Famous Scourged Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Chopin

by Emma Lazarus
 I

A dream of interlinking hands, of feet 
Tireless to spin the unseen, fairy woof 
Of the entangling waltz. Bright eyebeams meet, 
Gay laughter echoes from the vaulted roof. 
Warm perfumes rise; the soft unflickering glow 
Of branching lights sets off the changeful charms 
Of glancing gems, rich stuffs, the dazzling snow 
Of necks unkerchieft, and bare, clinging arms. 
Hark...Read more of this...

A Panegyric To Sir Lewis Pemberton

by Robert Herrick
 Till I shall come again, let this suffice,
I send my salt, my sacrifice
To thee, thy lady, younglings, and as far
As to thy Genius and thy Lar;
To the worn threshold, porch, hall, parlour, kitchen,
The fat-fed smoking temple, which in
The wholesome savour of thy mighty chines,
Invites to supper him who dines:
Where laden spits, warp'd with large ribs of beef,
Not represent, but...Read more of this...

Mater Triumphalis

by Algernon Charles Swinburne
 Mother of man's time-travelling generations,
Breath of his nostrils, heartblood of his heart,
God above all Gods worshipped of all nations,
Light above light, law beyond law, thou art.

Thy face is as a sword smiting in sunder
Shadows and chains and dreams and iron things;
The sea is dumb before thy face, the thunder
Silent, the skies are narrower than thy wings.

Angels and Gods, spirit...Read more of this...

The Under-Dogs

by Robert William Service
 What have we done, Oh Lord, that we
 Are evil starred?
How have we erred and sinned to be
 So scourged and scarred?
Lash us, Oh Lord, with scorpion whips,
 We can but run;
But harken to our piteous lips:
 What have we done?

How have we sinned to rouse your wrath,
 To earn your scorn?
Stony and steep has been our path
 Since...Read more of this...

Only a Curl

by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
 I.
FRIENDS of faces unknown and a land
Unvisited over the sea, 
Who tell me how lonely you stand
With a single gold curl in the hand
Held up to be looked at by me, --


II.
While you ask me to ponder and say
What a father and mother can do, 
With the bright fellow-locks put away
Out of reach, beyond kiss, in the clay
Where the...Read more of this...

How I Walked Alone in the Jungles of Heaven

by Vachel Lindsay
 Oh, once I walked in Heaven, all alone
Upon the sacred cliffs above the sky.
God and the angels, and the gleaming saints
Had journeyed out into the stars to die.

They had gone forth to win far citizens,
Bought at great price, bring happiness for all:
By such a harvest make a holier town
And put new life within old Zion's wall.

Each chose a far-off...Read more of this...

The Crucifixion of Christ

by William Topaz McGonagall
 Composed, by Special Request, 18th June 1890


Then Pilate, the Roman Governor, took Jesus and scourged Him,
And the soldiers platted a crown of thorns, and thought it no sin
To put it on His head, while meekly Jesus stands;
They put on Him a purple robe, and smote Him with their hands. 

Then Pilate went forth again, and said unto them,
Behold, I...Read more of this...

Yvytot

by Eugene Field
 Where wail the waters in their flaw
A spectre wanders to and fro,
And evermore that ghostly shore
Bemoans the heir of Yvytot.

Sometimes, when, like a fleecy pall,
The mists upon the waters fall,
Across the main float shadows twain
That do not heed the spectre's call.

The king his son of Yvytot
Stood once and saw the waters go
Boiling around with hissing sound
The sullen phantom rocks...Read more of this...

To Walt Whitman In America

by Algernon Charles Swinburne
 Send but a song oversea for us,
Heart of their hearts who are free,
Heart of their singer, to be for us
More than our singing can be;
Ours, in the tempest at error,
With no light but the twilight of terror;
Send us a song oversea!

Sweet-smelling of pine-leaves and grasses,
And blown as a tree through and through
With the winds of the keen mountain-passes,
And tender...Read more of this...

Necrological

by John Crowe Ransom
 The friar had said his paternosters duly 
And scourged his limbs, and afterwards would have slept; 
But with much riddling his head became unruly, 
He arose, from the quiet monastery he crept. 

Dawn lightened the place where the battle had been won. 
The people were dead -- it is easy he thought to die -- 
These dead remained, but...Read more of this...

The Broncho That Would Not Be Broken

by Vachel Lindsay
 A little colt — broncho, loaned to the farm
To be broken in time without fury or harm,
Yet black crows flew past you, shouting alarm,
Calling "Beware," with lugubrious singing...
The butterflies there in the bush were romancing,
The smell of the grass caught your soul in a trance,
So why be a-fearing the spurs and the traces,
O broncho that would not be broken...Read more of this...

Elegy VIII: The Comparison

by John Donne
 As the sweet sweat of roses in a still,
As that which from chafed musk-cats' pores doth trill,
As the almighty balm of th' early East,
Such are the sweat drops of my mistress' breast,
And on her brow her skin such lustre sets,
They seem no sweat drops, but pearl coronets.
Rank sweaty froth thy Mistress's brow defiles,
Like spermatic issue of ripe menstruous boils,
Or...Read more of this...

