Famous Wormwood Poems by Famous Poets

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

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To My Book

by Ben Jonson
II. ? TO MY BOOK.      It will be look'd for, BOOK, when some but see Thy title, EPIGRAMS, and named of me, Thou shouldst be bold, licentious, full of gall, Wormwood, and sulphur, sharp, and tooth'd withal ; Become a petulent thing, hurl ink, and wit, As madmen stones ;  not caring whom they hit. Deceive their malice, who could...Read more of this...

On Recollection

by Phillis Wheatley
 MNEME begin. Inspire, ye sacred nine,
Your vent'rous Afric in her great design.
Mneme, immortal pow'r, I trace thy spring:
Assist my strains, while I thy glories sing:
The acts of long departed years, by thee
Recover'd, in due order rang'd we see:
Thy pow'r the long-forgotten calls from night,
That sweetly plays before the fancy's sight.
Mneme in our nocturnal visions pours
The ample treasure of her...Read more of this...

The Man Bitten By Fleas

by Anne Kingsmill Finch
 A Peevish Fellow laid his Head 
On Pillows, stuff'd with Down; 
But was no sooner warm in Bed, 
With hopes to rest his Crown, 

But Animals of slender size, 
That feast on humane Gore, 
From secret Ambushes arise, 
Nor suffer him to snore; 

Who starts, and scrubs, and frets, and swears, 
'Till, finding all in vain, 
He for Relief...Read more of this...

Pasa Thalassa Thalassa

by Edwin Arlington Robinson
 “The sea is everywhere the sea.”


I

Gone—faded out of the story, the sea-faring friend I remember? 
Gone for a decade, they say: never a word or a sign. 
Gone with his hard red face that only his laughter could wrinkle, 
Down where men go to be still, by the old way of the sea. 

Never again will he come, with...Read more of this...

If This Be All

by Anne Bronte
 O God! if this indeed be all
That Life can show to me;
If on my aching brow may fall
No freshening dew from Thee, -- 
If with no brighter light than this
The lamp of hope may glow,
And I may only dream of bliss,
And wake to weary woe;

If friendship's solace must decay,
When other joys are gone,
And love must keep so far away,
While...Read more of this...

To the Muse

by Aleksandr Blok
 In your hidden memories 
There are fatal tidings of doom... 
A curse on sacred traditions, 
A desecration of happiness; 

And a power so alluring 
That I am ready to repeat the rumour 
That you have brought angels down from heaven, 
Enticing them with your beauty... 

And when you mock at faith,
That pale, greyish-purple halo
Which I once saw before
Suddenly begins...Read more of this...

Lausanne In Gibbons Old Garden: 11-12 p.m

by Thomas Hardy
 (The 110th anniversary of the completion of the "Decline and Fall" at the same hour and place) 

 A spirit seems to pass, 
 Formal in pose, but grave and grand withal: 
 He contemplates a volume stout and tall, 
And far lamps fleck him through the thin acacias. 

 Anon the book is closed, 
 With "It is...Read more of this...

Harlan Sewall

by Edgar Lee Masters
 You never understood, O unknown one,
Why it was I repaid
Your devoted friendship and delicate ministrations
First with diminished thanks,
Afterward by gradually withdrawing my presence from you,
So that I might not be compelled to thank you,
And then with silence which followed upon
Our final Separation.
You had cured my diseased soul. But to cure it
You saw my disease, you knew my secret,
And that...Read more of this...

Saadi

by Ralph Waldo Emerson
 Trees in groves,
Kine in droves,
In ocean sport the scaly herds,
Wedge-like cleave the air the birds,
To northern lakes fly wind-borne ducks,
Browse the mountain sheep in flocks,
Men consort in camp and town,
But the poet dwells alone.

God who gave to him the lyre,
Of all mortals the desire,
For all breathing men's behoof,
Straitly charged him, "Sit aloof;"
Annexed a warning, poets say,
To the bright premium,—
Ever...Read more of this...

Cliff Klingenhagen

by Edwin Arlington Robinson
 Cliff Klingenhagen had me in to dine 
With him one day; and after soup and meat, 
And all the other things there were to eat, 
Cliff took two glasses and filled one with wine 
And one with wormwood. Then, without a sign
For me to choose at all, he took the draught 
Of bitterness himself, and lightly quaffed 
It off,...Read more of this...

Ode To Meaning

by Robert Pinsky
 Dire one and desired one,
Savior, sentencer--

In an old allegory you would carry
A chained alphabet of tokens:

Ankh Badge Cross.
Dragon,
Engraved figure guarding a hallowed intaglio,
Jasper kinema of legendary Mind,
Naked omphalos pierced
By quills of rhyme or sense, torah-like: unborn
Vein of will, xenophile
Yearning out of Zero.

Untrusting I court you. Wavering
I seek your face, I read
That Crusoe's knife
Reeked of you, that to defile you
The...Read more of this...

Repentance

by George Herbert
 Lord, I confess my sin is great; 
Great is my sin. Oh! gently treat
With thy quick flow'r, thy momentany bloom; 
Whose life still pressing
Is one undressing, 
A steady aiming at a tomb.

Man's age is two hours' work, or three: 
Each day doth round about us see.
Thus are we to delights: but we are all
To sorrows old, 
If life be...Read more of this...

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