Famous Turgid Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Reproach

by D. H. Lawrence
 Had I but known yesterday,
Helen, you could discharge the ache
Out of the cloud; 
Had I known yesterday you could take
The turgid electric ache away,
Drink it up with your proud 
White body, as lovely white lightning 
Is drunk from an agonised sky by the earth,
I might have hated you, Helen. 

But since my limbs gushed full of fire,
Since from out...Read more of this...

A Vindication

by Li Po
 If heaven loved not the wine,
A Wine Star would not be in heaven;
If earth loved not the wine,
The Wine Spring would not be on the earth.
Since heaven and earth love the wine,
Need a tippling mortal be ashamed?
The transparent wine, I hear,
Has the soothing virtue of a sage,
While the turgid is rich, they say,
As the fertile mind of the wise.
Both...Read more of this...

Bag-Snatching In Dublin

by Stevie Smith
 Sisely
Walked so nicely
With footsteps so discreet
To see her pass
You'd never guess
She walked upon the street.

Down where the Liffey waters' turgid flood
Churns up to greet the ocean-driven mud,
A bruiser in fix
Murdered her for 6/6....Read more of this...

Sonnet CXCVIII

by Francesco Petrarch
[Pg 206] SONNET CXCVIII. O cameretta che già fosti un porto. HE NO LONGER FINDS RELIEF IN SOLITUDE.  Thou little chamber'd haven to the woesWhose daily tempest overwhelms my soul!From shame, I in Heaven's light my grief control;Thou art its fountain, which each night o'erflows.My couch! that oft...Read more of this...

Intention To Escape From Him

by Edna St. Vincent Millay
 Edna St. Vincent Millay - Intention To Escape From Him 

I think I will learn some beautiful language, useless for commercial
Purposes, work hard at that.
I think I will learn the Latin name of every songbird, not only in
America but wherever they sing.
(Shun meditation, though; invite the controversial:
Is the world flat? Do bats eat cats?) By digging hard I might
deflect...Read more of this...

Liaison

by D. H. Lawrence
 A big bud of moon hangs out of the twilight,
Star-spiders spinning their thread 
Hang high suspended, withouten respite
Watching us overhead. 

Come then under the trees, where the leaf-cloths
Curtain us in so dark
That here we’re safe from even the ermin-moth’s
Flitting remark.

Here in this swarthy, secret tent,
Where black boughs flap the ground,
You shall draw the thorn from my discontent,
Surgeon me sound....Read more of this...

Prelude to Space

by C S Lewis
 An Epithaliamium

So Man, grown vigorous now,
Holds himself ripe to breed,
Daily devises how
To ejaculate his seed
And boldly fertilize
The black womb of the unconsenting skies.

Some now alive expect
(I am told) to see the large,
Steel member grow erect,
Turgid with the fierce charge
Of our whole planet's skill,
Courage, wealth, knowledge, concentrated will,

Straining with lust to stamp
Our likeness on the abyss-
Bombs, gallows, Belsen camp,
Pox, polio,...Read more of this...

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