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Famous Taint Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Kipling, Rudyard
...e chronic sight of 'em --
Boot--boots--boots--boots--movin' up an' down again,
  An' there's no discharge in the war!

'Taint--so--bad--by--day because o' company,
But night--brings--long--strings--o' forty thousand million
Boots--boots--boots--boots--movin' up an' down again.
  There's no discharge in the war!

I--'ave--marched--six--weeks in 'Ell an' certify
It--is--not--fire--devils, dark, or anything,
But boots--boots--boots--boots--movin' up an' down again,
  An' the...Read more of this...



by Petrarch, Francesco
...fil,That its last sigh at least may be devout,And free from earthly taint,As was my earliest vow ere madness fill'd my veins! Virgin! benevolent, and foe of pride,Ah! let the love of our one Author win,Some mercy for a contrite humble heart:For, if her poor frail mortal dus...Read more of this...

by Wilde, Oscar
...tears bedew my cheek
Would have thee weep with me in brotherhood;
Fool! shall each wronged and restless spirit dare
To taint such wine with the salt poison of own despair!

Thou art the same: 'tis I whose wretched soul
Takes discontent to be its paramour,
And gives its kingdom to the rude control
Of what should be its servitor, - for sure
Wisdom is somewhere, though the stormy sea
Contain it not, and the huge deep answer ''Tis not in me.'

To burn with one clear flame, t...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...Shall now no more be seen
Fanning their joyous leaves to thy soft lays.
As killing as the canker to the rose,
Or taint-worm to the weanling herds that graze,
Or frost to flowers, that their gay wardrobe wear,
When first the white-thorn blows;
Such, Lycidas, thy loss to shepherd's ear.
 Where were ye, Nymphs, when the remorseless deep
Closed o'er the head of your loved Lycidas?
For neither were ye playing on the steep
Where your old bards, the famous Druids, ...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...rgans of her fancy, and with them forge 
Illusions, as he list, phantasms and dreams; 
Or if, inspiring venom, he might taint 
The animal spirits, that from pure blood arise 
Like gentle breaths from rivers pure, thence raise 
At least distempered, discontented thoughts, 
Vain hopes, vain aims, inordinate desires, 
Blown up with high conceits ingendering pride. 
Him thus intent Ithuriel with his spear 
Touched lightly; for no falshood can endure 
Touch of celestial temper...Read more of this...



by Milton, John
...rchal standard was to move; 
Tells the suggested cause, and casts between 
Ambiguous words and jealousies, to sound 
Or taint integrity: But all obeyed 
The wonted signal, and superiour voice 
Of their great Potentate; for great indeed 
His name, and high was his degree in Heaven; 
His countenance, as the morning-star that guides 
The starry flock, allured them, and with lies 
Drew after him the third part of Heaven's host. 
Mean while the Eternal eye, whose sight discern...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...t that I called, and drew them thither, 
My Hell-hounds, to lick up the draff and filth 
Which Man's polluting sin with taint hath shed 
On what was pure; til, crammed and gorged, nigh burst 
With sucked and glutted offal, at one sling 
Of thy victorious arm, well-pleasing Son, 
Both Sin, and Death, and yawning Grave, at last, 
Through Chaos hurled, obstruct the mouth of Hell 
For ever, and seal up his ravenous jaws. 
Then Heaven and Earth renewed shall be made pure 
To s...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...eaven 
To their own vile advantages shall turn 
Of lucre and ambition; and the truth 
With superstitions and traditions taint, 
Left only in those written records pure, 
Though not but by the Spirit understood. 
Then shall they seek to avail themselves of names, 
Places, and titles, and with these to join 
Secular power; though feigning still to act 
By spiritual, to themselves appropriating 
The Spirit of God, promised alike and given 
To all believers; and, from that pr...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...ind us, not himself,
And hath full right to exempt 
Whom so it pleases him by choice
From National obstriction, without taint
Of sin, or legal debt;
For with his own Laws he can best dispence.
He would not else who never wanted means,
Nor in respect of the enemy just cause
To set his people free,
Have prompted this Heroic Nazarite,
Against his vow of strictest purity,
To seek in marriage that fallacious Bride, 
Unclean, unchaste.
Down Reason then, at least vain reason...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...not susceptible of proof, is its own proof,
Applies to all stages and objects and qualities, and is content, 
Is the certainty of the reality and immortality of things, and the excellence of things; 
Something there is in the float of the sight of things that provokes it out of the Soul. 

Now I reëxamine philosophies and religions, 
They may prove well in lecture-rooms, yet not prove at all under the spacious clouds, and
 along
 the
 landscape and flowing currents.

...Read more of this...

by Wilde, Oscar
...sterile be and bare,
And look upon the wondering sky
With unreproachful stare.

They think a murderer's heart would taint
Each simple seed they sow.
It is not true! God's kindly earth
Is kindlier than men know,
And the red rose would but blow more red,
The white rose whiter blow.

