Famous Impossibility Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Impossibility poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous impossibility poems. These examples illustrate what a famous impossibility poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Dickinson, Emily
...I would not paint -- a picture --
I'd rather be the One
Its bright impossibility
To dwell -- delicious -- on --
And wonder how the fingers feel
Whose rare -- celestial -- stir --
Evokes so sweet a Torment --
Such sumptuous -- Despair --
I would not talk, like Cornets --
I'd rather be the One
Raised softly to the Ceilings --
And out, and easy on --
Through Villages of Ether --
Myself endued Balloon
By but a lip of Metal --
...Read more of this...
by
Dickinson, Emily
...Impossibility, like Wine
Exhilarates the Man
Who tastes it; Possibility
Is flavorless -- Combine
A Chance's faintest Tincture
And in the former Dram
Enchantment makes ingredient
As certainly as Doom --...Read more of this...
by
Graham, Jorie
...etc.
But I shall study them further. It was this night I believe but possibly the next
that I saw clearly the impossibility of staying in the Church of England.
*
How many coats do you think it will take?
The coat was a great-coat.
The Emperor's coat was.
How many coats do you think it will take?
The undercoat is dry. What we now want is?
The sky can analyse the coat because of the rips in it.
The sky shivers through the coat because of...Read more of this...
by
von Goethe, Johann Wolfgang
...als,
and so on. Others again, from their extreme length, could only be
published in separate volumes. But the impossibility of giving all
need form no obstacle to giving as much as possible; and it so happens
that the real interest of Goethe's Poems centres in those classes
of them which are not too diffuse to run any risk when translated
of offending the reader by their too great number. Those by far
the more generally admired are the Songs and Ballads, wh...Read more of this...
by
Marvell, Andrew
...My love is of a birth as rare
As 'tis for object strange and high:
It was begotten by Despair
Upon Impossibility.
Magnanimous Despair alone
Could show me so divine a thing,
Where feeble Hope could ne'er have flown
But vainly flapped its tinsel wing.
And yet I quickly might arrive
Where my extended soul is fixed
But Fate does iron wedges drive,
And always crowds itself betwixt.
For Fate with jealous eye does see
Two perfect loves, nor let...Read more of this...
by
Lovelace, Richard
...wear I am forsworn,
Since thine I vowed to be?
Lady, it is already morn,
And 'twas last night I swore to thee
That fond impossibility.
Have I not loved thee much and long,
A tedious twelve hours' space?
I must all other beauties wrong,
And rob thee of a new embrace,
Could I still dote upon thy face.
Not but all joy in thy brown hair
By others may be found;—
But I must search the black and fair,
Like skilful mineralists that sound
For treasure in unploughed-up groun...Read more of this...
by
Moore, Marianne
...re crushed down to the level of the parent block.
Were not 'impersonal judment in aesthetic
matters, a metaphysical impossibility,' you
might fairly achieve
it. As for butterflies, I can hardly conceive
of one's attending upon you, but to question
the congruence of the complement is vain, if it exists....Read more of this...
by
Herrick, Robert
...often it is the only
thing
between you and
impossibility.
no drink,
no woman's love,
no wealth
can
match it.
nothing can save
you
except
writing.
it keeps the walls
from
failing.
the hordes from
closing in.
it blasts the
darkness.
writing is the
ultimate
psychiatrist,
the kindliest
god of all the
gods.
writing stalks
death.
it knows no
quit.
and writing
laug...Read more of this...
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