert, his victorious field
Against the spiritual foe, and brought'st him thence 
By proof the undoubted Son of God, inspire,
As thou art wont, my prompted song, else mute,
And bear through highth or depth of N...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...r>
As when Earth's son, Antaeus (to compare
Small things with greatest), in Irassa strove
With Jove's Alcides, and, oft foiled, still rose,
Receiving from his mother Earth new strength,
Fresh from his fall, and fiercer grapple joined,
Throttled at length in the air expired and fell,
So, after many a foil, the Tempter proud,
Renewing fresh assaults, amidst his pride 
Fell whence he stood to see his victor fall;
And, as that Theban monster that proposed
Her riddle, and him who ...Read more of this...

by Hopkins, Gerard Manley
...t for passion-sake. Yes,
To hunger and not have, y?t hope ?n for, to storm and strive and
Be at every assault fresh foiled, worse flung, deeper disappointed,
The turmoil and the torment, it has, I swear, a sweetness,
Keeps a kind of joy in it, a zest, an edge, an ecstasy,
Next after sweet success. I am not left even this;
I all my being have hacked in half with her neck: one part,
Reason, selfdisposal, choice of better or worse way,
Is corpse now, cannot change; my ot...Read more of this...

by Masefield, John
...things that bless?d morning 
Were everlasting joy and warning, 
The gate was Jesus'way made plain, 
the mole was Satan foiled again, 
black blinded Satan snouting way 
Along the red of Adam's clay; 
The mist was error and damnatiion, 
The lane the road unto salvation. 
Out of the mist into the light, 
O bless?d gift of inner sight. 
The past was faded like a dream; 
There come the jingling of a team, 
A ploughman's voice, a clink of chain, 
Slow hoofs, and harness un...Read more of this...

by Lowell, Amy
.... If you love me, marry me
Before the sun has dipped behind those trees.
You cannot be wed twice, and Grootver, foiled,
Can eat his anger. My care it shall be
To pay your father's debt, by such degrees
As I can compass, and for years I've greatly toiled.

41
This is not haste, Christine, for long I've known
My love, and silence forced upon my lips.
I worship you with all the strength I've shown
In keeping faith." With pleading finger tips
He touched he...Read more of this...

by Scott, Sir Walter
...ge Douglas may unite
     Each mountain clan in friendly band,
     To guard the passes of their land,
     Till the foiled King from pathless glen
     Shall bootless turn him home again.'
     XXXI.

     There are who have, at midnight hour,
     In slumber scaled a dizzy tower,
     And, on the verge that beetled o'er
     The ocean tide's incessant roar,
     Dreamed calmly out their dangerous dream,
     Till wakened by the morning beam;
     When, dazzled ...Read more of this...

by Robinson, Edwin Arlington
...ived endeavor 
Remote and unapproachable forever;
And at his heart there may have gnawed 
Sick memories of a dead faith foiled and flawed 
And long dishonored by the living death 
Assigned alike by chance 
To brutes and hierophants;
And anguish fallen on those he loved around him 
May once have dealt the last blow to confound him, 
And so have left him as death leaves a child, 
Who sees it all too near; 
And he who knows no young way to forget
May struggle to the tomb unrecon...Read more of this...

by Robinson, Edwin Arlington
...n heaven 
Could have lured him anywhere 
That would have nbeen away from there; 
And all his wits had lightly striven, 
Foiled with her voice, and eyes, and hair.

There's nothing in the saints and sages 
To meet the shafts her glances had, 
Or such as hers have had for ages 
To blind a man till he be glad, 
And humble him till he be mad. 
The story would have many pages, 
And would be neither good nor bad.

And, having followed, you would find him 
Where properly...Read more of this...

by Masefield, John
...g her back again, dismantled, spoiled. 
It is herself; she cannot change her style; 
She has the habit now of being foiled." 

So when a ship appeared among the haze, 
We thought, "The Wanderer back again"; but no, 
No Wanderer showed for many, many days, 
Her passing lights made other waters glow. 

But we would oft think and talk of her, 
Tell newer hands her story, wondering, then, 
Upon what ocean she was Wanderer, 
Bound to the cities built by foreign men.Read more of this...

by Pessoa, Fernando
...I revisit these same differing fields

And cull the old new flowers with the same sense,

That some small breath of foiled remembrance yields,

Of more age than my days in this pretence?

Shall I again regret strange faces lost

Of which the present memory is forgot

And but in unseen bulks of vagueness tossed

Out of the closed sea and black night of Thought?

Were thy face one, what sweetness will't not be,

Though by blind feeling, to remember thee!...Read more of this...

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Book: Reflection on the Important Things