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Famous Heresy Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Burns, Robert
..., sturdy, staunch believer.


 O ye wha leave the springs o’ Calvin,
For gumlie dubs of your ain delvin!
Ye sons of Heresy and Error,
Ye’ll some day squeel in quaking terror,
When Vengeance draws the sword in wrath.
And in the fire throws the sheath;
When Ruin, with his sweeping besom,
Just frets till Heav’n commission gies him;
While o’er the harp pale Misery moans,
And strikes the ever-deep’ning tones,
Still louder shrieks, and heavier groans!


 Your pardon, sir, f...Read more of this...



by Burns, Robert
...>


 Note 1. Dr. William M’Gill of Ayr, whose “Practical Essay on the Death of Jesus Christ” led to a charge of heresy against him. Burns took up his cause in “The Kirk of Scotland’s Alarm” (p. 351).—Lang. [back]...Read more of this...

by Burns, Robert
...preaching that three’s ane an’ twa.


Rumble John! rumble John, mount the steps with a groan,
 Cry the book is with heresy cramm’d;
Then out wi’ your ladle, deal brimstone like aidle,
 And roar ev’ry note of the D—’d.
Rumble John! 6 And roar ev’ry note of the D—’d.


Simper James! simper James, leave your fair Killie dames,
 There’s a holier chase in your view:
I’ll lay on your head, that the pack you’ll soon lead,
 For puppies like you there’s but few,
Simper Jam...Read more of this...

by Burns, Robert
...e gie us four,
 An’ skirl up the Bangor:
This day the kirk kicks up a stoure;
 Nae mair the knaves shall wrang her,
For Heresy is in her pow’r,
 And gloriously she’ll whang her
 Wi’ pith this day.


Come, let a proper text be read,
 An’ touch it aff wi’ vigour,
How graceless Ham 5 leugh at his dad,
 Which made Canaan a ******;
Or Phineas 6 drove the murdering blade,
 Wi’ whore-abhorring rigour;
Or Zipporah, 7 the scauldin jad,
 Was like a bluidy tiger
 I’ th’ inn that day...Read more of this...

by Field, Eugene
...ed,
That all is for the best.
So let the foolish choose 'em
The vapid sweets of sin,
I will not disabuse 'em
Of the heresy they're in;
But I, when I undress me
Each night, upon my knees
Will ask the Lord to bless me
With apple-pie and cheese!...Read more of this...



by Robinson, Edwin Arlington
...o scan
Sick Europe, and reduced, unyieldingly, 
The monk within the cassock to the man 
Within the monk, they called it heresy. 

And when he made so perilously bold 
As to be scattered forth in black and white,
Good fathers looked askance at him and rolled 
Their inward eyes in anguish and affright; 
There were some of them did shake at what was told, 
And they shook best who knew that he was right....Read more of this...

by Eliot, George
...he spoils his hand
With over-drinking. But were his the best,
He could not work for two. My work is mine,
And, heresy or not, if my hand slacked
I should rob God - since his is fullest good -
Leaving a blank instead of violins.
I say, not God himself can make man's best
Without best men to help him.

'Tis God gives skill,
But not without men's hands: he could not make
Antonio Stradivari's violins
Without Antonio. Get thee to thy easel."...Read more of this...

by Hopkins, Gerard Manley
...Purcell,
An age is now since passed, since parted; with the reversal
Of the outward sentence low lays him, listed to a heresy, here. 
Not mood in him nor meaning, proud fire or sacred fear,
Or love or pity or all that sweet notes not his might nursle:
It is the forgèd feature finds me; it is the rehearsal
Of own, of abrupt self there so thrusts on, so throngs the ear. 

