Famous Adder Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Adder poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous adder poems. These examples illustrate what a famous adder poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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...rag wick sends a spark
That glitters in the icy air,
And wakes frost sapphires everywhere;
Bright, bitter flames, that adder-like
Dart here and there, yet fear to strike
The gruesome gloom wherein they lie,
My comrades, oh, so keen to die!
And I, the last -- well, here I wait
The clock to strike the hour of eight. . . .
"Boy, it is bitter to be hurled
Nameless and naked on the world;
Frozen by night and starved by day,
Curses and kicks and clouts your pay.
But you must figh...Read more of this...
by
Service, Robert William
...-selector walks in armour-plated pants,
And defies the stings of scorpions, and the bites of bull-dog ants:
Where the adder and the viper tear each other by the throat,—
There it was that William Johnson sought his snake-bite antidote.
Johnson was a free-selector, and his brain went rather *****,
For the constant sight of serpents filled him with a deadly fear;
So he tramped his free-selection, morning, afternoon, and night,
Seeking for some great specific that would c...Read more of this...
by
Paterson, Andrew Barton
...
Let Zadoc worship with the Mole -- before honour is humility, and he that looketh low shall learn.
Let Gad with the Adder bless in the simplicity of the preacher and the wisdom of the creature.
Let Tobias bless Charity with his Dog, who is faithful, vigilant, and a friend in poverty.
Let Anna bless God with the Cat, who is worthy to be presented before the throne of grace, when he has trampled upon the idol in his prank.
Let Benaiah praise with the Asp -- to conquer...Read more of this...
by
Smart, Christopher
...ryx who is a frolicksome mountaineer.
Let Adoniram the receiver general of the excise rejoice with Hypnale the sleepy adder.
Let Pedahel rejoice with Pityocampa who eateth his house in the pine.
Let Ibzam rejoice with the Brandling -- the Lord further the building of bridges and making rivers navigable.
Let Gilead rejoice with Gentle -- the Lord make me a fisher of men.
Let Zelophehad rejoice with Ascalabotes who casteth not his coat till a new one is prepared for h...Read more of this...
by
Smart, Christopher
...uptible, till men
Grow up to their provision, and more hands
Help to disburden Nature of her birth.
To whom the wily Adder, blithe and glad.
Empress, the way is ready, and not long;
Beyond a row of myrtles, on a flat,
Fast by a fountain, one small thicket past
Of blowing myrrh and balm: if thou accept
My conduct, I can bring thee thither soon
Lead then, said Eve. He, leading, swiftly rolled
In tangles, and made intricate seem straight,
To mischief swift. Hope eleva...Read more of this...
by
Milton, John
...rrow sharp, the poison strong,
And death attends where'er it wounds:
You hear no counsels, cries, or tears;
So the deaf adder stops her ears
Against the power of charming sounds.
Break out their teeth, eternal God,
Those teeth of lions dyed in blood;
And crush the serpents in the dust:
As empty chaff when whirlwinds rise
Before the sweeping tempest flies,
So let their hopes and names be lost.
Th' Almighty thunders from the sky,
Their grandeur melts, their titles die,
As hil...Read more of this...
by
Watts, Isaac
...pay.
For oak and elm have pleasant leaves
That in the springtime shoot:
But grim to see is the gallows-tree,
With its adder-bitten root,
And, green or dry, a man must die
Before it bears its fruit!
The loftiest place is that seat of grace
For which all worldlings try:
But who would stand in hempen band
Upon a scaffold high,
And through a murderer's collar take
His last look at the sky?
It is sweet to dance to violins
When Love and Life are fair:
To dance to flutes, to dan...Read more of this...
by
Wilde, Oscar
...t combat on the shabby patch
Of clods and trampled turf that lies
Somewhere beneath the sodden skies
For eye of toad or adder to catch.
And having seen it I accuse
The crested animal in his pride,
Arrayed in all the royal hues
Which hide the claws he well can use
To tear the heart out of the side.
Body of leopard, eagle's head
And whetted beak, and lion's mane,
And frost-grey hedge of feathers spread
Behind -- he seemed of all things bred.
I shall not see his like again.
A...Read more of this...
by
Muir, Edwin
...my head's adorning.
Nor did the old Duchess die outright,
As you expect, of suppressed spite,
The natural end of every adder
Not suffered to empty its poison-bladder:
But she and her son agreed, I take it,
That no one should touch on the story to wake it,
For the wound in the Duke's pride rankled fiery,
So, they made no search and small inquiry---
And when fresh Gipsies have paid us a visit, I've
Noticed the couple were never inquisitive,
But told them they're folks the Duke...Read more of this...
by
Browning, Robert
...er shook
His dumbness pregnant with a curse.
