Famous Scape Poems by Famous Poets

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

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A Lovers Complaint

...receive,
Playing patient sports in unconstrained gyves?
She that her fame so to herself contrives,
The scars of battle 'scapeth by the flight,
And makes her absence valiant, not her might.

''O, pardon me, in that my boast is true:
The accident which brought me to her eye
Upon the moment did her force subdue,
And now she would the caged cloister fly:
Religious love put out Religion's eye:
Not to be tempted, would she be immured,
And now, to tempt, all liberty procured.

''How...Read more of this...
by Shakespeare, William


Astrophel and Stella

...ot to get into her heart. 
XII 

Cupid, because thou shin'st in Stellaes eyes
That from her locks thy day-nets none scapes free
That those lips sweld so full of thee they be
That her sweet breath makes oft thy flames to rise
That in her breast thy pap well sugred lies
That her grace gracious makes thy wrongsthat she,
What words soere shee speake, perswades for thee
That her clere voice lifts thy fame to the skies,
Thou countest Stella thine, like those whose pow'rs...Read more of this...
by Sidney, Sir Philip

Comus

...gn of
resistance, but are all driven in. The ATTENDANT SPIRIT comes in.

 SPIR . What! have 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 soothes...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Contemplations

...ecord are forgot,
229 Their parts, their ports, their pomp's all laid in th' dust.
230 Nor wit, nor gold, nor buildings scape time's rust,
231 But he whose name is grav'd in the white stone
232 Shall last and shine when all of these are gone....Read more of this...
by Bradstreet, Anne

Endymion: Book II

...and by the nectar-wine,
The passion"--------"O lov'd Ida the divine!
Endymion! dearest! Ah, unhappy me!
His soul will 'scape us--O felicity!
How he does love me! His poor temples beat
To the very tune of love--how sweet, sweet, sweet.
Revive, dear youth, or I shall faint and die;
Revive, or these soft hours will hurry by
In tranced dulness; speak, and let that spell
Affright this lethargy! I cannot quell
Its heavy pressure, and will press at least
My lips to thine, that they...Read more of this...
by Keats, John


Guinevere

...l the woe? 
If ever Lancelot, that most noble knight, 
Were for one hour less noble than himself, 
Pray for him that he scape the doom of fire, 
And weep for her that drew him to his doom.' 

`Yea,' said the little novice, `I pray for both; 
But I should all as soon believe that his, 
Sir Lancelot's, were as noble as the King's, 
As I could think, sweet lady, yours would be 
Such as they are, were you the sinful Queen.' 

So she, like many another babbler, hurt 
Whom she woul...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord

Isabella or The Pot of Basil

...some great urgency and need
In their affairs, requiring trusty hands.
Poor Girl! put on thy stifling widow's weed,
And 'scape at once from Hope's accursed bands;
To-day thou wilt not see him, nor to-morrow,
And the next day will be a day of sorrow.

***.
She weeps alone for pleasures not to be;
Sorely she wept until the night came on,
And then, instead of love, O misery!
She brooded o'er the luxury alone:
His image in the dusk she seem'd to see,
And to the silence made a gent...Read more of this...
by Keats, John

Paradise Lost: Book 01

...With stench and smoke. Such resting found the sole 
Of unblest feet. Him followed his next mate; 
Both glorying to have scaped the Stygian flood 
As gods, and by their own recovered strength, 
Not by the sufferance of supernal Power. 
 "Is this the region, this the soil, the clime," 
Said then the lost Archangel, "this the seat 
That we must change for Heaven?--this mournful gloom 
For that celestial light? Be it so, since he 
Who now is sovereign can dispose and bid 
What sh...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Paradise Lost: Book 02

...eives him next, 
Wide-gaping, and with utter loss of being 
Threatens him, plunged in that abortive gulf. 
If thence he scape, into whatever world, 
Or unknown region, what remains him less 
Than unknown dangers, and as hard escape? 
But I should ill become this throne, O Peers, 
And this imperial sovereignty, adorned 
With splendour, armed with power, if aught proposed 
And judged of public moment in the shape 
Of difficulty or danger, could deter 
Me from attempting. Wheref...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Paradise Lost: Book 04

...nhabitants on earth! that now, 
While time was, our first parents had been warned 
The coming of their secret foe, and 'scaped, 
Haply so 'scaped his mortal snare: For now 
Satan, now first inflamed with rage, came down, 
The tempter ere the accuser of mankind, 
To wreak on innocent frail Man his loss 
Of that first battle, and his flight to Hell: 
Yet, not rejoicing in his speed, though bold 
Far off and fearless, nor with cause to boast, 
Begins his dire attempt; which nigh...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Paradise Lost: Book 10

...
He, in the serpent, had perverted Eve, 
Her husband she, to taste the fatal fruit, 
Was known in Heaven; for what can 'scape the eye 
Of God all-seeing, or deceive his heart 
Omniscient? who, in all things wise and just, 
Hindered not Satan to attempt the mind 
Of Man, with strength entire and free will armed, 
Complete to have discovered and repulsed 
Whatever wiles of foe or seeming friend. 
For still they knew, and ought to have still remembered, 
The high injunction, not...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Samson Agonistes

...aptiv'd:
Or to the unjust tribunals, under change of times,
And condemnation of the ingrateful multitude.
If these they scape, perhaps in poverty
With sickness and disease thou bow'st them down,
Painful diseases and deform'd, 
In crude old age;
Though not disordinate, yet causless suffring
The punishment of dissolute days, in fine,
Just or unjust, alike seem miserable,
For oft alike, both come to evil end.
So deal not with this once thy glorious Champion,
The Image of thy str...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Science-fiction Cradlesong

...on bars.

