Famous Recoils Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Recoils poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous recoils poems. These examples illustrate what a famous recoils poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Browning, Robert
...n came some palsied oak, a cleft in him
Like a distorted mouth that splits its rim
Gaping at death, and dies while it recoils.
And just as far as ever from the end!
Naught in the distance but the evening, naught
To point my footstep further! At the thought,
A great black bird, Apollyon's bosom-friend,
Sailed past, not beat his wide wing dragon-penned
That brushed my cap - perchance the guide I sought.
For, looking up, aware I somehow grew,
'Spite of the ...Read more of this...
by
Field, Edward
...
and lights a large wooden match that flares up in his face.
The monster, remembering the torches of the villagers,
recoils, grunting in terror.
"No, my friend, smoke -- gooood,"
and the old man demonstrates with his own cigar.
The monster takes a tentative puff
and smiles hugely, saying, "Smoke -- gooood,"
and sits back like a banker, grunting and puffing.
Now the old man plays Mendelssohn's "Spring Song" on the violin
while tears come into our dear monster ...Read more of this...
by
Swinburne, Algernon Charles
...rn and strong, with heart athirst and fasting,
Hungers here, barred up for ever, whence as one whom dreams affright
Day recoils before the low-browed lintel threatening doom and casting
Night.
All the reefs and islands, all the lawns and highlands, clothed with light,
Laugh for love's sake in their sleep outside: but here the night speaks, blasting
Day with silent speech and scorn of all things known from depth to height.
Lower than dive the thoughts of spirit-stri...Read more of this...
by
Alighieri, Dante
...lt that so degrades us?
As the
surge
Above Charybdis meets contending surge,
Breaks and is broken, and rages and recoils
For ever, so here the sinners. More numerous
Than in the circles past are these. They urge
Huge weights before them. On, with straining breasts,
They roll them, howling in their ceaseless toils.
And those that to the further side belong
l)o likewise, meeting in the midst, and thus
Crash vainly, and recoil, reverse, and c...Read more of this...
by
Byron, George (Lord)
...e
Where I was not—and pain and sorrow here.
And is it thus?—it is as I foretold,
And shall be more so; for the mind recoils
Upon itself, and the wrecked heart lies cold,
While heaviness collects the shattered spoils.
It is not in the storm nor in the strife
We feel benumbed, and wish to be no more,
But in the after-silence on the shore,
When all is lost, except a little life.
I am too well avenged!—but 'twas my right;
Whate'er my sins might be, thou wert not sent...Read more of this...
by
Sherrick, Fannie Isabelle
...
Her eyes look down, her dark robes sweep the floor—
She starts, for some one passes through the door;
She glances up—recoils with haughty pride,
Which all her self-possession cannot hide;
Then with a look of pity on her face
She meets Lorraine with kind, forgiving grace.
"Arline, I would that I had died indeed
Before I gave thee pain, my heart has need
Of thy forgiveness, else I cannot live,
I crave the boon that only thou canst give."
"Lorraine, the highest graces...Read more of this...
by
Robinson, Mary Darby
...ionary spells can bind
The strongest passions of the mind,
Freezing Life's current with thy baneful Art.
Nature recoils when thou art near,
For round thy form all plagues are seen;
Thine is the frantic tone, the sullen mien,
The glance of petrifying fear,
The haggard Brow, the low'ring Eye,
The hollow Cheek, the smother'd Sigh,
When thy usurping fangs assail,
The sacred Bonds of Friendship fail.
Meek-bosom'd Pity sues in vain;
Imperious Sorrow spurns reli...Read more of this...
by
Robinson, Mary Darby
...des the suff'rer's wrongs;
Thy tongue the sland'rers tale prolongs;
Thy thirst imbibes the victim's tear;
Thy breast recoils from friendship's flame;
Sick'ning thou hear'st the trump of Fame;
Worth gives to thee, the direst pang;
The Lover's rapture wounds thy heart,
The proudest efforts of prolific art
Shrink from thy poisonous fang.
In vain the Sculptor's lab'ring hand
Calls fine proportion from the Parian stone;
In vain the Minstrel's chords command
The sof...Read more of this...
by
Milton, John
...ns his dire attempt; which nigh the birth
Now rolling boils in his tumultuous breast,
And like a devilish engine back recoils
Upon himself; horrour and doubt distract
His troubled thoughts, and from the bottom stir
The Hell within him; for within him Hell
He brings, and round about him, nor from Hell
One step, no more than from himself, can fly
By change of place: Now conscience wakes despair,
That slumbered; wakes the bitter memory
Of what he was, what is, and what...Read more of this...
by
Milton, John
...ared; obnoxious, first or last,
To basest things. Revenge, at first though sweet,
Bitter ere long, back on itself recoils:
Let it; I reck not, so it light well aimed,
Since higher I fall short, on him who next
Provokes my envy, this new favourite
Of Heaven, this man of clay, son of despite,
Whom, us the more to spite, his Maker raised
From dust: Spite then with spite is best repaid.
