Famous Harlot Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Africa

...things were in vain! 
Honor and Glory, Arrogance and Fame! 
They went. The darkness swallowed thee again. 
Thou art the harlot, now thy time is done, 
Of all the mighty nations of the sun....Read more of this...
by McKay, Claude


Idylls of the King: The Last Tournament (excerpt)

...e North,
And whatsoever his own knights have sworn
My knights have sworn the counter to it--and say
My tower is full of harlots, like his court,
But mine are worthier, seeing they profess
To be none other than themselves--and say
My knights are all adulterers like his own,
But mine are truer, seeing they profess
To be none other; and say his hour is come,
The heathen are upon him, his long lance
Broken, and his Excalibur a straw.' "

Then Arthur turn'd to Kay the seneschal,
"...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord

MFingal - Canto III

...a thousand legs,
'Twill find as short a life assign'd,
As all things else of reptile kind.
Your Commonwealth's a common harlot,
The property of every varlet;
Which now in taste, and full employ,
All sorts admire, as all enjoy:
But soon a batter'd strumpet grown,
You'll curse and drum her out of town.
Such is the government you chose;
For this you bade the world be foes;
For this, so mark'd for dissolution,
You scorn the British Constitution,
That constitution form'd by sages,...Read more of this...
by Trumbull, John

Night-Scented Stock

...I heard the other say.
Somebody picked a wet, wet pink,
Smelled it and threw it away.
"Is the moon a virgin or is she a harlot?"
Asked somebody. Nobody would tell.
The faces and the hands moved in a pattern
As the music rose and fell,
In a dancing, mysterious, moon-bright pattern
Like flowers nodding under the sea...

The music stopped and there was nothing left of them
But the moon dancing over the tree....Read more of this...
by Mansfield, Katherine

Paradise Lost: Book 09

...left 
To guilty Shame; he covered, but his robe 
Uncovered more. So rose the Danite strong, 
Herculean Samson, from the harlot-lap 
Of Philistean Dalilah, and waked 
Shorn of his strength. They destitute and bare 
Of all their virtue: Silent, and in face 
Confounded, long they sat, as strucken mute: 
Till Adam, though not less than Eve abashed, 
At length gave utterance to these words constrained. 
O Eve, in evil hour thou didst give ear 
To that false worm, of whomsoever tau...Read more of this...
by Milton, John


Pelleas And Ettarre

...solid, would that even while I gaze 
The crack of earthquake shivering to your base 
Split you, and Hell burst up your harlot roofs 
Bellowing, and charred you through and through within, 
Black as the harlot's heart--hollow as a skull! 
Let the fierce east scream through your eyelet-holes, 
And whirl the dust of harlots round and round 
In dung and nettles! hiss, snake--I saw him there-- 
Let the fox bark, let the wolf yell. Who yells 
Here in the still sweet summer night, ...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord

Senlin: His Dark Origins

...ancient tombs. 
Cloth after scented cloth the sage unwinds: 
Delicious to see our futile modern sunlight 
Dance like a harlot among these Dogs and Dooms!

First, the huge pyramid, with rock on rock 
Bloodily piled to heaven; and under this 
A gilded cavern, bat festooned; 
And here in rows on rows, with gods about them, 
Cloudily lustrous, dim, the sacred coffins, 
Silver starred and crimson mooned.

What holy secret shall we now uncover? 
Inside the outer coffin is a second...Read more of this...
by Aiken, Conrad

Senlin: His Futile Preoccupations

...n flesh waits for you. 
Come! you are incomplete! . . . 
The drums of the universe once more 
Morosely beat. 
It is the harlot of the world 
Who clashes the leaves like ghostly drums 
And disturbs the solitude of my heart 
As evening comes!

I leave my work once more and walk 
Along a street that sways in the wind. 
I leave these stones, and walk once more 
Along infinity's shore. 
I climb the golden-laddered stair; 
Among the stars in the void I climb: 
I ascend the golden-l...Read more of this...
by Aiken, Conrad

Silent Silent Night

...betray.

Why should joys be sweet
Used with deceit,
Nor with sorrows meet?

But an honest joy
Does itself destroy
For a harlot coy....Read more of this...
by Blake, William

The Everlasting Gospel

...as Jesus born of a Virgin pure 
With narrow soul and looks demure? 
If He intended to take on sin 
The Mother should an harlot been, 
Just such a one as Magdalen, 
With seven devils in her pen. 
Or were Jew virgins still more curs’d, 
And more sucking devils nurs’d? 
Or what was it which He took on 
That He might bring salvation? 
A body subject to be tempted, 
From neither pain nor grief exempted; 
Or such a body as might not feel 
The passions that with sinners deal? 
Yes, ...Read more of this...
by Blake, William

The General Prologue

...de.
His mouth as wide was as a furnace.
He was a jangler, and a goliardais*, *buffoon 
And that was most of sin and harlotries.
Well could he steale corn, and tolle thrice
And yet he had a thumb of gold, pardie.
A white coat and a blue hood weared he
A baggepipe well could he blow and soun',
And therewithal he brought us out of town.

