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Famous Sacrilege Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Mayakovsky, Vladimir
...ar has kopeks!¡± 
But remember! 
When they teased Vesuvius, 
Pompeii perished! 

Hey! 
Gentlemen! 
Amateurs 
of sacrilege, 
crime, 
and carnage, 
have you seen 
the terror of terrors ¨C 
my face 
when 
I 
am absolutely calm? 

I feel 
my ¡°I¡± 
is much too small for me. 
Stubbornly a body pushes out of me. 

Hello! 
Who¡¯s speaking? 
Mamma? 
Mamma! 
Your son is gloriously ill! 
Mamma! 
His heart is on fire. 
Tell his sisters, Lyuda an...Read more of this...



by Browning, Elizabeth Barrett
...kes—her grace of limb,
Though such he has praised—nor yet, I think,
For life itself, though spent with him,
Commit such sacrilege, affront
God's nature which is love, intrude
'Twixt two affianced souls, and hunt
Like spiders, in the altar's wood.
I cannot bear these nightingales.

If she chose sin, some gentler guise
She might have sinned in, so it seems:
She might have pricked out both my eyes,
And I still seen him in my dreams!
- Or drugged me in my soup or wine,
No...Read more of this...

by Wilde, Oscar
...would not with her maidenhood entwine,
Nor knew that three days since his eyes had looked on Proserpine;

Nor knew what sacrilege his lips had done,
But said, 'He will awake, I know him well,
He will awake at evening when the sun
Hangs his red shield on Corinth's citadel;
This sleep is but a cruel treachery
To make me love him more, and in some cavern of the sea

Deeper than ever falls the fisher's line
Already a huge Triton blows his horn,
And weaves a garland from the cryst...Read more of this...

by Lindsay, Vachel
...lood.
We sang of Zion, good to know,
Where righteousness and peace abide. . . .
What of your second sacrilege
Carousing at Belshazzar's side?

Once, by a stream, we clasped tired hands—
Your paint and henna washed away.
Your place, you said, was with the slaves
Who sewed the thick cloth, night and day.
You were a pale and holy maid
Toil-bound with us. One night you said:—
"Your God shall be my God until
I slumber with the patriarch dead."

...Read more of this...

by Reeser, Jennifer
...Tell me again I’m so lovely the insects won’t bite.”
Do you remember it, Victor? A time before pleasure
turned into sacrilege hungry to threaten the dead.
So many secrets you whispered -- but I, like a child
drawn to myself, hale and hearty to hear my own weeping,
bored by your ghost stories, left you both late and too soon.
Sunshine deserted or altered the tops of the grasses
subtly, with each changing breeze, as the shadows required --
dark, but not black, like ...Read more of this...



by Dryden, John
...e a hardened felon, took a pride
To work more mischievously slow,
And plundered first, and then destroyed.
O double sacrilege on things divine,
To rob the relic, and deface the shrine!
But thus Orinda died:
Heaven, by the same disease, did both translate;
As equal were their souls, so equal was their fate.

Meantime, her warlike brother on the seas
His waving streamers to the winds displays,
And vows for his return, with vain devotion, pays.
Ah, gen'rous youth! th...Read more of this...

by Chesterton, G K
...terraces of hell,
The camp fires of the Danes--

The fires of the Great Army
That was made of iron men,
Whose lights of sacrilege and scorn
Ran around England red as morn,
Fires over Glastonbury Thorn--
Fires out on Ely Fen.

And as he went by White Horse Vale
He saw lie wan and wide
The old horse graven, God knows when,
By gods or beasts or what things then
Walked a new world instead of men
And scrawled on the hill-side.

And when he came to White Horse Down
The grea...Read more of this...

by Robinson, Mary Darby
...idget,
Enquir'd who this same neighbour was
That took the place his father left--
A most unworthy, shameless theft,--
A sacrilege on marriage laws!

The dame was somewhat disconcerted--
For, all that she could say or do,--
The boy his question would renew,
Nor from his purpose be diverted.
At length, the matter to decide,
"'Tis FATHER PETER" she replied.
"He's come to pray." The child gave o'er,
When a loud thumping at the door
Proclaim'd the Husband coming! Lo!
W...Read more of this...

by Donne, John
...these living walls of jet.
  Though use make you apt to kill me,
  Let not to that, self-murder added be,
  And sacrilege, three sins in killing three.

Curel and sudden, hast thou since
Purpled thy nail, in blood of innocence?
Wherein could this flea guilty be,
Except in that drop which it sucked from thee?
Yet thou triumph'st, and say'st that thou
Find'st not thy self nor me the weaker now;
  'Tis true; then learn how false, fears be;
  Just so much hon...Read more of this...

by Robinson, Edwin Arlington
...women's other sons -
The firm fruition of her need,
He shines anointed; and he blurs
Her vision, till it seems indeed
A sacrilege to call him hers.

She fears a little for so much
Of what is best, and hardly dares
To think of him as one to touch
With aches, indignities, and cares;
She sees him rather at the goal,
Still shining; and her dream foretells
The proper shining of a soul
Where nothing ordinary dwells.

Perchance a canvass of the town
Would find him far from f...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...band, and waved the sword 
A traitor in a turban'd horde; 
And led them to the lawless siege, 
Whose best success were sacrilege. 
Not so had those his fancy number'd, 
The chiefs whose dust around him slumber'd; 
Their phalanx marshall'd on the plain, 
Whose bulwarks were not then in vain. 
They fell devoted, but undying; 
The very gale their names seem'd sighing: 
The waters murmur'd of their name; 
The woods were peopled with their fame; 
The silent pillar, lone a...Read more of this...

by Philips, Katherine
...Forbear, bold youth; all 's heaven here,
 And what you do aver
To others courtship may appear,
 'Tis sacrilege to her.
She is a public deity;
 And were 't not very odd
She should dispose herself to be
 A petty household god? 

First make the sun in private shine
 And bid the world adieu,
That so he may his beams confine
 In compliment to you:
But if of that you do despair,
 Think how you did amiss
To strive to fix her beams which are
 More bright and la...Read more of this...

by Dryden, John
...a harden'd felon, took a pride
 To work more mischievously slow,
 And plunder'd first, and then destroy'd.
O double sacrilege on things divine,
To rob the relique, and deface the shrine!
 But thus Orinda died:
Heav'n, by the same disease, did both translate,
As equal were their souls, so equal was their fate.

Meantime her warlike brother on the seas
His waving streamers to the winds displays,
And vows for his return, with vain devotion, pays.
Ah, generous youth, ...Read more of this...

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