Lonely Burial

by Stephen Vincent Benet
 There were not many at that lonely place, 
Where two scourged hills met in a little plain. 
The wind cried loud in gusts, then low again. 
Three pines strained darkly, runners in a race 
Unseen by any. Toward the further woods 
A dim harsh noise of voices rose and ceased. 
-- We were most silent in those solitudes --...Read more of this...

Thanatopsis

by William Cullen Bryant
TO HIM who in the love of Nature holds 
Communion with her visible forms she speaks 
A various language; for his gayer hours 
She has a voice of gladness and a smile 
And eloquence of beauty and she glides 5 
Into his darker musings with a mild 
And healing sympathy that steals away 
Their sharpness ere he is aware. When...Read more of this...

Barnfloor and Winepress

by Gerard Manley Hopkins
 And he said, If the Lord do not help thee, whence shall I help thee? out of the barnfloor, or out of the winepress? 
2 Kings VI: 27

Thou that on sin's wages starvest, 
Behold we have the joy in harvest: 
For us was gather'd the first fruits, 
For us was lifted from the roots, 
Sheaved in cruel bands, bruised...Read more of this...

The City That Will Not Repent

by Vachel Lindsay
 Climbing the heights of Berkeley 
Nightly I watch the West. 
There lies new San Francisco, 
Sea-maid in purple dressed, 
Wearing a dancer's girdle 
All to inflame desire: 
Scorning her days of sackcloth, 
Scorning her cleansing fire. 

See, like a burning city 
Sets now the red sun's dome. 
See, mystic firebrands sparkle 
There on each store and home. 
See how...Read more of this...

Portrait of a Baby

by Stephen Vincent Benet
 He lay within a warm, soft world 
Of motion. Colors bloomed and fled, 
Maroon and turquoise, saffron, red, 
Wave upon wave that broke and whirled 
To vanish in the grey-green gloom, 
Perspectiveless and shadowy. 
A bulging world that had no walls, 
A flowing world, most like the sea, 
Compassing all infinity 
Within a shapeless, ebbing room, 
An endless tide...Read more of this...

The Last of the Light Brigade

by Rudyard Kipling
 1891

There were thirty million English who talked of England's might,
There were twenty broken troopers who lacked a bed for the night.
They had neither food nor money, they had neither service nor trade;
They were only shiftless soldiers, the last of the Light Brigade.

They felt that life was fleeting; they kuew not that art was long,
That though they were dying of...Read more of this...

Super Flumina Babylonis

by Algernon Charles Swinburne
 By the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept,
Remembering thee,
That for ages of agony hast endured, and slept,
And wouldst not see.

By the waters of Babylon we stood up and sang,
Considering thee,
That a blast of deliverance in the darkness rang,
To set thee free.

And with trumpets and thunderings and with morning song
Came up the light;
And thy spirit uplifted thee to...Read more of this...

To the Belgians

by Laurence Binyon
 O race that Cæsar knew, 
That won stern Roman praise, 
What land not envies you 
The laurel of these days? 
You build your cities rich 
Around each towered hall, —
Without, the statued niche, 
Within, the pictured wall. 
Your ship-thronged wharves, your marts 
With gorgeious Venice vied, 
Peace and her famous arts 
Were yours: though tide on tide 
Of Europe's...Read more of this...

The Thanksgiving

by George Herbert
 Oh King of grief! (a title strange, yet true, 
To thee of all kings only due) 
Oh King of wounds! how shall I grieve for thee, 
Who in all grief preventest me? 
Shall I weep blood? why thou has wept such store
That all thy body was one door.
Shall I be scourged, flouted, boxed, sold? 
'Tis but to tell the...Read more of this...

LEnvoi

by Robert William Service
 You who have lived in the land,
 You who have trusted the trail,
You who are strong to withstand,
 You who are swift to assail:
 Songs have I sung to beguile,
 Vintage of desperate years,
 Hard as a harlot's smile,
 Bitter as unshed tears.

Little of joy or mirth,
 Little of ease I sing;
Sagas of men of earth
 Humanly suffering,
 Such...Read more of this...

Ode On The Insurrection In Candia

by Algernon Charles Swinburne
 STR. 1

I laid my laurel-leaf
At the white feet of grief,
Seeing how with covered face and plumeless wings,
With unreverted head
Veiled, as who mourns his dead,
Lay Freedom couched between the thrones of kings,
A wearied lion without lair,
And bleeding from base wounds, and vexed with alien air.

STR. 2

Who was it, who, put poison to thy mouth,
Who lulled with craft or chant thy...Read more of this...

Hiawathas Departure

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
 By the shore of Gitche Gumee,
By the shining Big-Sea-Water,
At the doorway of his wigwam,
In the pleasant Summer morning,
Hiawatha stood and waited.
All the air was full of freshness,
All the earth was bright and joyous,
And before him, through the sunshine,
Westward toward the neighboring forest
Passed in golden swarms the Ahmo,
Passed the bees, the honey-makers,
Burning, singing In the sunshine.
Bright above him shone the...Read more of this...

How fleet -- how indiscreet an one --

by Emily Dickinson
 How fleet -- how indiscreet an one --
How always wrong is Love --
The joyful little Deity
We are not scourged to serve --...Read more of this...

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