Famous Refusing Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Refusing poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous refusing poems. These examples illustrate what a famous refusing poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Rabindranath Tagore
My desires are many and my cry is pitiful,
but ever didst thou save me by hard refusals;
and this strong mercy has been wrought into my life through and through.
Day by day thou art making me worthy of the simple,
great gifts that thou gavest to me unasked---this sky and the light, this body and the
life...Read more of this...
by
Anne Sexton
For my mother, born March 1902, died March 1959
and my father, born February 1900, died June 1959
Gone, I say and walk from church,
refusing the stiff procession to the grave,
letting the dead ride alone in the hearse.
It is June. I am tired of being brave.
We drive to the Cape. I cultivate
myself where the sun...Read more of this...
by
Edgar Lee Masters
Why did Albert Schirding kill himself
Trying to be County Superintendent of Schools,
Blest as he was with the means of life
And wonderful children, bringing him honor
Ere he was sixty?
If even one of my boys could have run a news-stand,
Or one of my girls could have married a decent man,
I should not have walked in the rain
And jumped into bed with...Read more of this...
by
Carl Sandburg
To Certain Poets About to Die
TAKE your fill of intimate remorse, perfumed sorrow,
Over the dead child of a millionaire,
And the pity of Death refusing any check on the bank
Which the millionaire might order his secretary to
scratch off
And get cashed.
Very well,
You for your grief and I for mine.
Let me have a sorrow my own if I want to.
I shall cry...Read more of this...
by
Erica Jong
We have a small sculpture of Henry James on our terrace in New York City.
Nothing would surprise him.
The beast in the jungle was what he saw--
Edith Wharton's obfuscating older brother. . .
He fled the demons
of Manhattan
for fear they would devour
his inner ones
(the ones who wrote the books)
& silence the stifled screams
of his protagonists.
To Europe
like a wandering Jew--
WASP that he...Read more of this...
by
Laura Riding Jackson
The secrets of the mind convene splendidly,
Though the mind is meek.
To be aware inwardly
of brain and beauty
Is dark too recognizable.
Thought looking out on thought
Makes one an eye:
Which it shall be, both decide.
One is with the mind alone,
The other is with other thoughts gone
To be seen from afar and not known.
When openly these inmost sights
Flash and speak fully,
Each head at...Read more of this...
by
Edgar Lee Masters
I would I had thrust my hands of flesh
Into the disk-flowers bee-infested,
Into the mirror-like core of fire
Of the light of life, the sun of delight.
For what are anthers worth or petals
Or halo-rays? Mockeries, shadows
Of the heart of the flower, the central flame!
All is yours, young passer-by;
Enter the banquet room with the thought;
Don't sidle in as if you were doubtful
Whether...Read more of this...
by
Marianne Moore
This institution,
perhaps one should say enterprise
out of respect for which
one says one need not change one's mind
about a thing one has believed in,
requiring public promises
of one's intention
to fulfill a private obligation:
I wonder what Adam and Eve
think of it by this time,
this firegilt steel
alive with goldenness;
how bright it shows --
"of circular traditions and impostures,
committing many spoils,"
requiring all one's criminal ingenuity
to...Read more of this...
by
Hilaire Belloc
Still a mystery,
I can’t figure out;
Race home from work,
Where life is without.
*****
I race to see you,
And hold you to me;
My mind says you’re there,
And my heart won’t see.
*****
I open the door,
It’s still a surprise:
You’re not there,
And tears fill my eyes.
*****
I need someone,
Or call on the phone;
But nothing breaks the silence,
Of these walls made of stone.
*****
I punish myself,
By refusing to...Read more of this...
by
Louise Gluck
No one's despair is like my despair--
You have no place in this garden
thinking such things, producing
the tiresome outward signs; the man
pointedly weeding an entire forest,
the woman limping, refusing to change clothes
or wash her hair.
Do you suppose I care
if you speak to one another?
But I mean you to know
I expected better of two creatures
who were given minds: if not
that you...Read more of this...
by
Sir Thomas Wyatt
I abide and abide and better abide,
And after the old proverb, the happy day;
And ever my lady to me doth say,
'Let me alone and I will provide.'
I abide and abide and tarry the tide,
And with abiding speed well ye may.
Thus do I abide I wot alway,
Nother obtaining nor yet denied.
