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Famous Wounding Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Herbert, George
...nder, 
A wonder tortur'd in the space
Betwixt this world and that of grace.

My thoughts are all a case of knives, 
Wounding my heart
With scatter'd smart, 
As wat'ring pots give flowers their lives.
Nothing their fury can control, 
While they do wound and prick my soul.

All my attendants are at strife, 
Quitting their place
Unto my face: 
Nothing performs the task of life: 
The elements are let loose to fight, 
And while I live, try out their right.

Oh help...Read more of this...



by Rich, Adrienne
...ese words
begin to seem to me 

though begun in grief and anger
Can I break through this film of the abstract 

without wounding myself or you
there is enough pain here 

This is why the classical of the jazz music station plays?
to give a ground of meaning to our pain? 


5.

The silence strips bare:
In Dreyer's Passion of Joan 

Falconetti's face, hair shorn, a great geography
mutely surveyed by the camera 

If there were a poetry where this could happen
not as blank sp...Read more of this...

by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...w is on the prairie.
Swifter flew the second arrow, 
In the pathway of the other, 
Piercing deeper than the other, 
Wounding sorer than the other; 
And the knees of Megissogwon 
Shook like windy reeds beneath him, 
Bent and trembled like the rushes.
But the third and latest arrow 
Swiftest flew, and wounded sorest, 
And the mighty Megissogwon 
Saw the fiery eyes of Pauguk, 
Saw the eyes of Death glare at him, 
Heard his voice call in the darkness; 
At the feet of Hiaw...Read more of this...

by Bronte, Charlotte
...n is to learn to suffer." 

- YOUNG. 


LOVE, thou sportive fickle boy, 
Source of anguish, child of joy, 
Ever wounding­ever smiling, 
Soothing still, and still beguiling; 
What are all thy boasted treasures, 
Tender sorrows, transient pleasures? 
Anxious hopes, and jealous fears, 
LAUGHING HOURS, and MOURNING YEARS. 

What is FRIENDSHIP'S soothing name?
But a shad'wy, vap'rish flame; 
Fancy's balm for ev'ry wound, 
Ever sought, but rarely found; 
What is BEAUTY ...Read more of this...

by Neruda, Pablo
...What's wrong with you, with us, 
what's happening to us? 
Ah our love is a harsh cord 
that binds us wounding us 
and if we want 
to leave our wound, 
to separate, 
it makes a new knot for us and condemns us 
to drain our blood and burn together. 

What's wrong with you? I look at you 
and I find nothing in you but two eyes 
like all eyes, a mouth 
lost among a thousand mouths that I have kissed, more beautiful, 
a body just like those that have slipped...Read more of this...



by Hayden, Robert
...murderous Africans. Our loyal 
Celestino ran from below with gun 
and lantern and I saw, before the cane- 
knife's wounding flash, Cinquez, 
that surly brute who calls himself a prince, 
directing, urging on the ghastly work. 
He hacked the poor mulatto down, and then 
he turned on me. The decks were slippery 
when daylight finally came. It sickens me 
to think of what I saw, of how these apes 
threw overboard the butchered bodies of 
our men, true Christians...Read more of this...

by Scott, Duncan Campbell
...sea-coast,
To summon Beauty to her desolate world.
For Beauty has taken refuge from our life
That grew too loud and wounding;
Beauty withdraws beyond the bitter strife,
Beauty is gone, (Oh where?)
To dwell within a precinct of pure air
Where moments turn to months of solitude;
To live on roots of fern and tips of fern,
On tender berries flushed with the earth's blood.
Beauty shall stain her feet with moss
And dye her cheek with deep nut-juices,
Laving her hands in the...Read more of this...

by Emerson, Ralph Waldo
...ush'd VANITY her footsteps led, 
To charm thee from thy blest repose, 
While Fashion twin'd about thy head 
A wreath of wounding woes; 
See Dissipation smoothly glide, 
Cold Apathy, and puny Pride, 
Capricious Fortune, dull, and blind, 
O'er splendid Folly throws her veil, 
While Envy's meagre tribe assail 
Thy gentle form, and spotless mind. 

Their spells prevail! no more those eyes 
Shoot undulating fires; 
On thy wan cheek, the young rose dies, 
Thy lip's deep tint ex...Read more of this...

by Robinson, Mary Darby
...thy iron sceptre bow'd. 
Now, seated in thy ebon cave, 
Around thy throne relentless furies rave: 
A wreath of ever-wounding thorn
Thy scowling brows encompass round, 
Thy heart by knawing Vultures torn, 
Thy meagre limbs with deathless scorpions bound. 
Thy black associates, torpid IGNORANCE, 
And pining JEALOUSY­with eye askance,
With savage rapture execute thy will, 
And strew the paths of life with every torturing ill 

Nor can the sainted dead escape thy rage; 
T...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...bodies, 
I hear the metrical shuffling of their feet. 

