Famous Refusal Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Refusal poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous refusal poems. These examples illustrate what a famous refusal poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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...nd."
The night clerk blinked his eyes and dared him on.
"Who's that man sleeping in the office chair?
Has he had the refusal of my chance?"
"He was afraid of being robbed or murdered.
What do you say?"
"I'll have to have a bed."
The night clerk led him up three flights of stairs
And down a narrow passage full of doors,
At the last one of which he knocked and entered.
"Lafe, here's a fellow wants to share your room."
"Show him this way. I'm not afraid of him.
I'm n...Read more of this...
by
Frost, Robert
...Never until the mankind making
Bird beast and flower
Fathering and all humbling darkness
Tells with silence the last light breaking
And the still hour
Is come of the sea tumbling in harness
And I must enter again the round
Zion of the water bead
And the synagogue of the ear of corn
Shall I let pray the shadow of a sound
Or sow my salt seed
In the least va...Read more of this...
by
Thomas, Dylan
...oldest Beowulf. They are requesting that they,
my prince, be allowed to exchange words with you.
Do not ordain them a refusal, gracious Hrothgar
in your straightforward reply—
they seem worthy in their war-gear,
in the esteem of nobles. Indeed their chief is most competent
he who guided these battle-warriors hither.” (ll. 356-70)
VI.
Hrothgar gave reply, the helmet of the Scyldings:
“I knew him when he was still a boy.
His late father was called Ecgtheow,
...Read more of this...
by
Anonymous,
...e at sixty per cent. per anuum.
III.
Blister we not for bursati? So when the heart is vexed,
The pain of one maiden's refusal is drowned in the pain of the next.
IV.
The temper of chums, the love of your wife, and a new piano's tune --
Which of the three will you trust at the end of an Indian June?
V.
Who are the rulers of Ind -- to whom shall we bow the knee?
Make your peace with the women, and men will make you L. G.
VI.
Does the woodpecker flit round the young fera...Read more of this...
by
Kipling, Rudyard
...ee-”
so Monty's memoirs-”nor any strategy,
wanting the ball bulled thro' all parts of the line
at once-”proving, by his refusal to take Berlin,
he misread even Clauswitz-”wide empty grin
that never lost a vote (O Adlai mine)....Read more of this...
by
Berryman, John
...ed,
In memory only, reconsidered passion. Gives too soon
Into weak hands, what’s thought can be dispensed with
Till the refusal propagates a fear. Think
Neither fear nor courage saves us. Unnatural vices
Are fathered by our heroism. Virtues
Are forced upon us by our impudent crimes.
These tears are shaken from the wrath-bearing tree.
The tiger springs in the new year. Us he devours. Think at last
We have not reached conclusion, when I
Stiffen in a rented house. Think at last...Read more of this...
by
Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
...dead,
The whole world's dead, so many as these. I saw
The shadow of him elect to Peter's seat
Who made the great refusal, and the law,
The unswerving law that left them this retreat
To seal the abortion of their lives, became
Illumined to me, and themselves I knew,
To God and all his foes the futile crew
How hateful in their everlasting shame.
I saw these victims of continued death
- For lived they never - were naked all, and loud
Around them closed a ...Read more of this...
by
Alighieri, Dante
...ifiuto .
After I had identified a few,
I saw and recognized the shade of him
who made, through cowardice, the great refusal.
Incontanente intesi e certo fui
che questa era la setta d'i cattivi,
a Dio spiacenti e a' nemici sui .
At once I understood with certainty:
this company contained the cowardly,
hateful to God and to His enemies.
Questi sciaurati, che mai non fur vivi,
erano ignudi e stimolati molto
da mosconi e da vespe ch'eran ivi .
These wretched o...Read more of this...
by
Alighieri, Dante
...h,
But yet she listened - 'tis enough -
Who listens once will listen twice;
Her heart, be sure, is not of ice,
And one refusal no rebuff.
VII
I loved, and was beloved again -
They tell me, Sire, you never knew
Those gentle frailties; if 'tis true,
I shorten all my joy or pain;
To you 'twould seem absurd as vain
But all men are not born to reign,
Or o'er their passions, or as you
Thus o'er themselves and nations too.
I am - or rather was - a prince,
A chief of thousands, a...Read more of this...
by
Byron, George (Lord)
...Not from this anger, anticlimax after
Refusal struck her loin and the lame flower
Bent like a beast to lap the singular floods
In a land strapped by hunger
Shall she receive a bellyful of weeds
And bear those tendril hands I touch across
The agonized, two seas.
Behind my head a square of sky sags over
The circular smile tossed from lover to lover
And the golden ball spins out of the skies;
Not f...Read more of this...
by
Thomas, Dylan
...w before thee set,
Wouldst thou not eat?" "Thereafter as I like
the giver," answered Jesus. "Why should that
Cause thy refusal?" said the subtle Fiend.
"Hast thou not right to all created things?
Owe not all creatures, by just right, to thee
Duty and service, nor to stay till bid,
But tender all their power? Nor mention I
Meats by the law unclean, or offered first
To idols—those young Daniel could refuse;
Nor proffered by an enemy—though who
Would scruple that, with want op...Read more of this...
by
Milton, John
...Beloved,
In what other lives or lands
Have I known your lips
Your Hands
Your Laughter brave
Irreverent.
Those sweet excesses that
I do adore.
What surety is there
That we will meet again,
On other worlds some
Future time undated.
I defy my body's haste.
Without the promise
Of one more sweet encounter
I will not deign to die....Read more of this...
by
Angelou, Maya
...s upon a chair and
Closing waists that button down the back,
When he himself might all these troubles shirk
With a bare refusal? Who would bundles bear,
And grunt and sweat under a shopping load?
Who would samples match; buy rats for hair,
Cart cheese and crackers home to serve at night
For lunch to feed your friends; play pedro
After tea; sing rag time songs, amusing
Friendly neighbors. Buy garden tools
To lend unto the same. Stay home at nights
In smoking coat and slippers ...Read more of this...
by
Guest, Edgar Albert
...gown
upon a body of nothing but light;
yet each seperate petal is at the same time the negation
of all clothing and the refusal of it.
Your fragrance has been calling its sweetest names
in our direction, for hundreds of years;
suddenly it hangs in the air like fame.
Even so, we have never known what to call it; we guess...
And memory is filled with it unawares
which we prayed for from hours that belong to us....Read more of this...
by
Rilke, Rainer Maria
...Let there
be sundews," and there were, or they've
made their way here unaided
other than by that backhand, round-
about refusal to assume responsibility
known as Natural Selection.
But the sun
underfoot is so dazzling
down there among the sundews,
there is so much light
in that cup that, looking,
you start to fall upward....Read more of this...
by
Clampitt, Amy
...the shade of the sky
are mine; it is still the same, my life.
No desire opens me: I am full,
I never close myself with refusal-
in the rythm of my daily soul
I do not desire-I am moved;
by being moved I exert my empire,
making the dreams of night real:
into my body at the bottom of the water
I attract the beyonds of mirrors......Read more of this...
by
Rilke, Rainer Maria
...wer across the shoulders than
yours but with the same sad slouch, the grin
that does not hide the stubbornness,
the sad refusal to give in to
rain, to the hours wasted waiting,
to the knowledge that somewhere ahead
a man is waiting who will say, "No,
we're not hiring today," for any
reason he wants. You love your brother,
now suddenly you can hardly stand
the love flooding you for your brother,
who's not beside you or behind or
ahead because he's home trying to
sleep off a mi...Read more of this...
by
Levine, Philip
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