Best Famous Cringe Poems

Here is a collection of the all-time best famous Cringe poems. This is a select list of the best famous Cringe poetry. Reading, writing, and enjoying famous Cringe poetry (as well as classical and contemporary poems) is a great past time. These top poems are the best examples of cringe poems.

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• All Famous Cringe Poems

Written by Robert Frost | A Soldier He is that fallen lance that lies as hurled, That lies unlifted now, come dew, come rust, But still lies pointed as it ploughed the dust. If we who sight along it round the world, See nothing worthy to have been its mark, It is because like men we look too near, Forgetting that as fitted to the sphere, Our missiles always make too short an arc. They fall, they rip the grass, they intersect The curve of earth, and striking, break their own; They make us cringe for metal-point on stone. But this we know, the obstacle that checked And tripped the body, shot the spirit on Further than target ever showed or shone.

Written by Matthew Arnold | Rugby Chapel Coldly, sadly descends The autumn-evening. The field Strewn with its dank yellow drifts Of wither'd leaves, and the elms, Fade into dimness apace, Silent;--hardly a shout From a few boys late at their play! The lights come out in the street, In the school-room windows;--but cold, Solemn, unlighted, austere, Through the gathering darkness, arise The chapel-walls, in whose bound Thou, my father! art laid. There thou dost lie, in the gloom Of the autumn evening. But ah! That word, gloom, to my mind Brings thee back, in the light Of thy radiant vigour, again; In the gloom of November we pass'd Days not dark at thy side; Seasons impair'd not the ray Of thy buoyant cheerfulness clear. Such thou wast! and I stand In the autumn evening, and think Of bygone autumns with thee. Fifteen years have gone round Since thou arosest to tread, In the summer-morning, the road Of death, at a call unforeseen, Sudden. For fifteen years, We who till then in thy shade Rested as under the boughs Of a mighty oak, have endured Sunshine and rain as we might, Bare, unshaded, alone, Lacking the shelter of thee. O strong soul, by what shore Tarriest thou now? For that force, Surely, has not been left vain! Somewhere, surely afar, In the sounding labour-house vast Of being, is practised that strength, Zealous, beneficent, firm! Yes, in some far-shining sphere, Conscious or not of the past, Still thou performest the word Of the Spirit in whom thou dost live-- Prompt, unwearied, as here! Still thou upraisest with zeal The humble good from the ground, Sternly repressest the bad! Still, like a trumpet, dost rouse Those who with half-open eyes Tread the border-land dim 'Twixt vice and virtue; reviv'st, Succourest!--this was thy work, This was thy life upon earth. What is the course of the life Of mortal men on the earth?-- Most men eddy about Here and there--eat and drink, Chatter and love and hate, Gather and squander, are raised Aloft, are hurl'd in the dust, Striving blindly, achieving Nothing; and then they die-- Perish;--and no one asks Who or what they have been, More than he asks what waves, In the moonlit solitudes mild Of the midmost Ocean, have swell'd, Foam'd for a moment, and gone. And there are some, whom a thirst Ardent, unquenchable, fires, Not with the crowd to be spent, Not without aim to go round In an eddy of purposeless dust, Effort unmeaning and vain. Ah yes! some of us strive Not without action to die Fruitless, but something to snatch From dull oblivion, nor all Glut the devouring grave! We, we have chosen our path-- Path to a clear-purposed goal, Path of advance!--but it leads A long, steep journey, through sunk Gorges, o'er mountains in snow. Cheerful, with friends, we set forth-- Then on the height, comes the storm. Thunder crashes from rock To rock, the cataracts reply, Lightnings dazzle our eyes. Roaring torrents have breach'd The track, the stream-bed descends In the place where the wayfarer once Planted his footstep--the spray Boils o'er its borders! aloft The unseen snow-beds dislodge Their hanging ruin; alas, Havoc is made in our train! Friends, who set forth at our side, Falter, are lost in the storm. We, we only are left! With frowning foreheads, with lips Sternly compress'd, we strain on, On--and at nightfall at last Come to the end of our way, To the lonely inn 'mid the rocks; Where the gaunt and taciturn host Stands on the threshold, the wind Shaking his thin white hairs-- Holds his lantern to scan Our storm-beat figures, and asks: Whom in our party we bring? Whom we have left in the snow? Sadly we answer: We bring Only ourselves! we lost Sight of the rest in the storm. Hardly ourselves we fought through, Stripp'd, without friends, as we are. Friends, companions, and train, The avalanche swept from our side. But thou woulds't not alone Be saved, my father! alone Conquer and come to thy goal, Leaving the rest in the wild. We were weary, and we Fearful, and we in our march Fain to drop down and to die. Still thou turnedst, and still Beckonedst the trembler, and still Gavest the weary thy hand. If, in the paths of the world, Stones might have wounded thy feet, Toil or dejection have tried Thy spirit, of that we saw Nothing--to us thou wage still Cheerful, and helpful, and firm! Therefore to thee it was given Many to save with thyself; And, at the end of thy day, O faithful shepherd! to come, Bringing thy sheep in thy hand. And through thee I believe In the noble and great who are gone; Pure souls honour'd and blest By former ages, who else-- Such, so soulless, so poor, Is the race of men whom I see-- Seem'd but a dream of the heart, Seem'd but a cry of desire. Yes! I believe that there lived Others like thee in the past, Not like the men of the crowd Who all round me to-day Bluster or cringe, and make life Hideous, and arid, and vile; But souls temper'd with fire, Fervent, heroic, and good, Helpers and friends of mankind. Servants of God!--or sons Shall I not call you? Because Not as servants ye knew Your Father's innermost mind, His, who unwillingly sees One of his little ones lost-- Yours is the praise, if mankind Hath not as yet in its march Fainted, and fallen, and died! See! In the rocks of the world Marches the host of mankind, A feeble, wavering line. Where are they tending?--A God Marshall'd them, gave them their goal. Ah, but the way is so long! Years they have been in the wild! Sore thirst plagues them, the rocks Rising all round, overawe; Factions divide them, their host Threatens to break, to dissolve. --Ah, keep, keep them combined! Else, of the myriads who fill That army, not one shall arrive; Sole they shall stray; in the rocks Stagger for ever in vain, Die one by one in the waste. Then, in such hour of need Of your fainting, dispirited race, Ye, like angels, appear, Radiant with ardour divine! Beacons of hope, ye appear! Languor is not in your heart, Weakness is not in your word, Weariness not on your brow. Ye alight in our van! at your voice, Panic, despair, flee away. Ye move through the ranks, recall The stragglers, refresh the outworn, Praise, re-inspire the brave! Order, courage, return. Eyes rekindling, and prayers, Follow your steps as ye go. Ye fill up the gaps in our files, Strengthen the wavering line, Stablish, continue our march, On, to the bound of the waste, On, to the City of God.

