Famous Wreak Poems by Famous Poets

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

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The Song Of The Derelict

by John McCrae
 Ye have sung me your songs, ye have chanted your rimes
(I scorn your beguiling, O sea!)
Ye fondle me now, but to strike me betimes.
(A treacherous lover, the sea!)
Once I saw as I lay, half-awash in the night
A hull in the gloom -- a quick hail -- and a light
And I lurched o'er to leeward and saved her for spite
From...Read more of this...

Athertons Gambit

by Edwin Arlington Robinson
 The Master played the bishop’s pawn, 
For jest, while Atherton looked on; 
The master played this way and that, 
And Atherton, amazed thereat, 
Said “Now I have a thing in view
That will enlighten one or two, 
And make a difference or so 
In what it is they do not know.” 

The morning stars together sang 
And forth a mighty...Read more of this...

Confined Love

by John Donne
 Some man unworthy to be possessor
Of old or new love, himself being false or weak,
Thought his pain and shame would be lesser
If on womankind he might his anger wreak,
And thence a law did grow,
One might but one man know;
But are other creatures so?

Are Sun, Moon, or Stars by law forbidden
To smile where they list, or lend away their light?
Are...Read more of this...

An Argument

by Vachel Lindsay
 I. THE VOICE OF THE MAN IMPATIENT WITH VISIONS AND UTOPIAS

We find your soft Utopias as white
As new-cut bread, and dull as life in cells,
O, scribes who dare forget how wild we are
How human breasts adore alarum bells.
You house us in a hive of prigs and saints
Communal, frugal, clean and chaste by law.
I'd rather brood in bloody Elsinore
Or be...Read more of this...

King Arthurs Men Have Come Again

by Vachel Lindsay
 [Written while a field-worker in the Anti-Saloon League of Illinois.]


King Arthur's men have come again. 
They challenge everywhere 
The foes of Christ's Eternal Church. 
Her incense crowns the air. 
The heathen knighthood cower and curse 
To hear the bugles ring, 
But spears are set, the charge is on, 
Wise Arthur shall be king!

And Cromwell's men have come again, 
I...Read more of this...

With brutus in st. jo

by Eugene Field
 Of all the opry-houses then obtaining in the West
The one which Milton Tootle owned was, by all odds, the best;
Milt, being rich, was much too proud to run the thing alone,
So he hired an "acting manager," a gruff old man named Krone--
A stern, commanding man with piercing eyes and flowing beard,
And his voice assumed a thunderous tone when Jack...Read more of this...

An Ode in Time of Hesitation

by William Vaughn Moody
 After seeing at Boston the statue of Robert Gould Shaw, killed while storming Fort Wagner, July 18, 1863, at the head of the first enlisted ***** regiment, the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts.


I 

Before the solemn bronze Saint Gaudens made 
To thrill the heedless passer's heart with awe, 
And set here in the city's talk and trade 
To the good memory of...Read more of this...

In Memoriam 82: I Wage Not Any Feud With Death

by Alfred Lord Tennyson
 I wage not any feud with Death
For changes wrought on form and face;
No lower life that earth's embrace
May breed with him, can fright my faith. 

Eternal process moving on,
From state to state the spirit walks;
And these are but the shatter'd stalks,
Or ruin'd chrysalis of one. 

Nor blame I Death, because he bare
The use of virtue out of earth:
I know...Read more of this...

In Memoriam A. H. H.: 82. I wage not any feud with death

by Alfred Lord Tennyson
 I wage not any feud with Death
For changes wrought on form and face;
No lower life that earth's embrace
May breed with him, can fright my faith.
Eternal process moving on,
From state to state the spirit walks;
And these are but the shatter'd stalks,
Or ruin'd chrysalis of one.
Nor blame I Death, because he bare
The use of virtue out of earth:
I know transplanted human...Read more of this...

To Time

by George (Lord) Byron
 Time! on whose arbitrary wing
The varying hours must flag or fly,
Whose tardy winter, fleeting spring,
But drag or drive us on to die---
Hail thou! who on my birth bestowed
Those boons to all that know thee known;
Yet better I sustain thy load,
For now I bear the weight alone.
I would not one fond heart should share
The bitter moments thou hast given;
And pardon...Read more of this...

The pleasures of Lucretilis (VELOX AMOENUM)

by Horace
     The pleasures of Lucretilis
       Tempt Faunus from his Grecian seat;
     He keeps my little goats in bliss
       Apart from wind, and rain, and heat.
     In safety rambling o'er the sward
     ...Read more of this...

Sonnet LXXXI

by Francesco Petrarch
SONNET LXXXI. Cesare, poi che 'l traditor d' Egitto. THE COUNTENANCE DOES NOT ALWAYS TRULY INDICATE THE HEART.  When Egypt's traitor Pompey's honour'd headTo Cæsar sent; then, records so relate,To shroud a gladness manifestly great,Some feigned tears the specious monarch shed:And, when misfortune her dark mantle spreadO'er Hannibal, and his...Read more of this...

The Conquerors Grave

by William Cullen Bryant
WITHIN this lowly grave a Conqueror lies  
And yet the monument proclaims it not  
Nor round the sleeper's name hath chisel wrought 
The emblems of a fame that never dies ¡ª 
Ivy and amaranth in a graceful sheaf 5 
Twined with the laurel's fair imperial leaf. 
A simple name alone  
To the great world unknown  
Is...Read more of this...

Melancholy -- To Laura

by Friedrich von Schiller
 Laura! a sunrise seems to break
Where'er thy happy looks may glow.
Joy sheds its roses o'er thy cheek,
Thy tears themselves do but bespeak
The rapture whence they flow;
Blest youth to whom those tears are given--
The tears that change his earth to heaven;
His best reward those melting eyes--
For him new suns are in the skies!

Thy soul--a crystal river passing,
Silver-clear, and sunbeam-glassing,
Mays into...Read more of this...

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