Famous Provoked Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Provoked poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous provoked poems. These examples illustrate what a famous provoked poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Frost, Robert
...wer;
Some strange kind--they told me it hadn't a name."
"I've told you how once not long after we came,
I almost provoked poor Loren to mirth
By going to him of all people on earth
To ask if he knew any fruit to be had
For the picking. The rascal, he said he'd be glad
To tell if he knew. But the year had been bad.
There had been some berries--but those were all gone.
He didn't say where they had been. He went on:
'I'm sure--I'm sure'--as poli...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...farther from you than your hearing and sight
are
from
you;
It is hinted by nearest, commonest, readiest—it is ever provoked by them.
You may read in many languages, yet read nothing about it;
You may read the President’s Message, and read nothing about it there;
Nothing in the reports from the State department or Treasury department, or in the daily
papers
or
the weekly papers,
Or in the census or revenue returns, prices current, or any accounts of stock. ...Read more of this...
by
Hugo, Victor
...illars blue
To strike out sparks, and combats to renew,
Choosing for battle-field the shades below,
Which they provoked by deeds we cannot know,
In that dark realm thought dares not to expound
False masks from heaven lowered to depths profound.
IX.
A NOISE ON THE FLOOR.
This is the scene on which now enters in
Eviradnus; and follows page Gasclin.
The outer walls were almost all decayed,
The door, for ancient Marquises once made—
...Read more of this...
by
Watts, Isaac
...erfect, holy, just, and pure,
Was thine eternal law.
Then felt my soul the heavy load,
My sins revived again
I had provoked a dreadful God,
And all my hopes were slain.]
I'm like a helpless captive, sold
Under the power of sin
I cannot do the good I would,
Nor keep my conscience clean.
My God, I cry with every breath
For some kind power to save,
To break the yoke of sin and death,
And thus redeem the slave....Read more of this...
by
Watts, Isaac
...zeal declare,
All their religion is a dream,
If love be wanting there.
Love suffers long with patient eye,
Nor is provoked in haste;
She lets the present injury die,
And long forgets the past.
[Malice and rage, those fires of hell,
She quenches with her tongue;
Hopes and believes, and thinks no ill,
Though she endure the wrong.]
[She nor desires nor seeks to know
The scandals of the time;
Nor looks with pride on those below,
Nor envies those that climb.]
...Read more of this...
by
Kumin, Maxine
...th humans.
It's a simple world, full of crossovers.
Heaven's an airy Somewhere, and God
has a nasty temper when provoked,
but if there's a Hell, little is made of it.
No longtailed Devil, no eternal fire,
and no choosing what to come back as.
When the grizzly bear appears, he lies/lays down
on atheist and zealot.In the pitch-dark
each of us waits for him in Glacier Park....Read more of this...
by
Marvell, Andrew
...didst fail;
Ye neighboring elms, that your green leaves did shed,
And fawns that from the womb abortive fled;
Not unprovoked, she tries forbidden arts,
But in her soft breast love's hid cancer smarts,
While she resoloves, at once, Sidney's disgrace
And her self scorned for emulous Denham's face,
And nightly hears the hated guards, away
Galloping with the Duke to other prey.
Paint Castlemaine in colours that will hold
(Her, not her picture, for she now grows ol...Read more of this...
by
Untermeyer, Louis
...th and coffee,
Spoke in symbolic tropes about the stars.
Something I said about "those high
Abodes of all the blest" provoked his temper.
"Abodes? The stars?" He froze me with a sneer,
"A light eruption on the firmament."
"But," cried romantic I, "is there no sphere
Where virtue is rewarded when we die?"
And Hegel mocked, "A very pleasant whim.
So you demand a bonus since you spent
One lifetime and refrained from poisoning
Your testy grandmother!" ... How much of h...Read more of this...
by
von Goethe, Johann Wolfgang
...he muse of Germany to the
shores of Britain, by the criticisms, whether friendly or hostile,
that have been evoked or provoked by the appearance of its elder
brother.
As already mentioned, the latter contained the whole of the Poems
of Schiller. It is impossible, in anything like the same compass,
to give all the writings of Goethe comprised under the general title
of Gedichte, or poems. They contain between 30,000 and 40,000 verses,
exclusive of his plays...Read more of this...
by
Milton, John
...wrought our fall.
Henceforth his might we know, and know our own,
So as not either to provoke, or dread
New war provoked: our better part remains
To work in close design, by fraud or guile,
What force effected not; that he no less
At length from us may find, who overcomes
By force hath overcome but half his foe.