Written by Robinson Jeffers | We Are Those People I have abhorred the wars and despised the liars, laughed at the frightened And forecast victory; never one moment's doubt. But now not far, over the backs of some crawling years, the next Great war's column of dust and fire writhes Up the sides of the sky: it becomes clear that we too may suffer What others have, the brutal horror of defeat— Or if not in the next, then in the next—therefore watch Germany And read the future. We wish, of course, that our women Would die like biting rats in the cellars, our men like wolves on the mountain: It will not be so. Our men will curse, cringe, obey; Our women uncover themselves to the grinning victors for bits of chocolate.

Written by Herman Melville | The Enthusiast "Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him" Shall hearts that beat no base retreat In youth's magnanimous years - Ignoble hold it, if discreet When interest tames to fears; Shall spirits that worship light Perfidious deem its sacred glow, Recant, and trudge where worldlings go, Conform and own them right? Shall Time with creeping influence cold Unnerve and cow? The heart Pine for the heartless ones enrolled With palterers of the mart? Shall faith abjure her skies, Or pale probation blench her down To shrink from Truth so still, so lone Mid loud gregarious lies? Each burning boat in Caesar's rear, Flames -No return through me! So put the torch to ties though dear, If ties but tempters be. Nor cringe if come the night: Walk through the cloud to meet the pall, Though light forsake thee, never fall From fealty to light.

