Famous Indignant Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Indignant poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous indignant poems. These examples illustrate what a famous indignant poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Brackenridge, Hugh Henry
...ls of Zion upon earth.
Let mighty kings and potentates combine,
To raise a pyramid, which neither storm,
Nor sea indignant, nor the raging fire,
Nor time can waste, or from firm basis move.
Or let them strive by counsel or by arms,
To fix a throne, and in imperial sway,
Build up a kingdom shadowing the earth,
Unmov'd by thunder or impetuous storm
Of civil war, dark treason, or the shock
Of hostile nations, in dire league combin'd.
They build a kingdom o...Read more of this...
by
Brackenridge, Hugh Henry
...rms, thro' the cold strains,
Where Europe and America oppose
Their shores contiguous, and the northern sea
Confin'd, indignant, swells and roars between.
With these be number'd in the list of fame
Illustrious Raleigh, hapless in his fate:
Forgive me Raleigh, if an infant muse
Borrows thy name to grace her humble strain;
By many nobler are thy virtues sung;
Envy no more shall throw them in the shade;
They pour new lustre on Britannia's isle.
Thou too, advent...Read more of this...
by
Browning, Robert
...here's a thousand diamond weights between?
So, I enlist them. Your picked twelve, you'll find,
Profess themselves indignant, scandalized
At thus being held unable to explain
How a superior man who disbelieves
May not believe as well: that's Schelling's way!
It's through my coming in the tail of time,
Nicking the minute with a happy tact.
Had I been born three hundred years ago
They'd say, "What's strange? Blougram of course believes;"
And, seventy years si...Read more of this...
by
Hugo, Victor
...on the scene.
With fist alone the gate he battered down
Of Sickingen in flames, and saved the town.
'Twas he, indignant at the honor paid
To crime, who with his heel an onslaught made
Upon Duke Lupus' shameful monument,
Tore down, the statue he to fragments rent;
Then column of the Strasburg monster bore
To bridge of Wasselonne, and threw it o'er
Into the waters deep. The people round
Blazon the noble deeds that so abound
From Altorf unto Cha...Read more of this...
by
Campbell, Thomas
...nd he grasp'd;--but Albert knew not him--
"And hast thou then forgot," (he cried forlorn,
And eyed the group with half indignant air,)
"Oh! hast thou, Christian chief, forgot the morn
When I with thee the cup of peace did share?
Then stately was this head, and dark this hair,
That now is white as Appalachia's snow;
But, if the weight of fifteen years' despair,
And age hath bow'd me, and the torturing foe,
Bring me my boy--and he will his deliverer know!"--
It was not long, ...Read more of this...
by
Belloc, Hilaire
...last unhappy days
When beauty sickens and a muddied robe
Of baseness fouls the universal globe.
Though all the Gods indignant and their train
Abandon ruined man, do thou remain!
By thee the vesture of our life was made,
The Embattled Gate, the lordly Colonnade,
The woven fabric's gracious hues, the sound
Of trumpets, and the quivering fountain-round,
And, indestructible, the Arch, and, high,
The Shaft of Stone that stands against the sky,
And, last, the guardian-genius of...Read more of this...
by
Alighieri, Dante
...A Messenger of Heaven he came. My guide
Signed me to silence, and to reverence due,
While to one stroke of his indignant wand
The gate swung open. "Outcast spawn!" he cried,
His voice heard vibrant through the aperture grim,
"Why spurn ye at the Will that, once defied,
Here cast ye grovelling? Have ye felt from Him
Aught ever for fresh revolt but harder pains?
Has Cerberus' throat, skinned with the threefold chains,
No meaning? Why, to fate most imp...Read more of this...
by
Paterson, Andrew Barton
...h the land
With a pack of lovely wimmen --
Well, I cannot understand!"
"You mistake," said the Professor,
In a most indignant tone --
While the ladies shrieked and jabbered
In a fashion of their own --
"You mistake about these ladies,
I'm a lecturer of theirs;
I am Brown, who wrote the Treatise
On the Female Native Bears!
When I said we wanted flora,
What I meant was native flowers."
"Well, you said you wanted Flora,
And I'll swear you don't get ours!
But h...Read more of this...
by
Robinson, Edwin Arlington
...ring at last they were to fail and sink
Together in this fog-stricken sea of strangeness,
Fought sadly, with bereaved indignant eyes,
To find again the fading shores of home
That she had seen but now could see no longer
Now she could only gaze into the twilight,
And in the dimness know that he was there,
Like someone that was not. He who had been
Their brother, and was dead, now seemed alive
Only in death again—or worse than death;
For tombs at least, always until...Read more of this...
by
Poe, Edgar Allan
...hin her eyes
The life still there, upon her hair- the death upon her eyes.
"Avaunt! avaunt! from fiends below, the indignant ghost is riven-
From Hell unto a high estate far up within the Heaven-
From grief and groan, to a golden throne, beside the King of
Heaven!
Let no bell toll, then,- lest her soul, amid its hallowed mirth,
Should catch the note as it doth float up from the damned Earth!
