Famous Venomous Poems by Famous Poets

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

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An A.b.c

...these misbeliev'd deprived be,
To you my soule penitent I bring;
Receive me, for I can no farther flee.
With thornes venomous, O Heaven's Queen!
For which the earth accursed was full yore,
I am so wounded, as ye may well see,
That I am lost almost, it smart so sore!

                               V.

Virgin! that art so noble of apparail,*                          *aspect
That leadest us into the highe tow'r
Of Paradise, thou me *wiss and counsail*            *di...Read more of this...
by Chaucer, Geoffrey


Avons Harvest

...of waiting, 
Through all those evil years before my respite— 
Which now I knew and recognized at last 
As only his more venomous preparation
For the vile end of a deceiving peace— 
That I began to fancy there was on me 
The stupor that explorers have alleged 
As evidence of nature’s final mercy 
When tigers have them down upon the earth
And wild hot breath is heavy on their faces. 
I could not feel his breath, but I could hear it; 
Though fear had made an anvil of my heart 
W...Read more of this...
by Robinson, Edwin Arlington

Beowulf (Modern English)

...t hefted sword
was named Hrunting, it was once the most singular
of elder treasures—its edge was iron, spangled
with venomous runes, hardened in battle-sweat.
It had never been found wanting in warfare,
to any man who brandished it in his fists,
who dared to undergo the terrifying journey
to the folk-stead of his opponent. It was not the first time
that it ever had to effect a courageous deed. (ll. 1455-64)

The son of Ecglaf, however, did not remember,
crafty in h...Read more of this...
by Anonymous,

Breath of the Informer an Allegory

...s reveille at last.
And the forest sleeps with the wind
Gently fanning some whisper closer
And closer, every wave, a venomous flick
Of a serpent, a kiss of rest....Read more of this...
by Wignesan, T

Codicil

...s.
Waves tire of horizon and return.
Gulls screech with rusty tongues

Above the beached, rotting pirogues,
they were a venomous beaked cloud at Charlotteville.

One I thought love of country was enough,
now, even if I chose, there is no room at the trough.

I watch the best minds rot like dogs
for scraps of flavour.
I am nearing middle
age, burnt skin
peels from my hand like paper, onion-thin,
like Peer Gynt's riddle.

At heart there is nothing, not the dread
of death. I kno...Read more of this...
by Walcott, Derek


El Cafetal

...ved back. Lamentation
is the vegetal murmur, tender
of the cafetal.

Glossary:

Cafetal: a coffee plantation
tamag?s: a venomous serpent 
guanaco: a pack animal, used insultingly to indicate the native laborers
ceiba: a tall tropical hardwood tree...Read more of this...
by Guillen, Rafael

Hymn 153

...The distemper, folly, and madness of sin

Sin, like a venomous disease,
Infects our vital blood;
The only balm is sovereign grace,
And the physician, God.

Our beauty and our strength are fled,
And we draw near to death;
But Christ the Lord recalls the dead
With his almighty breath.

Madness by nature reigns within,
The passions burn and rage,
Till God's own Son, with skill divine,
The inward fire assuage.

[We...Read more of this...
by Watts, Isaac

Lancelot

...e, I have not weighed 
In those unhappy scales of inference
That have no beam but one made out of hates 
And fears, and venomous conjecturings; 
Your tongue is not the sword that urges me 
Now out of Camelot. Two other swords 
There are that are awake, and in their scabbards
Are parching for the blood of Lancelot. 
Yet I go not away for fear of them, 
But for a sharper care. You say the truth, 
But not when you contend the fires of God 
Are my one fear,—for there is one fear ...Read more of this...
by Robinson, Edwin Arlington

MFingal - Canto I

...this proceeding,
As owls and asses did in Eden.


"Yet fools are often dangerous enemies;
As meanest reptiles are most venomous:
Nor e'er could Gage, by craft or prowess,
Have done a whit more mischief to us;
Since he began th' unnat'ral war,
The work his masters sent him for.


