Famous Loath Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Loath poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous loath poems. These examples illustrate what a famous loath poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
See also:
by
Wilfred Owen
I
Our brains ache, in the merciless iced east winds that knife us . . .
Wearied we keep awake because the night is silent . . .
Low drooping flares confuse our memory of the salient . . .
Worried by silence, sentries whisper, curious, nervous,
But nothing happens.
Watching, we hear the mad gusts tugging on the wire.
Like twitching agonies of men...Read more of this...
by
Anne Bradstreet
A ship that bears much sail, and little ballast, is easily
overset; and that man, whose head hath great abilities, and his
heart little or no grace, is in danger of foundering.
The finest bread has the least bran; the purest honey, the
least wax; and the sincerest Christian, the least self-love.
Sweet words are like honey; a little...Read more of this...
by
Rg Gregory
in my reading of the moment i have learned
the figure next to christ in da vinci’s last supper
(a painting i have actually seen in a milan church
fragilely restored) is a woman – an honour earned
by mary magdalene who (according to research)
turns out to be christ’s wife – hang on what a whopper
cry those who can’t contemplate centuries of teaching
down...Read more of this...
by
Wilfred Owen
It seemed that out of the battle I escaped
Down some profound dull tunnel, long since scooped
Through granites which Titanic wars had groined.
Yet also there encumbered sleepers groaned,
Too fast in thought or death to be bestirred.
Then, as I probed them, one sprang up, and stared
With piteous recognition in fixed eyes,
Lifting distressful hands as if to bless.
And by his smile, I...Read more of this...
by
Jennifer Reeser
What would I do without your voice to wake me?
Cor ad cor loquitur, I’m loath to know.
Kitsch operas sound, unhesitant to shake me,
The sheers undrawn, the heavens hardly showing,
My camisole askew, of lace-trimmed black –
Not red, not white; not passionate or pure.
I raise the volume, and the voices crack—
Vanilla scores: accessible, obscure.
But what would I do without your certain...Read more of this...
by
Louise Bogan
Now that I have your face by heart, I look
Less at its features than its darkening frame
Where quince and melon, yellow as young flame,
Lie with quilled dahlias and the shepherd's crook.
Beyond, a garden, There, in insolent ease
The lead and marble figures watch the show
Of yet another summer loath to go
Although the scythes hang in the apple trees.
Now that I...Read more of this...
by
Katherine Philips
Wee falsely think it due unto our friends,
That we should grieve for their too early ends:
He that surveys the world with serious eys,
And stripps Her from her grosse and weak disguise,
Shall find 'tis injury to mourn their fate;
He only dy's untimely who dy's Late.
For if 'twere told to children in the womb,
To what a stage of mischief they must...Read more of this...
by
Li Po
To wash and rinse our souls of their age-old sorrows,
We drained a hundred jugs of wine.
A splendid night it was . . . .
In the clear moonlight we were loath to go to bed,
But at last drunkenness overtook us;
And we laid ourselves down on the empty mountain,
The earth for pillow, and the great heaven for coverlet....Read more of this...
by
John Wilmot
Well Sir, 'tis granted, I said Dryden's Rhimes,
Were stoln, unequal, nay dull many times:
What foolish Patron, is there found of his,
So blindly partial, to deny me this?
But that his Plays, Embroider'd up and downe,
With Witt, and Learning, justly pleas'd the Towne,
In the same paper, I as freely owne:
Yet haveing this allow'd, the...Read more of this...
by
John Donne
Marry, and love thy Flavia, for she
Hath all things whereby others beautious be,
For, though her eyes be small, her mouth is great,
Though they be ivory, yet her teeth be jet,
Though they be dim, yet she is light enough,
And though her harsh hair fall, her skin is rough;
What though her cheeks be yellow, her hair's red;
Give her thine, and she...Read more of this...
by
Thomas Moore
'TWAS one of those dreams, that by music are brought,
Like a bright summer haze, o'er the poet's warm thought --
When, lost in the future, his soul wanders on,
And all of this life, but its sweetness, is gone.
The wild notes he heard o'er the water were those
He had taught to sing Erin's dark bondage and...Read more of this...
by
Ben Jonson
XLIX. — TO PLAYWRIGHT. PLAYWRIGHT me reads, and still my verses damns, He says I want the tongue of epigrams ; I have no salt, no bawdry he doth mean ; For witty, in his language, is obscene. Playwright, I loath to have thy manners known In my chaste book ; I profess them in thine own....Read more of this...
by
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Though loath to grieve
The evil time's sole patriot,
I cannot leave
My honied thought
For the priest's cant,
Or statesman's rant.
If I refuse
My study for their politique,
Which at the best is trick,
The angry Muse
Puts confusion in my brain.
But who is he that prates
Of the culture of mankind,
Of better arts and life?
Go, blindworm, go,
Behold the famous States
Harrying Mexico
With rifle and with knife!
