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Famous Reluctance Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Bible, The
...ill be blessed with all he needs
Let each one give as he has chosen
With a heart of gratitude,
Not with grumbling or reluctance,
But with a cheerful attitude
And God is able to make all grace
Abound toward you
So you will be fully equipped
And be blessed in all you do.Scripture Poem © Copyright Of M.S.Lowndes...Read more of this...



by Hardy, Thomas
...or loss of your dear presence there
Than that I thus found lacking in your make
That high compassion which can overbear
Reluctance for pure loving kindness' sake
Grieved I, when, as the hope-hour stroked its sum,
You did not come. 

You love me not,
And love alone can lend you loyalty;
--I know and knew it. But, unto the store
Of human deeds divine in all but name,
Was it not worth a little hour or more
To add yet this: Once you, a woman, came
To soothe a time-torn ma...Read more of this...

by Swinburne, Algernon Charles
...br>
The glory, the terror, the passion that made of the midnight a miracle, died,
Not slain at a stroke, nor in gradual reluctance abated of power and of pride;
With strong swift subsidence, awful as power that is wearied of power upon earth,
As a God that were wearied of power upon heaven, and were fain of a new God's birth,
The might of the night subsided: the tyranny kindled in darkness fell:
And the sea and the sky put off them the rapture and radiance of heaven and of he...Read more of this...

by Dyke, Henry Van
...thee go
"Alone to Spiran's huts, across the snow,
"To serve Him there." With sorrow and surprise
Malvin looked up, reluctance in his eyes.
The broken thought, the strangeness of the call,
The perilous passage of the mountain-wall,
The solitary journey, and the length
Of ways unknown, too great for his frail strength,
Appalled him. With a doubtful brow
He scanned the doubtful task, and muttered "HOW?"
But Asmiel answered, as he turned to go,
With cold, disheartene...Read more of this...

by Matthew, John
...ung children, and pubescent girls?
Your revenge, your wretchedness!

If it’s your laziness, unforgivable indolence,
And reluctance to pay Rupee two, 
And wash with dignity in that public facility,
Then bury your face, wretch, and die in shame....Read more of this...



by Wilde, Oscar
...e austere.

More barren - ay, those arms will never lean
Down through the trellised vines and draw my soul
In sweet reluctance through the tangled green;
Some other head must wear that aureole,
For I am hers who loves not any man
Whose white and stainless bosom bears the sign Gorgonian.

Let Venus go and chuck her dainty page,
And kiss his mouth, and toss his curly hair,
With net and spear and hunting equipage
Let young Adonis to his tryst repair,
But me her fond and ...Read more of this...

by Kinnell, Galway
...ied shuffling some 
 stanzas of his own, but only made matters worse.
I would not have known any of this but for my reluctance to eat oatmeal 
 alone.
When breakfast was over, John recited "To Autumn."
He recited it slowly, with much feeling, and he articulated the words 
 lovingly, and his odd accent sounded sweet.
He didn't offer the story of writing "To Autumn," I doubt if there 
 is much of one.
But he did say the sight of a just-harvested oat field go...Read more of this...

by von Goethe, Johann Wolfgang
...I feel no small reluctance in venturing to give to the public a 
work of the character of that indicated by the title-page to the 
present volume; for, difficult as it must always be to render satisfactorily 
into one's own tongue the writings of the bards of other lands, 
the responsibility assumed by the translator is immeasurably increased 
when he attempts to transfer t...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...pes and arbitrary punishment 
Inflicted? and what peace can we return, 
But, to our power, hostility and hate, 
Untamed reluctance, and revenge, though slow, 
Yet ever plotting how the Conqueror least 
May reap his conquest, and may least rejoice 
In doing what we most in suffering feel? 
Nor will occasion want, nor shall we need 
With dangerous expedition to invade 
Heaven, whose high walls fear no assault or siege, 
Or ambush from the Deep. What if we find 
Some easier ...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...lves; and wilful barrenness, 
That cuts us off from hope; and savours only 
Rancour and pride, impatience and despite, 
Reluctance against God and his just yoke 
Laid on our necks. Remember with what mild 
And gracious temper he both heard, and judged, 
Without wrath or reviling; we expected 
Immediate dissolution, which we thought 
Was meant by death that day; when lo!to thee 
Pains only in child-bearing were foretold, 
And bringing forth; soon recompensed with joy, 
Fru...Read more of this...

by Frost, Robert
...Out through the fields and the woods
And over the walls I have wended;
I have climbed the hills of view
And looked at the world, and descended;
I have come by the highway home,
And lo, it is ended.

