Famous Spurning Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Spurning poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous spurning poems. These examples illustrate what a famous spurning poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Burns, Robert
...sublimely flows,
Yet vilest reptiles in their begging prose.
Mark, how their lofty independent spirit
Soars on the spurning wing of injured merit!
Seek not the proofs in private life to find
Pity the best of words should be but wind!
So, to heaven’s gates the lark’s shrill song ascends,
But grovelling on the earth the carol ends.
In all the clam’rous cry of starving want,
They dun Benevolence with shameless front;
Oblige them, patronise their tinsel lays—
They persec...Read more of this...
by
Burns, Robert
...anting elf,
Not to thee, but thanks to Nature,
Thou art acting but thyself.
Wert thou awkward, stiff, affected,
Spurning Nature, torturing art;
Loves and Graces all rejected,
Then indeed thou’d’st act a part....Read more of this...
by
Burns, Robert
...DOST thou not rise, indignant shade,
And smile wi’ spurning scorn,
When they wha wad hae starved thy life,
Thy senseless turf adorn?
Helpless, alane, thou clamb the brae,
Wi’ meikle honest toil,
And claught th’ unfading garland there—
Thy sair-worn, rightful spoil.
And wear it thou! and call aloud
This axiom undoubted—
Would thou hae Nobles’ patronage?
First learn to live without it!
To whom h...Read more of this...
by
Burns, Robert
...le, we’ll measure the lay;
Here Vanity strums on her idiot lyre;
There keen Indignation shall dart on his prey,
Which spurning Contempt shall redeem from his ire....Read more of this...
by
Lowell, Amy
...Who shall declare the joy of the running!
Who shall tell of the pleasures of flight!
Springing and spurning the tufts of wild heather,
Sweeping, wide-winged, through the blue dome of light.
Everything mortal has moments immortal,
Swift and God-gifted, immeasurably bright.
So with the stretch of the white road before me,
Shining snowcrystals rainbowed by the sun,
Fields that are white, stained with long, cool, blue shadows,
Strong with the strength...Read more of this...
by
Dickinson, Emily
...of the sky
And clarifying scenery
How mighty the Wind must feel Morns
Encamping on a thousand dawns
Espousing each and spurning all
Then soaring to his Temple Tall --...Read more of this...
by
Hafez,
...t to combat it:
But not ev’n thus can I pray;—thou strong storm,
All-overpowering, baffling bravest wit,
Wild spirit spurning cage of time or name,
Furious intangible fire, no duteous thought
Can deal with thee, to no calm altar-flame
Confine, nor wish acceptable,—O if aught
From such dumb need can reach aught’s hearing ear,
This is it now, O hear, O hear, O hear!
...Read more of this...
by
Khayyam, Omar
...ace, and lies burning,
Death's shears have cut his thread of life asunder,
Fate's brokers sell him off with scorn and spurning....Read more of this...
by
Chesterton, G K
...
Then the tuckets, then the trumpets, then the cannon, and he comes.
Don John laughing in the brave beard curled,
Spurning of his stirrups like the thrones of all the world,
Holding his head up for a flag of all the free.
Love-light of Spain--hurrah!
Death-light of Africa!
Don John of Austria
Is riding to the sea.
Mahound is in his paradise above the evening star,
(Don John of Austria is going to the war.)
He moves a mighty turban on the timeless ho...Read more of this...
by
Thomas, Dylan
...hat rules from wrist to shoulder,
Unpacks the head that, like a sleepy ghost,
Leans on my mortal ruler,
The proud spine spurning turn and twist.
And these poor nerves so wired to the skull
Ache on the lovelorn paper
I hug to love with my unruly scrawl
That utters all love hunger
And tells the page the empty ill.
My hero bares my side and sees his heart
Tread; like a naked Venus,
The beach of flesh, and wind her bloodred plait;
Stripping my loin of promise,
He promis...Read more of this...
by
Browning, Robert
...deep
Of his domain the wildwood, Pan forthwith
Called her, and so she followed"--in her sleep,
Surely?--"by no means spurning him." The myth
Explain who may! Let all else go, I keep
--As of a ruin just a monolith--
Thus much, one verse of five words, each a boon:
Arcadia, night, a cloud, Pan, and the moon....Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...ots of the poets—the elder religions;
—O you temples fairer than lilies, pour’d over by the rising sun!
