Famous Reticence Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Alone and in a Circumstance

...Alone and in a Circumstance
Reluctant to be told
A spider on my reticence
Assiduously crawled

And so much more at Home than I
Immediately grew
I felt myself a visitor
And hurriedly withdrew

Revisiting my late abode
With articles of claim
I found it quietly assumed
As a Gymnasium
Where Tax asleep and Title off
The inmates of the Air
Perpetual presumption took
As each were special Heir --
If any strike me on the street
I...Read more of this...
by Dickinson, Emily


Avons Harvest

...to us at least 
A futile opportunity for words 
We might regret. But Avon, since it happened, 
Fed with his unrevealing reticence
The fire of death we saw that horribly 
Consumed him while he crumbled and said nothing. 

So many a time had I been on the edge, 
And off again, of a foremeasured fall 
Into the darkness and discomfiture
Of his oblique rebuff, that finally 
My silence honored his, holding itself 
Away from a gratuitous intrusion 
That likely would have widened a n...Read more of this...
by Robinson, Edwin Arlington

Captain Craig

...
At that intelligence. There was no mist
In them that I remember; but I marked 
An unmistakable self-questioning 
And a reticence of unassumed regret. 
The two together made anxiety— 
Not selfishness, I ventured. I should see
No more of him for six or seven months, 
And I was there to tell him as I might 
What humorous provision we had made 
For keeping him locked up in Tilbury Town. 
That finished—with a few more commonplace
Prosaics on the certified event 
Of my return to f...Read more of this...
by Robinson, Edwin Arlington

Geraint And Enid

...lf, 
Because I knew my deeds were known, I found, 
Instead of scornful pity or pure scorn, 
Such fine reserve and noble reticence, 
Manners so kind, yet stately, such a grace 
Of tenderest courtesy, that I began 
To glance behind me at my former life, 
And find that it had been the wolf's indeed: 
And oft I talked with Dubric, the high saint, 
Who, with mild heat of holy oratory, 
Subdued me somewhat to that gentleness, 
Which, when it weds with manhood, makes a man. 
And you...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord

I Think I Should Have Loved You

...against my cheek and breast;
And all my pretty follies flung aside
That won you to me, and beneath your gaze,
Naked of reticence and shorn of pride, 
Spread like a chart my little wicked ways.
I, that had been to you, had you remained, 
But one more waking from a recurrent dream,
Cherish no less the certain stakes I gained,
And walk your memory's halls, austere, supreme,
A ghost in marble of a girl you knew
Who would have loved you in a day or two....Read more of this...
by St. Vincent Millay, Edna


Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror

...s, are seen to be
Hastening out of style. If they are to become classics
They must decide which side they are on.
Their reticence has undermined
The urban scenery, made its ambiguities
Look willful and tired, the games of an old man.
What we need now is this unlikely
Challenger pounding on the gates of an amazed
Castle. Your argument, Francesco,
Had begun to grow stale as no answer
Or answers were forthcoming. If it dissolves now
Into dust, that only means its time had come
S...Read more of this...
by Ashbery, John

The Tree In Pamelas Garden

...nd only in so far 
As she was in a garden was like Eve.

Her neighbors—doing all that neighbors can 
To make romance of reticence meanwhile—
Seeing that she had never loved a man, 
Wished Pamela had a cat, or a small bird, 
And only would have wondered at her smile 
Could they have seen that she had overheard....Read more of this...
by Robinson, Edwin Arlington

The Wandering Jew

...hat on this other side of death 
Saw nothing good, as he had seen 
No good come out of Nazareth? 

Yet here there was a reticence,
And I believe his only one, 
That hushed him as if he beheld 
A Presence that would not be gone. 
In such a silence he confessed 
How much there was to be denied;
And he would look at me and live, 
As others might have looked and died. 

As if at last he knew again 
That he had always known, his eyes 
Were like to those of one who gazed
On those o...Read more of this...
by Robinson, Edwin Arlington

This that would greet -- an hour ago --

...dise --
Nor glow, would it, nor bow --

Had it a notice from the Noon
Nor beam would it nor warm --
Match me the Silver Reticence --
Match me the Solid Calm --...Read more of this...
by Dickinson, Emily

Turns

...Brylcreem slicks displayed so folks migh think
he wanted charity for dropping dead.

He never begged. For nowt! Death's reticence
crowns his life, and me, I'm opening my trap
to busk the class that broke him for the pence
that splash like brackish tears into our cap....Read more of this...
by Harrison, Tony

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