Famous Putrid Poems by Famous Poets

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

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A poem on divine revelation

...it; black streams and foul 
Which from the lake of Tartarus break forth, 
The sickly tide of Acheron which flows, 
With putrid waves through the infernal shades. 
This plant of heaven loves the gentle beams, 
Of truth and meekness, and the kindly dew 
Which fell on Zion hill; it loves the care 
Of humble shepherds, and the rural swain, 
And tended by their hands it flourishes 
With fruit and blossoms, and soon gives a shade, 
Beneath which ev'ry traveller shall rest, 
Safe fr...Read more of this...
by Brackenridge, Hugh Henry


A Valentines Song

...t,
And how your doctrines, fallen one by one,
Shall furnish at the annual feast
The puppet-booth of fun.

Stand on your putrid ruins - stand,
White neck-clothed bigot, fixedly the same,
Cruel with all things but the hand,
Inquisitor in all things but the name.
Back, minister of Christ and source of fear -
We cherish freedom - back with thee and thine
From this unruly time of year,
The Feast of Valentine.

Blood thou mayest spare; but what of tears?
But what of riven household...Read more of this...
by Stevenson, Robert Louis

Alastor: or the Spirit of Solitude

...departure from their father's door.

At length upon the lone Chorasmian shore
He paused, a wide and melancholy waste
Of putrid marshes. A strong impulse urged
His steps to the sea-shore. A swan was there,
Beside a sluggish stream among the reeds.
It rose as he approached, and, with strong wings
Scaling the upward sky, bent its bright course
High over the immeasurable main.
His eyes pursued its flight:--'Thou hast a home, 
Beautiful bird! thou voyagest to thine home,
Where thy...Read more of this...
by Shelley, Percy Bysshe

Dresser The

...countenance see. 

I dress the perforated shoulder, the foot with the bullet wound,
Cleanse the one with a gnawing and putrid gangrene, so sickening, so offensive, 
While the attendant stands behind aside me, holding the tray and pail. 

I am faithful, I do not give out; 
The fractur’d thigh, the knee, the wound in the abdomen, 
These and more I dress with impassive hand—(yet deep in my breast a fire, a burning
 flame.)

5
Thus in silence, in dreams’ projections, 
Returning,...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt

Felo de Se

...v'ry part,
The long limbs lay on the sand with an eagle eating the heart.
Repose for the rotting head and peace for the putrid breast,
But for that which is 'I' indeed the gods have decreed no rest;
No rest but an endless aching, a sorrow which grows amain:--
I am caught in the Circle of Being and held in the Circle of Pain.
Bitter indeed is Life, and bitter of Life the breath,
But give me Life and its ways and its men, if this be Death.
Wearied I once of the Sun and the voic...Read more of this...
by Levy, Amy


Gacela of the Dark Death

...o wanted to cut his heart on the high seas.

I don't want to hear again that the dead do not lose their blood,
that the putrid mouth goes on asking for water.
I don't want to learn of the tortures of the grass,
nor of the moon with a serpent's mouth
that labors before dawn.

I want to sleep awhile,
awhile, a minute, a century;
but all must know that I have not died;
that there is a stable of gold in my lips;
that I am the small friend of the West wing;
that I am the intense s...Read more of this...
by García Lorca, Federico

Harry Wilmans

...d it.
But there were flies and poisonous things;
And there was the deadly water,
And the cruel heat,
And the sickening, putrid food;
And the smell of the trench just back of the tents
Where the soldiers went to empty themselves;
And there were the whores who followed us, full of syphilis;
And beastly acts between ourselves or alone,
With bullying, hatred, degradation among us,
And days of loathing and nights of fear
To the hour of the charge through the steaming swamp,
Follow...Read more of this...
by Masters, Edgar Lee

Inferno (English)

...with hail, 
 With turbid waters mixed, and cold with snow, 
 It streams from out the darkness, and below 
 The soil is putrid, where the impious lie 
 Grovelling, and howl like dogs, beneath the flail 
 That flattens to the foul soaked ground, and try 
 Vainly for ease by turning. And the while 
 Above them roams and ravens the loathsome hound 
 Cerberus, and feeds upon them. 
 The swampy ground 
 He ranges; with his long clawed hands he grips 
 The sinners, and the fierce a...Read more of this...
by Alighieri, Dante

Rosalind and Helen: a Modern Eclogue

...er the funeral all our kin
Assembled, and the will was read.
My friend, I tell thee, even the dead
Have strength, their putrid shrouds within, 
To blast and torture. Those who live
Still fear the living, but a corse
Is merciless, and Power doth give
To such pale tyrants half the spoil
He rends from those who groan and toil,
Because they blush not with remorse
Among their crawling worms. Behold,
I have no child! my tale grows old
With grief, and staggers; let it reach
The limi...Read more of this...
by Shelley, Percy Bysshe

The Bees and the Flies

...per grave unhid
 By any kindly coffin-lid,
 Obscene and shameless to the light,
 Seethe in insatiate appetite,
 Through putrid offal, while--above
 The hissing blow-fly seeks his love,
 Whose offspring, supping where they supt,
 Consume corruption twice corrupt....Read more of this...
by Kipling, Rudyard

The Drunkard

...aith of Paul, or send a dove." 
The tiger hears and stiffens like a rod. 

At last the tiger leaps, and when it hits 
A putrid surf breaks in the drunkard's soul. 
The tiger, done, returns to its patrol. 
The world takes up its trades; the man his wits, 
And, bottom up, he mumbles from the deep, 
"Life was a dream, Oh, may this death be sleep."...Read more of this...
by Levine, Philip

Upon Appleton House to My Lord Fairfax

...rn Comet such a Train
Draws through the Skie, nor Star new-slain.
For streight those giddy Rockets fail,
Which from the putrid Earth exhale,
But by her Flames, in Heaven try'd,
Nature is wholly Vitrifi'd.

'Tis She that to these Gardens gave
That wondrous Beauty which they have;
She streightness on the Woods bestows;
To Her the Meadow sweetness owes;
Nothing could make the River be
So Chrystal-pure but only She;
She yet more Pure, Sweet, Streight, and Fair,
Then Gardens, Wood...Read more of this...
by Marvell, Andrew

Who dares to take this life from me Knows no better

...imply said that a river flows
to flourish a land
More than that he who is high at the source
take heed:
For a river putrid in the cradle is worse
than the plunging flooding rain.

And the eclectic monsoons may have come
Have gathered and may have gone
While the senses still within torrid membranes


thap-po-ng
                           thap-pong
                                                      thap-pong...Read more of this...
by Wignesan, T

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