Famous Rage Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Blinks through Blood-shot Walks

by T Wignesan
When at five-thirty
In the rubbed-eye haziness
Of ferreting lonesome night walks
The camera-eye refugee
Asleep in the half awakefulness
Of the hour
Peers out of his high turbanned sockets:
Hyde Park's through road links
London's diurnally estranged couple -
The Arch and Gate.

When at five-thirty
The foot falls gently
Of the vision cut in dark recesses
And the man, finger gingerly on the fly
Gapes dolefully about
For a while
Exchanges a casual passing...Read more of this...

Arraignment Of The Men

by Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz
Males perverse, schooled to condemn
Women by your witless laws,
Though forsooth you are prime cause
Of that which you blame in them:

If with unexampled care
You solicit their disdain,
Will your fair words ease their pain,
When you ruthless set the snare?

Their resistance you impugn,
Then maintain with gravity
That it was mere levity
Made you dare to importune.

What more elevating sight
Than of man with logic crass,
Who with...Read more of this...

A Simile

by Matthew Prior
 Dear Thomas, didst thou never pop
Thy head into a tin-man's shop?
There, Thomas, didst thou never see
('Tis but by way of simile)
A squirrel spend his little rage
In jumping round a rolling cage?
The cage, as either side turn'd up,
Striking a ring of bells a-top?--

Mov'd in the orb, pleas'd with the chimes,
The foolish creature thinks he climbs:
But here or there, turn wood...Read more of this...

Meditation on a Bone

by Alec Derwent (A D) Hope
 A piece of bone, found at Trondhjem in 1901, with the following runic inscription (about A.D. 1050) cut on it: I loved her as a maiden; I will not trouble Erlend's detestable wife; better she should be a widow. 

Words scored upon a bone, 
Scratched in despair or rage -- 
Nine hundred years have gone; 
Now, in another age,...Read more of this...

Upon the saying that my VERSES were made by another

by Anne Killigrew
 NExt Heaven my Vows to thee (O Sacred Muse! ) 
I offer'd up, nor didst thou them refuse. 
 O Queen of Verse, said I, if thou'lt inspire, 
And warm my Soul with thy Poetique Fire, 
No Love of Gold shall share with thee my Heart, 
Or yet Ambition in my Brest have Part, 
More Rich, more Noble I...Read more of this...

Sir Philip Sidney - Astrophel and Stella: XXIII

by Sir Philip Sidney
 The curious wits, seeing dull pensiveness
Bewray itself in my long-settl'd eyes,
Whence those same fumes of melancholy rise,
With idle pains and missing aim do guess.
Some, that know how my spring I did address,
Deem that my Muse some fruit of knowledge plies;
Others, because the prince my service tries,
Think that I think state errors to redress;
But harder judges judge ambition's rage--
Scourge of...Read more of this...

Written among the Euganean Hills North Italy

by Percy Bysshe Shelley
MANY a green isle needs must be 
In the deep wide sea of Misery, 
Or the mariner, worn and wan, 
Never thus could voyage on 
Day and night, and night and day, 5 
Drifting on his dreary way, 
With the solid darkness black 
Closing round his vessel's track; 
Whilst above, the sunless sky 
Big with clouds, hangs heavily, 10 
And...Read more of this...

Psalm 18 part 3

by Isaac Watts
 v.30,31,34,35,46-50 
L. M.
Rejoicing in God.

Just are thy ways, and true thy word,
Great Rock of my secure abode:
Who is a God beside the Lord?
Or where's a refuge like our God?

'Tis he that girds me with his might,
Gives me his holy sword to wield,
And while with sin and hell I fight,
Spreads his salvation for my shield.

He lives, and blessed be my...Read more of this...

The Battle of Hastings

by Marriott Edgar
 I'll tell of the Battle of Hastings, 
As happened in days long gone by,
When Duke William became King of England, 
And 'Arold got shot in the eye.

It were this way - one day in October 
The Duke, who were always a toff
Having no battles on at the moment, 
Had given his lads a day off.

They'd all taken boats to...Read more of this...

To Lucasta Going Beyond The Seas

by Richard Lovelace
 If to be absent were to be
Away from thee;
Or that when I am gone,
You or I were alone,— 
Then, my Lucasta, might I crave
Pity from blust'ring wind or swallowing wave.

But I'll not sigh one blast or gale
To swell my sail,
Or pay a tear to 'suage
The foaming blue god's rage;
For whether he will let me pass
Or no, I'm still as...Read more of this...

Ode to Himself upon the Censure of his New Inn

by Ben Jonson
 Come, leave the loathed stage,
And the more loathsome age;
Where pride and impudence, in faction knit,
Usurp the chair of wit!
Indicting and arraigning every day
Something they call a play.
Let their fastidious, vain
Commission of the brain
Run on and rage, sweat, censure, and condemn;
They were not made for thee, less thou for them.

Say that thou pour'st them wheat,
And they will acorns eat;
'Twere simple...Read more of this...

To The Memory Of My Beloved The Author Mr William Shakespeare And What He Hath Left Us

by Ben Jonson
 To draw no envy, Shakespeare, on thy name
Am I thus ample to thy book and fame;
While I confess thy writings to be such
As neither Man nor Muse can praise too much.
'Tis true, and all men's suffrage. But these ways
Were not the paths I meant unto thy praise;
For silliest ignorance on these may light,
Which when it sounds at best but...Read more of this...

