Famous In Vain Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous In Vain poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous in vain poems. These examples illustrate what a famous in vain poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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...bell of the Angelus sounded.
Meanwhile, amid the gloom, by the church Evangeline lingered.
All was silent within; and in vain at the door and the windows
Stood she, and listened and looked, till, overcome by emotion,
"Gabriel!" cried she aloud with tremulous voice; but no answer
Came from the graves of the dead, nor the gloomier grave of the living.
Slowly at length she returned to the tenantless house of her father.
Smouldered the fire on the hearth, on the board was the s...Read more of this...
by
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...or he had a vision to find out Eternity,
who journeyed to Denver, who died in Denver, who came back to Denver & waited in vain, who watched over Denver & brooded & loned in Denver and finally went away to find out the Time, & now Denver is lonesome for her heroes,
who fell on their knees in hopeless cathedrals praying for each other’s salvation and light and breasts, until the soul illuminated its hair for a second,
who crashed through their minds in jail waiting for impos...Read more of this...
by
Ginsberg, Allen
...e unexultant peace of essence not subdued?
The minor chord which ends the harmony,
And for its answering brother waits in vain
Sobbing for incompleted melody,
Dies a swan's death; but I the heir of pain,
A silent Memnon with blank lidless eyes,
Wait for the light and music of those suns which never rise.
The quenched-out torch, the lonely cypress-gloom,
The little dust stored in the narrow urn,
The gentle XAIPE of the Attic tomb, -
Were not these better far than to return
T...Read more of this...
by
Wilde, Oscar
...ef,
Of rage, of fear, anxiety, revenge,
Remorse, spleen, hope, but most of all despair.
Against these plagues he strove in vain; for Fate
Had pour'd a mortal oil upon his head,
A disanointing poison: so that Thea,
Affrighted, kept her still, and let him pass
First onwards in, among the fallen tribe.
As with us mortal men, the laden heart
Is persecuted more, and fever'd more,
When it is nighing to the mournful house
Where other hearts are sick of the same bruise;
So Saturn, ...Read more of this...
by
Keats, John
...
O Hunter, snare me his shadow!
O Nightingale, catch me his strain!
Else moonstruck with music and madness
I track him in vain!...Read more of this...
by
Wilde, Oscar
..., who through the drenching murk art led,
Recall me if thou canst. Thou wast begun
Before I ended."
I, who looked in vain
For human semblance in that bestial shade,
Made answer, "Misery here hath all unmade,
It may be, that thou wast on earth, for nought
Recalls thee to me. But thyself shalt tell
The sins that scourged thee to this foul resort,
That more displeasing not the scope of Hell
Can likely yield, though greater pains may lie
More deep."
And he...Read more of this...
by
Alighieri, Dante
...eserts vast,
In those far lands where he had wander'd lone,
And — as himself would have it seem — unknown:
Yet these in vain his eye could scarcely scan,
Nor glean experience from his fellow-man;
But what he had beheld he shunn'd to show,
As hardly worth a stranger's care to know;
If still more prying such inquiry grew,
His brow fell darker, and his words more few.
VII.
Not unrejoiced to see him once again,
Warm was his welcome to the haunts of men;
Born of high...Read more of this...
by
Byron, George (Lord)
... The Lady of the Land; And how she wept and clasp'd his knees And how she tended him in vain— And ever strove to expiate The Scorn, that craz'd his Brain And that she nurs'd him in a Cave; And how his Madness went away When on the yellow forest leaves A dying Man he lay; His dying words—but when I reach'd That tende...Read more of this...
by
Wordsworth, William
...e-clad Tuscany,
Who bound with crown of thorns thy living brow,
Hath decked thine empty tomb with laurels now,
And begs in vain the ashes of her son.
O mightiest exile! all thy grief is done:
Thy soul walks now beside thy Beatrice;
Ravenna guards thine ashes: sleep in peace.
IV.
How lone this palace is; how grey the walls!
No minstrel now wakes echoes in these halls.
The broken chain lies rusting on the door,
And noisome weeds have split the marble floor:
Here lurks the ...Read more of this...
by
Wilde, Oscar
...ll over,
And have distanced what is behind me for good reasons,
And call anything close again, when I desire it.
In vain the speeding or shyness;
In vain the plutonic rocks send their old heat against my approach;
In vain the mastodon retreats beneath its own powder’d bones;
In vain objects stand leagues off, and assume manifold shapes;
In vain the ocean settling in hollows, and the great monsters lying low;
In vain the buzzard houses herself with the sky;
I...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...