I made me ink, and in a little book
I wrote one word
That God himself, the adder of Thought, had never heard.
XV
It detonated. Nature, God, mankind
Like sulphur, nitre, charcoal, once
Blended, in one annihilation blind
Were rent into a myriad of suns.
Yea! all the mighty fabric of a Mind
Stood in the abyss,
Belching a Law for "That" more awful than for "This."
XVI
Vain was the toil. So then I left the wood
And came unto the st...Read more of this...
by
Crowley, Aleister
...d,
Leaps on the fold as a leopard,
Slays, and says, "I am Rome,"
Rome, having rent her in sunder,
With the clasp of an adder he clasps;
Swift to shed blood are his feet,
And his lips, that have man for their meat,
Smoother than oil, and more sweet
Than honey, but hidden thereunder
Festers the poison of asps.
As swords are his tender mercies,
His kisses as mortal stings;
Under his hallowing hands
Life dies down in all lands;
Kings pray to him, prone where he stands,
And his ...Read more of this...
by
Swinburne, Algernon Charles
...rer's ken,
Unless he climb with footing nice
A far-projecting precipice.
The broom's tough roots his ladder made,
The hazel saplings lent their aid;
And thus an airy point he won,
Where, gleaming with the setting sun,
One burnished sheet of living gold,
Loch Katrine lay beneath him rolled,
In all her length far winding lay,
With promontory, creek, and bay,
And islands that, empurpled bright,
Floated amid ...Read more of this...
by
Scott, Sir Walter
..., lizards, and herbs, dormice, chameleons, and plantains!
Serpents and caw-caws and bats, screech-owls and crickets and adders--
These were the guides of that witch through the dank deeps of the forest.
Then, with her roots and her herbs, back to her cave in the morning
Ambled that hussy to brew spells of unspeakable evil;
And, when the people awoke, seeing that hillside and valley
Sweltered in swathes as of mist--"Look!" they would whisper in terror--
"Look! the old witch is...Read more of this...
by
Field, Eugene
...disclose
Horrid with thorn, where lurks th' unpitying thief,
Whence flits the twilight-loving bat at eve,
And the deaf adder wreaths her spotted train,
The dwellings once of elegance and art.
Here temples rise, amid whose hallow'd bounds
Spires the black pine, while through the naked street ,
Once haunt of tradeful merchants, springs the grass:
Here columns heap'd on prostrate columns, torn
From their firm base, increase the mouldering mass.
Far as the sight can pierce, appe...Read more of this...
by
Warton, Thomas
...rucifix and cradled under water,
What should I be but the fiend's god-daughter?
And who should be my playmates but the adder and the frog,
That was got beneath a furze-bush and born in a bog?
And what should be my singing, that was christened at an altar,
But Aves and Credos and Psalms out of the Psalter?
You will see such webs on the wet grass, maybe,
As a pixie-mother weaves for her baby,
You will find such flame at the wave's weedy ebb
As flashes in the meshes of a mer-m...Read more of this...
by
St. Vincent Millay, Edna
...rucifix and cradled under water,
What should I be but the fiend's god-daughter?
And who should be my playmates but the adder and the frog,
That was got beneath a furze-bush and born in a bog?
And what should be my singing, that was christened at an altar,
But Aves and Credos and Psalms out of the Psalter?
You will see such webs on the wet grass, maybe,
As a pixie-mother weaves for her baby,
You will find such flame at the wave's weedy ebb
As flashes in the meshes of a mer-m...Read more of this...
by
St. Vincent Millay, Edna
...eed her fawn, hid in some brake.
By this she hears the hounds are at a bay;
Whereat she starts, like one that spies an adder
Wreath'd up in fatal folds just in his way,
The fear whereof doth make him shake and shudder;
Even so the timorous yelping of the hounds
Appals her senses and her spirit confounds.
For now she knows it is no gentle chase,
But the blunt boar, rough bear, or lion proud,
Because the cry remaineth in one place,
Where fearfully the dogs exclaim aloud:
Find...Read more of this...
by
Shakespeare, William
...March.
His Shoes are Purple --
He is new and high --
Makes he Mud for Dog and Peddler.
Makes he Forests dry.
Knows the Adder Tongue his coming
And presents her Spot --
Stands the Sun so close and mighty
That our Minds are hot.
News is he of all the others --
Bold it were to die
With the Blue Birds exercising
On his British Sky.
---
We like March -- his shoes are Purple.
He is new and high --
Makes he Mud for Dog and Peddler --
Makes he Forests Dry --
Knows the Adder's Ton...Read more of this...
by
Dickinson, Emily
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