A gentle MANCIPLE  was there of a temple,
Of which achatours* mighte take ensample *buyers
For to be wise in buying of vitaille*. *...Read more of this...
by Chaucer, Geoffrey

The House Of Dust: Complete (Long)

...fails.

In one room, silently, lover looks upon lover,
And thinks the air is fire.
The drunkard swears and touches the harlot's heartstrings
With the sudden hand of desire.

And one goes late in the streets, and thinks of murder;
And one lies staring, and thinks of death.
And one, who has suffered, clenches her hands despairing,
And holds her breath . . .

Who are all these, who flow in the veins of the city,
Coil and revolve and dream,
Vanish or gleam?
Some mount up to the ...Read more of this...
by Aiken, Conrad

The House Of Dust: Part 03: 01: As evening falls

...lls,
A dream dissolves these insubstantial walls,—
A myriad secretly gliding lights lie bare . . .
The lovers rise, the harlot combs her hair,
The dead man's face grows blue in the dizzy lamplight,
The watchman climbs the stair . . .
The bank defaulter leers at a chaos of figures,
And runs among them, and is beaten down;
The sick man coughs and hears the chisels ringing;
The tired clown
Sees the enormous crowd, a million faces,
Motionless in their places,
Ready to laugh, and ...Read more of this...
by Aiken, Conrad

The House Of Dust: Part 03: 12: Witches Sabbath

...ing the boy who blasphemed love!
They are playing a piercing music upon him
With a bow of living wire! . . .
The virgin harlot sings,
She leans above the beautiful anguished body,
And draws slow music from those strings.
They dance around him, they fling red roses upon him,
They trample him with their naked feet,
His cries are lost in laughter,
Their feet grow dark with his blood, they beat and
 beat,
They dance upon him, until he cries no more . . .
Have we not heard that cr...Read more of this...
by Aiken, Conrad

The House Of Dust: Part 04: 03: Palimpsest: A Deceitful Portrait

...ake liquid music. . . .Hours have passed,
And nothing changes, and everything is changed.
Exultation is dead, Beauty is harlot,—
And walks the streets. The thing I strongly seized
Has turned to darkness, and darkness rides my heart.

If you could solve this darkness you would have me.
This causeless melancholy that comes with rain,
Or on such days as this when large wet snowflakes
Drop heavily, with rain . . . whence rises this?
Well, so-and-so, this morning when I saw him,
S...Read more of this...
by Aiken, Conrad

The Last Tournament

...orth, 
And whatsoever his own knights have sworn 
My knights have sworn the counter to it--and say 
My tower is full of harlots, like his court, 
But mine are worthier, seeing they profess 
To be none other than themselves--and say 
My knights are all adulterers like his own, 
But mine are truer, seeing they profess 
To be none other; and say his hour is come, 
The heathen are upon him, his long lance 
Broken, and his Excalibur a straw."' 

Then Arthur turned to Kay the senes...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord

The Reeves Tale

...shorte night
Swived the miller's daughter bolt-upright,
While thou hast as a coward lain aghast*." *afraid
"Thou false harlot," quoth the miller, "hast?
Ah, false traitor, false clerk," quoth he,
"Thou shalt be dead, by Godde's dignity,
Who durste be so bold to disparage* *disgrace
My daughter, that is come of such lineage?"
And by the throate-ball* he caught Alein, *Adam's apple
And he him hent* dispiteously** again, *seized **angrily
And on the nose he smote him with his f...Read more of this...
by Chaucer, Geoffrey

The Sompnours Tale

...eve dame, *remnant
Our sister dear, -- lo, here I write your name,--
Bacon or beef, or such thing as ye find."
A sturdy harlot* went them aye behind, *manservant 
That was their hoste's man, and bare a sack,
And what men gave them, laid it on his back
And when that he was out at door, anon
He *planed away* the names every one, *rubbed out*
That he before had written in his tables:
He served them with nifles* and with fables. -- *silly tales

"Nay, there thou liest, thou So...Read more of this...
by Chaucer, Geoffrey

The Triumph Of Fame

...-clad, her rebels to subdue.Her partner too in lawless love I spied,A Roman harlot, an incestuous bride.But Tadmor's queen, with nobler fires inflamed,The pristine glory of the sex reclaim'd,Who in the spring of life, in beauty's bloom,Her heart devoted to her husband's tomb;True to his dust, aspiring to the crownRead more of this...
by Petrarch, Francesco

The White Cliffs

...ike a precious stone, 
 May shine the brightest in the tiniest flake. 
Lavished on saints, to sinners not unknown; 
 In harlot, nun, philanthropist, and rake, 
It shines for those who love; none else discern 
 Evil from good; Men's fall did not bestow 
That threatened wisdom; blindly still we yearn 
 After a virtue that we do not know, 
Until our thirst and longing rise above 
The barriers of reason—and we love. 

XIII 
And still I did not see my life was changed, 
Utterly di...Read more of this...
by Miller, Alice Duer

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