Famous Wickedness Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Wickedness poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous wickedness poems. These examples illustrate what a famous wickedness poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Burns, Robert
...hind;
What is a lordling’s pomp? a cumbrous load,
Disguising oft the wretch of human kind,
Studied in arts of hell, in wickedness refin’d!
O Scotia! my dear, my native soil!
For whom my warmest wish to Heaven is sent,
Long may thy hardy sons of rustic toil
Be blest with health, and peace, and sweet content!
And O! may Heaven their simple lives prevent
From luxury’s contagion, weak and vile!
Then howe’er crowns and coronets be rent,
A virtuous populace may rise the whil...Read more of this...
by
Brackenridge, Hugh Henry
...r>
Vain words and soothing flattery she hates,
And feigned tears, and tongue which silver-tipt
Moves in the cause of wickedness and pride.
She mourns not that fair liberty depress'd
Which kings tyrannic can extort, but that
Pure freedom of the soul to truth divine
Which first indulg'd her and with envious hand
Pluck'd thence, left hideous slavery behind.
She weeps not loss of property on earth,
Nor stirs the multitude to dire revenge
With headlong violence,...Read more of this...
by
Kipling, Rudyard
...ys nor the Sword--
A poor silly fisherman, what could he do,
When the cock crew--when the cock crew--
But weep for his wickedness when the cock crew?
. . . . . .
The next time that Peter denied his Lord
He was Fisher of Men, as foretold by the Word,
With the Crown on his brow and the Cross on his shoe,
When the cock crew--when the cock crew--
In Flanders and Picardy when the cock crew!
The next time that Peter denied his Lord
'Twas Mary the Moth...Read more of this...
by
Blake, William
...u that flow'r to deck thy horrid temples?
`My lord was like a star in highest heav'n
Drawn down to earth by spells and wickedness;
My lord was like the opening eyes of day
When western winds creep softly o'er the flowers;
`But he is darken'd; like the summer's noon
Clouded; fall'n like the stately tree, cut down;
The breath of heaven dwelt among his leaves.
O Elenor, weak woman, fill'd with woe!'
Thus having spoke, she rais?d up her head,
And saw the bloody napkin by h...Read more of this...
by
Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...ry
About the good King and his wicked Queen,
And were I such a King with such a Queen,
Well might I wish to veil her wickedness,
But were I such a King, it could not be.'
Then to her own sad heart muttered the Queen,
`Will the child kill me with her innocent talk?'
But openly she answered, `Must not I,
If this false traitor have displaced his lord,
Grieve with the common grief of all the realm?'
`Yea,' said the maid, `this is all woman's grief,
That SHE is wo...Read more of this...
by
Southey, Robert
...love him. He is one whom many wrongs
Have sicken'd of the world. There was a time
When he would weep to hear of wickedness
And wonder at the tale; when for the opprest
He felt a brother's pity, to the oppressor
A good man's honest anger. His quick eye
Betray'd each rising feeling, every thought
Leapt to his tongue. When first among mankind
He mingled, by himself he judged of them,
And loved and trusted them, to Wisdom deaf,
And took them to his bosom. FALS...Read more of this...
by
Southey, Robert
...power of spring,
It made him whistle, it made him sing;
His heart was mirthful to excess,
But the Rover’s mirth was wickedness.
His eye was on the Inchcape Float;
Quoth he, “My men, put out the boat,
And row me to the Inchcape Rock,
And I’ll plague the Abbot of Aberbrothok.”
The boat is lower’d, the boatmen row,
And to the Inchcape Rock they go;
Sir Ralph bent over from the boat,
And he cut the bell from the Inchcape Float.
Down sank the Bell with a...Read more of this...
by
Bradstreet, Anne
...tants of old age; and short-
sightedness, in those that are the eyes of a Republic, foretells a
declining State.
Wickedness comes to its height by degrees. He that dares say
of a less sin, Is it not a little one? will erelong say of a
greater, Tush, God regards it not.
Fire hath its force abated by water, not by wind; and anger
must be allayed by cold words and not by blustering threats.
The gifts that God bestows on the sons of men, are not only
abus...Read more of this...
by
Milton, John
...thou art, to nobler end
Holy and pure, conformity divine.
Those tents thou sawest so pleasant, were the tents
Of wickedness, wherein shall dwell his race
Who slew his brother; studious they appear
Of arts that polish life, inventers rare;
Unmindful of their Maker, though his Spirit
Taught them; but they his gifts acknowledged none.
Yet they a beauteous offspring shall beget;
For that fair female troop thou sawest, that seemed
Of Goddesses, so blithe, so smoo...Read more of this...
by
Milton, John
...wonder)
He hast to tear my Soul asunder
Tearing and no rescue nigh.
Lord my God if I have thought
Or done this, if wickedness
Be in my hands, if I have wrought
Ill to him that meant me peace,
Or to him have render'd less,
And fre'd my foe for naught;
Let th'enemy pursue my soul
And overtake it, let him tread
My life down to the earth and roul
In the dust my glory dead,
In the dust and there out spread
Lodge it with dishonour foul.
