Famous Injured Poems by Famous Poets

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

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180. Written by Somebody on the Window of an Inn at Stirling

by Robert Burns
 HERE Stuarts once in glory reigned,
And laws for Scotland’s weal ordained;
But now unroof’d their palace stands,
Their sceptre’s sway’d by other hands;
Fallen indeed, and to the earth
Whence groveling reptiles take their birth.
The injured Stuart line is gone,
A race outlandish fills their throne;
An idiot race, to honour lost;
Who know them best despise them most....Read more of this...

To His Book

by Robert Herrick
 Make haste away, and let one be
A friendly patron unto thee;
Lest, rapt from hence, I see thee lie
Torn for the use of pastery;
Or see thy injured leaves serve well
To make loose gowns for mackarel;
Or see the grocers, in a trice,
Make hoods of thee to serve out spice....Read more of this...

The Fish

by Marianne Moore
 wade
through black jade.
 Of the crow-blue mussel-shells, one keeps
 adjusting the ash-heaps;
 opening and shutting itself like

an
injured fan.
 The barnacles which encrust the side
 of the wave, cannot hide
 there for the submerged shafts of the

sun,
split like spun
 glass, move themselves with spotlight swiftness
 into the crevices—
 in and out, illuminating

the
turquoise sea
 of bodies. The water drives a wedge
...Read more of this...

Poets Household

by Carolyn Kizer
 1

The stout poet tiptoes
On the lawn. Surprisingly limber
In his thick sweater
Like a middle-age burglar.
Is the young robin injured?


2

She bends to feed the geese
Revealing the neck’s white curve
Below her curled hair.
Her husband seems not to watch,
But she shimmers in his poem.

3

A hush is on the house,
The only noise, a fern,
Rustling in a vase.
On the porch, the fierce poet
Is chanting words...Read more of this...

The Celebrated Woman - An Epistle By A Married Man

by Friedrich von Schiller
 Can I, my friend, with thee condole?--
Can I conceive the woes that try men,
When late repentance racks the soul
Ensnared into the toils of hymen?
Can I take part in such distress?--
Poor martyr,--most devoutly, "Yes!"
Thou weep'st because thy spouse has flown
To arms preferred before thine own;--
A faithless wife,--I grant the curse,--
And yet, my friend, it might be worse!
Just hear another's tale...Read more of this...

Psalm 74

by Isaac Watts
 The church pleading with God under sore persecutions.

Will God for ever cast us off?
His wrath for ever smoke
Against the people of his love,
His little chosen flock?

Think of the tribes so dearly bought
With their Redeemer's blood;
Nor let thy Zion be forgot,
Where once thy glory stood.

Lift up thy feet and march in haste,
Aloud our ruin calls;
See what a wide and fearful...Read more of this...

Of St. Francis and the Ass

by Katharine Tynan
 Our father, ere he went 
Out with his brother, Death, 
Smiling and well-content 
As a bridegroom goeth, 
Sweetly forgiveness prayed 
From man or beast whom he 
Had ever injured
Or burdened needlessly. 

'Verily,' then said he,
'I crave before I pass 
Forgiveness full and free
Of my little brother, the ass.
Many a time and oft, 
When winds and ways were hot, 
He...Read more of this...

Zeroing In

by Denise Levertov
 "I am a landscape," he said,
"a landscape and a person walking in that landscape.
There are daunting cliffs there,
and plains glad in their way
of brown monotony. But especially
there are sinkholes, places
of sudden terror, of small circumference
and malevolent depths."
"I know," she said. "When I set forth
to walk in myself, as it might be
on a fine afternoon, forgetting,
sooner or later I come...Read more of this...

231. Epistle to Robert Graham Esq. of Fintry

by Robert Burns
 WHEN Nature her great master-piece design’d,
And fram’d her last, best work, the human mind,
Her eye intent on all the mazy plan,
She form’d of various parts the various Man.


 Then first she calls the useful many forth;
Plain plodding Industry, and sober Worth:
Thence peasants, farmers, native sons of earth,
And merchandise’ whole genus take their birth:
Each prudent cit a warm existence finds,
And...Read more of this...

Hymn 89

by Isaac Watts
 Youth and judgment.

Eccl. 11:9. 

Ye sons of Adam, vain and young,
Indulge your eyes, indulge your tongue,
Taste the delights your souls desire,
And give a loose to all your fire;

Pursue the pleasures you design,
And cheer your hearts with songs and wine;
Enjoy the day of mirth, but know
There is a day of judgment too.

God from on high beholds your thoughts,
His book records...Read more of this...

The Miraculous Escape of Robert Allan the Fireman

by William Topaz McGonagall
 'Twas in the year of 1858, and on October the fourteenth day,
That a fire broke out in a warehouse, and for hours blazed away;
And the warehouse, now destroyed, was occupied by the Messrs R. Wylie, Hill & Co.,
Situated in Buchanan Street, in the City of Glasgow. 

The flames burst forth about three o'clock in the afternoon,
And intimation of the...Read more of this...

466. Ode for General Washington's Birthday

by Robert Burns
 NO Spartan tube, no Attic shell,
 No lyre Æolian I awake;
’Tis liberty’s bold note I swell,
 Thy harp, Columbia, let me take!
See gathering thousands, while I sing,
A broken chain exulting bring,
 And dash it in a tyrant’s face,
And dare him to his very beard,
And tell him he no more is feared—
 No more the despot of Columbia’s race!
A tyrant’s...Read more of this...

