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Famous Reticent Poems by Famous Poets

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

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...thoughts that men call "mad"
         Or oftener "shame."
   Of that delicate vice, that is hardly vice,
         So reticent, rare,
   Ethereal, as the scent of buds and spice,
         In this Eastern air.

   On palm-fringed shores I colour the Cowrie shell,
         With its edges curled;
   And, deep in Datura poison buds, I dwell
         In a perfumed world.
   My lilac tinges the edge of the evening sky
         Where the sunset clings.
   My purple lends...Read more of this...
by Nicolson, Adela Florence Cory



...hy spirit did devise
Its Maker seemly garniture,
Of its own essence parcel pure, -
From grave simplicities a dress,
And reticent demurenesses,
And love encinctured with reserve;
Which the woven vesture should subserve.
For outward robes in their ostents
Should show the soul's habiliments.
Therefore I say,--Thou'rt fair even so,
But better Fair I use to know.

The violet would thy dusk hair deck
With graces like thine own unsought.
Ah! but such place would daze...Read more of this...
by Thompson, Francis
...omen with eyes like panthers,
The swollen, aggressive turbans of jeweled pashas.
Now you are a very decent flower,
A reticent flower,
A curiously clear-cut, candid flower,
Standing beside clean doorways,
Friendly to a house-cat and a pair of spectacles,
Making poetry out of a bit of moonlight
And a hundred or two sharp blossoms.
Maine knows you,
Has for years and years;
New Hampshire knows you,
And Massachusetts
And Vermont.
Cape Cod starts you along the beaches...Read more of this...
by Lowell, Amy
...ld roses, appliqued on silk by hand,
darkly picked, stitched boldly, quickly.
The rest is tortoiseshell and has the reticent clear patience 
 of its element. It is
a worn-out, underwater bullion and it keeps,
even now, an inference of its violation.
The lace is overcast as if the weather 
it opened for and offset had entered it.

The past is an empty cafe terrace.
An airless dusk before thunder. A man running.
And no way to know what happened then—...Read more of this...
by Boland, Eavan
...We are a people living in shells and moving 
Crablike; reticent, awkward, deeply suspicious; 
Watching the world from a corner of half-closed eyelids, 
Afraid lest someone show that he hates or loves us, 
Afraid lest someone weep in the railway train. 

We are coiled and clenched like a foetus clad in armour. 
We hold our hearts for fear they fly like eagles. 
We grasp our tongues for fear they cry l...Read more of this...
by Tessimond, A S J



...br>
Repudiates the Obligation --
On Schemes intent

Balking our Wit
To sound or circumvent --
Hate cannot harm
A Foe so reticent --
Neither Decree prohibit him --
Lawful as Equilibrium....Read more of this...
by Dickinson, Emily
...The reticent volcano keeps
His never slumbering plan --
Confided are his projects pink
To no precarious man.

If nature will not tell the tale
Jehovah told to her
Can human nature not survive
Without a listener?

Admonished by her buckled lips
Let every babbler be
The only secret people keep
Is Immortality....Read more of this...
by Dickinson, Emily
...scabbard.


What became of Mookerjee? Smoothly, who can say?
Yar Mahommed only grins in a nasty way,
Jowar Singh is reticent, Chimbu Singh is mute.
But the belts of all of them simply bulge with loot.

What became of Ballard's guns? Afghans black and grubby
Sell them for their silver weight to the men of Pubbi;
And the shiny bowie-knife and the town-made sword are
Hanging in a Marri camp just across the Border.

What became of Mookerjee? Ask Mahommed Yar
Prodd...Read more of this...
by Kipling, Rudyard

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