Famous Reversed Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Reversed poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous reversed poems. These examples illustrate what a famous reversed poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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...-does he, discovering, at last, this cruel
coherence created by
"the order of the universe"
--does he will
anything reversed?
I look at my father:
as he drinks his way into garrulous, shaky
defensiveness, the debris of the past
is just debris--; whatever I reason, it is a desolation
to watch...
must I watch?
He will not change; he does not want to change;
every defeated gesture implies
the past is useless, irretrievable...
--I want to change: I want to stop fear's s...Read more of this...
by
Bidart, Frank
...en;
Undisciplined life
Did that to them. As pigs,
Under the care of
Me and my ladies, they
Sweetened right up.
Then I reversed the spell, showing you my goodness
As well as my power. I saw
We could be happy here,
As men and women are
When their needs are simple. In the same breath,
I foresaw your departure,
Your men with my help braving
The crying and pounding sea. You think
A few tears upset me? My friend,
Every sorceress is
A pragmatist at heart; nobody sees essence wh...Read more of this...
by
Gluck, Louise
...you let the false enchanter scape?
O ye mistook; ye should have snatched his wand,
And bound him fast. Without his rod reversed,
And backward mutters of dissevering power,
We cannot free the Lady that sits here
In stony fetters fixed and motionless.
Yet stay: be not disturbed; now I bethink me,
Some other means I have which may be used,
Which once of Meliboeus old I learnt,
The soothest shepherd that e'er piped on plains.
There is a gentle Nymph not far from hence,
That wit...Read more of this...
by
Milton, John
...got it right.
He took his letter to the post,
Yet long he held it in his hand.
Strangely his mood had veered, almost
Reversed,--he could not understand.
The girl was vague, the words were vain;
April romance had come to grief . . .
He tore his letter up again,--
Oh blest relief!...Read more of this...
by
Service, Robert William
...s not the wish to make them less.
A strange doom is thy father's sons's, and past
Recalling, as it lies beyond redress;
Reversed for him our grandsire's fate of yore,—
He had no rest at sea, nor I on shore.
If my inheritance of storms hath been
In other elements, and on the rocks
Of perils, overlooked or unforeseen,
I have sustained my share of worldly shocks,
The fault was mine; nor do I seek to screen
My errors with defensive paradox;
I have been cunning in mine overthrow...Read more of this...
by
Byron, George (Lord)
...e instant that we meet --
They strive -- and yet delay --
They perish -- Do we die --
Or is this Death's Experiment --
Reversed -- in Victory?...Read more of this...
by
Dickinson, Emily
...I saw no Way -- The Heavens were stitched --
I felt the Columns close --
The Earth reversed her Hemispheres --
I touched the Universe --
And back it slid -- and I alone --
A Speck upon a Ball --
Went out upon Circumference --
Beyond the Dip of Bell --...Read more of this...
by
Dickinson, Emily
...ISTANCE?
O.K.ed it when?
My goodness, Central
That was then!
I'm mad and disgusted
With that ***** now.
I don't pay no REVERSED
CHARGES nohow.
You say, I will pay it--
Else you'll take out my phone?
You better let
My phone alone.
I didn't ask him
To telephone me.
Roscoe knows darn well
LONG DISTANCE
Ain't free.
If I ever catch him,
Lawd, have pity!
Calling me up
From Kansas City.
Just to say he loves me!
I knowed that was so.
Why didn't he tell me some'n
I don't know?
F...Read more of this...
by
Hughes, Langston
...Paradise is that old mansion
Many owned before --
Occupied by each an instant
Then reversed the Door --
Bliss is frugal of her Leases
Adam taught her Thrift
Bankrupt once through his excesses --...Read more of this...
by
Dickinson, Emily
...rase, heart in pilgramage,
The Christian plummet sounding heav'n and earth;
Engine against th'Almightie, sinners towre,
Reversed thunder, Christ-side-piercing spear,
The six-daies world-transposing in an houre,
A kinde of tune, which all things heare and fear;
Softnesse, and peace, and joy, and love, and blisse,
Exalted Manna, gladnesse of the best,
Heaven in ordinarie, man well drest,
The milkie way, the bird of Paradise,
Church-bels beyond the starres heard, the souls bloud...Read more of this...
by
Crashaw, Richard
...eir importance
If not their meaning is plain. They were to nourish
A dream which includes them all, as they are
Finally reversed in the accumulating mirror.
