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Famous Privacy Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Angelou, Maya
...Give me your hand

Make room for me
to lead and follow
you
beyond this rage of poetry.

Let others have
the privacy of
touching words
and love of loss
of love.

For me
Give me your hand....Read more of this...



by Lanier, Sidney
...'st no tempest leaven --
But after winds' and thunders' wide mischance
Dost brood, and better thine inheritance --
Thou privacy of space, where each grave Star
As in his own still chamber sits afar
To meditate, yet, by thy walls unpent,
Shines to his fellows o'er the firmament --
Oh! as thou liv'st in all this sky and sea
That likewise lovingly do live in thee,
So melt my soul in thee, and thine in me,
Divine Tranquillity!

Gray Pelican, poised where yon broad shallows shine,...Read more of this...

by Moore, Marianne
...him.
Muscle kinks, infections, spike wounds
require food, rest, respite from ruffians.(Drat it!
Celebrity costs privacy!)
Cow's milk, "tiger's milk," soy milk, carrot juice,
brewer's yeast (high-potency--
concentrates presage victory

sped by Luis Arroyo, Hector Lopez--
deadly in a pinch.And "Yes,
it's work; I want you to bear down,
but enjoy it
while you're doing it."
Mr. Houk and Mr. Sain,
if you have a rummage sale,
don't sell Roland Sheldon or Tom ...Read more of this...

by Keats, John
...Whereon, it was decreed he should be rear'd
Each summer time to life. Lo! this is he,
That same Adonis, safe in the privacy
Of this still region all his winter-sleep.
Aye, sleep; for when our love-sick queen did weep
Over his waned corse, the tremulous shower
Heal'd up the wound, and, with a balmy power,
Medicined death to a lengthened drowsiness:
The which she fills with visions, and doth dress
In all this quiet luxury; and hath set
Us young immortals, without any le...Read more of this...

by Marvell, Andrew
...nt. 

For all delight of life thou then didst lose, 
When to command, thou didst thyself dispose; 
Resigning up thy privacy so dear, 
To turn the headstrong people's charioteer; 
For to be Cromwell was a greater thing, 
Then ought below, or yet above a king: 
Therefore thou rather didst thyself depress, 
Yielding to rule, because it made thee less. 

For neither didst thou from the first apply 
Thy sober spirit unto things too high, 
But in thine own fields exercised'...Read more of this...



by Lowell, Robert
...r>

He has an angry wrenlike vigilance,
a greyhound's gently tautness;
he seems to wince at pleasure,
and suffocate for privacy.

He is out of bounds now. He rejoices in man's lovely,
peculiar power to choose life and die--
when he leads his black soldiers to death,
he cannot bend his back.

On a thousand small town New England greens,
the old white churches hold their air
of sparse, sincere rebellion; frayed flags
quilt the graveyards of the Grand Army of the Rep...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...to the perfect girl who understands me, 
To waft to her these from my own lips—to effuse them from my own body;) 
From privacy—from frequent repinings alone;
From plenty of persons near, and yet the right person not near; 
From the soft sliding of hands over me, and thrusting of fingers through my hair and
 beard; 
From the long sustain’d kiss upon the mouth or bosom; 
From the close pressure that makes me or any man drunk, fainting with excess; 
From what the divine husband...Read more of this...

by Emerson, Ralph Waldo
...
He is not of counted age,
Meaning always to be young.
And his wish is intimacy,
Intimater intimacy,
And a stricter privacy,
The impossible shall yet be done,
And being two shall still be one.
As the wave breaks to foam on shelves,
Then runs into a wave again,
So lovers melt their sundered selves,
Yet melted would be twain....Read more of this...

by Plath, Sylvia
...y
Of diminishing perspectives, and its significance
Drains like water out the hole at the far end.
He lives without privacy in a lidless room,
The bald slots of his eyes stiffened wide-open
On the incessant heat-lightning flicker of situations.

Nightlong, in the granite yard, invisible cats
Have been howling like women, or damaged instruments.
Already he can feel daylight, his white disease,
Creeping up with her hatful of trivial repetitions.
The city is a ma...Read more of this...

by Smart, Christopher
...e of defence and stands upon his arms continually. 

Let Nathan with the Badger bless God for his retired fame, and privacy inaccessible to slander. 

Let Joseph, who from the abundance of his blessing may spare to him, that lacketh, praise with the Crocodile, which is pleasant and pure, when he is interpreted, tho' his look is of terror and offence. 

Let Esdras bless Christ Jesus with the Rose and his people, which is a nation of living sweetness. 

Let Meph...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...the body just as much as it gives to the body, if not more.

