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Famous Spurns Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Burns, Robert
...ign;
Of thy caprice maternal I complain.
 The peopled fold thy kindly care have found,
The hornèd bull, tremendous, spurns the ground;
The lordly lion has enough and more,
The forest trembles at his very roar;
Thou giv’st the ass his hide, the snail his shell,
The puny wasp, victorious, guards his cell.
Thy minions, kings defend, controul devour,
In all th’ omnipotence of rule and power:
Foxes and statesmen subtle wiles ensure;
The cit and polecat stink, and are secur...Read more of this...



by Burns, Robert
...arraign;
Of thy caprice maternal I complain;
The lion and the bull thy care have found,
One shakes the forests, and one spurns the ground;
Thou giv’st the ass his hide, the snail his shell;
Th’ envenom’d wasp, victorious, guards his cell;
Thy minions kings defend, control, devour,
In all th’ omnipotence of rule and power;
Foxes and statesmen subtile wiles ensure;
The cit and polecat stink, and are secure;
Toads with their poison, doctors with their drug,
The priest and hedgeh...Read more of this...

by Robinson, Mary Darby
...lection shuns the sordid crowd,
The senseless chaos of the little proud,
Then, indignation stealing through the breast,
Spurns the pert tribe in flimsy greatness drest;
Who, to their native nothingness consign'd,
Sink in contempt­nor leave a trace behind.
Then Fancy paints, in visionary gloom,
The sainted shadows of the laurel'd tomb, 
The Star of Virtue glist'ning on each breast, 
Divine insignia of the spirit blest! 
Then MILTON smiles serene, a beauteous shade, 
In wor...Read more of this...

by Robinson, Edwin Arlington
...As we the withered ferns 
By the roadway lying, 
Time, the jester, spurns 
All our prayers and prying -- 
All our tears and sighing, 
Sorrow, change, and woe -- 
All our where-and-whying 
For friends that come and go. 

Life awakes and burns, 
Age and death defying, 
Till at last it learns 
All but Love is dying; 
Love's the trade we're plying, 
God has willed it so; 
Shrouds are what we're buying 
For friends that come...Read more of this...

by Browning, Robert
...n and off! 
As when a traveller, bound from North to South, 
Scouts fur in Russia: what's its use in France? 
In France spurns flannel: where's its need in Spain? 
In Spain drops cloth, too cumbrous for Algiers! 
Linen goes next, and last the skin itself, 
A superfluity at Timbuctoo. 
When, through his journey, was the fool at ease? 
I'm at ease now, friend; worldly in this world, 
I take and like its way of life; I think 
My brothers, who administer the means, 
Live bett...Read more of this...



by Clare, John
...er simple they may be
What ere wi time has sanction found
Is welcome and is dear to me
Pride grows above simplicity
And spurns it from her haughty mind
And soon the poets song will be
The only refuge they can find

The shepherd now no more afraid
Since custom doth the chance bestow
Starts up to kiss the giggling maid
Beneath the branch of mizzletoe
That neath each cottage beam is seen
Wi pearl-like-berrys shining gay
The shadow still of what hath been
Which fashion yearly fad...Read more of this...

by Dickinson, Emily
...Civilization -- spurns -- the Leopard!
Was the Leopard -- bold?
Deserts -- never rebuked her Satin --
Ethiop -- her Gold --
Tawny -- her Customs --
She was Conscious --
Spotted -- her Dun Gown --
This was the Leopard's nature -- Signor --
Need -- a keeper -- frown?

Pity -- the Pard -- that left her Asia --
Memories -- of Palm --
Cannot be stifled -- with Narcotic --
Nor su...Read more of this...

by Shakespeare, William
...s if she knew his mind;
Being proud, as females are, to see him woo her,
She puts on outward strangeness, seems unkind,
Spurns at his love and scorns the heat he feels,
Beating his kind embracements with her heels.

Then, like a melancholy malcontent,
He vails his tail that, like a falling plume
Cool shadow to his melting buttock lent:
He stamps, and bites the poor flies in his fume.
His love, perceiving how he is enrag'd,
Grew kinder, and his fury was assuag'd.

...Read more of this...

by Montgomery, Lucy Maud
...vulgar opulence 
and neglects brains, 
he is undoubtedly a genius. 

If he is too proud to accept assistance, 
and spurns it with a lordly air 
at the very same time 
that he knows he can't make a living to save his life, 
he is most certainly a genius. 

If he hangs on and sticks to poetry, 
notwithstanding sawing wood comes handier to him, 
he is a true genius. 

