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Famous Irrational Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Whitman, Walt
...who walk abreast with the whole earth! 
Who inaugurate one, to inaugurate all. 

I swear I will not be outfaced by irrational things! 
I will penetrate what it is in them that is sarcastic upon me!
I will make cities and civilizations defer to me! 
This is what I have learnt from America—it is the amount—and it I teach again. 

(Democracy! while weapons were everywhere aim’d at your breast, 
I saw you serenely give birth to immortal children—saw in dreams your dilati...Read more of this...



by Pessoa, Fernando
...the choked vision of blindfolded eyes.

Wherefrom what comes to thought's sense of life? Nought.

All is either the irrational world we see

Or some aught-else whose being-unknown doth rot

Its use for our thought's use. Whence taketh me

A qualm-like ache of life, a body-deep

Soul-hate of what we seek and what we weep....Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...ME imperturbe, standing at ease in Nature, 
Master of all, or mistress of all—aplomb in the midst of irrational things, 
Imbued as they—passive, receptive, silent as they, 
Finding my occupation, poverty, notoriety, foibles, crimes, less important than I thought;

Me private, or public, or menial, or solitary—all these subordinate, (I am eternally
 equal
 with
 the best—I am not subordinate;)
Me toward the Mexican Sea, or in the Mannahatta, or the Tennessee...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...m is, we shall die! 
How dies the Serpent? he hath eaten and lives, 
And knows, and speaks, and reasons, and discerns, 
Irrational till then. For us alone 
Was death invented? or to us denied 
This intellectual food, for beasts reserved? 
For beasts it seems: yet that one beast which first 
Hath tasted envies not, but brings with joy 
The good befallen him, author unsuspect, 
Friendly to man, far from deceit or guile. 
What fear I then? rather, what know to fear 
Unde...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...e, 
Sirocco and Libecchio. Thus began 
Outrage from lifeless things; but Discord first, 
Daughter of Sin, among the irrational 
Death introduced, through fierce antipathy: 
Beast now with beast 'gan war, and fowl with fowl, 
And fish with fish; to graze the herb all leaving, 
Devoured each other; nor stood much in awe 
Of Man, but fled him; or, with countenance grim, 
Glared on him passing. These were from without 
The growing miseries, which Adam saw 
Already in part...Read more of this...



by Milton, John
...t thy providence through his short course, 
Not evenly, as thou rul'st
The Angelic orders and inferiour creatures mute,
Irrational and brute.
Nor do I name of men the common rout,
That wandring loose about
Grow up and perish, as the summer flie,
Heads without name no more rememberd,
But such as thou hast solemnly elected,
With gifts and graces eminently adorn'd
To some great work, thy glory, 
And peoples safety, which in part they effect:
Yet toward these thus dignifi'd, ...Read more of this...

by Patchen, Kenneth
...de upon all parties
To wound deeper than the soldier
To heal this poor obstinate monkey once and for all

To verify the irrational
To exaggerate all things
To inhibit everyone
To lubricate each proportion
To experience only experience

To set a flame in the high air
To exclaim at the commonplace alone
To cause the unseen eyes to open

To admire only the abrsurd
To be concerned with every profession save his own
To raise a fortuitous stink on the boulevards of truth and beauty...Read more of this...

by Schwartz, Delmore
...ng the white ball forth.

 2

While I ate a baked potato
Six thousand miles apart,

In Brooklyn, in 1916,
Aged two, irrational.

When Franklin D. Roosevelt
Was an Arrow Collar ad.

O Nicholas! Alas! Alas!
My grandfather coughed in your army,

Hid in a wine-stinking barrel,
For three days in Bucharest

Then left for America
To become a king himself.

 3

I am my father's father,
You are your children's guilt.

In history's pity and terror
The child is A...Read more of this...

by Yeats, William Butler
...o long can be no longer thought,
For beauty dies of beauty, worth of worth,
And ancient lineaments are blotted out.
Irrational streams of blood are staining earth;
Empedocles has thrown all things about;
Hector is dead and there's a light in Troy;
We that look on but laugh in tragic joy.

What matter though numb nightmare ride on top,
And blood and mire the sensitive body stain?
What matter? Heave no sigh, let no tear drop,
A-greater, a more gracious time has gone;
Fo...Read more of this...

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