Famous Wounds Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Wounds poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous wounds poems. These examples illustrate what a famous wounds poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Michael Drayton
Cupid Conjured
Thou purblind boy, since thou hast been so slack
To wound her heart, whose eyes have wounded me,
And suffer'd her to glory in my wrack,
Thus to my aid I lastly conjure thee:
By hellish Styx, by which the Thund'rer swears,
By thy fair mother's unavoided power,
By Hecate's names, by Proserpine's sad tears
When she was...Read more of this...
by
Siegfried Sassoon
You think I cannot understand. Ah, but I do...
I have been wrung with anger and compassion for you.
I wonder if you’d loathe my pity, if you knew.
But you shall know. I’ve carried in my heart too long
This secret burden. Has not silence wrought your wrong—
Brought you to dumb and wintry middle-age, with grey
Unfruitful...Read more of this...
by
Francesco Petrarch
CANZONE VI. Spirto gentil che quelle membra reggi. TO RIENZI, BESEECHING HIM TO RESTORE TO ROME HER ANCIENT LIBERTY. Spirit heroic! who with fire divineKindlest those limbs, awhile which pilgrim holdOn earth a Chieftain, gracious, wise, and bold;Since, rightly, now the rod of state is thineRome and her wandering children to...Read more of this...
by
Marilyn Hacker
For Sára Karig
"You are so wise," the reindeer said, "you can bind the winds of the world in a single strand."—H. C. Andersen, "The Snow Queen"
She could bind the world's winds in a single strand.
She could find the world's words in a singing wind.
She could lend a weird will to a mottled hand.
She could wind a willed word from...Read more of this...
by
Francesco Petrarch
SONNET CLXII. Di dì in dì vo cangiando il viso e 'l pelo. HIS WOUNDS CAN BE HEALED ONLY BY PITY OR DEATH. I alter day by day in hair and mien,Yet shun not the old dangerous baits and dear,Nor sever from the laurel, limed and green,Which nor the scorching sun, nor...Read more of this...
by
William Butler Yeats
An old man cocked his car upon a bridge;
He and his friend, their faces to the South,
Had trod the uneven road. Their hoots were soiled,
Their Connemara cloth worn out of shape;
They had kept a steady pace as though their beds,
Despite a dwindling and late-risen moon,
Were distant still. An old man cocked his ear.
Aherne....Read more of this...
by
Siegfried Sassoon
Well, how are things in Heaven? I wish you’d say,
Because I’d like to know that you’re all right.
Tell me, have you found everlasting day,
Or been sucked in by everlasting night?
For when I shut my eyes your face shows plain;
I hear you make some cheery old remark—
I can rebuild you in my brain,
Though you’ve...Read more of this...
by
Anne Bradstreet
By night when others soundly slept,
And had at once both case and rest,
My waking eyes were open kept
And so to lie I found it best.
I sought Him whom my soul did love,
With tears I sought Him earnestly;
He bowed His ear down from above.
In vain I did not seek or cry.
My hungry soul He...Read more of this...
by
John Berryman
The high ones die, die. They die. You look up and who's there?
-”Easy, easy, Mr Bones. I is on your side.
I smell your grief.
-”I sent my grief away. I cannot care
forever. With them all align & again I died
and cried, and I have to live.
-”Now there you exaggerate, Sah. We hafta die.
That is our 'pointed task. Love & die.
-”Yes;...Read more of this...
by
Rg Gregory
(1) a great man
there was a great man
so great he couldn't be criticised in the light
who died
and for a whole week people turned up their collars over their ears
and wept with great gossiping
houses wore their roofs at a mournful angle
and television announcers carried their eyes around in long drooping bags
there was a hush upon the voice of the land
as...Read more of this...
by
Isaac Watts
God incomprehensible and sovereign.
[Can creatures to perfection find
Th' eternal, uncreated Mind?
Or can the largest stretch of thought
Measure and search his nature out?
'Tis high as heav'n, 'tis deep as hell
And what can mortals know or tell?
His glory spreads beyond the sky,
And all the shining worlds on high.
But man, vain man, would fain be wise;
Born like a wild young colt, he...Read more of this...
by
Dylan Thomas
O
Out of a bed of love
When that immortal hospital made one more moove to soothe
The curless counted body,
And ruin and his causes
Over the barbed and shooting sea assumed an army
And swept into our wounds and houses,
I climb to greet the war in which I have no heart but only
That one dark I owe my...Read more of this...
by
Siegfried Sassoon
His wet white face and miserable eyes
Brought nurses to him more than groans and sighs:
But hoarse and low and rapid rose and fell
His troubled voice: he did the business well.