If he throws away every opportunity in life 
and crushes the affection and the patience of his frie...Read more of this...

by Rossetti, Christina
...on life gains ground apace;
Faith runs with each and rears an eager face,
Outruns the rest, makes light of everything,
Spurns earth, and still finds breath to pray and sing;
While love ahead of all uplifts his praise,
Still asks for grace and still gives thanks for grace,
Content with all day brings and night will bring.
Life wanes; and when love folds his wings above
Tired hope, and less we feel his conscious pulse,
Let us go fall asleep, dear friend, in peace:
A little...Read more of this...

by Robinson, Mary Darby
...thy usurping fangs assail, 
The sacred Bonds of Friendship fail. 
Meek-bosom'd Pity sues in vain; 
Imperious Sorrow spurns relief, 
Feeds on the luxury of Grief, 
Drinks the hot Tear, and hugs the galling Chain. 

AH! plunge no more thy ruthless dart, 
In the dark centre of the guilty Heart; 
The POW'R SUPREME, with pitying eye, 
Looks on the erring Child of Misery; 
MERCY arrests the wing of Time; 
To expiate the wretch's crime; 
Insulted HEAV'N consign'd thy brand 
...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...torn 
The steadfast Earth. At last his sail-broad vans 
He spread for flight, and, in the surging smoke 
Uplifted, spurns the ground; thence many a league, 
As in a cloudy chair, ascending rides 
Audacious; but, that seat soon failing, meets 
A vast vacuity. All unawares, 
Fluttering his pennons vain, plumb-down he drops 
Ten thousand fathom deep, and to this hour 
Down had been falling, had not, by ill chance, 
The strong rebuff of some tumultuous cloud, 
Instinct w...Read more of this...

by Thomas, Dylan
...s house on stilts high among beaks
 And palavers of birds
This sandgrain day in the bent bay's grave
 He celebrates and spurns
His driftwood thirty-fifth wind turned age;
 Herons spire and spear.

 Under and round him go
Flounders, gulls, on their cold, dying trails,
 Doing what they are told,
Curlews aloud in the congered waves
 Work at their ways to death,
And the rhymer in the long tongued room,
 Who tolls his birthday bell,
Toils towards the ambush of his wounds;
 Her...Read more of this...

by Petrarch, Francesco
...ass=i0>I cry—"'Tis she! she still has life and sense:Oh, speak to me, my love!"—Sometimes she spurnsMy call; sometimes she seems to answer straight:Then, starting from my waking dream, I say,—"Alas! poor wretch, thou art of mind bereft!Forget'st thou the first hour of the sixth dayOf April, the three hundred, forty eight,<...Read more of this...

by Whittier, John Greenleaf
...the hay.

Now the weariest of all mothers,
The saddest two years' bride,
She scowls in the face of her husband,
And spurns her child aside.

"Rake out the red coals, goodman,--
For there the child shall lie,
Till the black witch comes to fetch her
And both up chimney fly.

"It's never my own little daughter,
It's never my own," she said;
"The witches have stolen my Anna,
And left me an imp instead.

"Oh, fair and sweet was my baby,
Blue eyes, and hair of gold;...Read more of this...

by Goldsmith, Oliver
...lken sloth
Has robbed the neighbouring fields of half their growth;
His seat, where solitary sports are seen,
Indignant spurns the cottage from the green;
Around the world each needful product flies,
For all the luxuries the world supplies:
While thus the land adorned for pleasure, all
In barren splendour feebly waits the fall.

As some fair female unadorned and plain,
Secure to please while youth confirms her reign,
Slights every borrowed charm that dress supplies,
Nor s...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...er;
So moved on earth Circassia’s daughter,
The loveliest bird of Franguestan!
As rears her crest the ruffled swan,
And spurns the wave with wings of pride,
When pass the steps of stranger man
Along the banks that bound her tide;
Thus rose fair Leila’s whiter neck:-
Thus armed with beauty would she check
Intrusion’s glance, till folly’s gaze
Shrunk from the charms it meant to praise:
Thus high and graceful as her gait;
Her heart as tender to her mate;
Her mate - stern Hassan,...Read more of this...

by Lowell, Amy
...rds the vision of the sunset sky;
Though faint with weariness he must possess
Some fragment of the sunset's majesty;
He spurns life's human friendships to profess
Life's loneliness of dreaming ecstasy....Read more of this...

by Hugo, Victor
...g and loaf upon the floor. 
 He then with bony foot the corpse o'erturns, 
 And says: "It is I, Ninus! 'Tis Death who spurns! 
 I bring thee, hungry king, some bread and meat." 
 "I have no hands," Ninus replies. "Yet, eat!" 


 Zim pierced to the very quick by these repeated stabs, 
 Sprang to his feet, while from him pealed a fearful shout, 
 And, furious, flung down upon the marble slabs 
 The richly carved and golden Lamp, whose light went out— 
 Then glided in...Read more of this...

by Henley, William Ernest
...r for their due,
Till there seems naught so despicable as you
In all the grin o' the sun.

Like an old shoe
The sea spurns and the land abhors, you lie
About the beach of Time, till by and by
Death, that derides you too --

Death, as he goes
His ragman's round, espies you, where you stray,
With half-an-eye, and kicks you out of his way
And then -- and then, who knows

But the kind Grave
Turns on you, and you feel the convict Worm,
In that black bridewell working out his t...Read more of this...

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