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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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by Shakespeare, William
...ss of beauty spent and done:
Time had not scythed all that youth begun,
Nor youth all quit; but, spite of heaven's fell rage,
Some beauty peep'd through lattice of sear'd age.

Oft did she heave her napkin to her eyne,
Which on it had conceited characters,
Laundering the silken figures in the brine
That season'd woe had pelleted in tears,
And often reading what contents it bears;
As often shrieking undistinguish'd woe,
In clamours of all size, both high and low.

Some...Read more of this...



by Brackenridge, Hugh Henry
...this hall more worthy of a strain 
No envious sound forbidding peace is heard, 
Fierce song of battle kindling martial rage 
And desp'rate purpose in heroic minds: 
But sacred truth fair science and each grace 
Of virtue born; health, elegance and ease 
And temp'rate mirth in social intercourse 
Convey rich pleasure to the mind; and oft 
The sacred muse in heaven-breathing song 
Doth wrap the soul in extasy divine, 
Inspiring joy and sentiment which not 
The tale of war or s...Read more of this...

by Keats, John
...lemn, undisturb'd,
Unruffled, like high Gods, ye liv'd and ruled:
Now I behold in you fear, hope, and wrath;
Actions of rage and passion; even as
I see them, on the mortal world beneath,
In men who die.---This is the grief, O son!
Sad sign of ruin, sudden dismay, and fall!
Yet do thou strive; as thou art capable,
As thou canst move about, an evident God;
And canst oppose to each malignant hour
Ethereal presence:---I am but a voice;
My life is but the life of winds and tid...Read more of this...

by Angelou, Maya
...s
and dares to claim the sky.

But a bird that stalks
down his narrow cage
can seldom see through
his bars of rage
his wings are clipped and
his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings
with fearful trill
of the things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill 
for the caged bird
sings of freedom

The free bird thinks of another breeze
and the trade winds soft through the sighing trees
and t...Read more of this...

by Alighieri, Dante
..., however else it be, 
 Is not to hinder." Then, that bulk inflate 
 Confronting, - "Peace, thou greed! thy lusting rage 
 Consume thee inward! Not thy word we wait 
 The path to open. It is willed on high, - 
 There, where the Angel of the Sword ye know 
 Took ruin upon the proud adultery 
 Of him thou callest as thy prince." 

 Thereat 
 As sails, wind-rounded, when the mast gives way, 
 Sink tangled to the deck, deflated so 
 Collapsed that bulk that heard him,...Read more of this...



by Byron, George (Lord)
...oothness flow'd: 
'Tis true, with other men their path he walk'd, 
And like the rest in seeming did and talk'd, 
Nor outraged Reason's rules by flaw nor start, 
His madness was not of the head, but heart; 
And rarely wander'd in his speech, or drew 
His thoughts so forth as to offend the view. 

XIX. 

With all that chilling mystery of mien, 
And seeming gladness to remain unseen, 
He had (if 'twere not nature's boon) an art 
Of fixing memory on another's heart: 
It w...Read more of this...

by Collins, Billy
...g was hand-lettered then, not like today.

Where has the summer of 1572 gone? Brocade and sonnet
marathons were the rage. We used to dress up in the flags
of rival baronies and conquer one another in cold rooms of stone.
Out on the dance floor we were all doing the Struggle
while your sister practiced the Daphne all alone in her room.
We borrowed the jargon of farriers for our slang.
These days language seems transparent a badly broken code.

The 1790'...Read more of this...

by St Vincent Millay, Edna
...s nostrils drink the bitter sea;
What thing can be
So stout, what so redoubtable, in Death
What fury, what considerable rage, if only she,
Upon whose icy breast,
Unquestioned, uncaressed,
One time I lay,
And whom always I lack,
Even to this day,
Being by no means from that frigid bosom weaned away,
If only she therewith be given me back?"
I sought her down that dolorous labyrinth,
Wherein no shaft of sunlight ever fell,
And in among the bloodless everywhere
I sought her, but ...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...r number thus reduced becomes; 
His laws our laws; all honour to him done 
Returns our own. Cease then this impious rage, 
And tempt not these; but hasten to appease 
The incensed Father, and the incensed Son, 
While pardon may be found in time besought. 
So spake the fervent Angel; but his zeal 
None seconded, as out of season judged, 
Or singular and rash: Whereat rejoiced 
The Apostate, and, more haughty, thus replied. 
That we were formed then sayest thou? and...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...nt 
Not less but more heroick than the wrath 
Of stern Achilles on his foe pursued 
Thrice fugitive about Troy wall; or rage 
Of Turnus for Lavinia disespous'd; 
Or Neptune's ire, or Juno's, that so long 
Perplexed the Greek, and Cytherea's son: 

If answerable style I can obtain 
Of my celestial patroness, who deigns 
Her nightly visitation unimplor'd, 
And dictates to me slumbering; or inspires 
Easy my unpremeditated verse: 
Since first this subject for heroick song 
Pleas...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...thing far away from a puny and pious life! 
Something unproved! Something in a trance! 
Something escaped from the anchorage, and driving free. 