Space may produce new Worlds; whereof so rife
There went a fame in Heaven that he ere long
Intended to create, and therein plant
A generation whom...Read more of this...
by
Milton, John
...venfold, and scourge that wisdom back to Hell,
Which taught thee yet no better, that no pain
Can equal anger infinite provoked.
But wherefore thou alone? wherefore with thee
Came not all hell broke loose? or thou than they
Less hardy to endure? Courageous Chief!
The first in flight from pain! hadst thou alleged
To thy deserted host this cause of flight,
Thou surely hadst not come sole fugitive.
To which the Fiend thus answered, frowning stern.
Not that I...Read more of this...
by
Milton, John
...for, thou returnest
From flight, seditious Angel! to receive
Thy merited reward, the first assay
Of this right hand provoked, since first that tongue,
Inspired with contradiction, durst oppose
A third part of the Gods, in synod met
Their deities to assert; who, while they feel
Vigour divine within them, can allow
Omnipotence to none. But well thou comest
Before thy fellows, ambitious to win
From me some plume, that thy success may show
Destruction to the rest:...Read more of this...
by
Milton, John
...ss,
Thus in calm mood his words to Eve he turned.
Bold deed thou hast presumed, adventurous Eve,
And peril great provoked, who thus hast dared,
Had it been only coveting to eye
That sacred fruit, sacred to abstinence,
Much more to taste it under ban to touch.
But past who can recall, or done undo?
Not God Omnipotent, nor Fate; yet so
Perhaps thou shalt not die, perhaps the fact
Is not so heinous now, foretasted fruit,
Profaned first by the serpent, by him f...Read more of this...
by
Watts, Isaac
...live through every age,
And be th' Almighty's care.]
PAUSE I.
When Pharaoh dared to vex the saints,
And thus provoked their God,
Moses was sent at their complaints,
Armed with his dreadful rod.
He called for darkness; darkness came
Like an o'erwhelming flood;
He turned each lake and every stream
To lakes and streams of blood.
He gave the sign, and noisome flies
Through the whole country spread;
And frogs in croaking armies rise
About the monarch's bed.Read more of this...
by
Watts, Isaac
...rock their thirst supplied
The gushing waters fell,
And ran in rivers by their side,
A constant miracle.
Yet they provoked the Lord most High,
And dared distrust his hand:
"Can he with bread our host supply
Amidst this desert land?"
The Lord with indignation heard,
And caused his wrath to flame;
His terrors ever stand prepared
To vindicate his name....Read more of this...
by
Gregory, Rg
...thick brier evil bramble twitch
stick sharp needles in his skin
hag's spite inflicts its bitter sting
frederick (provoked to attack
stung stabbed by jabbing spines
wincing with agony and grief) seeks to hack
a clear way through
picking swinging at
the spiky barricade inch by prickly inch
smarting with anger bristling with a thin
itch and tingling of success - acute
with aching glory the afflicted victim
of a witch's pique frederick
frederick the ...Read more of this...
by
Byron, George (Lord)
...en much doubted whether the notes of this "Lover of the rose are sad or merry; and Mr Fox's remarks on the subject have provoked some learned controversy as to the opinions of the ancients on the subject. I dare not venture a conjecture on the point, though a little inclined to the "errare [m?]alleum," &c., if Mr Fox was mistaken.
[Transcriber's note: the print impression I am working from is poor and in places not entirely intelligible.]
(18) "Azrael," th...Read more of this...
by
Field, Eugene
...g the ones that ain't;
Happy, thrice happy, is the man we happen to admire,
But wretched, oh, how wretched he that hath provoked our ire;
For I speak emphatic English when I once get fairly r'iled,
And Stoddard's wrath's an Ossa upon a Pelion piled.
Out yonder, in the alcove, a lady sits and darns,
And interjects remarks that always serve to spice our yarns;
She's Mrs. Stoddard; there's a dame that's truly to my heart:
A tiny little woman, but so quaint, and good, an...Read more of this...
by
Petrarch, Francesco
...ted march, amazed,When on the self-devoted men they gazed,Till they provoked their fate. And Curtius nigh,As when to heaven he cast his upward eye,And all on fire with glory's opening charms,Plunged to the Shades below with clanging arms,Lævinus, Mummius, with Flaminius show'd,Like meaner ligh...Read more of this...
by
Bradstreet, Anne
...h.
All men must die, and so must I;
this cannot be revoked.
For Adam's sake this word God spake
when he so high provoked.
Yet live I shall, this life's but small,
in place of highest bliss,
Where I shall have all I can crave,
no life is like to this.
For what's this but care and strife
since first we came from womb?
Our strength doth waste, our time doth haste,
and then we go to th' tomb.
O bubble blast, how long can'st last?
that always art a breaking,
No...Read more of this...
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