Famous Insensate Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Insensate poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous insensate poems. These examples illustrate what a famous insensate poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Burns, Robert
...The fumes of wine infuriate send,
(Not moony madness more astray)
Who but deplores that hapless friend?
Mine was th’ insensate frenzied part,
Ah! why should I such scenes outlive?
Scenes so abhorrent to my heart!—
’Tis thine to pity and forgive....Read more of this...
by
Wylie, Elinor
...le, Bluebeard's wives
Dangle by the hair.
Orchard of the strangest fruits
Hanging from the skies;
Brothers, yet insensate brutes
Who fear each other's eyes.
One man stands as free men stand,
As if his soul might be
Brave, unbroken; see his hand
Nailed to an oaken tree....Read more of this...
by
Service, Robert William
...ted on a cross of oak
Against the sullen sky,
With all about the jeering follk
Who joyed to see me die;
Die hardly in insensate heat,
With bleeding hands and feet.
Yet was it not that day of Fate,
Of cruelty insane,
Climaxing centuries of hate
That woke our souls to pain!
And are we not the living seed
Of those who did the deed!
Of course, with thankful heart I know
We are not fiends as then;
And in a thousand years or so
We may be gentle men.
But it has cos...Read more of this...
by
Service, Robert William
...snow.
Ahead of the dogs ploughed Clancy, haloed by steaming breath;
Through peril of open water, through ache of insensate cold;
Up rivers wantonly winding in a land affianced to death,
Till he came to a cowering cabin on the banks of the Nordenscold.
Then Clancy loosed his revolver, and he strode through the open door;
And there was the man he sought for, crouching beside the fire;
The hair of his beard was singeing, the frost on his back was hoar,
And ever he...Read more of this...
by
Quasimodo, Salvatore
....
Who cries?
You have blown out beauty
with a breath, torn her,
dealt her the death-wound,
without a tear
for her insensate shadow’s
spreading over us.
Destroyed solitude,
and beauty, failed.
You have signalled
into the dark,
inscribed your name in air,
your No
to everything that crowds here
and beyond the wind.
I know what you were
looking for in your new dress.
I understand the unanswered question.
Neither for you nor us, a reply.
Oh, flowers a...Read more of this...
by
Milton, John
...l and valley smiled.
This saw his hapless foes, but stood obdured,
And to rebellious fight rallied their Powers,
Insensate, hope conceiving from despair.
In heavenly Spirits could such perverseness dwell?
But to convince the proud what signs avail,
Or wonders move the obdurate to relent?
They, hardened more by what might most reclaim,
Grieving to see his glory, at the sight
Took envy; and, aspiring to his highth,
Stood re-embattled fierce, by force or fraud ...Read more of this...
by
Laurence Dunbar, Paul
...t chapel dim;
[Pg 107]And ever as her fingers slim
Slipt o'er th' insensate ivories,
My rapt soul followed, spaniel-wise.
Ah, many were the beads she wore;
But as she told them o'er and o'er,
They did not number all my sighs.
My heart was filled with unvoiced cries
And prayers and pleadings unexpressed;
But while I burned with Love's unrest,
She told her beads with down-cast eyes.
...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...ngue, are come to me, (a little child taught me;)
I hear from above, O pennant of war, your ironical call and demand;
Insensate! insensate! (yet I at any rate chant you,) O banner!
Not houses of peace indeed are you, nor any nor all their prosperity, (if need be, you
shall
again
have every one of those houses to destroy them;
You thought not to destroy those valuable houses, standing fast, full of comfort, built
with
money;
May they stand fast, then? Not an hour, exc...Read more of this...
by
Browning, Elizabeth Barrett
...oved, is it thou
Or I, who makes me sad? The acolyte
Amid the chanted joy and thankful rite
May so fall flat, with pale insensate brow,
On the altar-stair. I hear thy voice and vow,
Perplexed, uncertain, since thou art out of sight,
As he, in his swooning ears, the choir's Amen.
Beloved, dost thou love? or did I see all
The glory as I dreamed, and fainted when
Too vehement light dilated my ideal,
For my soul's eyes? Will that light come again,
As now these tears come—...Read more of this...
by
Service, Robert William
...white?