Mrs. Simple after her arrival at Halifax

by Mercy Otis Warren
Modest! Polite! Genteel! Heavens what deceit
Dwells in the breast of those I termed grat!
But now too late, my shame and grief appear.
I'm lost! Undone! Stopped short in my career.
A barn my dwelling, paltry fish my food,
With insuylts, scorn, and execrations lewd.
Oh sad disgrace! But this is not the worst.
I'm by my husband and my daughter cursed.
Our Bashaw, to, forever in...Read more of this...

An Emu Hunt

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 West of Dubbo the west begins 
The land of leisure and hope and trust, 
Where the black man stalks with his dogs and gins 
And Nature visits the settlers' sins 
With the Bogan shower, that is mostly dust. 
When the roley-poley's roots dry out 
With the fierce hot winds and the want of rain, 
They come uprooted and bound...Read more of this...

Jehovah-Shalom. The Lord Send Peace

by William Cowper
 (Judges, vi.25)

Jesus! whose blood so freely stream'd
To satisfy the law's demand;
By Thee from guilt and wrath redeem'd,
Before the Father's face I stand.

To reconcile offending man,
Make Justice drop her angry rod;
What creature could have form'd the plan,
Or who fulfil it but a God?

No drop remains of all the curse,
For wretches who deserved the whole;
No arrows dipt in wrath to pierce
The...Read more of this...

The Blinded Bourbons

by Victor Hugo
 ("Qui leur eût dit l'austère destineé?") 
 
 {II. v., November, 1836.} 


 Who then, to them{1} had told the Future's story? 
 Or said that France, low bowed before their glory, 
 One day would mindful be 
 Of them and of their mournful fate no more, 
 Than of the wrecks its waters have swept o'er 
...Read more of this...

Hymn 147

by Isaac Watts
 The names and titles of Christ. From several scriptures.

['Tis from the treasures of his word
I borrow titles for my Lord;
Nor art nor nature can supply
Sufficient forms of majesty.

Bright image of the Father's face,
Shining with undiminished rays;
Th' eternal God's eternal Son,
The heir and partner of his throne.]

The King of kings, the Lord most high,
Writes his own name upon his thigh
He...Read more of this...

The Old Kings New Jester

by Edwin Arlington Robinson
 You that in vain would front the coming order 
With eyes that meet forlornly what they must, 
And only with a furtive recognition 
See dust where there is dust,— 
Be sure you like it always in your faces,
Obscuring your best graces, 
Blinding your speech and sight, 
Before you seek again your dusty places 
Where the old wrong seems right....Read more of this...

Archibalds Example

by Edwin Arlington Robinson
 Old Archibald, in his eternal chair,
Where trespassers, whatever their degree, 
Were soon frowned out again, was looking off 
Across the clover when he said to me: 

“My green hill yonder, where the sun goes down
Without a scratch, was once inhabited 
By trees that injured him—an evil trash 
That made a cage, and held him while he bled. 

“Gone fifty...Read more of this...

Silver Wedding

by Vernon Scannell
 Silver Wedding

The party is over and I sit among
The flotsam that its passing leaves,
The dirty glasses and ***-ends:
Outside, a black wind grieves.

Two decades and a half of marriage;
It does not really seem as long,
Of youth's ebullient song.

David, my son, my loved rival,
And Julia, my tapering daughter,
Now grant me one achievement only;
I turn their wine to water.

And Helen, partner of...Read more of this...

To the Memory of the Brave Americans

by Philip Freneau
 Under General Greene, in South Carolina,
  who fell in the action of September 8, 1781

AT Eutaw Springs the valiant died;
 Their limbs with dust are covered o'er--
Weep on, ye springs, your tearful tide;
 How many heroes are no more!

If in this wreck or ruin, they
 Can yet be thought to claim a tear,
O smite your gentle breast, and...Read more of this...

The Dream of Eugene Aram

by Thomas Hood
 'Twas in the prime of summer-time 
An evening calm and cool, 
And four-and-twenty happy boys 
Came bounding out of school: 
There were some that ran and some that leapt, 
Like troutlets in a pool.

Away they sped with gamesome minds, 
And souls untouched by sin; 
To a level mead they came, and there 
They drave the wickets in: 
Pleasantly shone...Read more of this...

Wild Orphan

by Allen Ginsberg
Blandly mother 
takes him strolling 
by railroad and by river 
-he's the son of the absconded 
hot rod angel- 
and he imagines cars 
and rides them in his dreams, 

so lonely growing up among 
the imaginary automobiles 
and dead souls of Tarrytown 

to create 
out of his own imagination 
the beauty of his wild 
forebears-a mythology 
he cannot inherit. 

Will...Read more of this...

201. Birthday Ode for 31st December 1787

by Robert Burns
 AFAR 1 the illustrious Exile roams,
 Whom kingdoms on this day should hail;
 An inmate in the casual shed,
 On transient pity’s bounty fed,
 Haunted by busy memory’s bitter tale!
 Beasts of the forest have their savage homes,
 But He, who should imperial purple wear,
Owns not the lap of earth where rests his royal head!
 His wretched refuge, dark...Read more of this...

El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz (Malcolm X)

by Robert Hayden
 O masks and metamorphoses of Ahab, Native Son

I

The icy evil that struck his father down
and ravished his mother into madness
trapped him in violence of a punished self
struggling to break free.

As Home Boy, as Dee-troit Red,
he fled his name, became the quarry of
his own obsessed pursuit.

He conked his hair and Lindy-hopped,
zoot-suited jiver, swinging those chicks
in the hot rose and reefer...Read more of this...

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