Let him Oh! with his air of angels then lift me, lay me! only I'll
Have an eye to the sakes of him...Read more of this...

by Khayyam, Omar
...In a lone waste I saw a debauchee,
He had no home, no faith, no heresy,
No God, no truth, no law, no certitude;
Where in this world is man so bold as he?...Read more of this...

by Atwood, Margaret
..., I have too much white clothing.
You start to hum.
Several hundred years ago
this could have been mysticism
or heresy. It isn't now.
Outside there are sirens.
Someone's been run over.
The century grinds on....Read more of this...

by Strode, William
...t People's blest
Who shuns the Masse
Hee's but an Asse
Who Charity preach
They Heav'n soone reach
On Fayth t'rely,
'Tis heresy


What England's Church allows
My Conscience disavowes;
That Church can have no seame;
That holdes the Pope supreme;
There's service scarce divine;
With table, bread and wine;
Hee's Catholique and wise;
Who the Communion flyes;
That Church with schismes fraught;
Where only fayth is taught;
Noe matter for good workes,
Makes Christians worse than Turkes...Read more of this...

by Rich, Adrienne
...She had thought the studio would keep itself;
no dust upon the furniture of love.
Half heresy, to wish the taps less vocal,
the panes relieved of grime. A plate of pears,
a piano with a Persian shawl, a cat
stalking the picturesque amusing mouse
had risen at his urging.
Not that at five each separate stair would writhe
under the milkman's tramp; that morning light
so coldly would delineate the scraps
of last night's cheese and three se...Read more of this...

by Russell, George William
...Gael.
No blazoned banner we unfold—
One charge alone we give to youth,
Against the sceptred myth to hold
The golden heresy of truth....Read more of this...

by Gibran, Kahlil
...ened to Brahma's wisdom; 
I sat by Buddha under the Tree of Knowledge. 
Yet here I am, existing with ignorance 
And heresy. 


I was on Sinai when Jehovah approached Moses; 
I saw the Nazarene's miracles at the Jordan; 
I was in Medina when Mohammed visited. 
Yet I here I am, prisoner of bewilderment. 


Then I witnessed the might of Babylon; 
I learned of the glory of Egypt; 
I viewed the warring greatness of Rome. 
Yet my earlier teachings showed the 
We...Read more of this...

by Petrarch, Francesco
...>Spring of all woe, O den of curssed ire,Scoole of errour, temple of heresye;Thow Pope, I meane, head of hypocrasye,Thow and thie churche, unsaciat of desyre,Have all the world filled full of myserye;Well of disceate, thow dungeon full of fyre,That hydes all truthe to breed idolatrie.Read more of this...

by Spenser, Edmund
...ifize vnto the greedy fyre.
Well worthy thou to haue found better hyre,
then so bad end for hereticks ordayned:
yet heresy nor treason didst conspire,
but plead thy maisters cause vniustly payned.
Whom all the carelesse of his griefe constrayned
to vtter forth th'anguish of his hart:
and would not heare, when he to her complayned,
the piteous passion of his dying smart.
Yet liue for euer, though against her will,
and speake her good, though she requite it ill....Read more of this...

by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...: give him your hand: 
Cleave to your contract: though indeed we hear 
You hold the woman is the better man; 
A rampant heresy, such as if it spread 
Would make all women kick against their Lords 
Through all the world, and which might well deserve 
That we this night should pluck your palace down; 
And we will do it, unless you send us back 
Our son, on the instant, whole.' 
So far I read; 
And then stood up and spoke impetuously. 

'O not to pry and peer on your res...Read more of this...

by Dickinson, Emily
...The sweetest Heresy received
That Man and Woman know --
Each Other's Convert --
Though the Faith accommodate but Two --

The Churches are so frequent --
The Ritual -- so small --
The Grace so unavoidable --
To fail -- is Infidel --...Read more of this...

by Khayyam, Omar
...To drink wine and rejoice is my gospel of life. To
be as indifferent to heresy as to religion is my creed. I
asked the bride of the human race [the world] what her
dowry was, and she answered: My dowry consists in the
joy of my heart.
293...Read more of this...

by McHugh, Heather
...things: all things
move. "If God is not the soul itself,
he is the soul OF THE SOUL of the world." Such was
his heresy. The day they brought him forth to die

they feared he might incite the crowd (the man
was famous for his eloquence). And so his captors
placed upon his face
an iron mask
in which he could not speak.

That is how they burned him.
That is how he died,
without a word,
in front of everyone. And poetry--

(we'd all put down our forks b...Read more of this...

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