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Writers of every type have experimented with oxymoronic and paradoxical phrasing, but none more so than poets. Why is this true? One reason, of course, is that poets are deeply and passionately in love with language.
And there is no doubt that they experience a special joy that comes from clever and creative wordplay.
Another reason goes a little deeper. Whether employed by scientists, comedians, dramatists—or poets—oxymoronic constructions play around with the difference between literal and figurative truth. This phenomenon of
self-contradiction has been very helpful to poets as they've explored the many convolutions, contradictions, and ambiguities of life. Below you will find scores of examples of oxymoronic verse.
Before we get into the verse, however, you might be interested in learning that poets have not only used oxymoronic phrasing in their poetry, they've used it to craft many remarkable observations about their craft.
William Shakespeare may have started the ball rolling when he wrote:
The truest poetry is the most feigning. Centuries later, modern voices advanced the same idea:
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Poetry lies its way to the truth.
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John Ciardi
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The poet is a liar who always speaks the truth.
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Jean Cocteau
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These observations fit nicely under the rubric of oxymoronica, for they all advance the paradoxical notion that false things can be true. Great poetic fabrications, even though they are inventions—and therefore not technically true—can convey
some of the deepest and most profound of human truths. Writing in his journal, Jean Cocteau captured this notion in a famous couplet:
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The matters I relate
Are true lies.
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Poets have long been fascinated by the paradoxes of human existence, exploring the contradictions of life in their verse as well as in observations about their craft. The great French man of letters Paul Valéry once observed:
In poetry everything which must be said
is almost impossible to say well. But when it is said well, what an effect! When a poet captures in words some of the mysteries and nuances of life, something magical happens. Without feeling as if we're being taught, we learn. The French poet Paul Claudel captured this phenomenon in a memorable oxymoronic line:
You explain nothing, O poet,
but thanks to you all things become explicable. In the 18th century, Oliver Goldsmith wrote a neat little poem about poetry in his volume, The Deserted Village. In one couplet, was able to capture two of the most important truths about poetry. His first point—the paradoxical one—is that poetry can simultaneously be both a source of
great pleasure and great pain. His second point-not paradoxical, but true nonetheless—is that poetry is not exactly the best career choice if one wants to get rich.
Thou source of all my bliss and all my woe,
That found'st me poor at first, and keep'st me so. There are many more examples of oxymoronic verse on the below pages, arranged alphabetically by author. Sometimes you will find a complete poem, but usually it will be a line, a couplet, a quatrain, or a briefer passage from a longer work. The world's great poets are all represented here, as are some
talented but lesser-known poets. If you have a favorite piece of oxymoronic verse that is not included—perhaps even one of your own creations—please send it along for possible future inclusion.
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The nostalgia—
not of memories
But of what has never been.
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Zoe Akins, in "The Tomorrows"
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Retired is being tired twice, I've thought,
First tired of working,
Then tired of not.
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Richard Armour
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I'll love you dear, I'll love you
Till China and Africa meet
And the river jumps over the mountain
And the salmon sing in the street.
I'll love you till the ocean
Is folded and hung up to dry
And the seven stars go squawking
Like geese about the sky.
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W. H. Auden, in "As I
Walked Out One Evening"
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To dig and delve in nice clean dirt
Can do a mortal little hurt.
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John Kendrick Bangs, in "Gardening"
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He that knew all that ever learning writ
Knew only this—that he knew nothing yet.
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Aphra Behn, in The Emperor
of the Moon (1687)
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What rapture, oh, it is to know
A good thing when you see it
And having seen a good thing, oh,
What rapture 'tis to flee it.
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Bertolt Brecht, in "The
Good Woman of Setzuan"
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I waited
For the phone to ring
And when at last
It didn't,
I knew it was you.
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Eleanor Bron, in "No Answer"
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There is no season such delight can bring,
As summer, autumn, winter, and the spring.
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William Browne, in "Variety"
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Earth's crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God …
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Elizabeth Barrett Browning, in
"Aurora Leigh"
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Now may the good God pardon all good men!
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Elizabeth Barrett Browning, in
"Aurora Leigh"
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Our interest's on the dangerous edge of things.
The honest thief, the tender murderer,
The superstitious atheist.
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Robert Browning, in
"Bishop Blougram's Apology"
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Well, less is more, Lucrezia.
