Famous Ignorant Poems by Famous Poets

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

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A Dialogue between Old England and New

...What means this wailing tone, this mournful guise?
8 Ah, tell thy Daughter; she may sympathize. 

Old England. 

9 Art ignorant indeed of these my woes,
10 Or must my forced tongue these griefs disclose,
11 And must my self dissect my tatter'd state,
12 Which Amazed Christendom stands wondering at?
13 And thou a child, a Limb, and dost not feel
14 My weak'ned fainting body now to reel?
15 This physic-purging-potion I have taken
16 Will bring Consumption or an Ague quaking,
1...Read more of this...
by Bradstreet, Anne


Contemplations

...e winter's never felt by that sweet airy legion. 

29 

197 Man at the best a creature frail and vain,
198 In knowledge ignorant, in strength but weak,
199 Subject to sorrows, losses, sickness, pain,
200 Each storm his state, his mind, his body break--
201 From some of these he never finds cessation
202 But day or night, within, without, vexation,
203 Troubles from foes, from friends, from dearest, near'st Relation. 

30 

204 And yet this sinful creature, frail and vain,
205...Read more of this...
by Bradstreet, Anne

Desiderata

...on good terms with all persons.

Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even to the dull and the ignorant; they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons; they are vexatious to the spirit. If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter, for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.

Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans. Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real p...Read more of this...
by Ehrmann, Max

Dover Beach

..., nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night. ...Read more of this...
by Arnold, Matthew

Endymion: Book IV

...tual bow,
And twang'd it inwardly, and calmly said:
"I would have thee my only friend, sweet maid!
My only visitor! not ignorant though,
That those deceptions which for pleasure go
'Mong men, are pleasures real as real may be:
But there are higher ones I may not see,
If impiously an earthly realm I take.
Since I saw thee, I have been wide awake
Night after night, and day by day, until
Of the empyrean I have drunk my fill.
Let it content thee, Sister, seeing me
More happy than...Read more of this...
by Keats, John


Frankenstein

...head was attached to the body
and stitching all over
where parts of cadavers were sewed together.

He is pursued by the ignorant villagers,
who think he is evil and dangerous because he is ugly
and makes ugly noises.
They wave firebrands at him and cudgels and rakes,
but he escapes and comes to the thatched cottage
of an old blind man playing on the violin Mendelssohn's "Spring Song."

Hearing him approach, the blind man welcomes him:
"Come in, my friend," and takes him by th...Read more of this...
by Field, Edward

Humanitad

...common miseries!
Thou for our sakes that loved thee not hast borne
An agony of endless centuries,
And we were vain and ignorant nor knew
That when we stabbed thy heart it was our own real hearts we slew.

Being ourselves the sowers and the seeds,
The night that covers and the lights that fade,
The spear that pierces and the side that bleeds,
The lips betraying and the life betrayed;
The deep hath calm: the moon hath rest: but we
Lords of the natural world are yet our own dre...Read more of this...
by Wilde, Oscar

Isabella or The Pot of Basil

...cold ice with piteous bark
Lay full of darts; for them alone did seethe
A thousand men in troubles wide and dark:
Half-ignorant, they turn'd an easy wheel,
That set sharp racks at work, to pinch and peel.

XVI.
Why were they proud? Because their marble founts
Gush'd with more pride than do a wretch's tears?--
Why were they proud? Because fair orange-mounts
Were of more soft ascent than lazar stairs?--
Why were they proud? Because red-lin'd accounts
Were richer than the songs...Read more of this...
by Keats, John

O We Are The Outcasts

...n.

the Indians are not allowed in his houses
not so much because they are a ****-threat
but because they are
dirty and
ignorant. dirty? I look down at my shirt
with the beerstain on the front.
ignorant? I light a 6 cent cigar and
forget about
it.

he or they or somebody was supposed to meet me at
the
train station.

of course, they weren't
there. "We'll be there to meet the great
Poet!"

well, I looked around and didn't see any
great poet. besides it was 7 a.m. and
40 degree...Read more of this...
by Bukowski, Charles

Paradise Lost: Book 09

...: 
Your fear itself of death removes the fear. 
Why then was this forbid? Why, but to awe; 
Why, but to keep ye low and ignorant, 
His worshippers? He knows that in the day 
Ye eat thereof, your eyes that seem so clear, 
Yet are but dim, shall perfectly be then 
Opened and cleared, and ye shall be as Gods, 
Knowing both good and evil, as they know. 
That ye shall be as Gods, since I as Man, 
Internal Man, is but proportion meet; 
I, of brute, human; ye, of human, Gods. 
So ye...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Paradise Lost: Book 11

...iew destroyed at once; 
And scarce to the Angel utter'dst thus thy plaint. 
O visions ill foreseen! Better had I 
Lived ignorant of future! so had borne 
My part of evil only, each day's lot 
Enough to bear; those now, that were dispensed 
The burden of many ages, on me light 
At once, by my foreknowledge gaining birth 
Abortive, to torment me ere their being, 
With thought that they must be. Let no man seek 
Henceforth to be foretold, what shall befall 
Him or his children; ...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Plutonian Ode