Written by George (Lord) Byron | I Would I Were a Careless Child I would I were a careless child, Still dwelling in my highland cave, Or roaming through the dusky wild, Or bounding o'er the dark blue wave; The cumbrous pomp of Saxon pride Accords not with the freeborn soul, Which loves the mountain's craggy side, And seeks the rocks where billows roll. Fortune! take back these cultured lands, Take back this name of splendid sound! I hate the touch of servile hands, I hate the slaves that cringe around. Place me among the rocks I love, Which sound to Ocean's wildest roar; I ask but this -- again to rove Through scenes my youth hath known before. Few are my years, and yet I feel The world was ne'er designed for me: Ah! why do dark'ning shades conceal The hour when man must cease to be? Once I beheld a splendid dream, A visionary scene of bliss: Truth! -- wherefore did thy hated beam Awake me to a world like this? I loved -- but those I loved are gone; Had friends -- my early friends are fled: How cheerless feels the heart alone When all its former hopes are dead! Though gay companions o'er the bowl Dispel awhile the sense of ill; Though pleasure stirs the maddening soul, The heart -- the heart -- is lonely still. How dull! to hear the voice of those Whom rank or chance, whom wealth or power, Have made, though neither friends nor foes, Associates of the festive hour. Give me again a faithful few, In years and feelings still the same, And I will fly the midnight crew, Where boist'rous joy is but a name. And woman, lovely woman! thou, My hope, my comforter, my all! How cold must be my bosom now, When e'en thy smiles begin to pall! Without a sigh I would resign This busy scene of splendid woe, To make that calm contentment mine, Which virtue knows, or seems to know. Fain would I fly the haunts of men-- I seek to shun, not hate mankind; My breast requires the sullen glen, Whose gloom may suit a darken'd mind. Oh! that to me the wings were given Which bear the turtle to her nest! Then would I cleave the vault of heaven, To flee away and be at rest.

Written by Ted Hughes | Work and Play The swallow of summer, she toils all the summer, A blue-dark knot of glittering voltage, A whiplash swimmer, a fish of the air. But the serpent of cars that crawls through the dust In shimmering exhaust Searching to slake Its fever in ocean Will play and be idle or else it will bust. The swallow of summer, the barbed harpoon, She flings from the furnace, a rainbow of purples, Dips her glow in the pond and is perfect. But the serpent of cars that collapsed on the beach Disgorges its organs A scamper of colours Which roll like tomatoes Nude as tomatoes With sand in their creases To cringe in the sparkle of rollers and screech. The swallow of summer, the seamstress of summer, She scissors the blue into shapes and she sews it, She draws a long thread and she knots it at the corners. But the holiday people Are laid out like wounded Flat as in ovens Roasting and basting With faces of torment as space burns them blue Their heads are transistors Their teeth grit on sand grains Their lost kids are squalling While man-eating flies Jab electric shock needles but what can they do? They can climb in their cars with raw bodies, raw faces And start up the serpent And headache it homeward A car full of squabbles And sobbing and stickiness With sand in their crannies Inhaling petroleum That pours from the foxgloves While the evening swallow The swallow of summer, cartwheeling through crimson, Touches the honey-slow river and turning Returns to the hand stretched from under the eaves - A boomerang of rejoicing shadow.

Written by Ogden Nash | One Third Of The Calendar In January everything freezes. We have two children. Both are she'ses. This is our January rule: One girl in bed, and one in school. In February the blizzard whirls. We own a pair of little girls. Blessings upon of each the head ---- The one in school and the one in bed. March is the month of cringe and bluster. Each of our children has a sister. They cling together like Hansel and Gretel, With their noses glued to the benzoin kettle. April is made of impetuous waters And doctors looking down throats of daughters. If we had a son too, and a thoroughbred, We'd have a horse, And a boy, And two girls In bed.

Written by Wilfred Owen | Exposure I Our brains ache, in the merciless iced east winds that knife us . . . Wearied we keep awake because the night is silent . . . Low drooping flares confuse our memory of the salient . . . Worried by silence, sentries whisper, curious, nervous, But nothing happens. Watching, we hear the mad gusts tugging on the wire. Like twitching agonies of men among its brambles. Northward incessantly, the flickering gunnery rumbles, Far off, like a dull rumour of some other war. What are we doing here? The poignant misery of dawn begins to grow . . . We only know war lasts, rain soaks, and clouds sag stormy. Dawn massing in the east her melancholy army Attacks once more in ranks on shivering ranks of gray, But nothing happens. Sudden successive flights of bullets streak the silence. Less deadly than the air that shudders black with snow, With sidelong flowing flakes that flock, pause and renew, We watch them wandering up and down the wind's nonchalance, But nothing happens. II Pale flakes with lingering stealth come feeling for our faces -- We cringe in holes, back on forgotten dreams, and stare, snow-dazed, Deep into grassier ditches. So we drowse, sun-dozed, Littered with blossoms trickling where the blackbird fusses. Is it that we are dying? Slowly our ghosts drag home: glimpsing the sunk fires glozed With crusted dark-red jewels; crickets jingle there; For hours the innocent mice rejoice: the house is theirs; Shutters and doors all closed: on us the doors are closed -- We turn back to our dying. Since we believe not otherwise can kind fires burn; Now ever suns smile true on child, or field, or fruit. For God's invincible spring our love is made afraid; Therefore, not loath, we lie out here; therefore were born, For love of God seems dying. To-night, His frost will fasten on this mud and us, Shrivelling many hands and puckering foreheads crisp. The burying-party, picks and shovels in their shaking grasp, Pause over half-known faces. All their eyes are ice, But nothing happens.