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Robert Browning, in "Andrea del Sarto"
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Such ever was love's way; to rise, it stoops.
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Robert Browning, in "A Death in the Desert"
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A man there was, tho' some did count him mad
The more he cast away, the more he had.
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John Bunyan, in "Pilgrim's Progress"
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Chords that vibrate sweetest pleasure
Thrill the deepest notes of woe.
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Robert Burns, in "On Sensibility"
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In solitude, when we are least alone.
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Lord Byron, in "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage"
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Then farewell, Horace; whom I hated so,
Not for thy faults, but mine.
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Lord Byron, in "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage"
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Christians have burnt each other, quite persuaded
That all of the Apostles would have done as they did.
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Lord Byron, in "Don Juan"
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A little still she strove, and much repented,
And whispering "I will ne'er consent"—consented.
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Lord Byron, in "Don Juan"
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Alas! the love of women! it is known
To be a lovely and a fearful thing.
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Lord Byron, in "Don Juan"
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Now what I love in women is, they won't
Or can't do otherwise than lie, but do it
So well, the very truth seems false.
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Lord Byron, in "Don Juan"
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This is the patent age of new inventions
For killing bodies, and for saving souls,
All propagated with the best intentions.
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Lord Byron, in "Don Juan"
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I have nothing to say
And I am saying it
And that is poetry
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John Cage, in "Lecture on Nothing"
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I hate, I love—the cause thereof
Belike you ask of me;
I do not know, but feel 'tis so,
And I'm in agony.
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Catullus, in "Carmina"
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Poverte is hateful good, as I guesse …
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Geoffrey Chaucer, in
"The Canturbury Tales"
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The handsome gifts that fate and nature lend us
Most often are the very ones that end us.
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Geoffrey Chaucer, in
"The Canturbury Tales"
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The latter end of joy is woe.
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Geoffrey Chaucer, in
"The Canturbury Tales"
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The golf links lie so near the mill
That almost every day
The laboring children can look out
And watch the men at play.
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Sarah Norcliffe Cleghorn, in
"The Golf Links Lie So Near the Mill"
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No mask like open truth to cover lies,
As to go naked is the best disguise.
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William Congreve, in "The Double Dealer"
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I know that's a secret, for it's whispered everywhere.
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William Congreve, in "Love for Love"
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Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned,
Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned.
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William Congreve, in "The Mourning Bride"
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My own ideal is a hollow dream,
My horizon is the unforseen,
And I am homesick,
Homesick for a land I have not seen.
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Tristan Corbière, in "Paria"
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A mighty pain to love it is,
And 'tis a pain that pain to miss;
But, of all pains, the greatest pain
It is to love, but love in vain.
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Abraham Cowley, in "Anacreontic Odes"
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There is a pleasure in poetic pains
And 'tis a pain that pain to miss;
But, of all pains, the greatest pain
Which only poets know.
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William Cowper, in "The Timepiece"
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Nothing speaks our grief so well
As to speak nothing.
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Richard Crashaw, in
"On the Death of Mrs. Herrys"
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Man's evil love
Makes the crooked path seem straight.
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Dante, in "The Divine Comedy"
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Love (alas! How strange and false is nature!)
Is most alive when starving, dies when fed.
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Alfred de Musset, in "Mardoche"
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Anger as soon as fed is dead—
'Tis starving makes it fat.
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Emily Dickinson, in
"Poems, Second Series"
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Much Madness is divinest Sense—
To a discerning Eye
Much Sense—the starkest Madness—
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Emily Dickinson, in "Poems"
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Success is counted sweetest
By those who ne'er succeed.
To comprehend a nectar
Requires sorest need.
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Emily Dickinson, in "Poems"
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Requires sorest need.
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Emily Dickinson, in
"Success is Counted Sweetest"
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It might be lonelier
Without the Loneliness.
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Emily Dickinson, in
"It Might be Lonelier"
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Who are a little wise, the best fools be.
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John Donne, in "The Triple Fool"
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O miserable abundance, O beggarly riches!
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John Donne, in
"Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions"
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Pains of love be sweeter far
Than all others pleasures are.
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John Dryden, in "Tyrannic Love"
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My wound is great because it is so small.
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John Dryden, in "All For Love"
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Beware the fury of a patient man.
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John Dryden, in
"Absalom and Achitophel"
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Terminate torment
Of love unsatisfied
The greater torment
Of love satisfied.