O you fables, spurning the known, eluding the hold of the known, mounting to heaven!
You lofty and dazzling towers, pinnacled, red as roses, burnish’d with gold!
Towers of fables immortal, fashion’d from mortal dreams!
You too I welcome, and fully, the same as the rest;
You too with joy I sing.
3
Passage to India!
Lo, soul! seest thou not God’s purpose from the f...Read more of this...
by
Juana Inés de la Cruz, Sor
...
you sneer if you've been gratified.
With you, no woman can hope to score;
whichever way, she's bound to lose;
spurning you, she's ungrateful--
succumbing, you call her lewd.
Your folly is always the same:
you apply a single rule
to the one you accuse of looseness
and the one you brand as cruel.
What happy mean could there be
for the woman who catches your eye,
if, unresponsive, she offends,
yet whose complaisance you decry?
Still, whether...Read more of this...
by
Service, Robert William
...not heard of him a word
Unto this day.
A man must write to please himself,
Of all it's true;
But happy they who spurning pelf--
Please people too....Read more of this...
by
Swinburne, Algernon Charles
...love's, and the fierce lips fluttered
With love's own living breath;
By thy weaponed hands, brows helmed, and bare feet spurning
The bared head of a king;
By the storm of sunrise round thee risen and burning,
Why hast thou done this thing?
Thou hast mixed thy limbs with the son of a harlot, a stranger,
Mouth to mouth, limb to limb,
Thou, bride of a God, because of the bridesman Danger,
To bring forth seed to him.
For thou thoughtest inly, the terrible bridegroom wakes me,...Read more of this...
by
Whittier, John Greenleaf
...neyed music of her tongue
And words of meekness scarcely told
A nature passionate and bold,
Strong, self-concentred, spurning guide,
Its milder features dwarded beside
Her unbent will's majestic pride.
She sat among us, at the test,
A not unfeared, half-welcome guest,
Rebuking with her cultured phrase
Our homeliness of words and ways.
A certain pard-like, treacherous grace
Swayed the lithe limbs and dropped the lash,
Lent the white teeth their dazzling fla...Read more of this...
by
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...urs.
And see! she stirs!
She starts, -- she moves, -- she seems to feel
The thrill of life along her keel,
And, spurning with her foot the ground,
With one exulting, joyous bound,
She leaps into the ocean's arms!
And lo! from the assembled crowd
There rose a shout, prolonged and loud,
That to the ocean seemed to say,
"Take her, O bridegroom, old and gray,
Take her to thy protecting arms,
With all her youth and all her charms!"
How beautiful she is! How fair
...Read more of this...
by
Service, Robert William
...im.
Will Glory o' England ever die
So long as we've lads like him?
So long as we've fond and fearless fools,
Who, spurning fortune and fame,
Turn out with the rallying cry of their schools,
Just bent on playing the game.
A fool! Ah no! He was more than wise.
His was the proudest part.
He died with the glory of faith in his eyes,
And the glory of love in his heart.
And though there's never a grave to tell,
Nor a cross to mark his fall,
Thank God! we ...Read more of this...
by
Blake, William
...s over the deep in dark dismay,
Where the son of fire in his eastern cloud, while the
morning plumes her golden breast,
Spurning the clouds written with curses, stamps the stony
law to dust, loosing the eternal horses from the dens of night,
crying
Empire is no more! and now the lion & wolf shall cease.
Chorus
Let the Priests of the Raven of dawn, no longer in deadly
black, with hoarse note curse the sons of joy. Nor his accepted
brethren whom, tyrant, he calls fr...Read more of this...
by
Juana Inés de la Cruz, Sor
...ay,
you sneer if you've been gratified.
With you, no woman can hope to score;
whichever way, she's bound to lose;
spurning you, she's ungrateful--
succumbing, you call her lewd.
Your folly is always the same:
you apply a single rule
to the one you accuse of looseness
and the one you brand as cruel.
What happy mean could there be
for the woman who catches your eye,
if, unresponsive, she offends,
yet whose complaisance you decry?
Still, whether it's tormen...Read more of this...
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