Famous Treacherous Poems by Famous Poets

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

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THE Complaint of a Lover

by Anne Killigrew
 SEest thou younder craggy Rock, 
 Whose Head o'er-looks the swelling Main, 
Where never Shepherd fed his Flock, 
 Or careful Peasant sow'd his Grain. 
No wholesome Herb grows on the same, 
 Or Bird of Day will on it rest;
'Tis Barren as the Hopeless Flame, 
 That scortches my tormented Breast. 

Deep underneath a Cave does lie, 
...Read more of this...

Sonnet LXV

by Francesco Petrarch
SONNET LXV. O tempo, o ciel volubil che fuggendo. HE NO LONGER CONTEMPLATES THE MORTAL, BUT THE IMMORTAL BEAUTIES OF LAURA.  O Time! O heavens! whose flying changes frameErrors and snares for mortals poor and blind;O days more swift than arrows or the wind,Experienced now, I know your treacherous aim.You I...Read more of this...

The Channel Swimmer

by Marriott Edgar
 Would you hear a Wild tale of adventure 
Of a hero who tackled the sea,
A super-man swimming the ocean,
Then hark to the tale of Joe Lee.

Our Channel, our own Straits of Dover
Had heen swum by an alien lot:
Our British-born swimmers had tried it, 
But that was as far as they'd got.

So great was the outcry in England, 
Darts Players...Read more of this...

When Golda Meir was in Africa

by Alice Walker
When Golda Meir
Was in Africa
She shook out her hair
And combed it
Everywhere she went.


According to her autobiography
Africans loved this.


In Russia, Minneapolis, London, Washington, D.C.,
Germany, Palestine, Tel Aviv and
Jerusalem
She never combed at all.
There was no point. In those
Places people said, "She looks like
Any other aging grandmother. She looks
Like a troll. Let's sell her cookery
And guns."


"Kreplach your cookery," said Golda.


Only in Africa could...Read more of this...

Pan and Luna

by Robert Browning
 Si credere dignum est.--Virgil, Georgics, III, 390


Oh, worthy of belief I hold it was, 
Virgil, your legend in those strange three lines! 
No question, that adventure came to pass 
One black night in Arcadia: yes, the pines, 
Mountains and valleys mingling made one mass 
Of black with void black heaven: the earth's confines, 
The sky's embrace,--below, above, around, 
All...Read more of this...

The Barefoot Boy

by John Greenleaf Whittier
 Blessings on thee, little man,
Barefoot boy, with cheek of tan!
With thy turned-up pantaloons,
And thy merry whistled tunes;
With thy red lip, redder still
Kissed by strawberries on the hill;
With the sunshine on thy face,
Through thy torn brim's jaunty grace;
From my heart I give thee joy, -
I was once a barefoot boy!
Prince thou art, - the grown-up man
Only is republican.
Let the million-dollared...Read more of this...

Canzone XXI

by Francesco Petrarch
CANZONE XXI. I' vo pensando, e nel pensier m' assale. SELF-CONFLICT.  Ceaseless I think, and in each wasting thoughtSo strong a pity for myself appears,[Pg 227]That often it has broughtMy harass'd heart to new yet natural tears;Seeing each day my end of life draw nigh,Instant in prayer,...Read more of this...

Mulligans Mare

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 Oh, Mulligan's bar was the deuce of a place 
To drink, and to fight, and to gamble and race; 
The height of choice spirits from near and from far 
Were all concentrated on Mulligan's bar. 

There was "Jerry the Swell", and the jockey-boy Ned, 
"Dog-bite-me" -- so called from the shape of his head -- 
And a man whom...Read more of this...

Sonnet XXVI

by Francesco Petrarch
SONNET XXVI. Soleasi nel mio cor star bella e viva. SINCE HER DEATH, NOTHING IS LEFT TO HIM BUT GRIEF.  She stood within my heart, warm, young, alone,As in a humble home a lady bright;By her last flight not merely am I grownMortal, but dead, and she an angel quite.A soul...Read more of this...

along the brittle treacherous bright streets

by Edward Estlin (E E) Cummings
along the brittle treacherous bright streets

of memory comes my heart singing like
an idiot whispering like drunken man

who(at a certain corner suddenly)meets
the tall policeman of my mind.

awake
being not asleep elsewhere our dreams began
which now are folded:but the year completes
his life as a forgotten prisoner

-"Ici?"-"Ah non mon chéri;il fait trop froid"-
they are gone:along these gardens moves a wind br
inging
rain and leaves filling...Read more of this...

Birth-Dues

by Robinson Jeffers
 Joy is a trick in the air; pleasure is merely 
 contemptible, the dangled
Carrot the ass follows to market or precipice;
But limitary pain -- the rock under the tower 
 and the hewn coping
That takes thunder at the head of the turret-
Terrible and real. Therefore a mindless dervish 
 carving himself
With knives will seem to have conquered the world.


The...Read more of this...

Sonnets 05: Once More Into My Arid Days Like Dew

by Edna St. Vincent Millay
 Once more into my arid days like dew,
Like wind from an oasis, or the sound
Of cold sweet water bubbling underground,
A treacherous messenger, the thought of you
Comes to destroy me; once more I renew
Firm faith in your abundance, whom I found
Long since to be but just one other mound
Of sand, whereon no green thing ever grew.
And once again, and wiser...Read more of this...

