Famous Taciturn Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Taciturn poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous taciturn poems. These examples illustrate what a famous taciturn poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Jarrell, Randall
...I,
Has grunted, in his old perplexity,
A standing plea.
From the tar of the blazing square
The eyes shift, in their taciturn
And unavowing, unavailable sorrow.
Yet the intonation of a name confesses
Some secrets that they never meant
To let out to a soul; and what words would not dim
The bowed and weathered heads above the denim
Or the once-too-often washed wash dresses?
They are subdued to their own element.
One day
The red, clay face
Is lowered to the naked clay...Read more of this...
by
Baudelaire, Charles
...tone,
And this my heart where each finds death in turn,
Inspires the poet with a love as lone
As clay eternal and as taciturn.
Swan-white of heart, a sphinx no mortal knows,
My throne is in the heaven's azure deep;
I hate all movements that disturb my pose,
I smile not ever, neither do I weep.
Before my monumental attitudes,
That breathe a soul into the plastic arts,
My poets pray in austere studious moods,
For I, to fold enchantment round their hearts, ...Read more of this...
by
Ashbery, John
...cal endurance,
Or if, by day, our behavior was anarchically
Correct, at least by New Brutalism standards, all then
Grew taciturn by previous agreement. We were spirited
Away en bateau, under cover of fudge dark.
It's not the incomplete importunes, but the spookiness
Of the finished product. True, to ask less were folly, yet
If he is the result of himself, how much the better
For him we ought to be! And how little, finally,
We take this into account! Is the puck...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...arbor his anguish and passion?
Does some stray reminder, or the casual mention of a name, bring the fit back upon him,
taciturn and deprest?
Does he see himself reflected in me? In these hours, does he see the face of his hours
reflected?...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...arbor his anguish and passion?
Does some stray reminder, or the casual mention of a name, bring the fit back upon him,
taciturn and deprest?
Does he see himself reflected in me? In these hours, does he see the face of his hours
reflected?...Read more of this...
by
Hardy, Thomas
...ome outstep sphere,
Less than a Want to me, as day by day
I lived unware, uncaring all that lay
Locked in that Universe taciturn and drear....Read more of this...
by
Owen, Wilfred
...whose mind was never trained:
His days are worth forgetting more than not.
He sings along the march
Which we march taciturn, because of dusk,
The long, forlorn, relentless trend
From larger day to huger night.
V
We wise, who with a thought besmirch
Blood over all our soul,
How should we see our task
But through his blunt and lashless eyes?
Alive, he is not vital overmuch;
Dying, not mortal overmuch;
Nor sad, nor proud,
Nor curious at all.
He cannot tell
Old m...Read more of this...
by
Lowell, Amy
...ence,
That watched all around me,
And he wouldn't break it.
I tried to make him,
Time an' agin,
But he was terrible taciturn, Ed was.
He never spoke 'cept when he had to,
An' then he'd only say "yes" and "no".
You can't even guess what that silence was.
I'd hear it whisperin' in my ears,
An' I got frightened, 'twas so thick,
An' al'ays comin' back.
Ef Ed would ha' talked sometimes
It would ha' driven it away;
But he never would.
He didn't hear it same ...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...came many a welcome gift;
Praises and presents came, and nourishing food—till at last, among the recruits,
You came, taciturn, with nothing to give—we but look’d on each other,
When lo! more than all the gifts of the world, you gave me. 5...Read more of this...
by
Arnold, Matthew
...rain on,
On--and at nightfall at last
Come to the end of our way,
To the lonely inn 'mid the rocks;
Where the gaunt and taciturn host
Stands on the threshold, the wind
Shaking his thin white hairs--
Holds his lantern to scan
Our storm-beat figures, and asks:
Whom in our party we bring?
Whom we have left in the snow?
Sadly we answer: We bring
Only ourselves! we lost
Sight of the rest in the storm.
Hardly ourselves we fought through,
Stripp'd, without friends, as we are.Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...like a surge.
Of Sea-Captains young or old, and the Mates—and of all intrepid Sailors;
Of the few, very choice, taciturn, whom fate can never surprise, nor death dismay,
Pick’d sparingly, without noise, by thee, old Ocean—chosen by thee,
Thou Sea, that pickest and cullest the race, in Time, and unitest Nations!
Suckled by thee, old husky Nurse—embodying thee!
Indomitable, untamed as thee.
(Ever the heroes, on water or on land, by ones or twos appearing,
Ever...Read more of this...
by
Gregory, Rg
...
till power of choice has wholly gone
seething surreptitious veil
across the face of light prevail
against this taciturn and proud
insurgent - o smother him swift cloud
yet if you cannot steal his breath
thus snuffing him to hasty death
at least in your umbrageous mask
stifle his ambitious task
mystify his restless brain
sweep him swirl him home again
(iii) the bog
once more the muffling mists enclose
frederick in their vaporous throes
forcing...Read more of this...
by
Baudelaire, Charles
...alas! What have you for me this morning?
Your empty eyes are stocked with nocturnal visions,
In your cheek's cold and taciturn reflection,
I see insanity and horror forming.
The green succubus and the red urchin,
Have they poured you fear and love from their urns?
The nightmare of a mutinous fist that despotically turns,
Does it drown you at the bottom of a loch beyond searching?
I wish that your breast exhaled the scent of sanity,
That your womb of thought was ...Read more of this...
by
Levis, Larry
...ed from us by now--& clear,
So clear not one in a thousand trembled; hushed
And always coming back--steadfast, orderly,
Taciturn, oblivious--until the end of Time....Read more of this...
by
Neruda, Pablo
...dissolving images,
burying lamps.
Belfry of fogs, how far away, up there!
Stifling laments, milling shadowy hopes,
taciturn miller,
night falls on you face downward, far from the city.
Your presence is foreign, as strange to me as a thing.
I think, I explore great tracts of my life before you.
My life before anyone, my harsh life.
The shout facing the sea, among the rocks,
running free, mad, in the sea-spray.
The sad rage, the shout, the solitude of ...Read more of this...
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