The mighty people, womanlike,
That have pleasure in their pain
As he sang of Balder beautiful,
Whom the heavens loved in vain.
As he sang of Balder beautiful,
Whom the heavens could not save,
Till the world was like a sea of tears
And every soul a wave.
"There is always a thing forgotten
When all the world goes well;
A thing forgotten, as long ago,
When the gods forgot the mistletoe,
And soundless as an arrow of snow
The arrow of anguish fell.
"The thing on the blind si...Read more of this...
by
Chesterton, G K
... And this place our forefathers made for man! This is the process of our love and wisdom To each poor brother who offends against us— Most innocent, perhaps—and what if guilty? Is this the only cure? Merciful God! Each pore and natural outlet shrivell'd up By ignorance and parch...Read more of this...
by
Wordsworth, William
...1
They that in play can do the thing they would,
Having an instinct throned in reason's place,
--And every perfect action hath the grace
Of indolence or thoughtless hardihood--
These are the best: yet be there workmen good
Who lose in earnestness control of face,
Or reckon means, and rapt in effort base
Reach to their end by steps well understood.
Me whom...Read more of this...
by
Bridges, Robert Seymour
...r's vision, and the rest, his face
Darkened, as I have seen it more than once,
When some brave deed seemed to be done in vain,
Darken; and "Woe is me, my knights," he cried,
"Had I been here, ye had not sworn the vow."
Bold was mine answer, "Had thyself been here,
My King, thou wouldst have sworn." "Yea, yea," said he,
"Art thou so bold and hast not seen the Grail?"
`"Nay, lord, I heard the sound, I saw the light,
But since I did not see the Holy Thing,
I sware a v...Read more of this...
by
Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...y threatened its life with a railway-share;
They charmed it with smiles and soap.
But the Barrister, weary of proving in vain
That the Beaver's lace-making was wrong,
Fell asleep, and in dreams saw the creature quite plain
That his fancy had dwelt on so long.
He dreamed that he stood in a shadowy Court,
Where the Snark, with a glass in its eye,
Dressed in gown, bands, and wig, was defending a pig
On the charge of deserting its sty.
The Witnesses proved, without error ...Read more of this...
by
Carroll, Lewis
...WHILOM*, as olde stories tellen us, *formerly
There was a duke that highte* Theseus. *was called
Of Athens he was lord and governor,
And in his time such a conqueror
That greater was there none under the sun.
Full many a riche country had he won.
What with his wisdom and his chivalry,
He conquer'd all the regne of Feminie,
That whilom was y-cleped S...Read more of this...
by
Chaucer, Geoffrey
...hy of thy nobler strain,
Yet if one heart throb higher at its sway,
The wizard note has not been touched in vain.
Then silent be no more! Enchantress, wake again!
I.
The stag at eve had drunk his fill,
Where danced the moon on Monan's rill,
And deep his midnight lair had made
In lone Glenartney's hazel shade;
But when the sun his beacon red
Had kindled on Benvoirlich's head,
The deep-mouthed bloodhound's h...Read more of this...
by
Scott, Sir Walter
...
into the western sea.
Wak'd from his eternal sleep, the hoary, element roaring
fled away:
Down rushd beating his wings in vain the jealous king: his
grey brow'd councellors, thunderous warriors, curl'd veterans,
among helms, and shields, and chariots horses, elephants:
banners, castles, slings and rocks,
Falling, rushing, ruining! buried in the ruins, on Urthona's
dens.
All night beneath the ruins, then their sullen flames faded
emerge round the gloomy king,
With thunder and...Read more of this...
by
Blake, William
...Swift as a spirit hastening to his task
Of glory & of good, the Sun sprang forth
Rejoicing in his splendour, & the mask
Of darkness fell from the awakened Earth.
The smokeless altars of the mountain snows
Flamed above crimson clouds, & at the birth
Of light, the Ocean's orison arose
To which the birds tempered their matin lay,
All flowers in field or fore...Read more of this...
by
Shelley, Percy Bysshe
...
Sweet smell of the evergreens.
Over children soldiers' wives are moaning
Cry of widows through village rings.
Not in vain were the prayers rendered,
The earth was thirsty for rain:
The stomped-over fields with red dampness
Were covered and covered remain.
Low, low is the empty heaven,
And quiet is the praying one's voice:
"They will wound your most holy body
And cast dice about your acts of choice."
x x x
That voice, with great quietude arguing,
Ha...Read more of this...
by
Akhmatova, Anna
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