Famous Obdurate Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Obdurate poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous obdurate poems. These examples illustrate what a famous obdurate poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Bradstreet, Anne
...e also.
145 I saw poor Ireland bleeding out her last,
146 Such cruelty as all reports have past.
147 Mine heart obdurate stood not yet aghast.
148 Now sip I of that cup, and just 't may be
149 The bottom dregs reserved are for me.
New England.
150 To all you've said, sad mother, I assent.
151 Your fearful sins great cause there 's to lament.
152 My guilty hands (in part) hold up with you,
153 A sharer in your punishment's my due.
154 But all...Read more of this...
by
Dickinson, Emily
...yed
Decade had gathered to Decade --
But Time had added not obtained
Impregnable the Rose
For summer too indelible
Too obdurate for Snows --...Read more of this...
by
Browning, Robert
...shuts one's eyes on youth,
``Is that face the last one sees?''
XII.
Oh how dark your villa was,
Windows fast and obdurate!
How the garden grudged me grass
Where I stood---the iron gate
Ground its teeth to let me pass!...Read more of this...
by
Browning, Robert
...d see!
XV
Love so, then, if thou wilt! Give all thou canst
Away to the new faces—disentranced—
(Say it and think it) obdurate no more,
Re-issue looks and words from the old mint—
Pass them afresh, no matter whose the print
Image and superscription once they bore!
XVI
Re-coin thyself and give it them to spend,—
It all comes to the same thing at the end,
Since mine thou wast, mine art, and mine shalt be,
Faithful or faithless, sealing up the sum
Or lavish of my treasure,...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...br>)
12
Are you he who would assume a place to teach, or be a poet here in The States?
The place is august—the terms obdurate.
Who would assume to teach here, may well prepare himself, body and mind,
He may well survey, ponder, arm, fortify, harden, make lithe, himself,
He shall surely be question’d beforehand by me with many and stern questions.
Who are you, indeed, who would talk or sing to America?
Have you studied out the land, its idioms and men?
Have yo...Read more of this...
by
Gregory, Rg
...till accumulating speed
this daft fantastic mass
white-hot with bitter rage
thrashes seethes explodes
until
before some obdurate cliff face
or deep in a ravine
it hurls itself at last
indifferently to death
and then there is this silence
too hurt too solid a thing to bear
beside the foaming mountain...Read more of this...
by
Petrarch, Francesco
...That voice, those footsteps which subdueMy soul; yet movest not th' obdurate fair! Lock'd in some bay, to taste reposeOn the hard deck, the sailor throwsHis coarse garb o'er him, when the car of lightGranada, with Marocco leaves,The Pillars famed, Iberia's waves,...Read more of this...
by
Thomson, James
...how I love with thee to walk,
And listen to thy whisper'd talk,
Which innocence, and truth imparts,
And melts the most obdurate hearts.
A thousand shapes you wear with ease,
And still in every shape you please.
Now wrapt in some mysterious dream,
A lone philosopher you seem;
Now quick from hill to vale you fly,
And now you sweep the vaulted sky;
A shepherd next, you haunt the plain,
And warble forth your oaten strain;
A lover now, with all the grace
Of that sweet p...Read more of this...
by
Wheatley, Phillis
...k her face: amidst the flood
"Pour'd from her cheeks, quite fix'd her eye-balls stood.
"Her tongue, her palate both obdurate grew,
"Her curdled veins no longer motion knew;
"The use of neck, and arms, and feet was gone,
"And ev'n her bowels hard'ned into stone:
"A marble statue now the queen appears,
"But from the marble steal the silent tears."...Read more of this...
by
Stevenson, Robert Louis
...bare to the beholder's eye
Your late denuded bindings lie,
Subsiding slowly where they fell,
A disinvested citadel;
The obdurate corset, Cupid's foe,
The Dutchman's breeches frilled below.
Those that the lover notes to note,
And white and crackling petticoat.
From these, that on the ground repose,
Their lady lately re-arose;
And laying by the lady's name,
A living woman re-became.
Of her, that from the public eye
They do enclose and fortify,
Now, lying scattered ...Read more of this...
by
Milton, John
...d lasting pain
Torments him: round he throws his baleful eyes,
That witnessed huge affliction and dismay,
Mixed with obdurate pride and steadfast hate.
