Get Your Premium Membership

Famous Taunting Poems by Famous Poets

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

See also:

by Tebb, Barry
...’ wings.





7



From the binyard in the backstreet we brought

The dry stored branches, broken staves under

The taunting stars and we have never left

That night or that place on the Hollows

The fire we built has never gone out and

The light in your eyes is bright:

We took the road by the river with a star

Map and dream sacks on our backs.



8



The Hollows stretched into darkness

The fire burned in the frost, sparks

Crackled and jumped and floated

Stars ...Read more of this...



by Matthews, William
...asked me. "Not here," I thought. A good thing I
speak fluent Fog. I craved that job like some
unappeasable, taunting woman.
What did Byron's friend Hobhouse say after
the wedding? "I felt as if I had buried
a friend." Each day I had that job I felt
the slack leash at my throat and thought what was
its other trick. Better to scorn the job than ask
what I had ever seen in it or think
what pious muck I'd ladled over
the committee. If they believed me,...Read more of this...

by Tebb, Barry
...oetry Weekly while under the bane

Of his tragic illness, poet and mother,

You were driven from pillar to post

By the taunting yobbery of your family

And the crass insensitivity of wild therapy

To the smoking dark of despair,

Locked in your flat in the Abbey Road

With seven cats and poetry.

O stop and strop your bladed darkness

On the rock of ages while plangent tollings

Mock your cradled rockings, knock by knock.



III

Debjani Chatterjee

In these doom-lad...Read more of this...

by Taylor, Edward
...enough to "eke out an existence,"
as they say? I wish "they" were here now, kicking
up a little dust, mussing my hair, taunting me
with weird syllogisms. Instead, these are the windless,
halcyon days. The lull dispassion is upon us.
Serenity has triumphed in its mindless, atrophied way.
A school of Stoics walks by, eager, in its phlegmatic way,
to observe human degradation, lust and debauchery
at close quarters. They are disappointed,
but it barely shows ...Read more of this...

by Tate, James
...enough to "eke out an existence,"
as they say? I wish "they" were here now, kicking
up a little dust, mussing my hair, taunting me
with weird syllogisms. Instead, these are the windless,
halcyon days. The lull dispassion is upon us.
Serenity has triumphed in its mindless, atrophied way.
A school of Stoics walks by, eager, in its phlegmatic way,
to observe human degradation, lust and debauchery
at close quarters. They are disappointed,
but it barely shows ...Read more of this...



by Robinson, Mary Darby
...ings; 
INGRATITUDE insults her pangs; 
While from a thousand eager fangs, 
Madd'ning she flies;­The recreant crew 
With taunting smiles her steps pursue; 
While on her burning, bleeding heart, 
Fresh wounded by Affliction's dart, 
NEGLECT, her icy poison flings; 
From HOPE's celestial bosom hurl'd, 
She seeks oblivion's gloom, 
Now, now, she mocks the barb'rous world, 
AND TRIUMPHS IN THE TOMB....Read more of this...

by Bronte, Anne
...r not -- though this life is dreary,
I can bear it well for thee.

Let our foes still rain upon me
Cruel wrongs and taunting scorn;
'Tis for thee their hate pursues me,
And for thee, it shall be borne!...Read more of this...

by Barlow, Joel
...the willows hung; 
And growing grief prolong'd the tedious day. 

The barbarous tyrants, to increase the woe, 
With taunting smiles a song of Zion claim; 
Bid sacred praise in strains melodious flow, 
While they blaspheme the great Jehovah's name. 

But how, in heathen chains and lands unknown, 
Shall Israel's sons a song of Zion raise? 
O hapless Salem, God's terrestrial throne, 
Thou land of glory, sacred mount of praise. 

If e'er my memory lose thy lovely name...Read more of this...

by Service, Robert William
...I look at no one, me;
I pass them on the stair;
Shadows! I don't see;
Shadows! everywhere.
Haunting, taunting, staring, glaring,
Shadows! I don't care.
Once my room I gain
Then my life begins.
Shut the door on pain;
How the Devil grins!
Grin with might and main;
Grin and grin in vain;
Here's where Heav'n begins:
Cocaine! Cocaine!

A whiff! Ah, that's the thing.
How it makes me gay!
Now I want to sing,
Leap, laugh, play.
Ha! I've had my fling...Read more of this...

by Robinson, Mary Darby
..., oppres'd,
While jealous anguish wrung my breast,
While round my eager senses flew,
Dark brow'd Suspicion's wily crew,
Taunting my soul with restless ire,
That set my pulsate brain on fire.
What didst thou then ? Inhuman Boy!
Didst thou not paint each well-feign'd joy,
Each artful smile, each study'd grace
That deck'd some sordid rival's face;
Didst thou not feed my madd'ning sense
With Love's delicious eloquence,
While on my ear thy accents pour'd
The voice of him my so...Read more of this...

by Turner Smith, Charlotte
...ihilates
The hope of cultivation; gives to Fiends,
The meagre, ghastly Fiends of Want and Woe,
The blasted land--There, taunting in the van
Of vengeance-breathing armies, Insult stalks;
And, in the ranks, "1 Famine, and Sword, and Fire,
"Crouch for employment."--Lo! the suffering world,
Torn by the fearful conflict, shrinks, amaz'd,
From Freedom's name, usurp'd and misapplied,
And, cow'ring to the purple Tyrant's rod,
Deems that the lesser ill--Deluded Men!
Ere ye prophan...Read more of this...

by Sandburg, Carl
...