Ichabod

by John Greenleaf Whittier
 So fallen! so lost! the light withdrawn
Which once he wore!
The glory from his gray hairs gone
Forevermore!

Revile him not, the Tempter hath
A snare for all;
And pitying tears, not scorn and wrath,
Befit his fall!

Oh, dumb be passion's stormy rage,
When he who might
Have lighted up and led his age,
Falls back in night.

Scorn! would the angels laugh, to mark
A bright soul driven,
Fiend-goaded, down...Read more of this...

Psalm 21

by Isaac Watts
 Our king is the care of Heaven.

The king, O Lord, with songs of praise,
Shall in thy strength rejoice;
And, blest with thy salvation, raise
To heav'n his cheerful voice.

Thy sure defence through nations round
Has spread his glorious name;
And his successful actions crowned
With majesty and fame.

Then let the king on God alone
For timely aid rely;
His mercy shall support the throne,
And all our...Read more of this...

Sonnet XIII

by William Shakespeare
 O, that you were yourself! but, love, you are
No longer yours than you yourself here live:
Against this coming end you should prepare,
And your sweet semblance to some other give.
So should that beauty which you hold in lease
Find no determination: then you were
Yourself again after yourself's decease,
When your sweet issue your sweet form should bear.
Who lets so fair a house...Read more of this...

306. Election Ballad at close of Contest for representing the Dumfries Burghs 1790

by Robert Burns
 FINTRY, my stay in wordly strife,
Friend o’ my muse, friend o’ my life,
 Are ye as idle’s I am?
Come then, wi’ uncouth kintra fleg,
O’er Pegasus I’ll fling my leg,
 And ye shall see me try him.


But where shall I go rin a ride,
That I may splatter nane beside?
 I wad na be uncivil:
In manhood’s various paths and ways
There’s aye...Read more of this...

In Harm's Way

by Barry Tebb
 I was never a film buff, give me Widmark and Wayne any day

Saturday matin?es with Margaret Gardener still hold sway

As my memory veers backwards this temperate Boxing Day-

Westerns and war films and a blurred Maigret,

Coupled with a worn-out sixties Penguin Mallarm?-

How about that mix for a character trait?

Try as I may I can’t get my head round the manifold...Read more of this...

When Dacey rode the Mule

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 ’TWAS to a small, up-country town, 
When we were boys at school, 
There came a circus with a clown, 
Likewise a bucking mule. 
The clown announced a scheme they had 
Spectators for to bring— 
They’d give a crown to any lad 
Who’d ride him round the ring. 

And, gentle reader, do not scoff 
Nor think a man a fool—...Read more of this...

Psalm 118 part 1

by Isaac Watts
 v.6-15 
C. M.
Deliverance from a tumult.

The Lord appears my helper now,
Nor is my faith afraid
What all the sons of earth can do,
Since heav'n affords its aid.

'Tis safer, Lord, to hope in thee,
And have my God my friend,
Than trust in men of high degree,
And on their truth depend.

Like bees, my foes beset me round,
A large and angry swarm;
But I shall...Read more of this...

Michael Robartes And The Dancer

by William Butler Yeats
 He. Opinion is not worth a rush;
In this altar-piece the knight,
Who grips his long spear so to push
That dragon through the fading light,
Loved the lady; and it's plain
The half-dead dragon was her thought,
That every morning rose again
And dug its claws and shrieked and fought.
Could the impossible come to pass
She would have time to turn her eyes,
Her lover thought, upon...Read more of this...

Ichabod!

by John Greenleaf Whittier
So fallen! so lost! the light withdrawn
     Which once he wore!
The glory from his gray hairs gone
     Forevermore!

Revile him not—the Tempter hath
     A snare for all;
And pitying tears, not scorn and wrath,
     Befit his fall!

Oh! dumb be passion's stormy rage,
    ...Read more of this...

Blue

by D. H. Lawrence
 The earth again like a ship steams out of the dark sea over
The edge of the blue, and the sun stands up to see us glide
Slowly into another day; slowly the rover 
Vessel of darkness takes the rising tide. 

I, on the deck, am startled by this dawn confronting
Me who am issued amazed from the darkness, stripped
And quailing here...Read more of this...

A man toiled on a burning road

by Stephen Crane
 A man toiled on a burning road,
Never resting.
Once he saw a fat, stupid ass
Grinning at him from a green place.
The man cried out in rage,
"Ah! Do not deride me, fool!
I know you --
All day stuffing your belly,
Burying your heart
In grass and tender sprouts:
It will not suffice you."
But the ass only grinned at him from the green place....Read more of this...

Lip-Stick Liz

by Robert William Service
 Oh Lip-Stick Liz was in the biz, That's the oldest known in history;
She had a lot of fancy rags, Of her form she made no myst'ry.
She had a man, a fancy man, His name was Alexander,
And he used to beat her up because he couldn't understand her. 

Now Lip-Stick Liz she loved her man And she couldn't love no...Read more of this...

Sonnet to My Beloved Daughter

by Mary Darby Robinson
 WHEN FATE in ruthless rage assail'd my breast,
And Heaven relentless seal'd the harsh decree;
HOPE, placid soother of the mind distress'd;
To calm my rending sorrows­gave me THEE. 

In all the charms of innocence array'd,
'Tis thine to sprinkle patience on my woes;
As from thy voice celestial comfort flows,
Glancing bright lustre o'er each dreary shade. 

Still may thy growing REASON's light divine,
Illume...Read more of this...

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