And I!- to-night my heart is light!- no dirge will I upraise,
But waft the ange...Read more of this...
by
Trumbull, John
...than Justice Quorum,
In feather'd majesty before 'em.
Adown his tar-streak'd visage, clear
Fell glistening fast th' indignant tear,
And thus his voice, in mournful wise,
Pursued the prologue of his sighs.
"Brethren and friends, the glorious band
Of loyalty in rebel land!
It was not thus you've seen me sitting,
Return'd in triumph from town-meeting;
When blust'ring Whigs were put to stand,
And votes obey'd my guiding hand,
And new commissions pleased my eyes;
Blest d...Read more of this...
by
Emerson, Ralph Waldo
...raised, but hid;
Funeral eloquence
Rattles the coffin-lid.
What boots thy zeal,
O glowing friend,
That would indignant rend
The northland from the south?
Wherefore? to what good end?
Boston Bay and Bunker Hill
Would serve things still;--
Things are of the snake.
The horseman serves the horse,
The neatherd serves the neat,
The merchant serves the purse,
The eater serves his meat;
'T is the day of the chattel,
Web to weave, and corn to grind;
Things...Read more of this...
by
Milton, John
...
Came to the sea: and, over Hellespont
Bridging his way, Europe with Asia joined,
And scourged with many a stroke the indignant waves.
Now had they brought the work by wonderous art
Pontifical, a ridge of pendant rock,
Over the vexed abyss, following the track
Of Satan to the self-same place where he
First lighted from his wing, and landed safe
From out of Chaos, to the outside bare
Of this round world: With pins of adamant
And chains they made all fast, too fas...Read more of this...
by
Goldsmith, Oliver
...imbs in silken sloth
Has robbed the neighbouring fields of half their growth;
His seat, where solitary sports are seen,
Indignant spurns the cottage from the green;
Around the world each needful product flies,
For all the luxuries the world supplies:
While thus the land adorned for pleasure, all
In barren splendour feebly waits the fall.
As some fair female unadorned and plain,
Secure to please while youth confirms her reign,
Slights every borrowed charm that dress suppl...Read more of this...
by
Turner Smith, Charlotte
...ison, and his beads.--
Another, of more haughty port, declines
The aid he needs not; while in mute despair
His high indignant thoughts go back to France,
Dwelling on all he lost--the Gothic dome,
That vied with splendid palaces 3 ; the beds
Of silk and down, the silver chalices,
Vestments with gold enwrought for blazing altars;
Where, amid clouds of incense, he held forth
To kneeling crowds the imaginary bones
Of Saints suppos'd, in pearl and gold enchas'd,
And still with...Read more of this...
by
Turner Smith, Charlotte
...often implor'd,
As the last act of friendship, from the hand
Of some brave comrade, to receive the blow
That freed the indignant spirit from its pain.
To a wild mountain, whose bare summit hides
Its broken eminence in clouds; whose steeps
Are dark with woods; where the receding rocks
Are worn by torrents of dissolving snow,
A wretched Woman, pale and breathless, flies!
And, gazing round her, listens to the sound
Of hostile footsteps---- No! it dies away:
Nor noise remai...Read more of this...
by
Scott, Sir Walter
...r filial love was glowing there,
Or meek devotion poured a prayer,
Or tale of injury called forth
The indignant spirit of the North.
One only passion unrevealed
With maiden pride the maid concealed,
Yet not less purely felt the flame;—
O, need I tell that passion's name?
XX.
Impatient of the silent horn,
Now on the gale her voice was borne:—
'Father!' she cried; the rocks around
Loved to prolong the gen...Read more of this...
by
Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...y even to speak of him;'
And when she put her horse toward the knight,
Struck at her with his whip, and she returned
Indignant to the Queen; whereat Geraint
Exclaiming, 'Surely I will learn the name,'
Made sharply to the dwarf, and asked it of him,
Who answered as before; and when the Prince
Had put his horse in motion toward the knight,
Struck at him with his whip, and cut his cheek.
The Prince's blood spirted upon the scarf,
Dyeing it; and his quick, instincti...Read more of this...
by
Johnson, Samuel
...n ev'ry line
88 Heroic worth, benevolence divine:
89 The form distorted justifies the fall,
90 And detestation rids th' indignant wall.
...
133 When first the college rolls receive his name,
134 The young enthusiast quits his ease for fame;
135 Through all his veins the fever of renown
136 Spreads from the strong contagion of the gown;
137 O'er Bodley's dome his future labours spread,
138 And Bacon's mansion trembles o'er his head.
139 Are these thy view...Read more of this...
by
Shelley, Percy Bysshe
...the mountains; loosely driven,
The Lady's radiant hair streamed to and fro;
Beneath, the billows, having vainly striven
Indignant and impetuous, roared to feel
The swift and steady motion of the keel.
Or, when the weary moon was in the wane,
Or in the noon of interlunar night,
The Lady Witch in visions could not chain
Her spirit; but sailed forth under the light
Of shooting stars, and bade extend amain
Its storm-outspeeding wings the Hermaphrodite;
She to the austral wat...Read more of this...
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