"And are there in this freeborn land
Among ourselves a venal band;
A dastard race, who long have sold
Their souls and consciences for gold;
Who wish to stab their country's vitals,
Could they enjoy s...Read more of this...
by Trumbull, John

Modern Love I: By This He Knew She Wept

...their common bed
Were called into her with a sharp surprise,
And strangled mute, like little gaping snakes,
Dreadfully venomous to him. She lay
Stone-still, and the long darkness flowed away
With muffled pulses. Then, as midnight makes
Her giant heart of Memory and Tears
Drink the pale drug of silence, and so beat
Sleep's heavy measure, they from head to feet
Were moveless, looking through their dead black years,
By vain regret scrawled over the blank wall.
Like sculptured e...Read more of this...
by Meredith, George

Modern Love: I

...their common bed
Were called into her with a sharp surprise,
And strangled mute, like little gaping snakes,
Dreadfully venomous to him. She lay
Stone-still, and the long darkness flowed away
With muffled pulses. Then, as midnight makes
Her giant heart of Memory and Tears
Drink the pale drug of silence, and so beat
Sleep's heavy measure, they from head to feet
Were moveless, looking through their dead black years,
By vain regret scrawled over the blank wall.
Like sculptured e...Read more of this...
by Meredith, George

Snake

...he voice of my education said to me
He must be killed,
For in Sicily the black, black snakes are innocent, the gold are venomous.

And voices in me said, If you were a man
You would take a stick and break him now, and finish him off.

But must I confess how I liked him,
How glad I was he had come like a guest in quiet, to drink at my water-trough
And depart peaceful, pacified, and thankless,
Into the burning bowels of this earth?

Was it cowardice, that I dared not kill him? ...Read more of this...
by Lawrence, D. H.

The Crowd At The Ball Game

...al— 

So in detail they, the crowd, 
are beautiful 

for this 
to be warned against 

saluted and defied— 
It is alive, venomous 

it smiles grimly 
its words cut— 

The flashy female with her 
mother, gets it— 

The Jew gets it straight— it 
is deadly, terrifying— 

It is the Inquisition, the 
Revolution 

It is beauty itself 
that lives 

day by day in them 
idly— 

This is 
the power of their faces 

It is summer, it is the solstice 
the crowd is 

cheering, the crowd is l...Read more of this...
by Williams, William Carlos (WCW)

The Latest School

...See the flying French depart
Like the bees of Bonaparte,
Swarming up with a most venomous vitality.
Over Baden and Bavaria,
And Brighton and Bulgaria,
Thus violating Belgian neutrality.

And the injured Prussian may
Not unreasonably say
"Why, it cannot be so small a nationality
Since Brixton and Batavia,
Bolivia and Belgravia,
Are bursting with the Belgian neutrality."

By pure Alliteration
You may trace this curious nation,
And respect ...Read more of this...
by Chesterton, G K

The Sale of Saint Thomas

...e left 
That gives in foolishly to some bad desire 
A healthy man would laught at; so our king 
Is left desiring by his venomous dream. 
But, being a king, the whole land aches with him. 
Thomas 
What dream was that? 

Captain A palace made of souls; -- 
Ay, there's a folly for a man to dream! 
He saw a palace covering all the land, 
Big as the day itself, made of a stone 
That answered with a better gleam than glass 
To the sun's greeting, fashioned like the sound 
Of laught...Read more of this...
by Abercrombie, Lascelles

The Snake Charmer and the Hamadryad

...
Piccolo and been-throated pibroch
Dilating dimpled hood
Spreading photometric darkroom eyes
Waxing waxing matching
Venomous lip to music's piping lip
O Queen of stung dragon mouthed Po
Dancing girl of nuanceless ancient reliefs
The apotheosis Brahman curling on the neck
Must you now sink sink
Dread watched
Spineless
Into the winding womb wickerwork
Watching watching pipe-eyed watching
Until you slip
Over the sill of the pipe and the lip

Anathema! Amorphous p...Read more of this...
by Wignesan, T

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