Famous Madonna Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Madonna poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous madonna poems. These examples illustrate what a famous madonna poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
See also:
by
Robert W Service
I haled me a woman from the street,
Shameless, but, oh, so fair!
I bade her sit in the model's seat
And I painted her sitting there.
I hid all trace of her heart unclean;
I painted a babe at her breast;
I painted her as she might have been
If the Worst had been the Best.
She laughed at...Read more of this...
by
Countee Cullen
With two white roses on her breasts,
White candles at head and feet,
Dark Madonna of the grave she rests;
Lord Death has found her sweet.
Her mother pawned her wedding ring
To lay her out in white;
She'd be so proud she'd dance and sing
to see herself tonight....Read more of this...
by
Gregory Corso
Budger of history Brake of time You Bomb
Toy of universe Grandest of all snatched sky I cannot hate you
Do I hate the mischievous thunderbolt the jawbone of an ass
The bumpy club of One Million B.C. the mace the flail the axe
Catapult Da Vinci tomahawk Cochise flintlock Kidd dagger Rathbone
Ah and the sad desparate gun...Read more of this...
by
Barry Tebb
It was Karl Shapiro who wrote in his ‘Defence of Ignorance’ how many poets
Go mad or seem to be so and the majority think we should all be in jail
Or mental hospital and you have ended up in both places - fragile as bone china,
Your pale skin taut, your fingers clasped tight round a cup, sitting in a pool
Of...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
I haled me a woman from the street,
Shameless, but, oh, so fair!
I bade her sit in the model's seat
And I painted her sitting there.
I hid all trace of her heart unclean;
I painted a babe at her breast;
I painted her as she might have been
If the Worst had been the Best.
She laughed at my picture and...Read more of this...
by
Duncan Campbell Scott
She stands full-throated and with careless pose,
This woman of a weird and waning race,
The tragic savage lurking in her face,
Where all her pagan passion burns and glows;
Her blood is mingled with her ancient foes,
And thrills with war and wildness in her veins;
Her rebel lips are dabbled with the stains
Of feuds and forays and her father's woes.
And closer in the...Read more of this...
by
Anne Sexton
1. DREAMS
I was an ice baby.
I turned to sky blue.
My tears became two glass beads.
My mouth stiffened into a dumb howl.
They say it was a dream
but I remember that hardening.
My sister at six
dreamt nightly of my death:
"The baby turned to ice.
Someone put her in the refrigerator
and she turned as hard as a Popsicle."
I remember the stink of the liverwurst.
How...Read more of this...
by
Randall Jarrell
About suffering, about adoration, the old masters
Disagree. When someone suffers, no one else eats
Or walks or opens the window--no one breathes
As the sufferers watch the sufferer.
In St. Sebastian Mourned by St. Irene
The flame of one torch is the only light.
All the eyes except the maidservant's (she weeps
And covers them with a cloth) are...Read more of this...
by
Oscar Wilde
A lily-girl, not made for this world's pain,
With brown, soft hair close braided by her ears,
And longing eyes half veiled by slumberous tears
Like bluest water seen through mists of rain:
Pale cheeks whereon no love hath left its stain,
Red underlip drawn in for fear of love,
And white throat, whiter than the silvered dove,
Through whose wan marble creeps one purple vein.
Yet,...Read more of this...
by
Barry Tebb
( I )
for ‘JC’ of the TLS
Nightmare of metropolitan amalgam
Grand Hotel and myself as a guest there
Lost with my room rifled, my belongings scattered,
Purse, diary and vital list of numbers gone –
Vague sad memories of mam n’dad
Leeds 1942 back-to-back with shared outside lav.
Hosannas of sweet May mornings
Whitsun glory of lilac blooming
Sixty years on I run and run
From death,...Read more of this...
by
Charlotte Bronte
THIS last denial of my faith,
Thou, solemn Priest, hast heard;
And, though upon my bed of death,
I call not back a word.
Point not to thy Madonna, Priest,
Thy sightless saint of stone;
She cannot, from this burning breast,
Wring one repentant moan.
Thou say'st, that when a sinless child,
I duly bent the knee,
And prayed to what in marble smiled...Read more of this...
by
Charles Baudelaire
MADONNA, mistress, I would build for thee
An altar deep in the sad soul of me;
And in the darkest corner of my heart,
From mortal hopes and mocking eyes apart,
Carve of enamelled blue and gold a shrine
For thee to stand erect in, Image divine!
And with a mighty Crown thou shalt be crowned
Wrought of the...Read more of this...
by
Alfred Lord Tennyson
With one black shadow at its feet,
The house thro' all the level shines,
Close-latticed to the brooding heat,
And silent in its dusty vines:
A faint-blue ridge upon the right,
An empty river-bed before,
And shallows on a distant shore,
In glaring sand and inlets bright.
