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Famous Rigour Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Burns, Robert
...eless Ham 5 leugh at his dad,
 Which made Canaan a ******;
Or Phineas 6 drove the murdering blade,
 Wi’ whore-abhorring rigour;
Or Zipporah, 7 the scauldin jad,
 Was like a bluidy tiger
 I’ th’ inn that day.


There, try his mettle on the creed,
 An’ bind him down wi’ caution,
That stipend is a carnal weed
 He taks by for the fashion;
And gie him o’er the flock, to feed,
 And punish each transgression;
Especial, rams that cross the breed,
 Gie them sufficient threshin;
 S...Read more of this...



by Spenser, Edmund
...od of righteousness,
With which he bruiseth all his foes to dust,
And the great Dragon strongly doth repress,
Under the rigour of his judgement just;
His seat is truth, to which the faithful trust,
From whence proceed her beams so pure and bright
That all about him sheddeth glorious light:

Light far exceeding that bright blazing spark
Which darted is from Titan's flaming head,
That with his beams enlumineth the dark
And dampish air, whereby all things are read;
Whose nature ...Read more of this...

by Spenser, Edmund
...od of righteousness,
With which he bruiseth all his foes to dust,
And the great Dragon strongly doth repress,
Under the rigour of his judgement just;
His seat is truth, to which the faithful trust,
From whence proceed her beams so pure and bright
That all about him sheddeth glorious light:

Light far exceeding that bright blazing spark
Which darted is from Titan's flaming head,
That with his beams enlumineth the dark
And dampish air, whereby all things are read;
Whose nature ...Read more of this...

by Hardy, Thomas
...long order; 
But what they record in colour and cast
Is - that we two passed.

And to me, though Time's unflinching rigour, 
In mindless rote, has ruled from sight
The substance now, one phantom figure
Remains on the slope, as when that night
Saw us alight.

I look and see it there, shrinking, shrinking, 
I look back at it amid the rain
For the very last time; for my sand is sinking, 
And I shall traverse old love's domain
Never again....Read more of this...

by Petrarch, Francesco
...class=i0>You must it now redress;Of right, therefore, you oughtSuch rigour to repress. And as I have deserved,So grant me now my hire;You know I never swerved,You never found me liar.For Rachel have I served,For Leah cared I never;Read more of this...



by Milton, John
...t shout and revelry,
Tipsy dance and jollity.
Braid your locks with rosy twine,
Dropping odours, dropping wine.
Rigour now is gone to bed;
And Advice with scrupulous head,
Strict Age, and sour Severity,
With their grave saws, in slumber lie.
We, that are of purer fire,
Imitate the starry quire,
Who, in their nightly watchful spheres,
Lead in swift round the months and years.
The sounds and seas, with all their finny drove,
Now to the moon in wavering morrice m...Read more of this...

by Bronte, Charlotte
...Still strong, and young, and warm with vigour, 
Though scathed, I long shall greenly grow, 
And many a storm of wildest rigour 
Shall yet break o'er my shivered bough.

Rebellious now to blank inertion, 
My unused strength demands a task; 
Travel, and toil, and full exertion, 
Are the last, only boon I ask.

Whence, then, this vain and barren dreaming 
Of death, and dubious life to come ? 
I see a nearer beacon gleaming 
Over dejection's sea of gloom.

The very wi...Read more of this...

by Donne, John
...e spite?
No, no; but as in my idolatry
I said to all my profane mistresses,
Beauty, of pity, foulness only is
A sign of rigour: so I say to thee,
To wicked spirits are horrid shapes assigned,
This beauteous form assures a piteous mind....Read more of this...

by Philips, Katherine
...bout this squalid heap of bones,
Her wand'ring and condemned shade,
Laments in long and piercing groans
The destiny her rigour made,
And the more to augment her right,
Her crime is ever in her sight.


11

There upon antique marbles trac'd,
Devices of past times we see,
Here age ath almost quite defac'd,
What lovers carv'd on every tree.
The cellar, here, the highest room
Receives when its old rafters fail,
Soil'd with the venom and the foam
Of the spider and the snai...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...and dry, 
As with a trident, smote; and fixed as firm 
As Delos, floating once; the rest his look 
Bound with Gorgonian rigour not to move; 
And with Asphaltick slime, broad as the gate, 
Deep to the roots of Hell the gathered beach 
They fastened, and the mole immense wrought on 
Over the foaming deep high-arched, a bridge 
Of length prodigious, joining to the wall 
Immoveable of this now fenceless world, 
Forfeit to Death; from hence a passage broad, 
Smooth, easy, inoffens...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...appy station, but was driven 
With them from bliss to the bottomless Deep—
Yet to that hideous place not so confined
By rigour unconniving but that oft,
Leaving my dolorous prison, I enjoy
Large liberty to round this globe of Earth,
Or range in the Air; nor from the Heaven of Heavens
Hath he excluded my resort sometimes.
I came, among the Sons of God, when he
Gave up into my hands Uzzean Job,
To prove him, and illustrate his high worth; 
And, when to all his Angels he pro...Read more of this...

