Famous Inquiry Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Despairing Cries

...rstand your anguish, but I cannot help you,
I approach, hear, behold—the sad mouth, the look out of the eyes, your mute inquiry, 
Whither I go from the bed I now recline on, come tell me; 
Old age, alarmed, uncertain—A young woman’s voice appealing to me, for comfort, 
A young man’s voice, Shall I not escape?...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt


Icicles Round A Tree In Dumfriesshire

...icicle. But there it is -

Having put me down in felt-tip

In the mystical appointment book, 

You shoot that quick

*

Inquiry-glance, head tilted, when I open up,

Like coming in's another country,

A country you want but have to get used to, hot 

From your bal masqu?, making sure 

That what you found before's

Still here: a spiral of touch and go,

Lightning licking a tree

Imagining itself Aretha Franklin

*
Singing "You make me feel like a natural woman" 

In basso pro...Read more of this...
by Padel, Ruth

June Dreams In January

...me and fame.'
-- Read me," he cried, and rose, and stamped his foot
Impatiently at Heaven, "read me this,"
(Putting th' inquiry full in the face of God)
"Why can we poets dream us beauty, so,
But cannot dream us bread? Why, now, can I
Make, aye, create this fervid throbbing June
Out of the chill, chill matter of my soul,
Yet cannot make a poorest penny-loaf
Out of this same chill matter, no, not one
For Mary though she starved upon my breast?"
And then he fell upon his couch,...Read more of this...
by Lanier, Sidney

Lara

...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 lineage, link'd in high command, 
He mingled with the magnates of his land; 
Join'd the carousals of the great and gay, 
And saw them smile or sigh their hours away; 
But still he only saw, and ...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)

Love Constrained to Obedience

...e His ways.

"What shall I do," was then the word,
"That I may worthier grow?"
"What shall I render to the Lord?"
Is my inquiry now.

To see the law by Christ fulfilled
And hear His pardoning voice,
Changes a slave into a child,
And duty into choice....Read more of this...
by Cowper, William


Mother Among The Dustbins

...vanity of a protesting mind

That would not die. This is the thought that bounces
Within a conceited head and trounces
Inquiry. Man is most frivolous when he pronounces.

Well Mother, I shall continue to think as I do,
And I think you would be wise to do so too,
Can you question the folly of man in the creation of God?
 Who are you?...Read more of this...
by Smith, Stevie

One Joy of so much anguish

...-
Why Birds, a Summer morning
Before the Quick of Day
Should stab my ravished spirit
With Dirks of Melody
Is part of an inquiry
That will receive reply
When Flesh and Spirit sunder
In Death's Immediately --...Read more of this...
by Dickinson, Emily

silence

...silence

.is
a
looking

bird:the

turn
ing;edge of
life

(inquiry before snow...Read more of this...
by Cummings, Edward Estlin (E E)

Squatters Children

...f them can scarcely lift.
It drops and clangs. Their laughter spreads
effulgence in the thunderheads, 

Weak flashes of inquiry
direct as is the puppy's bark.
But to their little, soluble,
unwarrantable ark,
apparently the rain's reply
consists of echolalia,
and Mother's voice, ugly as sin,
keeps calling to them to come in. 

Children, the threshold of the storm
has slid beneath your muddy shoes;
wet and beguiled, you stand among
the mansions you may choose
out of a bigger ho...Read more of this...
by Bishop, Elizabeth

The Dove

...o'er-soon!),
If thou, my Heart, long holden from thy Sweet,
Shouldst knock Death's door with mellow shocks of tune,
Sad inquiry to make -- `When may we meet?'

Nay, if ye three, O Morn! O Spring! O Heart!
Should chant grave unisons of grief and love;
Ye could not mourn with more melodious art
Than daily doth yon dim sequestered dove....Read more of this...
by Lanier, Sidney

The Flight Of The Duchess

...hould touch on the story to wake it,
For the wound in the Duke's pride rankled fiery,
So, they made no search and small inquiry---
And when fresh Gipsies have paid us a visit, I've
Noticed the couple were never inquisitive,
But told them they're folks the Duke don't want here,
And bade them make haste and cross the frontier.
Brief, the Duchess was gone and the Duke was glad of it,
And the old one was in the young one's stead,
And took, in her place, the household's head,
And ...Read more of this...
by Browning, Robert

The Lady of the Lake

...Knight of Snowdoun gave,
     Dame Margaret heard with silence grave;
     Or Ellen, innocently gay,
     Turned all inquiry light away:—
     'Weird women we! by dale and down
     We dwell, afar from tower and town.
     We stem the flood, we ride the blast,
     On wandering knights our spells we cast;
     While viewless minstrels touch the string,
     'Tis thus our charmed rhymes we sing.'
     She sung, and still a harp unseen
     Filled up the symphony bet...Read more of this...
by Scott, Sir Walter

Yet Yet Ye Downcast Hours

...stand your anguish, but I cannot help you, 
I approach, hear, behold—the sad mouth, the look out of the eyes, your mute inquiry,
Whither I go from the bed I recline on, come tell me: 
Old age, alarm’d, uncertain—A young woman’s voice, appealing to me for
 comfort; 
A young man’s voice, Shall I not escape?...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt

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