Famous The Tempter Poems by Famous Poets

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

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A Dialogue Between the Resolved Soul And Created Pleasure

...Courage my Soul, now learn to wield
The weight of thine immortal Shield.
Close on thy Head thy Helmet bright.
Ballance thy Sword against the Fight.
See where an Army, strong as fair,
With silken Banners spreads the air.
Now, if thou bee'st that thing Divine,
In this day's Combat let it shine:
And shew that Nature wants an Art
To conquer one resolved Heart....Read more of this...
by Marvell, Andrew


A Dialogue Between the Resolved Soul And Created Pleasure

...Courage my Soul, now learn to wield
The weight of thine immortal Shield.
Close on thy Head thy Helmet bright.
Ballance thy Sword against the Fight.
See where an Army, strong as fair,
With silken Banners spreads the air.
Now, if thou bee'st that thing Divine,
In this day's Combat let it shine:
And shew that Nature wants an Art
To conquer one resolved Heart....Read more of this...
by Marvell, Andrew

A Lovers Complaint

...chastity.

'Thus merely with the garment of a Grace
The naked and concealed fiend he cover'd;
That th' unexperient gave the tempter place,
Which like a cherubin above them hover'd.
Who, young and simple, would not be so lover'd?
Ay me! I fell; and yet do question make
What I should do again for such a sake.

'O, that infected moisture of his eye,
O, that false fire which in his cheek so glow'd,
O, that forced thunder from his heart did fly,
O, that sad breath his spongy lungs...Read more of this...
by Shakespeare, William

Ballad Of The Long-Legged Bait

...ce,
For the crab-backed dead on the sea-bed rose
And scuttled over her eyes,

The blind, clawed stare is cold as sleet.
The tempter under the eyelid
Who shows to the selves asleep
Mast-high moon-white women naked

Walking in wishes and lovely for shame
Is dumb and gone with his flame of brides.
Susannah's drowned in the bearded stream
And no-one stirs at Sheba's side

But the hungry kings of the tides;
Sin who had a woman's shape
Sleeps till Silence blows on a cloud
And all t...Read more of this...
by Thomas, Dylan

Canute the Great

...and crown."
He replied, "Nay, I promised the missus,
And I can't let the old... lady down."

"No need to do that," said the Tempter,
"The tide's coming in, as you see;
You promised you wouldn't go to it,
But you can't stop it coming to thee!"

And that's how it happened... that later,
When Emma came over the sands,
She found Canute knee deep in water,
Trying to shush the sea back with his hands.

For not letting on that he'd seen her,
He was chiding each wave as it came,
Sayi...Read more of this...
by Edgar, Marriott


Epistles to Several Persons: Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot

...Shut, shut the door, good John! fatigu'd, I said, 
Tie up the knocker, say I'm sick, I'm dead.
The dog-star rages! nay 'tis past a doubt,
All Bedlam, or Parnassus, is let out:
Fire in each eye, and papers in each hand,
They rave, recite, and madden round the land.

What walls can guard me, or what shades can hide?
They pierce my thickets, through my grot t...Read more of this...
by Pope, Alexander

Ichabod!

...the light withdrawn
     Which once he wore!
The glory from his gray hairs gone
     Forevermore!

Revile him not—the Tempter hath
     A snare for all;
And pitying tears, not scorn and wrath,
     Befit his fall!

Oh! dumb be passion's stormy rage,
     When he who might
Have lighted up and led his age,
     Falls back in night.

Scorn! would the angels laugh, to mark
     A bright soul driven,
Fiend-goaded, down the endless dark,
     From hope and heaven...Read more of this...
by Whittier, John Greenleaf

Last Lines

...rtured yet resigned. 

Through all this world of whelming mist
Still let me look to Thee,
And give me courage to resist
The Tempter till he flee.

Weary I am -- O give me strength
And leave me not to faint;
Say Thou wilt comfort me at length
And pity my complaint.

I've begged to serve Thee heart and soul,
To sacrifice to Thee
No niggard portion, but the whole
Of my identity.

I hoped amid the brave and strong
My portioned task might lie,
To toil amid the labouring throng
Wit...Read more of this...
by Bronte, Anne

Paradise Lost: Book 04

...secret foe, and 'scaped, 
Haply so 'scaped his mortal snare: For now 
Satan, now first inflamed with rage, came down, 
The tempter ere the accuser of mankind, 
To wreak on innocent frail Man his loss 
Of that first battle, and his flight to Hell: 
Yet, not rejoicing in his speed, though bold 
Far off and fearless, nor with cause to boast, 
Begins his dire attempt; which nigh the birth 
Now rolling boils in his tumultuous breast, 
And like a devilish engine back recoils 
Upon...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Paradise Lost: Book 09