Ay me! this long abiding
Seemeth to me, as who sayeth,
A...Read more of this...
by
Allama Muhammad Iqbal
One day a Spider was telling a Fly
'Everyday on this route you are passing by'
But not for once did my fortune trigger
That, towards my home you never got nearer
It matters not if from strangers you abstain
But away from friends you shouldn't remain
My home if you come
That shall be my honor!
That ladder in the front
Will reach you to your friend
When heard...Read more of this...
by
Philip Levine
A solitary apartment house, the last one
before the boulevard ends and a dusty road
winds its slow way out of town. On the third floor
through the dusty windows Karen beholds
the elegant couples walking arm in arm
in the public park. It is Saturday afternoon,
and she is waiting for a particular young man
whose name I...Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
My love is at the apogee of its flame. The beauty
of the one who captivates my soul [the Divinity] is complete.
My heart speaks, but my tongue remains mute,
refusing to express my sentiments. Great God! Has one
ever seen aught more strange? I am devoured by thirst,
and before me flows a fresh and limpid draught!
344...Read more of this...
by
Ted Hughes
His illness was something could not vomit him up.
Unwinding the world like a ball of wool
Found the last end tied round his own finger.
Decided to get death, but whatever
Walked into his ambush
Was always his own body.
Where is this somebody who has me under?
He dived, he journeyed, challenging, he climbed and with a glare
Of hair on end...Read more of this...
by
Walt Whitman
1
GIVE me the splendid silent sun, with all his beams full-dazzling;
Give me juicy autumnal fruit, ripe and red from the orchard;
Give me a field where the unmow’d grass grows;
Give me an arbor, give me the trellis’d grape;
Give me fresh corn and wheat—give me serene-moving animals, teaching content;
Give me nights perfectly quiet, as on high plateaus...Read more of this...
by
William Topaz McGonagall
'Twas in the year of 1746, and in April the 14th day,
That Prince Charles Stuart and his army marched on without delay,
And on the 14th of April they encamped on Culloden Moor,
But the army felt hungry, and no food could they procure.
And the calls of hunger could not brook delay,
So they resolved to have food, come what may;
They,...Read more of this...
by
Rg Gregory
professor piebald
(the oldest man in the home) was meek
at the same time ribald
he clothed his matter (so to speak)
in latin and (was it) greek
it caused no great offence
to nobody did it make sense
to make a rude joke
in languages nobody spoke
once he'd changed the word agenda
at a home's committee meeting to pudenda
this sort of thing was tolerated by the other
inmates...Read more of this...
by
Philip Larkin
Always too eager for the future, we
Pick up bad habits of expectancy.
Something is always approaching; every day
Till then we say,
Watching from a bluff the tiny, clear
Sparkling armada of promises draw near.
How slow they are! And how much time they waste,
Refusing to make haste!
Yet still they leave us holding wretched stalks
Of disappointment, for, though nothing balks
Each big approach, leaning with...Read more of this...
by
Walt Whitman
1
IN former songs Pride have I sung, and Love, and passionate, joyful Life,
But here I twine the strands of Patriotism and Death.
And now, Life, Pride, Love, Patriotism and Death,
To you, O FREEDOM, purport of all!
(You that elude me most—refusing to be caught in songs of mine,)
I offer all to you.
2
’Tis not for nothing, Death,...Read more of this...
by
Belinda Subraman
My patient, Paul, wrote in a poem
that he belongs to the wayward wind,
a restless breed,
a strange and hardy class.
I’ve been with him for two years
and now he is dying.
“Are you in pain, Paul?” I ask.
“I AM pain,” he said.
But he is refusing medication
although his cancer has spread
from his kidneys to his lungs, brain and bones.
Somehow bearing this pain to...Read more of this...
by
Anne Sexton
For my Mother, born March 1902, died March 1959
and my Father, born February 1900, died June 1959
Gone, I say and walk from church,
refusing the stiff procession to the grave,
letting the dead ride alone in the hearse.
It is June. I am tired of being brave.
We drive to the Cape. I cultivate
myself where the sun gutters from the sky,
where the sea...Read more of this...
by
Sir Thomas Wyatt
I abide and abide and better abide,
And after the old proverb, the happy day;
And ever my lady to me doth say,
"Let me alone and I will provide."
I abide and abide and tarry the tide,
And with abiding speed well ye may.
Thus do I abide I wot alway,
Nother obtaining nor yet denied.
Ay me! this long abiding
Seemeth to me, as who sayeth,
A...Read more of this...
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