Not one word or deed—not venereal sore, discoloration, privacy of the onanist,
 putridity
 of
 gluttons or rum-drinkers, peculation, cunning, betrayal, murder, seduction, prostitution,
 but
 has
 results beyond death, as really as before death. 

4
Charity and personal force are the only investments worth anything. 

No specification is necessary—all that a male or female does, that is vigorous,
 benevol...Read more of this...

by Lewis, C S
..., within this tiny, charmed interior, 
This parlour of the brain, their Maker shares 
With living men some secrets in a privacy 
Forever ours, not theirs....Read more of this...

by Bronte, Charlotte
...his wife­ 
He has no more of tenderness from me 
Than any other wretch of guilty life; 
Less, for I know his household privacy­ 
I see him as he is­without a screen; 
And, by the gods, my soul abhors his mien ! 

Has he not sought my presence, dyed in blood­ 
Innocent, righteous blood, shed shamelessly ? 
And have I not his red salute withstood ? 
Aye,­when, as erst, he plunged all Galilee 
In dark bereavement­in affliction sore, 
Mingling their very offerings with their gor...Read more of this...

by Ashbery, John
...amiliar when
We meet them again, lost beyond telling,
Which were ours once. This would be the point
Of invading the privacy of this man who
"Dabbled in alchemy, but whose wish
Here was not to examine the subtleties of art
In a detached, scientific spirit: he wished through them
To impart the sense of novelty and amazement to the spectator"
(Freedberg). Later portraits such as the Uffizi
"Gentleman," the Borghese "Young Prelate" and
The Naples "Antea" issue from Manner...Read more of this...

by Levertov, Denise
...presence,
we see it moving away over a hill
off to one side.

They are not dying,
they are withdrawn
into a painful privacy

learning to live without words.
E. P. "It looks like dying"-Williams: "I can't
describe to you what has been

happening to me"-
H. D. "unable to speak."
The darkness

twists itself in the wind, the stars
are small, the horizon
ringed with confused urban light-haze.

They have told us
the road leads to the sea,
and given

...Read more of this...

by Whittier, John Greenleaf
...rier's feet 
Delayed, all friends shut out, the housemates sit 
Around the radiant fireplace, enclosed 
In a tumultuous privacy of Storm." 
Emerson,The Snow Storm. 


The sun that brief December day 
Rose cheerless over hills of gray, 
And, darkly circled, gave at noon 
A sadder light than waning moon. 
Slow tracing down the thickening sky 
Its mute and ominous prophecy, 
A portent seeming less than threat, 
It sank from sight before it set. 
A chill no coat, ...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...n to
 call them to me, or think of them, 
The real poems, (what we call poems being merely pictures,) 
The poems of the privacy of the night, and of men like me, 
This poem, drooping shy and unseen, that I always carry, and that all men carry,
(Know, once for all, avow’d on purpose, wherever are men like me, are our lusty,
 lurking, masculine poems;) 
Love-thoughts, love-juice, love-odor, love-yielding, love-climbers, and the climbing sap, 
Arms and hands of love—lips of love...Read more of this...

by Keats, John
....

 Which was, to lead him, in close secrecy,
 Even to Madeline's chamber, and there hide
 Him in a closet, of such privacy
 That he might see her beauty unespy'd,
 And win perhaps that night a peerless bride,
 While legion'd faeries pac'd the coverlet,
 And pale enchantment held her sleepy-ey'd.
 Never on such a night have lovers met,
Since Merlin paid his Demon all the monstrous debt.

 "It shall be as thou wishest," said the Dame:
 "All cates and dainties shall...Read more of this...

by Marvell, Andrew
...e rent.
For all delight of Life thou then didst lose,
When to Command, thou didst thy self Depose;
Resigning up thy Privacy so dear,
To turn the headstrong Peoples Charioteer;
For to be Cromwell was a greater thing,
Then ought below, or yet above a King:
Therefore thou rather didst thy Self depress,
Yielding to Rule, because it made thee Less.
For, neither didst thou from the first apply
Thy sober Spirit unto things too High,
But in thine own Fields exercisedst long,
...Read more of this...

by Graves, Robert
...My familiar ghost again
Comes to see what he can see, 
Critic, son of Conscious Brain, 
Spying on our privacy. 

Slam the window, bolt the door,
Yet he’ll enter in and stay; 
In tomorrow’s book he’ll score 
Indiscretions of today. 

Whispered love and muttered fears, 
How their echoes fly about!
None escape his watchful ears, 
Every sigh might be a shout. 

No kind words nor angry cries 
Turn away this grim spoilsport; 
No fine lady’s pleading ey...Read more of this...

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Book: Shattered Sighs