The leaves are all dead on the ground,
Save those that the oak is keeping
To ravel them one by one
And let them go scraping and creeping
Out over the crust...Read more of this...

by Laurence Dunbar, Paul
...Will I have some mo' dat pie?
No, ma'am, thank-ee, dat is—I—
Bettah quit daihin' me.
Dat ah pie look sutny good:
How 'd you feel now ef I would?
I don' reckon dat I should;
Bettah quit daihin' me.
Look hyeah, I gwine tell de truf,
Mine is sholy one sweet toof:
Bettah quit daihin' me.
Yass'm, yass'm, dat's all right,
I 's done tried to be perlite:...Read more of this...

by Nicolson, Adela Florence Cory
...nd youthful air,
     Destiny will compel you to bestow!

   Refuse, withdraw, and hesitate awhile,
     Your young reluctance does but fan the flame;
   My partner, Love, waits, with a tender smile,
     Who play against him play a losing game.

   I, strong in nothing else, have strength in this,
     The subtlest, most resistless, force we know
   Is aiding me; and you must stoop and kiss:
     The genius of the race will have it so!

   Yet, make it not too l...Read more of this...

by Turner Smith, Charlotte
...hore
And the broad surf that never ceasing breaks
On the innumerous pebbles, catch the beams
Of the pale Sun, that with reluctance gives
To this cold northern Isle, its shorten'd day.
Alas! how few the morning wakes to joy!
How many murmur at oblivious night
For leaving them so soon; for bearing thus
Their fancied bliss (the only bliss they taste!),
On her black wings away!--Changing the dreams
That sooth'd their sorrows, for calamities
(And every day brings its own sad p...Read more of this...

by Crowley, Aleister
..., and my throat catch breath
As if I choked; some horror creeps between
The spirit of my will and its desire,
Some just reluctance to the Great Unseen
That coils its nameless terrors, and its dire
Fear round my heart; a devil cold as ice
Breathes somewhere, for I feel his shudder take 
My veins: some deadlier asp or cockatrice
Slimes in my senses: I am half awake, 
Half automatic, as I move along
Wrapped in a cloud of blackness deep as hell,
Hearing afar some half-forgotten s...Read more of this...

by Strand, Mark
...ore.
The attitudes they took were jaded.
They stared into the book
and were horrified by their innocence,
their reluctance to give up.
They sat beside each other on the couch.
They were determined to accept the truth.
Whatever it was they would accept it.
The book would have to be written
and would have to be read.
They are the book and they are
nothing else....Read more of this...

by St Vincent Millay, Edna
...my thoughts and this one night,
So that in truth I seem already quite
Free,and remote from thee,—I feel no haste
And no reluctance to depart; I taste
Merely, with thoughtful mien, an unknown draught,
That in a little while I shall have quaffed."

Thus I to Life, and ceased, and slightly smiled,
Looking at nothing; and my thin dreams filed
Before me one by one till once again
I set new words unto an old refrain:

"Treasures thou hast that never have been mine!
Warm lights ...Read more of this...

by von Goethe, Johann Wolfgang
...MY DEAR LADY GRANVILLE,--

THE reluctance which must naturally be felt by any one in
venturing to give to the world a book such as the present, where
the beauties of the great original must inevitably be diminished,
if not destroyed, in the process of passing through the
translator's hands, cannot but be felt in all its force when that
translator has not penetrated beyond the outer courts...Read more of this...

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