They seemed strange because we couldn't actually see them.
And we realize this only at a point where they lapse
Like a wave breaking on a rock, giving up
Its shape in a gesture which expresses that shape.
The forms retain a strong measure of ideal beauty
As they forage in secret on our idea of distortion.
Why be unhappy w...Read more of this...
by
Ashbery, John
...Hand trembling towards hand; the amazing lights
Of heart and eye. They stood on supreme heights.
Ah, the delirious weeks of honeymoon!
Soon they returned, and, after strange adventures,
Settled at Balham by the end of June.
Their money was in Can. Pacs. B. Debentures,
And in Antofagastas. Still he went
Cityward daily; still she did abide
At home. ...Read more of this...
by
Brooke, Rupert
...as an Anthem's insistence,
Heard in the aisles of a dream, over the sandhills, to me.
Now that the Lights are reversed, and the Singing changed into sighing,
Now that the wings of our fierce, fugitive passion are furled,
Take I unto myself, all alone in the light that is dying,
Much of the sorrow that lies hid at the Heart of the World.
Sad am I, sad for your loss: for failing the charm of your presence,
Even the sunshine has paled, leaving the...Read more of this...
by
Nicolson, Adela Florence Cory
...y, amazed,
Could not record the ruin of this retreat,
Unlike a downfall known before or the defeat
Of Hannibal—reversed and wrapped in gloom!
Of Attila, when nations met their doom!
Perished an army—fled French glory then,
Though there the Emperor! he stood and gazed
At the wild havoc, like a monarch dazed
In woodland hoar, who felt the shrieking saw—
He, living oak, beheld his branches fall, with awe.
Chiefs, soldiers, comrades died. But still w...Read more of this...
by
Hugo, Victor
...the sodden loam.
And then when the roads are at their worst,
The bushman's children hear
The cruel blows of the whips reversed
While bullocks pull as their hearts would burst,
And bellow with pain and fear.
And thus with little of joy or rest
Are the long, long journeys done;
And thus—'Tis a cruel war at the best—
Is distance fought in the mighty West,
And the lonely battles won....Read more of this...
by
Lawson, Henry
...ng illustrious toil,To each denied the honours of a tomb,But deathless fame reversed the rigid doom,And show'd their worth in more conspicuous lightThrough the surrounding shades of envious night.Great Phocion next, who mourn'd an equal fate,Expell'd and exiled from his parent state;A foul reward! by party rage decreed,Read more of this...
by
Petrarch, Francesco
...overlaying itch,
the throbbing in my thumbs
untenable to stitch,
sleek, fitted, with the passion
of Shaka Zulu’s face,
reversed and fringe-of-fashion,
I put it on, in place
of achromatic egrets,
the vacant crystal ball.
Victoria has secrets.
I am her baby doll....Read more of this...
by
Reeser, Jennifer
...Two -- were immortal twice --
The privilege of few --
Eternity -- obtained -- in Time --
Reversed Divinity --
That our ignoble Eyes
The quality conceive
Of Paradise superlative --
Through their Comparative....Read more of this...
by
Dickinson, Emily
...
On her cheeks the twin roses shone
As I had with her dance after dance.
Then all of a sudden I knew
As we waltzed and reversed round the hall
That all eyes were watching us two,
And that she was the Belle of the Ball.
The fellows came buzzing like bees,
With swagger and posture and prance,
But her programme was full of "M.E."s,
So she couldn't afford them a dance.
Said mother: "You've been a nice boy,
But had a good time I suppose.
You've filled that poor kid's heart with ...Read more of this...
by
Service, Robert William
...ipster, who whispers that Borak is sure to be first,
He tells the next mug that he meets with a tale with the placings reversed;
And, remember, of judges of racing, the jockey's the absolute worst.
When they lay three to one on the field, and the runners are twenty-and-two,
Take a pull at yourself; take a pull -- it's a mighty big field to get through.
Is the club handicapper a fool? If a fool is about, p'raps it's you!
Beware of the critic who tells you the handicap'...Read more of this...
by
Paterson, Andrew Barton
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