Suppose it done. Now we ride 
Closed in steel, up there, outside 
Through our port-holes see the vast 
Heaven-scape go rushing past. 
Shall we? All that meets the eye 
Is sky and stars, stars and sky.

Points of light with black between 
Hang like a painted scene 
Motionless, no nearer there 
Than on Earth, everywhere 
Equidistant from our ship. 
Heaven has given us the slip.

Hush, be still. Outer space
Is a concept, not a place.
Try no more. Where we are
Never can...Read more of this...
by Lewis, C S

The Deserted Village

...s, without one arm to save,
The country blooms—a garden, and a grave.

Where then, ah! where, shall poverty reside,
To 'scape the pressure of contiguous pride?
If to some common's fenceless limits strayed,
He drives his flock to pick the scanty blade,
Those fenceless fields the sons of wealth divide,
And even the bare-worn common is denied.
If to the city sped—what waits him there?
To see profusion that he must not share;
To see ten thousand baneful arts combined
To pamper lu...Read more of this...
by Goldsmith, Oliver

The Knights Tale

...will
You in this garden thus to transfigure
Before me sorrowful wretched creature,
Out of this prison help that we may scape.
And if so be our destiny be shape
By etern word to dien in prison,
Of our lineage have some compassion,
That is so low y-brought by tyranny."

And with that word Arcita *gan espy* *began to look forth*
Where as this lady roamed to and fro
And with that sight her beauty hurt him so,
That if that Palamon was wounded sore,
Arcite is hurt as much as he, o...Read more of this...
by Chaucer, Geoffrey

The Lady of the Lake

...m resistance made,
     And felt our Chief's unconquered blade.
     I marvel she is now at large,
     But oft she 'scapes from Maudlin's charge.—
     Hence, brain-sick fool!'—He raised his bow:—
     'Now, if thou strik'st her but one blow,
     I'll pitch thee from the cliff as far
     As ever peasant pitched a bar!'
     'Thanks, champion, thanks' the Maniac cried,
     And pressed her to Fitz-James's side.
     'See the gray pennons I prepare,
     To seek m...Read more of this...
by Scott, Sir Walter

The Millers Tale

...trange contrivance
But natheless she fear'd as she would dey, meant*
And said: "Alas! go forth thy way anon.
Help us to scape, or we be dead each one.
I am thy true and very wedded wife;
Go, deare spouse, and help to save our life."
Lo, what a great thing is affection!
Men may die of imagination,
So deeply may impression be take.
This silly carpenter begins to quake:
He thinketh verily that he may see
This newe flood come weltering as the sea
To drenchen* Alison, his honey de...Read more of this...
by Chaucer, Geoffrey

The Triumph Of Fame

...dly pair in hostile mood.The royal Lydian, with distracted mien,Just as he 'scaped the vengeful flame, was seenAnd Syphax, who deplored an equal doom,Who paid with life his enmity of Rome;And Brennus, famed for sacrilegious spoil,That, overwhelm'd beneath the rocky pile,Atoned the carnage of his cruel hand,Read more of this...
by Petrarch, Francesco

The Vanity of Human Wishes (excerpts)

...3 Nor deem, when learning her last prize bestows
164 The glitt'ring eminence exempt from foes;
165 See when the vulgar 'scape, despis'd or aw'd,
166 Rebellion's vengeful talons seize on Laud.
167 From meaner minds, tho' smaller fines content
168 The plunder'd palace or sequester'd rent;
169 Mark'd out by dangerous parts he meets the shock,
170 And fatal Learning leads him to the block:
171 Around his tomb let Art and Genius weep,
172 But hear his death, ye blockheads, hear an...Read more of this...
by Johnson, Samuel

Verses on the Death of Doctor Swift

...be or ridiculed or lashed.
If you resent it, who's to blame?
He neither knew you nor your name.
Should vice expect to 'scape rebuke,
Because its owner is a duke?"
"He knew an hundred pleasant stories,
With all the turns of Whigs and Tories;
Was cheerful to his dying day,
And friends would let him have his way."
"He gave what little wealth he had
To build a house for fools and mad;
And showed by one satiric touch,
No nation wanted it so much.
That kingdom he hath left his deb...Read more of this...
by Swift, Jonathan

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