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T. S. Eliot, in "Ash Wednesday"
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The pleasant whining of a mandolin.
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T. S. Eliot, in "The Waste Land"
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Men work together whether together or apart.
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Robert Frost, in "A Tuft of Flowers"
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Wine is a bad thing.
It makes you quarrel with your neighbor,
It makes you shoot at your landlord,
It makes you—miss him.
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Ossip Gabrilowitsch, quoted in,
C. Clemens, My Husband Gabrilowitsch (1938)
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O Polly, you might have toy'd and kiss'd,
By keeping men off, you keep them on.
It makes you shoot at your landlord,
It makes you—miss him.
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John Gay, in "The Beggars Opera"
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Who never acted foolishly
He also ne'er was wise.
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Heinrich Heine, in "Lazarus"
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The civil wilderness of sleep.
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Robert Herrick
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A sweet disorder in the dress
Kindles in clothes a wantonness.
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Robert Herrick, in "Delight in Disorder"
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Sometimes
you can touch a star
by reaching down.
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Aili Jarvenpa, in "By Reaching Down"
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Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter.
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John Keats, in "Ode on a Grecian Urn"
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There is no grief like the grief which does not speak.
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Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, in "Hyperion"
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As I was walking up the stair
I met a man who wasn't there.
He wasn't there again today.
I wish, I wish he'd stay away.
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Hughes Mearns, in "The Psychoed"
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Love is all fire, and yet is ever freezing;
Love is much in winning, yet is more in leasing;
Love is ever sick, and yet is never dying;
Love is ever true, and yet is ever lying;
Love does doat in liking, and is mad in loathing;
Love indeed is anything, yet indeed is nothing.
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Thomas Middleton, in "Master Constable"
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My nearest
And dearest enemy.
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Thomas Middleton, in
"Anything for a Quiet Life"
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O what a heaven is love! O what a hell!
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Thomas Middleton and Thomas Dekker
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Psychology which explains everything
Explains nothing,
and we are still in doubt.
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Marianne Moore, in "Marriage"
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The power of the visible
is the invisible.
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Marianne Moore, in
"He 'Digesteth Harde Yron' "
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You're not free
until you've been made captive by
supreme belief.
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Marianne Moore, in,
"Spenser's Ireland"
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To love you was pleasant enough
And, oh! 'tis delicious to hate you.
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Thomas Moore, in
"To _____ When I Lov'd You"
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Small habits well pursu'd betimes,
May reach the dignity of crimes.
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Hannah More, in "Florio"
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Here's a good rule of thumb:
Too clever is dumb.
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Ogden Nash
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More than a catbird hates a cat,
Or a criminal hates a clue,
Or the Axis hates the United States,
That's how much I love you.
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Ogden Nash, in "To My Valentine"
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That time was like never, and like always.
So we go there, where nothing is waiting;
we find everything waiting there.
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Pablo Neruda, in
"Poem IV, One Hundred Love Sonnets"
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When a man talks of love, with caution trust him;
But if he swears, he'll certainly deceive thee.
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Thomas Otway
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I am the enemy you killed, my friend.
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Wilfred Owen, in "Strange Meeting"
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The one who deals the mortal blow
Receives the mortal wound.
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Maude Parker, in
"I Do Thereby Bequeath…"
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The first thing you do is to forget that i'm Black.
Second, you must never forget that i'm Black.
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Pat Parker, in "For the White Person
Who Wants to Know How to Be My Friend"
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To be able to say how much you love is to love but little.
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Petrarch (Francesco Petrarca), in
"To Laura in Death, 137"
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The Bookful Blockhead, ignorantly read,
With Loads of Learned Lumber in his Head,
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Alexander Pope, in "An Essay on Criticism"
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In a sadly pleasing strain
Let the warbling lute complain.
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Alexander Pope, in
"Ode for Musick, on St. Cecelia's Day"
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Not always actions show the man: we find
Who does a kindness is not therefore kind.
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Alexander Pope, in
"Epistle I, To Lord Cobham"
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So sweetly mawkish and so smoothly dull.
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Alexander Pope, in "The Dunciad"
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Come, let us pity those who are better off than we are.
Come, my friends, and remember that
the rich have butlers and no friends,
And we have friends and no butlers.
Come let us pity the married and unmarried.
