Famous Imprisonment Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Imprisonment poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous imprisonment poems. These examples illustrate what a famous imprisonment poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Brackenridge, Hugh Henry
...th constancy untam'd,
Did quench the violence of fire, at death
Did smile, and maugre ev'ry pain, of bond,
Cold dark imprisonment, and scourge severe,
By hell-born popery devis'd, held fast
The Christian hope firm anchor of the soul.
Or those who shunning that fell rage of war,
And persecution dire, when civil pow'r,
Leagu'd in with sacerdotal sway triumph'd,
O'er ev'ry conscience, and the lives of men,
Did brave th' Atlantic deep and through its storms
Sought ...Read more of this...
by
Dickinson, Emily
...coon, why hide you so
What all the world suspect?
An hour, and gay on every tree
Your secret, perched in ecstasy
Defies imprisonment!
An hour in Chrysalis to pass,
Then gay above receding grass
A Butterfly to go!
A moment to interrogate,
Then wiser than a "Surrogate,"
The Universe to know!...Read more of this...
by
Muir, Edwin
...s and morrows;
A little paradise
Held in the world's vice.
And there it is content
And careless as a child,
And in imprisonment
Flourishes sweet and wild;
In wrong, beyond wrong,
All the world's day long.
This love a moment known
For what I do not know
And in a moment gone
Is like the happy doe
That keeps its perfect laws
Between the tiger's paws
And vindicates its cause....Read more of this...
by
Joyce, James
...Of that so sweet imprisonment
My soul, dearest, is fain -- -
Soft arms that woo me to relent
And woo me to detain.
Ah, could they ever hold me there
Gladly were I a prisoner!
Dearest, through interwoven arms
By love made tremulous,
That night allures me where alarms
Nowise may trouble us;
But lseep to dreamier sleep be wed
Where soul with soul lies prisoned.<...Read more of this...
by
Milton, John
...
Which shall I first bewail,
Thy Bondage or lost Sight,
Prison within Prison
Inseparably dark?
Thou art become (O worst imprisonment!)
The Dungeon of thy self; thy Soul
(Which Men enjoying sight oft without cause complain)
Imprison'd now indeed,
In real darkness of the body dwells,
Shut up from outward light
To incorporate with gloomy night;
For inward light alas
Puts forth no visual beam.
O mirror of our fickle state,
Since man on earth unparallel'd!
The rarer thy exam...Read more of this...
by
Chaucer, Geoffrey
...st thou? who hath thee done offence?
For Godde's love, take all in patience
Our prison*, for it may none other be. *imprisonment
Fortune hath giv'n us this adversity'.
Some wick'* aspect or disposition *wicked
Of Saturn, by some constellation,
Hath giv'n us this, although we had it sworn,
So stood the heaven when that we were born,
We must endure; this is the short and plain.
This Palamon answer'd, and said again:
"Cousin, forsooth of this opinion
Thou hast a...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...r what anything is
for,)
But I will search carefully for it even in being foil’d,
In defeat, poverty, misconception, imprisonment—for they too are great.
Revolt! and the bullet for tyrants!
Did we think victory great?
So it is—But now it seems to me, when it cannot be help’d, that defeat is great,
And that death and dismay are great....Read more of this...
by
von Goethe, Johann Wolfgang
...ly never fall
So soon away from me!
As when a bird bath broken from his thrall,
And seeks the forest green,
Proof of imprisonment he bears behind him,
A morsel of the thread once used to bind him;
The free-born bird of old no more is seen,
For he another's prey bath been.
1775....Read more of this...
by
Dickinson, Emily
...--
I scarce esteem Location's Name --
So I may Come --
What Thou dost -- is Delight --
Bondage as Play -- be sweet --
Imprisonment -- Content --
And Sentence -- Sacrament --
Just We two -- meet --
Where Thou art not -- is Woe --
Tho' Bands of Spices -- row --
What Thou dost not -- Despair --
Tho' Gabriel -- praise me -- Sire --...Read more of this...
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