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Famous Short Dark Poems. Short Dark Poetry by Famous Poets

Famous Short Dark Poems. Short Dark Poetry by Famous Poets. A collection of the all-time best Dark short poems

See also: Short Member Poems

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by Yosa Buson

Old well

 Old well,
a fish leaps--
 dark sound.


by Jack Kerouac

Haiku

 Birds singing
 in the dark
—Rainy dawn.


by Yosa Buson

Not quite dark yet

 Not quite dark yet
and the stars shining
above the withered fields.


by Carl Sandburg

Window

 Night from a railroad car window
Is a great, dark, soft thing
Broken across with slashes of light.


by Emily Dickinson

By Chivalries as tiny,

 By Chivalries as tiny,
A Blossom, or a Book,
The seeds of smiles are planted --
Which blossom in the dark.


by Emily Dickinson

His Heart was darker than the starless night

 His Heart was darker than the starless night
For that there is a morn
But in this black Receptacle
Can be no Bode of Dawn


by Robert Burns

47. Epitaph on a Noisy Polemic

 BELOW thir stanes lie Jamie’s banes;
 O Death, it’s my opinion,
Thou ne’er took such a bleth’rin bitch
 Into thy dark dominion!


by Emily Dickinson

Could that sweet Darkness where they dwell

 Could that sweet Darkness where they dwell
Be once disclosed to us
The clamor for their loveliness
Would burst the Loneliness --


by Emily Dickinson

So set its Sun in Thee

 So set its Sun in Thee
What Day be dark to me --
What Distance -- far --
So I the Ships may see
That touch -- how seldomly --
Thy Shore?


by Robert Burns

187. Epigram on Parting with a kind Host in the Highlands

 WHEN Death’s dark stream I ferry o’er,
 (A time that surely shall come,)
In Heav’n itself I’ll ask no more,
 Than just a Highland welcome.


by Jack Gilbert

Divorce

 Woke up suddenly thinking I heard crying.
Rushed through the dark house.
Stopped, remembering. Stood looking
out at bright moonlight on concrete.


by Stephen Crane

I was in the darkness

 I was in the darkness;
I could not see my words
Nor the wishes of my heart.
Then suddenly there was a great light --

"Let me into the darkness again."


by Wang Wei

Bamboo Adobe

 I sit along in the dark bamboo grove,
Playing the zither and whistling long.
In this deep wood no one would know -
Only the bright moon comes to shine.


by Emily Dickinson

Presentiment -- is that long Shadow -- on the Lawn --

 Presentiment -- is that long Shadow -- on the Lawn --
Indicatives that Suns go down --

The Notice to the startled Grass
That Darkness -- is about to pass --


by Robert Louis Stevenson

Soon Our Friends Perish

 SOON our friends perish,
Soon all we cherish
Fades as days darken - goes as flowers go.
Soon in December
Over an ember,
Lonely we hearken, as loud winds blow.


by Dorothy Parker

Philosophy

 If I should labor through daylight and dark,
Consecrate, valorous, serious, true,
Then on the world I may blazon my mark;
And what if I don't, and what if I do?


by

The Great Figure

 Among the rain
and lights
I saw the figure 5
in gold
on a red
firetruck
moving
tense
unheeded
to gong clangs
siren howls
and wheels rumbling
through the dark city.


by Richard Crashaw

But Men Loved Darkness rather than Light

 The world's light shines, shine as it will,
The world will love its darkness still.
I doubt though when the world's in hell,
It will not love its darkness half so well.


by William Blake

The Sick Rose

 O Rose thou art sick.
The invisible worm.
That flies in the night
In the howling storm:

Has found out thy bed
Of crimson joy:
And his dark secret love
Does thy life destroy.


by Robert Louis Stevenson

So Live, So Love, So Use That Fragile Hour

 SO live, so love, so use that fragile hour,
That when the dark hand of the shining power
Shall one from other, wife or husband, take,
The poor survivor may not weep and wake.


by Langston Hughes

Walkers With The Dawn

 Being walkers with the dawn and morning,
Walkers with the sun and morning,
We are not afraid of night,
Nor days of gloom,
Nor darkness--
Being walkers with the sun and morning.


by Robert Bly

In a Train

There has been a light snow.
Dark car tracks move in out of the darkness.
I stare at the train window marked with soft dust.
I have awakened at Missoula Montana utterly happy.


by Li Po

Song of the Forge

 The forge-fire sets a glow in the heavens,
the hammer thunders, showering the smoke with sparks.

A ruddy smithy, the white face of the moon,
and the hammer, ringing down cold dark canyons.


by Robert Graves

She Tells Her Love

 She tells her love while half asleep,
In the dark hours,
With half-words whispered low:
As Earth stirs in her winter sleep
And put out grass and flowers
Despite the snow,
Despite the falling snow.


by James Wright

The Jewel

 There is this cave
In the air behind my body
That nobodyt is going to touch:
A cloister, a silence
Closing around a blossom of fire.
When I stand upright in the wind,
My bones turn to dark emeralds.


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