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Ezra Pound, in "The Garrett"
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There is no pleasure like the pain
Of being loved, and loving.
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Winthrop Mackworth Praed
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Cured yesterday of my disease,
I died last night of my physician.
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Matthew Prior, in
"The Remedy Worse than the Disease"
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And 'tis remarkable that they
Talk most who have the least to say.
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Matthew Prior, in "Alma"
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The heart that can no longer
Love passionately, must with fury hate.
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Jean Racine
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I need so much time for doing nothing
that I have no time for work.
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Pierre Reverdy, in
"The Book Beside Me"
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This is the miracle that happens
every time to those who really love;
The more they give, the more they possess.
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Rainer Maria Rilke
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Each one's himself yet each one's everyone.
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Theodore Roethke, in
"The Sententious Man"
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All finite things reveal infinitude.
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Theodore Roethke, in "The Far Field"
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Love begets love. This torment is my joy.
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Theodore Roethke, in "The Motion"
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The journey is my home.
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Muriel Rukeyser, in "Journey"
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Pay attention to what they tell you to forget.
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Muriel Rukeyser
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The greatest cunning is to have none at all.
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Carl Sandburg, in "The People"
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The sea is always the same:
and yet the sea always changes.
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Carl Sandburg, in "North Atlantic"
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To be desperate is to discover strength.
We die of comfort and by conflict live.
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May Sarton, in
"Take Anguish for Companion"
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We only keep what we lose.
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May Sarton, in
"O Saisons! O Chateaux!"
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Absence becomes the greatest Presence.
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May Sarton, in "Difficult Scene"
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All the sweetness of love is steeped
In bitter gall and deadly venom.
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Maurice Scève
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When the mind is most empty
It is most full.
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Susan Fromberg Schaeffer, in
"Fortune Cookies"
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If you want to know yourself,
Just look how others do it;
If you want to understand others,
Look into your own heart.
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Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller,
in "Tabulae Votivae"
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Often do the spirits
Of great events stride on before the events,
And in today already walks tomorrow.
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Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller,
in "Wallenstein"
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When my love swears that she is made of truth,
I do believe her, though I know she lies.
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William Shakespeare, in "Sonnet, 138"
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My bounty is as boundless as the sea,
My love as deep; the more I give to thee,
The more I have, for both are infinite.
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William Shakespeare, in
"Romeo and Juliet"
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If thou art rich, thou art poor;
For, like an ass whose back with ingots bows,
Thou bear'st thy heavy riches but a journey,
And death unloads thee.
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William Shakespeare, in
"Measure for Measure"
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Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.
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Percy Bysshe Shelley, in "To a Skylark"
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Teach me half the gladness
That thy brain must know,
Such harmonious madness
From my lips would flow,
The world would listen then,
as I am listening now.
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Percy Bysshe Shelley, in
"To a Skylark"
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Love's very pain is sweet,
But its reward is in the world divine,
Which, if not here, it builds beyond the grave.
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Percy Bysshe Shelley, in
"Epipsychidion"
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Death is the veil which those who live call life:
They sleep, and it is lifted.
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Percy Bysshe Shelley, in
"Prometheus Unbound"
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No doubt in time I'd learn
To hate you like the rest
I once loved.
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W. D. Snodgrass, in "No Use"
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And painful pleasure turns to pleasing pain.
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Edmund Spenser, in "The Faerie Queene"
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Behold how goodly my faire love does ly,
In proud humility!
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Edmund Spenser, in "Epithalamion"
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One's ignorance is one's chief asset.
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Wallace Stevens, in "Adagia"
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Realism is a corruption of reality.
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Wallace Stevens, in "Adagia"
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Sentimentality is a failure of feeling.
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Wallace Stevens, in "Adagia"
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What we never have had, remains;
It is the things we have that go.
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Sara Teasdale, in "Wisdom"
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Loveliness
Needs not the foreign aid of ornament,
But is when unadorned adorned the most.
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James Thomson, in "The Seasons"
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A day
Spent in a round of strenuous idleness.
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William Wordsworth, in "The Prelude"
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My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky;
So was it when my life began;
So is it now I am a man;
So be it when I shall grow old,
Or let me die!
The child is father of the man;
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.
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William Wordsworth, in
"My Heart Leaps Up"
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… the murderous innocence of the sea.
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William Butler Yeats, in
"A Prayer for My Daughter"
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Biography