Out of his mouth a red, red rose!
Out of his heart a white!
For who can say by what strange way,
Christ brings His will to light,
Since the barren staff the pilgrim bore
Bloomed in the g...Read more of this...

by Keats, John
...ndid angel, newly drest,
 Save wings, for heaven:--Porphyro grew faint:
She knelt, so pure a thing, so free from mortal taint.

 Anon his heart revives: her vespers done,
 Of all its wreathed pearls her hair she frees;
 Unclasps her warmed jewels one by one;
 Loosens her fragrant boddice; by degrees
 Her rich attire creeps rustling to her knees:
 Half-hidden, like a mermaid in sea-weed,
 Pensive awhile she dreams awake, and sees,
 In fancy, fair St. Agnes in her bed,
...Read more of this...

by Lanier, Sidney
...ah my God! then could not I have been
That piteous gibe of a man thou see'st I am.
Sir, having no disease, nor any taint
Nor old hereditament of sin or shame,
-- But, feeling the brave bound and energy
Of daring health that leaps along the veins --
As a hart upon his river banks at morn,
-- Sir, wild with the urgings and hot strenuous beats
Of manhood's heart in this full-sinewed breast
Which thou may'st even now discern is mine,
-- Sir, full aware, each instant in each ...Read more of this...

by Swift, Jonathan
...areless wench;
So things which must not be exprest,
When plumpt into the reeking chest,
Send up an excremental smell
To taint the parts from whence they fell,
The petticoats and gown perfume,
Which waft a stink round every room.
Thus finishing his grand survey,
Disgusted Strephon stole away
Repeating in his amorous fits,
Oh! Celia, Celia, Celia shits!
But vengeance, Goddess never sleeping,
Soon punished Strephon for his peeping:
His foul Imagination links
Each dame he see...Read more of this...

by Kipling, Rudyard
...igged a clod,
 The greater honour to me."

"If thou hast taken the common clay,
 And thy hands be not free
From the taint of the soil, thou hast made thy spoil
 The greater shame to thee."

The lark will make her hymn to God,
 The partridge call her brood,
While I forget the heath I trod,
 The fields wherein I stood.

'Tis dule to know not night from morn,
But greater dule to know
I can but hear the hunter's horn
That once I used to blow.

There were three fri...Read more of this...

by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...horror on him, lest his gentle wife, 
Through that great tenderness for Guinevere, 
Had suffered, or should suffer any taint 
In nature: wherefore going to the King, 
He made this pretext, that his princedom lay 
Close on the borders of a territory, 
Wherein were bandit earls, and caitiff knights, 
Assassins, and all flyers from the hand 
Of Justice, and whatever loathes a law: 
And therefore, till the King himself should please 
To cleanse this common sewer of all his realm...Read more of this...

by Pope, Alexander
...n,
And Garters, Stars, and Coronets appear,
And in soft Sounds, Your Grace salutes their Ear.
'Tis these that early taint the Female Soul,
Instruct the Eyes of young Coquettes to roll,
Teach Infants Cheeks a bidden Blush to know,
And little Hearts to flutter at a Beau. 

Oft when the World imagine Women stray,
The Sylphs thro' mystick Mazes guide their Way,
Thro' all the giddy Circle they pursue,
And old Impertinence expel by new.
What tender Maid but must a Victi...Read more of this...

by Kipling, Rudyard
...el to wait for the land-crab's claws!
He is lazar within and lime without, ye can nose him far enow,
For he carries the taint of a musky ship -- the reek of the slaver's dhow!"
The skipper looked at the tiering guns and the bulwarks tall and cold,
And the Captains Three full courteously peered down at the gutted hold,
And the Captains Three called courteously from deck to scuttle-butt: --
"Good Sir, we ha' dealt with that merchantman or ever your teeth were cut.
Your word...Read more of this...

by Lowell, Amy
...She scorned the best which he could buy.
He would pray as to some high-niched saint,
That she would cure him of the taint
Of failure. He would clutch the wall
With his bleeding fingers, if she should fall
He could catch, and hold her, and make her live!
With sobs he would ask her to forgive
All he had done. And broken, spent,
He would call himself impertinent;
Presumptuous; a tradesman; a nothing; driven
To madness by the sight of Heaven.
At other times he wou...Read more of this...

by Crowley, Aleister
...the palace of desires; 
Where he will, whether he will or no, 
If I go, I care not whither I go. 

For in me is the taint of the faery blood. 
Fast, fast its emerald flood 
Leaps within me, violent rude 
Like a bestial faun's beatitude. 
In me the faery blood runs hard: 
My sires were a druid, a devil, a bard, 
A beast, a wizard, a snake and a satyr; 
For - as my mother said - what does it matter? 
She was a fay, pure of the faery; 
Queen Morgan's daughter by an a...Read more of this...

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Book: Reflection on the Important Things