But "Aye Mary," made she moan,
And "Aye Mary," night and morn,
And "Ah," she sang, "to be all alone,
To live forgotten,...Read more of this...
by
Charles Simic
To find clues where there are none,
That's my job now, I said to the
Dictionary on my desk. The world beyond
My window has grown illegible,
And so has the clock on the wall.
I may strike a match to orient myself
In the meantime, there's the heart
Stopping hush as the building
Empties, the elevators stop running,
The grains of dust stay put.
Hours of quiescent sleuthing
Before...Read more of this...
by
Victor Hugo
("Dors-tu? mère de notre mère.")
{III., 1823.}
"To die—to sleep."—SHAKESPEARE.
Still asleep! We have been since the noon thus alone.
Oh, the hours we have ceased to number!
Wake, grandmother!—speechless say why thou art grown.
Then, thy lips are so cold!—the Madonna of stone
Is like thee in thy holy...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
He's the man from Eldorado, and he's just arrived in town,
In moccasins and oily buckskin shirt.
He's gaunt as any Indian, and pretty nigh as brown;
He's greasy, and he smells of sweat and dirt.
He sports a crop of whiskers that would shame a healthy hog;
Hard work has racked his joints and stooped his back;
He slops along the...Read more of this...
by
Anne Sexton
There will be mud on the carpet tonight
and blood in the gravy as well.
The wifebeater is out,
the childbeater is out
eating soil and drinking bullets from a cup.
He strides bback and forth
in front of my study window
chewing little red pieces of my heart.
His eyes flash like a birthday cake
and he makes bread out of rock.
Yesterday he was walking
like a man...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
I've sung of Violet de Vere, that slinky, minky dame,
Of Gertie of the Diamond Tooth, and Touch-the-Button Nell,
And Maye Lamore,--at eighty-four I oughta blush wi' shame
That in my wild and wooly youth I knew them ladies well.
And Klondike Kit, and Gumboot Sue, and many I've forgot;
They had their faults, as I recall, the same as you and me;
But come...Read more of this...
by
John Milton
VI
Giovane piano, e semplicetto amante
Poi che fuggir me stesso in dubbio sono,
Madonna a voi del mio cuor l'humil dono
Faro divoto; io certo a prove tante
L'hebbi fedele, intrepido, costante,
De pensieri leggiadro, accorto, e buono;
Quando rugge il gran mondo, e scocca il tuono,
S 'arma di se, e d' intero diamante,
Tanto del forse, e d' invidia sicuro,
Di timori, e speranze al popol...Read more of this...
by
Henrik Ibsen
WITH palette laden
She sat, as I passed her,
A dainty maiden
Before an Old Master.
What mountain-top is
She bent upon? Ah,
She neatly copies
Murillo's Madonna.
But rapt and brimming
The eyes' full chalice says
The heart builds dreaming
Its fairy-palaces.
* * *
The eighteenth year rolled
By, ere returning,
I greeted the dear old
Scenes...Read more of this...
by
Fannie Isabelle Sherrick
O beautiful woman, too well we know
The terrible weight of thy woman's woe,
So great that the world, in its careless way,
Remembered thy beauty for more than a day.
In the name of the truth from thy brow is torn
The crown of redemption thou long hast worn,
And into the valley of sin thou art hurled
To be trampled anew by the feet of...Read more of this...
by
Heather McHugh
The gh comes from rough, the o from women's,
and the ti from unmentionables--presto:
there's the perfect English instance of
unlovablility--complete
with fish. Our wish was for a better
revelation: for a correspondence--
if not lexical, at least
phonetic; if not with Madonna
then at least with Mary Magdalene.
Instead we get the sheer
opacity of things: an accident
of incident, a tracery of history: the dung
inside the dungarees, the...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
Promise This -- When You be Dying --
Some shall summon Me --
Mine belong Your latest Sighing --
Mine -- to Belt Your Eye --
Not with Coins -- though they be Minted
From an Emperor's Hand --
Be my lips -- the only Buckle
Your low Eyes -- demand --
Mine to stay -- when all have wandered --
To devise once more
If the Life be...Read more of this...
by
Barry Tebb
THE KINGDOM OF MY HEART
1
The halcyon settled on the Aire of our days
Kingfisher-blue it broke my heart in two
Shall I forget you? Shall I forget you?
I am the mad poet first love
You never got over
You are my blue-eyed
Madonna virgin bride
I shall carve ‘MG loves BT’
On the bark of every
Wind-bent tree in
East End Park
2
The park itself will blossom
And...Read more of this...
by
Anne Sexton
It is half winter, half spring,
and Barbara and I are standing
confronting the ocean.
Its mouth is open very wide,
and it has dug up its green,
throwing it, throwing it at the shore.
You say it is angry.
I say it is like a kicked Madonna.
Its womb collapses, drunk with its fever.
We breathe in its fury.
I, the inlander,
am here with you for just a...Read more of this...
Dont forget to view our wonderful member Madonna poems.