...is one? who should be seen 
A Goddess among Gods, adored and served 
By Angels numberless, thy daily train. 
So glozed the Tempter, and his proem tuned: 
Into the heart of Eve his words made way, 
Though at the voice much marvelling; at length, 
Not unamazed, she thus in answer spake. 
What may this mean? language of man pronounced 
By tongue of brute, and human sense expressed? 
The first, at least, of these I thought denied 
To beasts; whom God, on their creation-day, 
Cre...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Paradise Lost: Book 10

...above, to aggravate 
Their penance, laden with fair fruit, like that 
Which grew in Paradise, the bait of Eve 
Used by the Tempter: on that prospect strange 
Their earnest eyes they fixed, imagining 
For one forbidden tree a multitude 
Now risen, to work them further woe or shame; 
Yet, parched with scalding thirst and hunger fierce, 
Though to delude them sent, could not abstain; 
But on they rolled in heaps, and, up the trees 
Climbing, sat thicker than the snaky locks 
Th...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Paradise Lost: Book 11

...ut to the amplest reach of prospect lay. 
Not higher that hill, nor wider looking round, 
Whereon, for different cause, the Tempter set 
Our second Adam, in the wilderness; 
To show him all Earth's kingdoms, and their glory. 
His eye might there command wherever stood 
City of old or modern fame, the seat 
Of mightiest empire, from the destined walls 
Of Cambalu, seat of Cathaian Can, 
And Samarchand by Oxus, Temir's throne, 
To Paquin of Sinaean kings; and thence 
To Agra an...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Paradise Regained: The First Book

...e lost, now sing
Recovered Paradise to all mankind,
By one man's firm obedience fully tried
Through all temptation, and the Tempter foiled
In all his wiles, defeated and repulsed,
And Eden raised in the waste Wilderness.
 Thou Spirit, who led'st this glorious Eremite
Into the desert, his victorious field
Against the spiritual foe, and brought'st him thence 
By proof the undoubted Son of God, inspire,
As thou art wont, my prompted song, else mute,
And bear through highth or de...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Paradise Regained: The Fourth Book

...Perplexed and troubled at his bad success
The Tempter stood, nor had what to reply,
Discovered in his fraud, thrown from his hope
So oft, and the persuasive rhetoric
That sleeked his tongue, and won so much on Eve,
So little here, nay lost. But Eve was Eve;
This far his over-match, who, self-deceived
And rash, beforehand had no better weighed
The strength he was to cope with, or his own.
But—as a ma...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Paradise Regained: The Second Book

...
Of gentlest gale Arabian odours fanned
From their soft wings, and Flora's earliest smells.
Such was the splendour; and the Tempter now
His invitation earnestly renewed:—
 "What doubts the Son of God to sit and eat?
These are not fruits forbidden; no interdict
Defends the touching of these viands pure; 
Their taste no knowledge works, at least of evil,
But life preserves, destroys life's enemy,
Hunger, with sweet restorative delight.
All these are Spirits of air, and woods, a...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Paradise Regained: The Third Book

...n, as vain men seek,
Oft not deserved? I seek not mine, but His
Who sent me, and thereby witness whence I am."
 To whom the Tempter, murmuring, thus replied:—
"Think not so slight of glory, therein least
Resembling thy great Father. He seeks glory, 
And for his glory all things made, all things
Orders and governs; nor content in Heaven,
By all his Angels glorified, requires
Glory from men, from all men, good or bad,
Wise or unwise, no difference, no exemption.
Above all sacri...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

The Dance Of Death

...THE warder looks down at the mid hour of night,

On the tombs that lie scatter'd below:
The moon fills the place with her silvery light,

And the churchyard like day seems to glow.
When see! first one grave, then another opes wide,
And women and men stepping forth are descried,

In cerements snow-white and trailing.

In haste for the sport soon their ankle...Read more of this...
by von Goethe, Johann Wolfgang

The Friars Tale

...house of hell *that
But for to keep us from that cursed place
Wake we, and pray we Jesus, of his grace,
So keep us from the tempter, Satanas.
Hearken this word, beware as in this case.
The lion sits *in his await* alway *on the watch* 
To slay the innocent, if that he may.
Disposen aye your heartes to withstond
The fiend that would you make thrall and bond;
He may not tempte you over your might,
For Christ will be your champion and your knight;
And pray, that this our Som...Read more of this...
by Chaucer, Geoffrey

The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

...The Argument.


Rintrah roars & shakes his fires in the burdend air;
Hungry clouds swag on the deep

Once meek, and in a perilous path,
The just man kept his course along 
The vale of death.
Roses are planted where thorns grow.
And on the barren heath
Sing the honey bees.

Then the perilous path was planted:
And a river, and a spring
On every cliff and tom...Read more of this...
by Blake, William

The Raven

...Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore—
    While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
“’Tis some visitor,” I muttered, “tapping at my chamber door—
            Only this and nothing more.”

  ...Read more of this...
by Poe, Edgar Allan

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