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Famous Sophistry Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry
...ark eclipse 
On that high learning by her sages taught, 
In each high school of philosophic fame; 
Vain wisdom, useless sophistry condemn'd, 
As ignorance and foolishness of men. 
Let her philosophers debate no more 
In the Lyceum, or the Stoics porch, 
Holding high converse, but in error lost 
Of pain, and happiness, and fate supreme. 
Fair truth from heav'n draws all their reas'ning high 
In captive chains bound at her chariot wheels. 


Now Rome imperial, mistress of the w...Read more of this...
by Brackenridge, Hugh Henry



...arts 
Of some prodigious waste which once sustain'd 
Armies by lands, where now but ships can range. 



LEANDER. 
Your sophistry Acasto makes me smile; 
The roving mind of man delights to dwell 
On hidden things, merely because they're hid; 
He thinks his knowledge ne'er can reach too high 
And boldly pierces nature's inmost haunts 
But for uncertainties; your broken isles, 
You northern Tartars, and your wand'ring Jews. 
Hear what the voice of history proclaims. 
The Cartha...Read more of this...
by Brackenridge, Hugh Henry
...with rod and line, 
Made the fell sport, with his old dreams divine, 
As pleasant to his taste, as rough to mine. 
Such sophistry, no doubt, saves half the hell, 
But fish would have preferr'd his reasoning well, 
And, if my gills concern'd him, so should I. 
The dog, I grant, is in that "equal sky," 
But, heaven be prais'd, he's not my deity. 
All manly games I'd play at,--golf and quoits, 
And cricket, to set lungs and limbs to rights, 
And make me conscious, with a due res...Read more of this...
by Hunt, James Henry Leigh
...ocence; 
This, the rhyme of a lady who 
Followed ever her natural bents. 
This, a solo of sapience, 
This, a chantey of sophistry, 
This, the sum of experiments, -- 
I loved them until they loved me. 

Decked in garments of sable hue, 
Daubed with ashes of myriad Lents, 
Wearing shower bouquets of rue, 
Walk I ever in penitence. 
Oft I roam, as my heart repents, 
Through God's acre of memory, 
Marking stones, in my reverence, 
"I loved them until they loved me." 

Pictures pa...Read more of this...
by Parker, Dorothy
...Nature's lay idiot, I taught thee to love,
And in that sophistry, Oh, thou dost prove
Too subtle: Foole, thou didst not understand
The mystic language of the eye nor hand:
Nor couldst thou judge the difference of the air
Of sighs, and say, This lies, this sounds despair:
Nor by th' eyes water call a malady
Desperately hot, or changing feverously.
I had not taught thee, then, the Alphabet
Of flowers, how they dev...Read more of this...
by Donne, John



...d.
Who shames a scribbler? break one cobweb through,
He spins the slight, self-pleasing thread anew;
Destroy his fib or sophistry, in vain,
The creature's at his dirty work again;
Thron'd in the centre of his thin designs;
Proud of a vast extent of flimsy lines!
Whom have I hurt? has poet yet, or peer,
Lost the arch'd eye-brow, or Parnassian sneer?
And has not Colley still his lord, and whore?
His butchers Henley, his Free-masons Moore?
Does not one table Bavius still admit?
...Read more of this...
by Pope, Alexander
...eation in my foot

Or fly up, and revolve it all slowly -
I kill where I please because it is all mine.
There is no sophistry in my body:
My manners are tearing off heads -

The allotment of death.
For the one path of my flight is direct
Through the bones of the living.
No arguments assert my right:

The sun is behind me.
Nothing has changed since I began.
My eye has permitted no change.
I am going to keep things like this....Read more of this...
by Hughes, Ted
...Weak is the sophistry, and vain the art
That whispers patience to the mind's despair!
That bids reflection bathe the wounds of care,
While Hope, with pleasing phantoms, soothes their smart.
For mem'ry still, reluctant to depart
From the dear spot, once rich in prospects fair,
Bids the fond soul enamour'd there,
And its least charm is grateful to the heart!
He never lov'...Read more of this...
by Robinson, Mary Darby
...nother son. 
Thus, when the heir was from the vineyard thrown, 
The rich possession was the murderers' own. 
In vain to sophistry they have recourse; 
By proving theirs no plot they prove 'tis worse, 
Unmasked rebellion, and audiacious force, 
Which, though not actual, yet all eyes may see 
'Tis working, in the immediate power to be; 
For from pretended grievances they rise 
First to dislike and after to dispise; 
Then, Cyclop-like, in human flesh to deal, 
Chop up a minister...Read more of this...
by Dryden, John
..., whose proud obdurate heartWas proof to mighty Truth's celestial dart;With sophistry assail'd the cause of God,And stood in arms against the heavenly code.Hippocrates, for healing arts renown'd,And half obscured within the dark profound;The pair, whom ignorance in ancient daysAdorn'd like deities, with borrow'd rays....Read more of this...
by Petrarch, Francesco

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry