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Famous Spurious Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Robinson, Mary Darby
...her tinsel reign, 
SHAKSPERE might write, and GARRICK act in vain: 
True Wit recedes, when blushing Reason views 
This spurious offspring of the banish'd Muse. 

The task be thine to check the daring hand 
That leads fantastic folly o'er the land; 
The task be thine with witching spells to bind 
The feath'ry shadows of the fickle mind; 
To strew with deathless flow'rs the dreary waste; 
To pluck the weeds of vitiated taste; 
To cheer with smiles the Muse's glorious toil,...Read more of this...



by Parker, Dorothy
...Who call him spurious and shoddy
Shall do it o'er my lifeless body.
I heartily invite such birds
To come outside and say those words!...Read more of this...

by von Goethe, Johann Wolfgang
...m man's view:
Love seeks in solitude a home,

And homage may retreat there too.

MENALCAS.

Thou seekest here a spurious fame,

And hast a mind to-day to grieve me.
Love as thy portion thou mayst claim

But homage thou must share with all, believe me!

When their voices thousands raise,
And the dawn of morning praise,

 Rapture bringing,

 Blithely singing

 On before us,
Heart and ear in pleasure vie;


 And when thousands join in chorus,

With the feelings brigh...Read more of this...

by Meredith, George
...
This truth is little known to human shades, 
How rare from their own instinct 'tis to feel! 
They waste the soul with spurious desire, 
That is not the ripe flame upon the bough. 
We two have taken up a lifeless vow 
To rob a living passion: dust for fire! 
Madam is grave, and eyes the clock that tells 
Approaching midnight. We have struck despair 
Into two hearts. O, look we like a pair 
Who for fresh nuptials joyfully yield all else?...Read more of this...

by Wylie, Elinor
...leness: 
Since it is necessary to express 
Gall from black grapes--to sew an endless seam 
With a rusty needle--chase a spurious gleam 
Narrowing to the nothing through the less-- 
Since life's no better than a bitter guess, 
And love's a stranger--let us change the theme.

Let us at least pretend--it may be true-- 
That we can close our lips on poisonous 
Dark wine diluted by the Stygean wave; 
And let me dream sublimity in you, 
And courage, liberal for the two of us: 
...Read more of this...



by Gluck, Louise
...re, unmovable,
You have begun to vanish. And it does no matter.
The poem will go on without you.
It has the spurious glamor of certain voids.

It is not sad, really, only empty.
Once perhaps it was sad, no one knows why.
It prefers to remember nothing.
Nostalgias were peeled from it long ago.

Your type of beauty has no place here.
Night is the sky over this poem.
It is too black for stars.
And do not look for any illumination.
...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...h? who also in her prime of love,
Spousal embraces, vitiated with Gold,
Though offer'd only, by the sent conceiv'd 
Her spurious first-born; Treason against me?
Thrice she assay'd with flattering prayers and sighs,
And amorous reproaches to win from me
My capital secret, in what part my strength
Lay stor'd in what part summ'd, that she might know:
Thrice I deluded her, and turn'd to sport
Her importunity, each time perceiving
How openly, and with what impudence
She purpos'd t...Read more of this...

by Smith, Stevie
...and Tenuous,
Two Romans.

My father was Hazardous,
Hazardous
Dear old man,
Three Romans.

There was my brother Spurious,
Spurious Posthumous,
Spurious was Spurious,
Was four Romans.

My husband was Perfidious,
He was Perfidious
Five Romans.
Surreptitious, our son,
Was Surreptitious,
He was six Romans.

Our cat Tedious
Still lives,
Count not Tedious
Yet.

My name is Finis,
Finis, Finis,
I am Finis,
Six, five, four, three, two,
One Roman,
Finis....Read more of this...

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