...presence last majestic as the Gods,
Sabaot, Jehova, Astapheus, Adonaeus, Elohim, Iao, 
 Ialdabaoth, Aeon from Aeon born ignorant in an
 Abyss of Light,
Sophia's reflections glittering thoughtful galaxies, whirl-
 pools of starspume silver-thin as hairs of Einstein!
Father Whitman I celebrate a matter that renders Self
 oblivion!
Grand Subject that annihilates inky hands & pages'
 prayers, old orators' inspired Immortalities,
I begin your chant, openmouthed exhaling into spaci...Read more of this...
by Ginsberg, Allen

The Ballad of the White Horse

...rse in pleasure pine
And men are weary of green wine
And sick of crimson seas.

"But you and all the kind of Christ
Are ignorant and brave,
And you have wars you hardly win
And souls you hardly save.

"I tell you naught for your comfort,
Yea, naught for your desire,
Save that the sky grows darker yet
And the sea rises higher.

"Night shall be thrice night over you,
And heaven an iron cope.
Do you have joy without a cause,
Yea, faith without a hope?"

Even as she spoke she was...Read more of this...
by Chesterton, G K

The Broken Balance

...s and the feet
Summer after summer encroach and destroy.
Stubborn green life, for the cliff-eater I cannot comfort you, ignorant which color,
Gray-blue or pale-green, will please the late stars;
But laugh at the other, your seed shall enjoy wonderful vengeances and suck
The arteries and walk in triumph on the faces....Read more of this...
by Jeffers, Robinson

The Four Ages of Man

...Schools;
3.10 Of Science, Arts, and Tongues, I know the rules;
3.11 The manners of the Court, I likewise know,
3.12 Nor ignorant what they in Country do.
3.13 The brave attempts of valiant Knights I prize
3.14 That dare climb Battlements, rear'd to the skies.
3.15 The snorting Horse, the Trumpet, Drum I like,
3.16 The glist'ring Sword, and well advanced Pike.
3.17 I cannot lie in trench before a Town,
3.18 Nor wait til good advice our hopes do crown.
3.19 I scorn the heavy Co...Read more of this...
by Bradstreet, Anne

The Garden Of Eros

...like in its period? but now the Age of Clay

Returns in horrid cycle, and the earth
Hath borne again a noisy progeny
Of ignorant Titans, whose ungodly birth
Hurls them against the august hierarchy
Which sat upon Olympus; to the Dust
They have appealed, and to that barren arbiter they must

Repair for judgment; let them, if they can,
From Natural Warfare and insensate Chance,
Create the new Ideal rule for man!
Methinks that was not my inheritance;
For I was nurtured otherwise,...Read more of this...
by Wilde, Oscar

The Growth of Love

...I woo thee: come and take
Not now the child into thine arms, from fright
Composed by drowsy tune and shaded light,
Whom ignorant of thee thou didst nurse and make;
Nor now the boy, who scorn'd thee for the sake
Of growing knowledge or mysterious night,
Tho' with fatigue thou didst his limbs invite,
And heavily weigh the eyes that would not wake; 
No, nor the man severe, who from his best
Failing, alert fled to thee, that his breath,
Blood, force and fire should come at morn r...Read more of this...
by Bridges, Robert Seymour

The Hammers

...ilsit, Presbourg;
Farewell, greatness departed.
Farewell, Imperial honours, knocked broadcast by the beating hammers
of ignorant workmen.
Straight, in the Spring moonlight,
Rises the deflowered arch.
In the silence, shining bright,
She stands naked and unsubdued.
Her marble coldness will endure the march
Of decades.
Rend her bronzes, hammers;
Cast down her inscriptions.
She is unconquerable, austere,
Cold as the moon that swims above her
When the nights are clear.

IV
Croissy...Read more of this...
by Lowell, Amy

The Man of Laws Tale

...*especially
Not *when a root is of a birth y-know?* *when the nativity is known*
Alas! we be too lewed*, or too slow. *ignorant

To ship was brought this woeful faire maid
Solemnely, with every circumstance:
"Now Jesus Christ be with you all," she said.
There is no more,but "Farewell, fair Constance."
She *pained her* to make good countenance. *made an effort*
And forth I let her sail in this manner,
And turn I will again to my matter.

The mother of the Soudan, well of vice...Read more of this...
by Chaucer, Geoffrey

To Think of Time

...d, may
 be
 well, 
But there is more account than that—there is strict account of all. 

The interminable hordes of the ignorant and wicked are not nothing, 
The barbarians of Africa and Asia are not nothing,
The common people of Europe are not nothing—the American aborigines are not nothing, 
The infected in the immigrant hospital are not nothing—the murderer or mean person is
 not
 nothing, 
The perpetual successions of shallow people are not nothing as they go, 
The lowest...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt

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