Written by Edwin Arlington Robinson | The Town Down by the River I Said the Watcher by the Way To the young and the unladen, To the boy and to the maiden, "God be with you both to-day. First your song came ringing, Now you come, you two-- Knowing naught of what you do, Or of what your dreams are bringing. "O you children who go singing To the Town down the River, Where the millions cringe and shiver, Tell me what you know to-day; Tell me how far you are going, Tell me how you find your way. O you children who are dreaming, Tell me what you dream to-day." "He is old and we have heard him," Said the boy then to the maiden; "He is old and heavy laden With a load we throw away. Care may come to find us, Age may lay us low; Still, we seek the light we know, And the dead we leave behind us. "Did he think that he would blind us Into such a small believing As to live without achieving, When the lights have led so far? Let him watch or let him wither,-- Shall he tell us where we are? We know best, who go together, Downward, onward, and so far." II Said the Watcher by the Way To the fiery folk that hastened To the loud and the unchastened, "You are strong, I see, to-day. Strength and hope may lead you To the journey's end,-- Each to be the other's friend If the Town should fail to need you. "And are ravens there to feed you In the Town down the River, Where the gift appalls the giver And youth hardens day by day? O you brave and you unshaken, Are you truly on your way? And are sirens in the River, That you come so far to-day?" "You are old and we have listened," Said the voice of one who halted; "You are sage and self-exalted, But your way is not our way. You that cannot aid us Give us words to eat. Be assured that they are sweet, And that we are as God made us. "Not in vain have you delayed us, Though the river still be calling Through the twilight that is falling And the Town be still so far. By the whirlwind of your wisdom Leagues are lifted as leaves are; But a king without a kingdom Fails us, who have come so far." III Said the Watcher by the Way To the slower folk who stumbled, To the weak and the world-humbled, "Tell me how you fare to-day. Some with ardor shaken, All with honor scarred, Do you falter, finding hard The far chance that you have taken? "Or, do you at length awaken To an antic retribution, Goading to a new confusion The drugged hopes of yesterday? O you poor mad men that hobble, Will you not return or stay? Do you trust, you broken people, To a dawn without the day?" "You speak well of what you know not," Muttered one; and then a second: "You have begged, and you have beckoned, But you see us on our way. Who are you to scold us, Knowing what we know? Jeremiah, long ago, Said as much as you have told us. "As we are, then, you behold us: Derelicts of all conditions, Poets, rogues, and sick physicians, Plodding forward from afar; Forward now into the darkness Where the men before us are; Forward, onward, out of grayness, To the light that shone so far." IV Said the Watcher by the Way To some aged ones who lingered, To the shrunken, the claw-fingered, "So you come for me to-day."-- "Yes, to give you warning; You are old," one said; "You have hairs on your head, Fit for laurel, not for scorning. "From the first of early morning We have toiled along to find you; We, as others, have maligned you, But we need your scorn to-day. By the light that we saw shining, Let us not be lured alway; Let us hear no River calling When to-morrow is to-day." "But your lanterns are unlighted And the Town is far before you: Let us hasten, I implore you," Said the Watcher by the Way. "Long have I waited, Longer have I known That the Town would have its own, And the call be for the fated. "In the name of all created. Let us hear no more my brothers; Are we older than all others? Are the planets in our way?"-- "Hark," said one; I hear the River, Calling always, night and day."-- "Forward, then! The lights are shining," Said the Watcher by the Way.

Written by Stephen Crane | A man went before a strange God A man went before a strange God -- The God of many men, sadly wise. And the deity thundered loudly, Fat with rage, and puffing. "Kneel, mortal, and cringe And grovel and do homage To My Particularly Sublime Majesty." The man fled. Then the man went to another God -- The God of his inner thoughts. And this one looked at him With soft eyes Lit with infinite comprehension, And said, "My poor child!"