Or who, with accent...Read more of this...
by
Mary Darby Robinson
High, on the Solitude of Alpine Hills,
O'er-topping the grand imag'ry of Nature,
Where one eternal winter seem'd to reign;
An HERMIT'S threshold, carpetted with moss,
Diversified the Scene. Above the flakes
Of silv'ry snow, full many a modest flow'r
Peep'd through its icy veil, and blushing ope'd
Its variegated hues; The ORCHIS sweet,
The bloomy CISTUS, and the fragrant branch
Of glossy MYRTLE. In his rushy cell,
The...Read more of this...
by
D. H. Lawrence
The snow is witherin' off'n th' gress
Love, should I tell thee summat?
The snow is witherin' off'n th' gress
An' a thick mist sucks at the clots o' snow,
An' the moon above in a weddin' dress
Goes fogged an' slow--
Love, should I tell thee summat?
Tha's been snowed up i' this cottage wi' me,
...Read more of this...
by
Edmund Spenser
MY hungry eyes, through greedy couetize,
Still to behold the obiect of theyr payne:
with no contentment can themselues suffize,
but hauing pine, and hauing not complayne
For lacking it, they cannot lyfe sustayne,
and seeing it, they gaze on it the more:
in theyr amazement lyke Marcissus vayne
whose eyes him staru'd: so plenty makes me pore.
Yet are myne eyes so filled with the store
of...Read more of this...
by
George (Lord) Byron
If, in the month of dark December,
Leander, who was nightly wont
(What maid will not the tale remember?)
To cross thy stream, broad Hellespont!
If, when the wintry tempest roared,
He sped to Hero, nothing loath,
And thus of old thy current poured,
Fair Venus! how I pity both!
For me, degenerate modern wretch,
Though in the genial month of May,
My dripping limbs I faintly stretch,
And think...Read more of this...
by
Adela Florence Cory Nicolson
The listless Palm-trees catch the breeze above
The pile-built huts that edge the salt Lagoon,
There is no Breeze to cool the heat of love,
No wind from land or sea, at night or noon.
Perfumed and robed I wait, my Lord, for you,
...Read more of this...
by
John Crowe Ransom
Two evils, monstrous either one apart,
Possessed me, and were long and loath at going:
A cry of Absence, Absence, in the heart,
And in the wood the furious winter blowing.
Think not, when fire was bright upon my bricks,
And past the tight boards hardly a wind could enter,
I glowed like them, the simple burning sticks,
Far from my cause, my proper heat and...Read more of this...
by
Thomas Moore
As slow our ship her foamy track
Against the wind was cleaving,
Her trembling pennant still look'd back
To that dear isle 'twas leaving.
So loath we part from all we love,
From all the links that bind us;
So turn our hearts as on we rove,
To those we've left behind us.
When, round the bowl, of vanish'd...Read more of this...
by
Eugene Field
(A BALLAD IN THE ANGLO-SAXON TONGUE)
When to the dreary greenwood gloam
Winfreda's husband strode that day,
The fair Winfreda bode at home
To toil the weary time away;
"While thou art gone to hunt," said she,
"I'll brew a goodly sop for thee."
Lo, from a further, gloomy wood,
A hungry wolf all bristling hied
And on the cottage threshold stood
And saw the dame at work inside;
And,...Read more of this...
by
Mary Darby Robinson
Why do I live to loath the cheerful day,
To shun the smiles of Fame, and mark the hours
On tardy pinions move, while ceaseless show'rs
Down my wan cheek in lucid currents stray?
My tresses all abound, nor gems display,
Nor scents Arabian! on my path no flow'rs
Imbibe the morn's resuscitating pow'rs,
For one blank sorrow, saddens all my way!
As slow the radiant Sun...Read more of this...
by
Rudyard Kipling
When the 'arf-made recruity goes out to the East
'E acts like a babe an' 'e drinks like a beast,
An' 'e wonders because 'e is frequent deceased
Ere 'e's fit for to serve as a soldier.
Serve, serve, serve as a soldier,
Serve, serve, serve as a soldier,
Serve, serve, serve as a soldier,
So-oldier OF the Queen!
Now all you...Read more of this...
by
John Donne
Come live with me, and be my love,
And we will some new pleasures prove,
Of golden sand, and crystal brooks,
With silken lines and silver hooks.
There will the river whispering run,
Warmed by thy eyes more than the sun.
And there the enamoured fish will stay.
Begging themselves they may betray.
When wilt thou swim in that live bath,
Each fish, which every channel hath,
Will amorously...Read more of this...
by
Edmund Spenser
OCTOBER: Ægloga DecimaPIERCE & CUDDIE
Cuddie, for shame hold up thy heavye head,
And let us cast with what delight to chace,
And weary thys long lingring Phoebus race.
Whilome thou wont the shepheards laddes to leade,
In rymes, in ridles, and in bydding base:
Now they in thee, and thou in sleepe art dead.
CUDDY
Piers, I have pyped erst so long with payne,
That all mine...Read more of this...
Dont forget to view our wonderful member Loath poems.