At first I said it in anger as one who clenches his fist in wrath to fling his knuckles into the face of some one taunting;
Now I say it calmly as one who has thought it over and over again at night, among the mountains, by the seacombers in storm.
I say now, by God, only fighters to-day will save the world, nothing but fighters will keep alive the names of those who left red prints of bleeding feet at Valley Forge in Christmas snow.
On the cross of Jesus, the s...Read more of this...

by Robinson, Mary Darby
...tary Man
Pacing the upland meadow. On his brow
Sits melancholy, mark'd with decent pride,
As it would fly the busy, taunting world,
And feed upon reflection. Sometimes, near
The foot of an old Tree, he takes his seat
And with the page of legendary lore
Cheats the dull hour, while Evening's sober eye
Looks tearful as it closes. In the dell
By the swift brook he loiters, sad and mute,
Save when a struggling sigh, half murmur'd, steals
From his wrung bosom. To th...Read more of this...

by Hardy, Thomas
...guard their ways, 
Bear them through safely, in brief time or long. 

VII 

- Yet, voices haunting us, daunting us, taunting us, 
Hint in the night-time when life beats are low 
Other and graver things . . . Hold we to braver things, 
Wait we, in trust, what Time's fulness shall show....Read more of this...

by Robinson, Mary Darby
...still I hate the sickly Sun!
"Far from my Native Indian shore,
"I hear our wretched race deplore;
"I mark the smile of taunting Scorn,
"And curse the hour, when I was born!
"I weep, but no one gently tries
"To stop my tear, or check my sighs;
"For, while my heart beats mournfully,
"Dear Indian home, I sigh for Thee!

"Since, gaudy Sun! I see no more
"Thy hottest glory gild the day;
"Since, sever'd from my burning shore,
"I waste the vapid hours away;
"O! darkness come ! come...Read more of this...

by Robinson, Mary Darby
...t;
"Its cargo,--our dark Sons of pain--
"For worldly treasure bought !
"What had they done?--O Nature tell me why--
"Is taunting scorn the lot, of thy dark progeny?


VII. 

"Thou gav'st, in thy caprice, the Soul
"Peculiarly enshrin'd;
"Nor from the ebon Casket stole
"The Jewel of the mind!
"Then wherefore let the suff'ring *****'s breast
"Bow to his fellow, MAN, in brighter colours drest.


VIII.

"Is it the dim and glossy hue
"That marks him for despair?--
"Whil...Read more of this...

by Lindsay, Vachel
...ugh the delicate mists of the morning,
It comes like lightning, goes past roaring.
It will hail all the wind-mills, taunting, ringing,
Dodge the cyclones, 
Count the milestones,
On through the ranges the prairie-dog tills—
Scooting past the cattle on the thousand hills. . . . 
Ho for the tear-horn, scare-horn, dare-horn, 
Ho for the gay -horn, bark -horn, bay -horn. 
Ho for Kansas, land that restores us 
When houses choke us, and great books bore us! 
...Read more of this...

by Lindsay, Vachel
...legion
Split the night with their song: —
"Right is braver than wrong,
Right is stronger than wrong,"
The buzzards came taunting:
"Down from the north
Tiger-nations are sweeping along."

Then we ate of the ravening Leaf
As our savage fathers of old.
No longer our wounds made us weak,
No longer our pulses were cold.
Though half of my troops were afoot,
(For the great who had borne them were slain)
We dreamed we were tigers, and leaped
And foamed with that vision in...Read more of this...

by Service, Robert William
...right down to cases, it's King's Grub that rules the races,
And the Wanderlust will help you understand.

Haunting, taunting, that is the spell of it;
Mocking, baulking, that is the hell of it;
But I'll shoulder my pack in the morning, boys,
And I'm going because I must;
For it's so-long to all
When you answer the call
 Of the Wan-der-lust.

The Wanderlust has blest me . . . in a ragged blanket curled,
I've watched the gulf of Heaven foam with stars;
I've ...Read more of this...

by Plath, Sylvia
...of stone,
 plunges headlong into that black pond
where, absurd and out-of-season, a single swan
 floats chaste as snow, taunting the clouded mind
which hungers to haul the white reflection down.

The austere sun descends above the fen,
 an orange cyclops-eye, scorning to look
longer on this landscape of chagrin;
 feathered dark in thought, I stalk like a rook,
brooding as the winter night comes on.

Last summer's reeds are all engraved in ice
 as is your image in my e...Read more of this...

Dont forget to view our wonderful member Taunting poems.


Book: Reflection on the Important Things