Then did I turn from her, heart-sick with fear;
Sought in my agony the outcast snows;
Prayed in my pain to that insensate sky;
Grovelled and sobbed and cursed, and then arose:
"Sunshine! O heart of gold! to die! to die!"
IX
She died on Christmas day -- it seems so sad
That one you love should die on Christmas day.
Head-bowed I knelt by her; O God! I had
No tears to shed, no moan, no prayer to pray.
I heard her whisper: "Call me, will you, dear?
They say Deat...Read more of this...
by
Wilde, Oscar
...eil, the Gorgon eyes of Truth,
The prayerless vigil and the cry for prayer,
The barren gifts, the lifted arms, the dull insensate air!
Sing on! sing on! O feathered Niobe,
Thou canst make sorrow beautiful, and steal
From joy its sweetest music, not as we
Who by dead voiceless silence strive to heal
Our too untented wounds, and do but keep
Pain barricadoed in our hearts, and murder pillowed sleep.
Sing louder yet, why must I still behold
The wan white face of that desert...Read more of this...
by
Hugo, Victor
...
Rather than insult, death to them and me.
I come not now to ask her back from thee;
Nay, let her love thee with insensate love;
I take back naught that bears the brand of shame.
Keep her! Yet, still, amidst thy festivals,
Until some father's, brother's, husband's hand
('Twill come to pass!) shall rid us of thy yoke,
My pallid face shall ever haunt thee there,
To tell thee, Francis, it was foully done!...
TRIBOULET (the Court Jester), sneerin...Read more of this...
by
Wilde, Oscar
...ve appealed, and to that barren arbiter they must
Repair for judgment; let them, if they can,
From Natural Warfare and insensate Chance,
Create the new Ideal rule for man!
Methinks that was not my inheritance;
For I was nurtured otherwise, my soul
Passes from higher heights of life to a more supreme goal.
Lo! while we spake the earth did turn away
Her visage from the God, and Hecate's boat
Rose silver-laden, till the jealous day
Blew all its torches out: I did not note
...Read more of this...
by
Service, Robert William
...ne --
The fell arch-spirit of the Wild.
O outcast land! O leper land!
Let the lone wolf-cry all express
The hate insensate of thy hand,
Thy heart's abysmal loneliness....Read more of this...
by
Robinson, Edwin Arlington
...ent for dreams,
Be found or known.
No tonic and ambitious irritant
Of increase or of want
Has made an otherwise insensate waste
Of ages overthrown
A ruthless, veiled, implacable foretaste
Of other ages that are still to be
Depleted and rewarded variously
Because a few, by fate’s economy,
Shall seem to move the world the way it goes;
No soft evangel of equality,
Safe-cradled in a communal repose
That huddles into death and may at last
Be covered well with equat...Read more of this...
by
Carman, Bliss
...e--
His blessing on the craftsman's skill--
To meet the blind unreasoned strife
And dare the risk of ill.
Not mere insensate wood and paint
Obedient to the helm's command,
But often restive as a saint
Beneath the Heavenly hand.
All the beauty and mystery
Of life were there, adventure bold,
Youth, and the glamour of the sea
And all its sorrows old.
And many a time I saw them go
Out on the flood at morning brave,
As the little tugs had them in tow,
And the sunlig...Read more of this...
by
Service, Robert William
...n half a king,
I with my craven heart, my honour slain.
No! no! my mind's made up. I gaze above,
Into that sky insensate as a stone;
Not for my creed, my country, but my Love
Will I stand up and meet my death alone.
Then though it be to utter dark I sink,
The God that dwells in me is not denied;
"Best" triumphs over "Beast", -- and so I think
Humanity itself is glorified. . . .
"And now, my butchers, I embrace my fate.
Come! let my heart's bl...Read more of this...
by
Petrarch, Francesco
...th the first of Rome could vieIn self-denial; yet their native soil,Insensate to their long illustrious toil,To each denied the honours of a tomb,But deathless fame reversed the rigid doom,And show'd their worth in more conspicuous lightThrough the surrounding shades of envious night.Great Phocion...Read more of this...
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