O to work in mines, or forging iron!
Foundry casting—the foundry itself—the rude high roof—the ample and
 shadow’d space, 
The furnace—the hot liquid pour’d out and running. 

8
O to resume the joys of the soldier: 
To feel the presence of a brave general! to feel his sympathy! 
To behold his calmness! to be warm’d in the ra...Read more of this...

by Chesterton, G K
...
Came ruin and the rain that burns,
And all began once more.

And naught was left King Alfred
But shameful tears of rage,
In the island in the river
In the end of all his age.

In the island in the river
He was broken to his knee:
And he read, writ with an iron pen,
That God had wearied of Wessex men
And given their country, field and fen,
To the devils of the sea.

And he saw in a little picture,
Tiny and far away,
His mother sitting in Egbert's hall,
And a book ...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...br> 

I. 

Know ye the land where cypress and myrtle 
Are emblems of deeds that are done in their clime, 
Where the rage of the vulture, the love of the turtle, 
Now melt into sorrow, now madden to crime? 
Know ye the land of the cedar and vine, 
Where the flowers ever blossom, the beams ever shine; 
Where the light wings of Zephyr, oppress'd with perfume, 
Wax faint o'er the gardens of G?l in her bloom; [1] 
Where the citron and olive are fairest of fruit, 
And the voice...Read more of this...

by Bridges, Robert Seymour
...d let him fit
The needle that doth true with heaven accord:
Then bid her crew, love, diligence and wit
With justice, courage, temperance come aboard,
And at her helm the master reason sit. 

16
This world is unto God a work of art,
Of which the unaccomplish'd heavenly plan
Is hid in life within the creature's heart,
And for perfection looketh unto man.
Ah me! those thousand ages: with what slow
Pains and persistence were his idols made,
Destroy'd and made, ere ever he...Read more of this...

by Chaucer, Geoffrey
...woe thou *givest little charge*. *takest little heed*
Thou mayst, since thou hast wisdom and manhead*, *manhood, courage
Assemble all the folk of our kindred,
And make a war so sharp on this country
That by some aventure, or some treaty,
Thou mayst have her to lady and to wife,
For whom that I must needes lose my life.
For as by way of possibility,
Since thou art at thy large, of prison free,
And art a lord, great is thine avantage,
More than is mine, that sterve here...Read more of this...

by Scott, Sir Walter
...ew,
     The laboring stag strained full in view.
     Two dogs of black Saint Hubert's breed,
     Unmatched for courage, breath, and speed,
     Fast on his flying traces came,
     And all but won that desperate game;
     For, scarce a spear's length from his haunch,
     Vindictive toiled the bloodhounds stanch;
     Nor nearer might the dogs attain,
     Nor farther might the quarry strain
     Thus up the margin of the lake,
     Between the precipice and br...Read more of this...

by Shakur, Tupac
...
and the power of fire can burn
the power of wind can chill
and the power of a mind can learn
the power of anger can rage
inside until it tears u apart
but the power of a smile
especially yours can heal a frozen heart ...Read more of this...

by Thomson, James
...ing Hunger, fainting Weariness,
The Roar of Winds, and Waves, the Crush of Ice,
Now, ceasing, now, renew'd, with louder Rage,
And bellowing round the Main: Nations remote,
Shook from their Midnight-Slumbers, deem they hear
Portentous Thunder, in the troubled Sky.
More to embroil the Deep, Leviathan,
And his unweildy Train, in horrid Sport,
Tempest the loosen'd Brine; while, thro' the Gloom,
Far, from the dire, unhospitable Shore,
The Lyon's Rage, the Wolf's sad Howl is he...Read more of this...

by Shelley, Percy Bysshe
...the Gods might win that happy age
Too lightly lost, redeeming native vice,--
And which might quench the earth-consuming rage
Of gold and blood, till men should live and move
Harmonious as the sacred stars above:--

And how all things that seem untameable,
Not to be checked and not to be confined,
Obey the spells of Wisdom's wizard skill;
Time, earth, and fire, the ocean and the wind,
And all their shapes, and man's imperial will;--
And other scrolls whose writings did unbind
...Read more of this...

by Akhmatova, Anna
...him.



x x x

Ah! It is you again. You enter in this house
Not as a kid in love, but as a husband
Courageous, harsh and in control.
The calm before the storm is fearful to my soul.
You ask me what it is that I have done of late
With given unto me forever love and fate.
I have betrayed you. And this to repeat --
Oh, if you could one moment tire of it!
The killer's sleep is haunted, dead man said,
Death's angel thus awaits me at deathbe...Read more of this...

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Book: Reflection on the Important Things