Famous Protesting Poems by Famous Poets

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

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The Lyon And The Gnat

by Anne Kingsmill Finch
 To the still Covert of a Wood 
About the prime of Day, 
A Lyon, satiated with Food, 
With stately Pace, and sullen Mood, 
Now took his lazy way. 

To Rest he there himself compos'd, 
And in his Mind revolv'd, 
How Great a Person it enclos'd, 
How free from Danger he repos'd, 
Though now in Ease dissolv'd! 

Who Guard, nor...Read more of this...

Injustice

by Ehsan Sehgal
For bearance of injustice may display greatness 
but not protesting against injustice is also unjust.
Ehsan Sehgal...Read more of this...

Week-Night Service

by D. H. Lawrence
 The five old bells
Are hurrying and eagerly calling, 
Imploring, protesting 
They know, but clamorously falling 
Into gabbling incoherence, never resting,
Like spattering showers from a bursten sky-rocket dropping
In splashes of sound, endlessly, never stopping.

The silver moon 
That somebody has spun so high 
To settle the question, yes or no, has caught 
In the net of the night’s balloon, 
And sits...Read more of this...

The Dinner-Party

by Amy Lowell
 Fish
"So . . ." they said,
With their wine-glasses delicately poised,
Mocking at the thing they cannot understand.
"So . . ." they said again,
Amused and insolent.
The silver on the table glittered,
And the red wine in the glasses
Seemed the blood I had wasted
In a foolish cause.

Game
The gentleman with the grey-and-black whiskers
Sneered languidly over his quail.
Then my heart flew up and laboured,
And I...Read more of this...

A Fine Madness

by Barry Tebb
 Any poets about or bored muses fancying a day out?

Rainy, windy, cold Leeds City Station

Half-way through its slow chaotic transformation

Contractors’ morning break, overalls, hard hats and harness

Flood McDonalds where I sip my tea and try to translate Val?ry.



London has everything except my bardic inspiration

I’ve only to step off the coach in Leeds and it whistles

Its bravuras down every wind,...Read more of this...

Worms

by Robert William Service
 Worms finer for fishing you couldn't be wishing;
I delved them dismayed from the velvety sod;
The rich loam upturning I gathered them squirming,
big, fat, gleamy earthworms, all ripe for my rod.
Thinks I, without waiting, my hook I'll be baiting,
And flip me a fish from the foam of the pool;
Then Mother beholding, came crying and scolding:
"You're late, ye young devil! Be...Read more of this...

Blackberrying

by Sylvia Plath
 Nobody in the lane, and nothing, nothing but blackberries,
Blackberries on either side, though on the right mainly,
A blackberry alley, going down in hooks, and a sea
Somewhere at the end of it, heaving. Blackberries
Big as the ball of my thumb, and dumb as eyes
Ebon in the hedges, fat
With blue-red juices. These they squander on my fingers.
I had not asked for...Read more of this...

Mother Among The Dustbins

by Stevie Smith
 Mother, among the dustbins and the manure
I feel the measure of my humanity, an allure
As of the presence of God, I am sure

In the dustbins, in the manure, in the cat at play,
Is the presence of God, in a sure way
He moves there. Mother, what do you say?

I too have felt the presence of God in the broom
I hold,...Read more of this...

For My Lover Returning To His Wife

by Anne Sexton
 She is all there. 
She was melted carefully down for you 
and cast up from your childhood, 
cast up from your one hundred favorite aggies. 
She has always been there, my darling. 
She is, in fact, exquisite. 
Fireworks in the dull middle of February 
and as real as a cast-iron pot. 
Let's face it, I have been momentary. 
vA...Read more of this...

Sonnet LXIX

by Francesco Petrarch
SONNET LXIX. Erano i capei d' oro all' aura sparsi. HE PAINTS THE BEAUTIES OF LAURA, PROTESTING HIS UNALTERABLE LOVE.  Loose to the breeze her golden tresses flow'dWildly in thousand mazy ringlets blown,And from her eyes unconquer'd glances shone,Those glances now so sparingly bestow'd.And true or false, meseem'd some signs she...Read more of this...

Crow Goes Hunting

by Ted Hughes
Crow
Decided to try words. 

He imagined some words for the job, a lovely pack-
Clear-eyed, resounding, well-trained, 
With strong teeth. 
You could not find a better bred lot. 

He pointed out the hare and away went the words
Resounding. 
Crow was Crow without fail, but what is a hare? 

It converted itself to a concrete bunker. 
The words circled protesting, resounding. 

Crow...Read more of this...

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