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Famous Repressed Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Melville, Herman
...clear calm look. It spake of pain,
But such as purifies from stain-
Sharp pangs that never come again-
And triumph repressed by knowledge meet,
Power delicate, and hope grown wise,
And youth matured for age's seat-
Law on her brow and empire in her eyes.
So she, with graver air and lifted flag;
While the shadow, chased by light,
Fled along the far-brawn height,
And left her on the crag....Read more of this...



by Tebb, Barry
...uth must write

Leeds hath for rarities undone thee quite.”

 - William Dawson of Hackney, Nov.7th 1704



“The repressed becomes the poem”

 Louise Bogan





1



Well it’s Friday the thirteenth

So I’d better begin with luck

As I prepare for a journey to

The north, the place where I began

And I was lucky even before I

Was born for the red-hot shrapnel fell

And missed my mother by an inch

As she walked through the Blitz

In Bradford in nineteen forty-one.
...Read more of this...

by Gray, Thomas
...living lyre;

But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page,
Rich with the spoils of Time, did ne'er unroll;
Chill Penury repressed their noble rage,
And froze the genial current of the soul.

Full many a gem of purest ray serene
The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear;
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.

Some village-Hampden that with dauntless breast
The little tyrant of his fields withstood,
Some mute inglorious Mil...Read more of this...

by Anonymous,
...e been gentle, lowly, meek,And the small voice of conscience heard?When passion tempted us to speak,Have we repressed the angry word?Have we with cheerful zeal obeyedWhat our kind parents bade us do?And not by word or action saidThe thing that was not strictly true?In hard temptation’s troubled hour,Oh! have we stopped to think and pray,[Pg 023]That God would please to give us powerTo chase the naughty thought away?Oh, Thou! who seest a...Read more of this...

by Laurence Dunbar, Paul
...to find some danger nigh.
Love is a guest that comes, unbidden,
But, having come, asserts his right;
He will not be repressed nor hidden.
And so my brother's dawning plight
Became uncovered to my sight.
Some sound-mote in his passing tone
Caught in the meshes of my ear;
Some little glance, a shade too dear,
Betrayed the love he bore Ione.
What could I do? He was my brother,
And young, and full of hope and trust;
I could not, dared not try to smother
His flame, a...Read more of this...



by Frost, Robert
...e.

Well, something for a snowstorm to have shown
The country's singing strength thus brought together,
the thought repressed and moody with the weather
Was none the less there ready to be freed
And sing the wildflowers up from root and seed....Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...st, that melting eye,
Too much invited to be blessed:
That gentle prayer, that pleading sigh,
The wilder wish reproved, repressed.

Oh! let me feel that all I lost
But saved thee all that Conscience fears;
And blush for every pang it cost
To spare the vain remorse of years.

Yet think of this when many a tongue,
Whose busy accents whisper blame,
Would do the heart that loved thee wrong,
And brand a nearly blighted name.

Think that, whate'er to others, thou
Hast s...Read more of this...

by Browning, Robert
...were witnesses, cohorts about me, to left and to right,
Angels, powers, the unuttered, unseen, the alive, the aware:
I repressed, I got through them as hardly, as strugglingly there,
As a runner beset by the populace famished for news---
Life or death. The whole earth was awakened, hell loosed with her crews;
And the stars of night beat with emotion, and tingled and shot
Out in fire the strong pain of pent knowledge: but I fainted not,
For the Hand still impelled me at o...Read more of this...

by Estep, Maggie
...E.


I haven't always been 
a SEX GODDESS
I used to be just a mere mortal woman
but I grew tired of sexuality being repressed
then manifest
in late night 900 number ads
where 3 bodacious bimbettes
heave cleavage into the camera's winking lens and sigh:


"Big Girls oooh, Bad Girls oooh, Blonde Girls oooh,
you know what to do, call 1-900-UNMITIGATED BIMBO ooooh."


Yeah
I got fed up with the oooh oooh oooh oooh oooh
I got fed up with it all
so I put on my combat boots
...Read more of this...

by Laurence Dunbar, Paul
...ed it and pressed it.
Ah, how my heart glows,
Could I ever have guessed it?
It is fair to suppose
That I might have repressed it:
She gave me a rose,
And I kissed it and pressed it.
'T was a rhyme in life's prose
That uplifted and blest it.
Man's nature, who knows
Until love comes to test it?
She gave me a rose,
And I kissed it and pressed it.
...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...ef be?—she had all she loved,
And he who had so loved her was not there
To trouble with bad hopes, or evil wish,
Or ill-repressed affliction, her pure thoughts.
What could her grief be?—she had loved him not,
Nor given him cause to deem himself beloved,
Nor could he be a part of that which preyed
Upon her mind—a spectre of the past.

VI

A change came o'er the spirit of my dream.
The Wanderer was returned.—I saw him stand
Before an altar—with a gentle bride;
H...Read more of this...

by Scott, Sir Walter
...Would, at my suit, thou know'st, delay
     A Lennox foray—for a day.'—
     XII..

     The ancient bard her glee repressed:
     'Ill hast thou chosen theme for jest!
     For who, through all this western wild,
     Named Black Sir Roderick e'er, and smiled?
     In Holy-Rood a knight he slew;
     I saw, when back the dirk he drew,
     Courtiers give place before the stride
     Of the undaunted homicide;
     And since, though outlawed, hath his hand
     ...Read more of this...

by Dickinson, Emily
...the Soul
And leave it with a Discontent
Too exquisite -- to tell --

The eager look -- on Landscapes --
As if they just repressed
Some Secret -- that was pushing
Like Chariots -- in the Vest --

The Pleading of the Summer --
That other Prank -- of Snow --
That Cushions Mystery with Tulle,
For fear the Squirrels -- know.

Their Graspless manners -- mock us --
Until the Cheated Eye
Shuts arrogantly -- in the Grave --
Another way -- to see --...Read more of this...

by Chaucer, Geoffrey
...som maner Ialousye 
Is excusable more than som, y-wis.
As whan cause is, and som swich fantasye
With pietee so wel repressed is,
That it unnethe dooth or seyth amis,
But goodly drinketh up al his distresse; 
And that excuse I, for the gentilesse.

'And som so ful of furie is and despyt
That it sourmounteth his repressioun;
But herte myn, ye be not in that plyt,
That thanke I god, for whiche your passioun 
I wol not calle it but illusioun,
Of habundaunce of love and b...Read more of this...

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Book: Shattered Sighs