I see again the wild old Corybantian dance, the performers wounding each other;
I see the Roman youth, to the shrill sound of flageolets, throwing and catching their
 weapons, 
As they fall on their knees, and rise again. 

I hear from the Mussulman mosque the muezzin calling; 
I see the worshippers within, (nor form, nor sermon, argument, nor word, 
But silent, strange, devout—rais’d, glowing heads—extatic face...Read more of this...

by Petrarch, Francesco
...SONNET III. Era 'l giorno ch' al sol si scoloraro. HE BLAMES LOVE FOR WOUNDING HIM ON A HOLY DAY (GOOD FRIDAY).  'Twas on the morn, when heaven its blessed rayIn pity to its suffering master veil'd,First did I, Lady, to your beauty yield,Of your victorious eyes th' ung...Read more of this...

by Thomas, R S
...

It was not your fault.
What should have gone on,
Arrow aimed from a tried bow
At a tried target, has turned back,
Wounding itself
With questions you had not asked....Read more of this...

by Robinson, Mary Darby
...ears;
Or shake my vanquish'd sense, or rend
My aching heart with poignant throes,
Or with tumultuous fevers blend,
Self-wounding, visionary woes.­ 

No more I'll waste the midnight hour 
In expectation's silent bow'r; 
And musing o'er thy transcripts dear, 
Efface their sorrows with a tear. 
No more with timid fondness wait 
Till morn unfolds her glitt'ring gate, 
When thy lov'd song's seraphic sound, 
Wou'd on my quiv'ring nerves rebound 
With proud delight;­no more ...Read more of this...

by Russell, George William
...re subtle conquest planned.
Or does the Mother brood some deed of sacrifice?
Her heart in his laid bare to hosts of wounding spears,
Till love immortal melt the cruel eyes to tears,
Or on his brow be set the heroes’ thorny prize.
See! as some shadows of a darker race draw near,
How he compels their feet, with what a proud command!
What is it waves and gleams? Is that a Silver Hand
Whose light through delicate lifted fingers shines so clear?
Night like a glowing seraph...Read more of this...

by Sexton, Anne
...like a dead potato.
Even then I will dance in my dire clothes,
a crematory flight,
blinding my hair and my fingers,
wounding God with his blue face,
his tyranny, his absolute kingdom,
with my aphrodisiac....Read more of this...

by Robinson, Mary Darby
...r,
Dimming his dark eye's lustre, seems to say,
"This world is now, to me, a barren waste,
"A desart, full of weeds and wounding thorns,
"And I am weary: for my journey here
"Has been, though short, but chearless." Is it so?
Poor Traveller! Oh tell me, tell me all--
For I, like thee, am but a Fugitive
An alien from delight, in this dark scene!

And, now I mark thy features, I behold
The cause of thy complaining. Thou art here
A persecuted Exile ! one, whose soul
Unbow...Read more of this...

by Bridges, Robert Seymour
...d for joy and fled in liberty
To take his pastime with the peerless throng.
Oft had I done his noble keeping wrong,
Wounding his heart to wonder what might be
God's purpose in a soul of such degree;
And there he had left me but for mandate strong. 
But seeing thee with me now, his task at close
He knoweth, and wherefore he was bid to stay,
And work confusion of so many foes:
The thanks that he doth look for, here I pay,
Yet fear some heavenly envy, as he goes
Unto wha...Read more of this...

by Kizer, Carolyn
...out to the back stoop.

But still, dark blood, a sticky puddle on the floor
Remained, of all my my mother's tender, wounding passion
For a whole wild, lost, betrayed and secret life
Among its dens and burrows, its clean stones,
Whose denizens can turn upon the world
With spitting tongue, an odor, talon, claw
To sting or soil benevolence, alien
As our clumsy traps, our random scatter of shot,
She swept to the kitchen. Turning on the tap,
She washed and washed the pity ...Read more of this...

by Wilmot, John
...t,
Whose love-sick fancy raves
On shades of souls and Heaven knows what;
Short ages live in graves.

Whene'er those wounding eyes, so full
Of sweetness, you did see,
Had you not been profoundly dull,
You had gone mad like me.

Nor censure us, you who perceive
My best beloved and me
Sign and lament, complain and grieve;
You think we disagree.

Alas, 'tis sacred jealousy,
Love raised to an extreme;
The only proof 'twixt her and me,
We love, and do not dream.

Fa...Read more of this...

by Larkin, Philip
...
 The women shared
The secret like a happy funeral;
While girls, gripping their handbags tighter, stared
At a religious wounding. Free at last,
And loaded with the sum of all they saw,
We hurried towards London, shuffling gouts of steam.
Now fields were building-plots, and poplars cast
Long shadows over major roads, and for
Some fifty minutes, that in time would seem

Just long enough to settle hats and say 
 I nearly died,
A dozen marriages got under way. 
They w...Read more of this...

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