Rise Jehovah in thine ire
Rouze t...Read more of this...
by
Shelley, Percy Bysshe
...thee; mine own strange grief
But seldom stoops to such relief;
Nor ever did I love thee less,
Though mourning o'er thy wickedness
Even with a sister's woe. I knew
What to the evil world is due,
And therefore sternly did refuse
To link me with the infamy
Of one so lost as Helen. Now,
Bewildered by my dire despair,
Wondering I blush, and weep that thou
Shouldst love me still--thou only!--There,
Let us sit on that gray stone
Till our mournful talk be done.
HELEN
...Read more of this...
by
Milton, John
...gold: if weakness may excuse,
What Murtherer, what Traytor, Parricide,
Incestuous, Sacrilegious, but may plead it?
All wickedness is weakness : that plea therefore
With God or Man will gain thee no remission.
But Love constrain'd thee; call it furious rage
To satisfie thy lust: Love seeks to have Love;
My love how couldst thou hope, who tookst the way
To raise in me inexpiable hate,
Knowing, as needs I must, by thee betray'd ?
In vain thou striv'st to cover shame with s...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
..., and skip the house that supports
them?)
I am not the poet of goodness only—I do not decline to be the poet of
wickedness also.
Washes and razors for foofoos—for me freckles and a bristling beard.
What blurt is this about virtue and about vice?
Evil propels me, and reform of evil propels me—I stand indifferent;
My gait is no fault-finder’s or rejecter’s gait;
I moisten the roots of all that has grown.
Did you fear some scrofula out of the...Read more of this...
by
Hall, Donald
...e,
a melon,
a cat,
broccoli
and the Alligator Bride.
The color of bubble gum,
the consistency of petroleum jelly,
wickedness oozes
from the palm of my left hand.
My cat licks it.
I watch the Alligator Bride.
Big houses like shabby boulders
hold themselves tight
in gelatin.
I am unable to daydream.
The sky is a gun aimed at me.
I pull the trigger.
The skull of my promises
leans in a black closet, gapes
with its good mouth
for a teat to suck.<...Read more of this...
by
Chatterton, Thomas
...stroy,
All Nicou's friendship, happiness, and joy:
They sought in vain, 'till Vicat, Vichon's son,
Never in feats of wickedness outdone,
Saw Nica, sister to the Mountain king,
Drest beautiful, with all the flow'rs of spring;
He saw, and scatter'd poison in her eyes;
From limb to limb in varied forms he flies;
Dwelt on her crimson lip, and added grace
To every glossy feature of her face.
Rorest was fir'd with passion at the sight.
Friendship and honor, sunk ...Read more of this...
by
Morris, William
...shent,
For Mellyagraunce had fought against the Lord;
Therefore, my lords, take heed lest you be blent
"With all this wickedness; say no rash word
Against me, being so beautiful; my eyes,
Wept all away to grey, may bring some sword
"To drown you in your blood; see my breast rise,
Like waves of purple sea, as here I stand;
And how my arms are moved in wonderful wise,
"Yea also at my full heart's strong command,
See through my long throat how the words go up
In ripples to...Read more of this...
by
Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...e Holy Grail would come again;
But sin broke out. Ah, Christ, that it would come,
And heal the world of all their wickedness!
"O Father!" asked the maiden, "might it come
To me by prayer and fasting?" "Nay," said he,
"I know not, for thy heart is pure as snow."
And so she prayed and fasted, till the sun
Shone, and the wind blew, through her, and I thought
She might have risen and floated when I saw her.
`For on a day she sent to speak with me.
And w...Read more of this...
by
Chaucer, Geoffrey
...sely*
But natheless there was great murmuring
Among the people, that say they cannot guess
That she had done so great a wickedness.
For they had seen her ever virtuous,
And loving Hermegild right as her life:
Of this bare witness each one in that house,
Save he that Hermegild slew with his knife:
This gentle king had *caught a great motife* *been greatly moved
Of this witness, and thought he would inquere by the evidence*
Deeper into this case, the truth to lear.* *l...Read more of this...
by
Kipling, Rudyard
...The Word came down to Dives in Torment where he lay:
"Our World is full of wickedness, My Children maim and slay,
"And the Saint and Seer and Prophet
"Can make no better of it
"Than to sanctify and prophesy and pray.
"Rise up, rise up, thou Dives, and take again thy gold,
"And thy women and thy housen as they were to thee of old.
"It may be grace hath found thee
"In the furnace where We bound thee,
"And that thou shalt...Read more of this...
by
Chaucer, Geoffrey
...who?
By God, if women haddde written stories,
As clerkes have within their oratories,
They would have writ of men more wickedness
Than all the mark of Adam 30 may redress
The children of Mercury and of Venus,31
Be in their working full contrarious.
Mercury loveth wisdom and science,
And Venus loveth riot and dispence.* *extravagance
And for their diverse disposition,
Each falls in other's exaltation.
As thus, God wot, Mercury is desolate
In Pisces, where Venus is...Read more of this...
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