So saying, through each thicket dank or dry,
Like a black mist low-creeping,...Read more of this...
by
Juana Inés de la Cruz, Sor
...t comes to bravely posturing,
your witlessness must take the prize:
you're the child that makes a bogeyman,
and then recoils in fear and cries.
Presumptuous beyond belief,
you'd have the woman you pursue
be Thais when you're courting her,
Lucretia once she falls to you.
For plain default of common sense,
could any action be so *****
as oneself to cloud the mirror,
then complain that it's not clear?
Whether you're favored or disdained,
nothing ca...Read more of this...
by
Aiken, Conrad
...nly out of nowhere,
Something flings itself at the hill,
Tears with claws at the earth,
Lunges and hisses and softly recoils,
Crashing against the green.
The peach-tree braces itself, the pool is frightened,
The grass-blades quiver, the bird is still;
The wall silently struggles against the sunlight;
A terror stiffens the hill.
The trees turn rigidly, to face
Something that circles with slow pace:
The blue pool seems to shrink
From something that slides ab...Read more of this...
by
Turner Smith, Charlotte
...le the lost hope but aggravates his woe!
Ah! so for me delusive Fancy toils,
Then, from contrasted truth—my feeble soul recoils....Read more of this...
by
Robinson, Mary Darby
...d a heart, that scarce a wish employs,
For age to censure, or discretion blame.
Tir'd of the world, my weary mind recoils
From splendid scenes, and transitory joys;
From fell Ambition's false and fruitless toils,
From hope that flatters, and from bliss that cloys.
With THEE, above the taunts of empty pride,
The rigid frowns to youthful error given;
Content in solitude my griefs I'll hide,
Thy voice my counsellorthy smiles my Heaven.
With thee I'll hail the ...Read more of this...
by
Turner Smith, Charlotte
...an,
Mars the fair work that he was bid enjoy,
And makes himself the evil he deplores.
How often, when my weary soul recoils
From proud oppression, and from legal crimes
(For such are in this Land, where the vain boast
Of equal Law is mockery, while the cost
Of seeking for redress is sure to plunge
Th' already injur'd to more certain ruin
And the wretch starves, before his Counsel pleads)
How often do I half abjure Society,
And sigh for some lone Cottage, deep embower'd
In...Read more of this...
by
Turner Smith, Charlotte
...Heaven!--
Such are thy dreadful trophies, savage War!
And evils such as these, or yet more dire,
Which the pain'd mind recoils from, all are thine--
The purple Pestilence, that to the grave
Sends whom the sword has spar'd, is thine; and thine
The Widow's anguish and the Orphan's tears!--
Woes such as these does Man inflict on Man;
And by the closet murderers, whom we style
Wise Politicians; are the schemes prepar'd,
Which, to keep Europe's wavering balance even,
Depopulate h...Read more of this...
by
Butler, Ellis Parker
...full-fledged gun cannot endure
The trifling of an amateur;
Poor marksmanship its temper spoils
And this is why the gun recoils.
A self-respecting gun I’m sure
Delights to jar the amateur
And thinks that it is no disgrace
To kick his shoulder out of place.
Moral
When you go out to hunt, my son
Prepare to circumvent your gun
And on your shoulder firmly bind
A pillow of the largest kind....Read more of this...
by
Browning, Elizabeth Barrett
...on mine.
Yet the sin is on us both---
Time to dance is not to woo---
Wooer light makes fickle troth---
Scorn of me recoils on you.
Learn to win a lady's faith
Nobly, as the thing is high;
Bravely, as for life and death---
With a loyal gravity.
Lead her from the festive boards,
Point her to the starry skies,
Guard her, by your truthful words,
Pure from courtship's flatteries.
By your truth she shall be true---
Ever true, as wives of yore---
And her Yes, onc...Read more of this...
by
Juana Inés de la Cruz, Sor
...t comes to bravely posturing,
your witlessness must take the prize:
you're the child that makes a bogeyman,
and then recoils in fear and cries.
Presumptuous beyond belief,
you'd have the woman you pursue
be Thais when you're courting her,
Lucretia once she falls to you.
For plain default of common sense,
could any action be so *****
as oneself to cloud the mirror,
then complain that it's not clear?
Whether you're favored or disdained,
nothing can leave you ...Read more of this...
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