Famous Reproaches Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Psalm 102 part 1

by Isaac Watts
 v.1-13,20,21 
C. M.
A prayer of the afflicted.

Hear me, O God, nor hide thy face;
But answer, lest I die;
Hast thou not built a throne of grace
To hear when sinners cry?

My days are wasted like the smoke
Dissolving in the air;
My strength is dried, my heart is broke,
And sinking in despair.

My spirits flag like with'ring grass
Burnt with excessive heat;
In secret groans my...Read more of this...

A Meeting With Despair

by Thomas Hardy
 AS evening shaped I found me on a moor
Which sight could scarce sustain:
The black lean land, of featureless contour,
Was like a tract in pain.

"This scene, like my own life," I said, "is one
Where many glooms abide;
Toned by its fortune to a deadly dun--
Lightless on every side.

I glanced aloft and halted, pleasure-caught
To see the contrast there:
The ray-lit clouds gleamed glory;...Read more of this...

Celestial Music

by John Donne
 I have a friend who still believes in heaven.
Not a stupid person, yet with all she knows, she literally talks to God.
She thinks someone listens in heaven.
On earth she's unusually competent.
Brave too, able to face unpleasantness.

We found a caterpillar dying in the dirt, greedy ants crawling over it.
I'm always moved by disaster, always eager to oppose vitality
But timid also,...Read more of this...

Strip Teaser

by Robert William Service
 My precious grand-child, aged two,
Is eager to unlace one shoe,
 And then the other;
Her cotton socks she'll deftly doff
Despite the mild reproaches of
 Her mother.

Around the house she loves to fare,
And with her rosy tootsies bare,
 Pit-pat the floor;
And though remonstrances we make
She presently decides to take
 Off something more.

Her pinafore she next unties,
And then before we realise,
 Her...Read more of this...

Money

by Philip Larkin
 Quarterly, is it, money reproaches me: 
 'Why do you let me lie here wastefully? 
I am all you never had of goods and sex,
 You could get them still by writing a few cheques.'

So I look at others, what they do with theirs:
 They certainly don't keep it upstairs.
By now they've a second house and car and wife:
...Read more of this...

Hymn To Death

by William Cullen Bryant
 Oh! could I hope the wise and pure in heart
Might hear my song without a frown, nor deem
My voice unworthy of the theme it tries,--
I would take up the hymn to Death, and say
To the grim power, The world hath slandered thee
And mocked thee. On thy dim and shadowy brow
They place an iron crown, and call thee king
Of terrors,...Read more of this...

Initial Love

by Ralph Waldo Emerson
 Venus, when her son was lost,
Cried him up and down the coast,
In hamlets, palaces, and parks,
And told the truant by his marks,
Golden curls, and quiver, and bow;—
This befell long ago.
Time and tide are strangely changed,
Men and manners much deranged;
None will now find Cupid latent
By this foolish antique patent.
He came late along the waste,
Shod like a traveller for haste,
With malice...Read more of this...

To Stella Who Collected and Transcribed His Poems

by Jonathan Swift
 As, when a lofty pile is raised,
We never hear the workmen praised,
Who bring the lime, or place the stones;
But all admire Inigo Jones:
So, if this pile of scattered rhymes
Should be approved in aftertimes;
If it both pleases and endures,
The merit and the praise are yours.
Thou, Stella, wert no longer young,
When first for thee my harp was strung,
Without one word of...Read more of this...

Silver Wedding

by Vernon Scannell
 Silver Wedding

The party is over and I sit among
The flotsam that its passing leaves,
The dirty glasses and ***-ends:
Outside, a black wind grieves.

Two decades and a half of marriage;
It does not really seem as long,
Of youth's ebullient song.

David, my son, my loved rival,
And Julia, my tapering daughter,
Now grant me one achievement only;
I turn their wine to water.

And Helen, partner of...Read more of this...

Celestial Music

by Louise Gluck
 I have a friend who still believes in heaven.
Not a stupid person, yet with all she knows, she literally talks to God.
She thinks someone listens in heaven.
On earth she's unusually competent.
Brave too, able to face unpleasantness.

We found a caterpillar dying in the dirt, greedy ants crawling over it.
I'm always moved by disaster, always eager to oppose vitality
But timid also,...Read more of this...

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