by Shakespeare, William
...But then my friend's heart let my poor heart bail;
Whoe'er keeps me, let my heart be his guard,
Thou canst not then use rigour in my jail.
And yet thou wilt; for I, being pent in thee,
Perforce am thine, and all that is in me....Read more of this...

by von Goethe, Johann Wolfgang
...hear it!--

Of the old magician rid;
And henceforth shall ev'ry spirit

Do whate'er by me is bid;

I have watch'd with rigour

All he used to do,

And will now with vigour

Work my wonders too.


Wander, wander

Onward lightly,

So that rightly

Flow the torrent,

And with teeming waters yonder

In the bath discharge its current!

And now come, thou well-worn broom,

And thy wretched form bestir;
Thou hast ever served as groom,

So fulfil my pleasure, sir!

On two legs n...Read more of this...

by Cowper, William
...ade, or displace a patch;
But where are its sublimer trophies found?
What vice has it subdu'd? whose heart reclaim'd
By rigour, or whom laugh'd into reform?
Alas! Leviathan is not so tam'd.
Laugh'd at, he laughs again; and, stricken hard,
Turns to the stroke his adamantine scales,
That fear no discipline of human hands.
The pulpit, therefore, (and I name it fill'd
With solemn awe, that bids me well beware
With what intent I touch that holy thing)--
The pulpit (when th...Read more of this...

by Bronte, Charlotte
...­ere morning light 
Suspicion must as duly fall,
As day returns­such vigilance 
Presides and watches over France, 
Such rigour governs all ? 

I fear not, William; dost thou fear ? 
So that the knife does not divide, 
It may be ever hovering near: 
I could not tremble at thy side, 
And strenuous love­like mine for thee­
Is buckler strong, 'gainst treachery, 
And turns its stab aside. 

I am resolved that thou shalt learn 
To trust my strength as I trust thine; 
I am resol...Read more of this...

by Bronte, Charlotte
...­ere morning light 
Suspicion must as duly fall,
As day returns­such vigilance 
Presides and watches over France, 
Such rigour governs all ? 

I fear not, William; dost thou fear ? 
So that the knife does not divide, 
It may be ever hovering near: 
I could not tremble at thy side, 
And strenuous love­like mine for thee­
Is buckler strong, 'gainst treachery, 
And turns its stab aside. 

I am resolved that thou shalt learn 
To trust my strength as I trust thine; 
I am resol...Read more of this...

by Philips, Katherine
...or ornament,
Are with such harmony by thee displaid,
As the whole world was first by number made
And from the charming rigour thy Muse brings
Learn there's no pleasure but in serious things....Read more of this...

by Chudleigh, Lady Mary
...kind is laid aside, 
And nothing left but state and pride : 
Fierce as an eastern prince he grows, 
And all his innate rigour shows : 
Then but to look, to laugh, or speak, 
Will the nuptial contract break. 
Like mutes, she signs alone must make, 
And never any freedom take : 
But still be govern'd by a nod, 
And fear her husband as a God : 
Him still must serve, him still obey, 
And nothing act, and nothing say, 
But what her haughty lord thinks fit, 
Who with the power...Read more of this...

by Killigrew, Anne
...se Limbs divinely bright, 
Lay like a Body of Collected Light, 
But not to Love and Courtship so disclos'd, 
But to the Rigour of a Dame oppos'd, 
Who instant on the Faire with Words and Blows, 
Now chastens Error, and now Virtue shews. 

IV. 
 But O thou no less Blind, 
 Than Wild and Savage Mind, 
 Who Discipline dar'st name, 
 Thy Outrage and thy shame, 
 And hop'st a Radiant Crown to get
 All Stars and Glory to thy Head made fit, 
Know that this Curse alone shall ...Read more of this...

by Shakespeare, William
...s that taught all other eyes to see?
Now nature cares not for thy mortal vigour,
Since her best work is ruin'd with thy rigour."

Here overcome, as one full of despair,
She vail'd her eyelids, who, like sluices, stopt
The crystal tide that from her two cheeks fair
In the sweet channel of her bosom dropt;
But through the flood-gates breaks the silver rain,
And with his strong course opens them again.

O, how her eyes and tears did lend and borrow!
Her eyes seen in the ...Read more of this...

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