Taking His Chance

by Henry Lawson
 They stood by the door of the Inn on the Rise; 
May Carney looked up in the bushranger's eyes: 
`Oh! why did you come? -- it was mad of you, Jack; 
You know that the troopers are out on your track.' 
A laugh and a shake of his obstinate head -- 
`I wanted a dance, and I'll chance it,'...Read more of this...

The Country Life:

by Robert Herrick
 TO THE HONOURED MR ENDYMION PORTER, GROOM OF
THE BED-CHAMBER TO HIS MAJESTY

Sweet country life, to such unknown,
Whose lives are others', not their own!
But serving courts and cities, be
Less happy, less enjoying thee.
Thou never plough'st the ocean's foam
To seek and bring rough pepper home:
Nor to the Eastern Ind dost rove
To bring from thence the scorched clove:
Nor, with the loss of...Read more of this...

The Maid Of The Mills Repentance

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 YOUTH.

AWAY, thou swarthy witch! Go forth

From out my house, I tell thee!
Or else I needs must, in my wrath,

Expel thee!
What's this thou singest so falsely, forsooth,
Of love and a maiden's silent truth?

Who'll trust to such a story!

GIPSY.

I sing of a maid's repentant fears,

And long and bitter yearning;
Her levity's changed to truth and tears

All-burning.
She dreads no more the threats of...Read more of this...

Corn

by Sidney Lanier
 To-day the woods are trembling through and through
With shimmering forms, that flash before my view,
Then melt in green as dawn-stars melt in blue.
The leaves that wave against my cheek caress
Like women's hands; the embracing boughs express
A subtlety of mighty tenderness;
The copse-depths into little noises start,
That sound anon like beatings of a heart,
Anon like talk 'twixt lips not far apart.
The...Read more of this...

Four Riddles

by Lewis Carroll
 I 

There was an ancient City, stricken down
With a strange frenzy, and for many a day
They paced from morn to eve the crowded town,
And danced the night away. 

I asked the cause: the aged man grew sad:
They pointed to a building gray and tall,
And hoarsely answered "Step inside, my lad,
And then you'll see it all." 


Yet what are all...Read more of this...

Sweethearts of the Year

by Vachel Lindsay
 Sweetheart Spring

Our Sweetheart, Spring, came softly, 
Her gliding hands were fire, 
Her lilac breath upon our cheeks 
Consumed us with desire. 

By her our God began to build, 
Began to sow and till. 
He laid foundations in our loves 
For every good and ill. 
We asked Him not for blessing, 
We asked Him not for pain — 
Still, to...Read more of this...

Sisters cake

by Eugene Field
 I'd not complain of Sister Jane, for she was good and kind,
Combining with rare comeliness distinctive gifts of mind;
Nay, I'll admit it were most fit that, worn by social cares,
She'd crave a change from parlor life to that below the stairs,
And that, eschewing needlework and music, she should take
Herself to the substantial art of manufacturing cake.

At breakfast, then, it...Read more of this...

Borderland

by Henry Lawson
 I am back from up the country -- very sorry that I went -- 
Seeking for the Southern poets' land whereon to pitch my tent; 
I have lost a lot of idols, which were broken on the track -- 
Burnt a lot of fancy verses, and I'm glad that I am back. 
Further out may be the pleasant scenes...Read more of this...

Susana Soca

by Jorge Luis Borges
 With lingering love she gazed at the dispersed
Colors of dusk. It pleased her utterly
To lose herself in the complex melody
Or in the cunous life to be found in verse.
lt was not the primal red but rather grays
That spun the fine thread of her destiny,
For the nicest distinctions and all spent
In waverings, ambiguities, delays.
Lacking the nerve to tread this treacherous
Labyrinth,...Read more of this...

Time

by Percy Bysshe Shelley
 Unfathomable Sea! whose waves are years,
Ocean of Time, whose waters of deep woe
Are brackish with the salt of human tears!
Thou shoreless flood, which in thy ebb and flow
Claspest the limits of mortality,
And sick of prey, yet howling on for more,
Vomitest thy wrecks on its inhospitable shore;
Treacherous in calm, and terrible in storm,
Who shall put forth on thee,
Unfathomable Sea?...Read more of this...

Love's Treacherous Pool

by Victor Hugo
 ("Jeune fille, l'amour c'est un miroir.") 
 
 {XXVI., February, 1835.} 


 Young maiden, true love is a pool all mirroring clear, 
 Where coquettish girls come to linger in long delight, 
 For it banishes afar from the face all the clouds that besmear 
 The soul truly bright; 
 But tempts you to ruffle its surface; drawing...Read more of this...

The River Of Ruin

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
Along by the river of ruin
They dally—the thoughtless ones,
They dance and they dream
By the side of the stream,
As long as the river runs.
It seems all so pleasant and cheery—
No thought of the morrow is theirs,
And their faces are bright
With the sun of delight,
And they dream of no night-brooding cares.
The women wear garlanded tresses,
The men have rings on their hands,
And they...Read more of this...

I Sit and Look Out

by Walt Whitman
 I SIT and look out upon all the sorrows of the world, and upon all oppression and shame; 
I hear secret convulsive sobs from young men, at anguish with themselves, remorseful after
 deeds
 done; 
I see, in low life, the mother misused by her children, dying, neglected, gaunt,
 desperate; 
I see the wife misused by her husband—I see the...Read more of this...

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