At once, as far as Angels ken, he views
The dismal situation waste and wild.
A dungeon horrible, on all sides round,
As one great furnace flamed; yet from those flames
No light; but rather darkness visible
Served only to discover sights of woe,
Regions of sorrow, doleful shades, where peace
And rest can neve...Read more of this...
by
Milton, John
...>
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
Weening to prosper, and at length prevail
Against God and Messiah, or to fall
In universal ruin last; and now
To final battle drew, disdaining flight,
Or fain...Read more of this...
by
Milton, John
...f fire;
By day a cloud, by night a pillar of fire;
To guide them in their journey, and remove
Behind them, while the obdurate king pursues:
All night he will pursue; but his approach
Darkness defends between till morning watch;
Then through the fiery pillar, and the cloud,
God looking forth will trouble all his host,
And craze their chariot-wheels: when by command
Moses once more his potent rod extends
Over the sea; the sea his rod obeys;
On their embattled ranks t...Read more of this...
by
Muir, Edwin
...ked with his rusty beak the starving haulms.
Out of that desolation we were born.
Courage beyond the point and obdurate pride
Made us a nation, robbed us of a nation.
Defiance absolute and myriad-eyed
That could not pluck the palm plucked our damnation.
We with such courage and the bitter wit
To fell the ancient oak of loyalty,
And strip the peopled hill and altar bare,
And crush the poet with an iron text,
How could we read our souls and learn to be?
Here a ...Read more of this...
by
Plath, Sylvia
...e priestlier
Than priest's hands, invoke no vain
Images of light and air
But sure stations in bronze, wood, stone.
Obdurate, in dense-grained wood,
A bald angel blocks and shapes
The flimsy light; arms folded
Watches his cumbrous world eclipse
Inane worlds of wind and cloud.
Bronze dead dominate the floor,
Resistive, ruddy-bodied,
Dwarfing us. Our bodies flicker
Toward extinction in those eyes
Which, without him, were beggared
Of place, time, and their bodies.<...Read more of this...
by
Petrarch, Francesco
...N>And oft with courteous speech, with love-lorn sighs,Have wish'd to soften my obdurate fair:But let that face one look of anger wear,The intention fades; for all that fate supplies,Or good, or ill, all, all that I can prize,My life, my death, Love trusts to her dear care.E'en I can scarcely hear my amorous ...Read more of this...
by
Finch, Anne Kingsmill
...e hopes to pearch and with a chearfull Tune
O're-passe the scortchings of the sultry Noon.
But soon repuls'd by the obdurate scean
How swift she turns but turns alas in vain
That piece a Grove, this shews an ambient sky
Where immitated Fowl their pinnions ply
Seeming to mount in flight and aiming still more high.
All she outstrip's and with a moments pride
Their understation silent does deride
Till the dash'd Cealing strikes her to the ground
No intercepting shrub to ...Read more of this...
by
Stevens, Wallace
...ispin knew
242 It was a flourishing tropic he required
243 For his refreshment, an abundant zone,
244 Prickly and obdurate, dense, harmonious
245 Yet with a harmony not rarefied
246 Nor fined for the inhibited instruments
247 Of over-civil stops. And thus he tossed
248 Between a Carolina of old time,
249 A little juvenile, an ancient whim,
250 And the visible, circumspect presentment drawn
251 From what he saw across his vessel's prow.
252 He c...Read more of this...
by
Laurence Dunbar, Paul
...ever, those who saw him thus distressed
Would bid him bend his stubborn will and pray.
But he, strong in himself and obdurate,
Waged, prayerless, on his losing fight with Fate.[Pg 112]
Friends gave his proffered hand their coldest clasp,
Or took it not at all; and Poverty,
That bruised his body with relentless grasp,
Grinned, taunting, when he struggled to be free.
But though with helpless hands he beat the air,
Hi...Read more of this...
by
Petrarch, Francesco
...And calculates the planets' heavenly race;And Porphyry, whose proud obdurate heartWas proof to mighty Truth's celestial dart;With sophistry assail'd the cause of God,And stood in arms against the heavenly code.Hippocrates, for healing arts renown'd,And half obscured within the dark profound;Read more of this...
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