The ward grew dark; but he was still complaining
And calling out for ‘Dickie’. ‘Curse the Wood!
‘It’s time to go. O Christ, and what’s the...Read more of this...
by
Robert Burns
SWEET flow’ret, pledge o’ meikle love,
And ward o’ mony a prayer,
What heart o’ stane wad thou na move,
Sae helpless, sweet, and fair?
November hirples o’er the lea,
Chill, on thy lovely form:
And gane, alas! the shelt’ring tree,
Should shield thee frae the storm.
May He who gives the rain to pour,
And wings the blast to blaw,
Protect thee frae...Read more of this...
by
Stephen Vincent Benet
Black trees against an orange sky,
Trees that the wind shook terribly,
Like a harsh spume along the road,
Quavering up like withered arms,
Writhing like streams, like twisted charms
Of hot lead flung in snow. Below
The iron ice stung like a goad,
Slashing the torn shoes from my feet,
And all the air was bitter sleet.
And...Read more of this...
by
John Berryman
Our wounds to time, from all the other times,
sea-times slow, the times of galaxies
fleeing, the dwarfs' dead times,
lessen so little that if here in his crude rimes
Henry them mentions, do not hold it, please,
for a putting of man down.
Ol' Marster, being bound you do your best
versus we coons, spare now a cagey John
a whilom bits that whip:
who'll tell your...Read more of this...
by
George Meredith
No state is enviable. To the luck alone
Of some few favoured men I would put claim.
I bleed, but her who wounds I will not blame.
Have I not felt her heart as 'twere my own
Beat thro' me? could I hurt her? heaven and hell!
But I could hurt her cruelly! Can I let
My Love's old...Read more of this...
by
Sir Philip Sidney
Reason, in faith thou art well serv'd, that still
Wouldst brabbling be with sense and love in me:
I rather wish'd thee climb the Muses' hill,
Or reach the fruit of Nature's choicest tree,
Or seek heav'n's course, or heav'n's inside to see:
Why shouldst thou toil our thorny soil to till?
Leave sense, and those which sense's objects...Read more of this...
by
Laurence Binyon
In a vision of the night I saw them,
In the battles of the night.
'Mid the roar and the reeling shadows of blood
They were moving like light,
Light of the reason, guarded
Tense within the will,
As a lantern under a tossing of boughs
Burns steady and still.
With scrutiny calm, and with fingers
Patient as swift...Read more of this...
by
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
MAIDEN! with the meek brown eyes
In whose orbs a shadow lies
Like the dusk in evening skies!
Thou whose locks outshine the sun
Golden tresses wreathed in one 5
As the braided streamlets run!
Standing with reluctant feet
Where the brook and river meet
Womanhood and childhood fleet!
Gazing with a timid glance 10
On...Read more of this...
by
William Strode
Keepe on your maske and hide your eye
For in beholding you I dye.
Your fatall beauty Gorgon-like
Dead with astonishment doth strike.
Your piercing eyes that now I see
Are worse than Basilisks to me.
Shut from mine eyes those hills of snow,
Their melting vally do not shew:
Those azure paths lead to despaire,
O vex me not, forbear, forbear;
For while I thus in torments dwell
The...Read more of this...
by
Oscar Wilde
Set in this stormy Northern sea,
Queen of these restless fields of tide,
England! what shall men say of thee,
Before whose feet the worlds divide?
The earth, a brittle globe of glass,
Lies in the hollow of thy hand,
And through its heart of crystal pass,
Like shadows through a twilight land,
The spears of crimson-suited war,
The long white-crested waves of fight,
And all the deadly fires...Read more of this...
by
Anne Kingsmill Finch
NOW spent the alter'd King, in am'rous Cares,
The Hours of sacred Hymns and solemn Pray'rs:
In vain the Alter waits his slow returns,
Where unattended Incense faintly burns:
In vain the whisp'ring Priests their Fears express,
And of the Change a thousand Causes guess.
Heedless of all their Censures He retires,
And in his Palace feeds his secret...Read more of this...
by
Robert Burns
NOW Nature hangs her mantle green
On every blooming tree,
And spreads her sheets o’ daisies white
Out o’er the grassy lea;
Now Phoebus cheers the crystal streams,
And glads the azure skies;
But nought can glad the weary wight
That fast in durance lies.
Now laverocks wake the merry morn
Aloft on dewy wing;
The merle, in his noontide bow’r,
Makes woodland echoes...Read more of this...
by
Adela Florence Cory Nicolson
This man has taken my Husband's life
And laid my Brethren low,
No sister indeed, were I, no wife,
To pardon and let him go.
Yet why does he look so young and slim
As he weak and wounded lies?
...Read more of this...
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