10 Best Famous Trolls Poems

Here is a collection of the top 10 all-time best famous Trolls poems. This is a select list of the best famous Trolls poetry. Reading, writing, and enjoying famous Trolls poetry (as well as classical and contemporary poems) is a great past time. These top poems are the best examples of trolls poems.

• All Famous Trolls Poems

 "You ought to have seen what I saw on my way 
To the village, through Mortenson's pasture to-day: 
Blueberries as big as the end of your thumb, 
Real sky-blue, and heavy, and ready to drum 
In the cavernous pail of the first one to come! 
And all ripe together, not some of them green 
And some of them ripe! You ought to have seen!" 
"I don't know what part of the pasture you mean." 
"You know where they cut off the woods--let me see-- 
It was two years ago--or no!--can it be 
No longer than that?--and the following fall 
The fire ran and burned it all up but the wall." 
"Why, there hasn't been time for the bushes to grow. 
That's always the way with the blueberries, though: 
There may not have been the ghost of a sign 
Of them anywhere under the shade of the pine, 
But get the pine out of the way, you may burn 
The pasture all over until not a fern 
Or grass-blade is left, not to mention a stick, 
And presto, they're up all around you as thick 
And hard to explain as a conjuror's trick." 
"It must be on charcoal they fatten their fruit. 
I taste in them sometimes the flavour of soot. 
And after all really they're ebony skinned: 
The blue's but a mist from the breath of the wind, 
A tarnish that goes at a touch of the hand, 
And less than the tan with which pickers are tanned." 
"Does Mortenson know what he has, do you think?" 
"He may and not care and so leave the chewink 
To gather them for him--you know what he is. 
He won't make the fact that they're rightfully his 
An excuse for keeping us other folk out." 
"I wonder you didn't see Loren about." 
"The best of it was that I did. Do you know, 
I was just getting through what the field had to show 
And over the wall and into the road, 
When who should come by, with a democrat-load 
Of all the young chattering Lorens alive, 
But Loren, the fatherly, out for a drive." 
"He saw you, then? What did he do? Did he frown?" 
"He just kept nodding his head up and down. 
You know how politely he always goes by. 
But he thought a big thought--I could tell by his eye-- 
Which being expressed, might be this in effect: 
'I have left those there berries, I shrewdly suspect, 
To ripen too long. I am greatly to blame.'" 
"He's a thriftier person than some I could name." 
"He seems to be thrifty; and hasn't he need, 
With the mouths of all those young Lorens to feed? 
He has brought them all up on wild berries, they say, 
Like birds. They store a great many away. 
They eat them the year round, and those they don't eat 
They sell in the store and buy shoes for their feet." 
"Who cares what they say? It's a nice way to live, 
Just taking what Nature is willing to give, 
Not forcing her hand with harrow and plow." 
"I wish you had seen his perpetual bow-- 
And the air of the youngsters! Not one of them turned, 
And they looked so solemn-absurdly concerned." 
"I wish I knew half what the flock of them know 
Of where all the berries and other things grow, 
Cranberries in bogs and raspberries on top 
Of the boulder-strewn mountain, and when they will crop. 
I met them one day and each had a flower 
Stuck into his berries as fresh as a shower; 
Some strange kind--they told me it hadn't a name." 
"I've told you how once not long after we came, 
I almost provoked poor Loren to mirth 
By going to him of all people on earth 
To ask if he knew any fruit to be had 
For the picking. The rascal, he said he'd be glad 
To tell if he knew. But the year had been bad. 
There had been some berries--but those were all gone. 
He didn't say where they had been. He went on: 
'I'm sure--I'm sure'--as polite as could be. 
He spoke to his wife in the door, 'Let me see, 
Mame, we don't know any good berrying place?' 
It was all he could do to keep a straight face. 
"If he thinks all the fruit that grows wild is for him, 
He'll find he's mistaken. See here, for a whim, 
We'll pick in the Mortensons' pasture this year. 
We'll go in the morning, that is, if it's clear, 
And the sun shines out warm: the vines must be wet. 
It's so long since I picked I almost forget 
How we used to pick berries: we took one look round, 
Then sank out of sight like trolls underground, 
And saw nothing more of each other, or heard, 
Unless when you said I was keeping a bird 
Away from its nest, and I said it was you. 
'Well, one of us is.' For complaining it flew 
Around and around us. And then for a while 
We picked, till I feared you had wandered a mile, 
And I thought I had lost you. I lifted a shout 
Too loud for the distance you were, it turned out, 
For when you made answer, your voice was as low 
As talking--you stood up beside me, you know." 
"We sha'n't have the place to ourselves to enjoy-- 
Not likely, when all the young Lorens deploy. 
They'll be there to-morrow, or even to-night. 
They won't be too friendly--they may be polite-- 
To people they look on as having no right 
To pick where they're picking. But we won't complain. 
You ought to have seen how it looked in the rain, 
The fruit mixed with water in layers of leaves, 
Like two kinds of jewels, a vision for thieves."

 The first morning of Three Mile Island: those first disquieting, uncertain, 
mystifying hours.
All morning a crew of workmen have been tearing the old decrepit roof
off our building,
and all morning, trying to distract myself, I've been wandering out to 
watch them
as they hack away the leaden layers of asbestos paper and disassemble 
the disintegrating drains.
After half a night of listening to the news, wondering how to know a 
hundred miles downwind
if and when to make a run for it and where, then a coming bolt awake 
at seven
when the roofers we've been waiting for since winter sent their ladders 
shrieking up our wall,
we still know less than nothing: the utility company continues making 
little of the accident,
the slick federal spokesmen still have their evasions in some semblance 
of order.
Surely we suspect now we're being lied to, but in the meantime, there 
are the roofers,
setting winch-frames, sledging rounds of tar apart, and there I am, on 
the curb across, gawking.

I never realized what brutal work it is, how matter-of-factly and harrow-
ingly dangerous.
The ladders flex and quiver, things skid from the edge, the materials are 
bulky and recalcitrant.
When the rusty, antique nails are levered out, their heads pull off; the 
underroofing crumbles.
Even the battered little furnace, roaring along as patient as a donkey, 
chokes and clogs,
a dense, malignant smoke shoots up, and someone has to fiddle with a 
cock, then hammer it,
before the gush and stench will deintensify, the dark, Dantean broth 
wearily subside.
In its crucible, the stuff looks bland, like licorice, spill it, though, on 
your boots or coveralls,
it sears, and everything is permeated with it, the furnace gunked with 
burst and half-burst bubbles,
the men themselves so completely slashed and mucked they seem almost 
from another realm, like trolls.
When they take their break, they leave their brooms standing at attention 
in the asphalt pails,
work gloves clinging like Br'er Rabbit to the bitten shafts, and they slouch 
along the precipitous lip,
the enormous sky behind them, the heavy noontime air alive with shim-
mers and mirages.

Sometime in the afternoon I had to go inside: the advent of our vigil was 
upon us.
However much we didn't want to, however little we would do about it, 
we'd understood:
we were going to perish of all this, if not now, then soon, if not soon, 
then someday.
Someday, some final generation, hysterically aswarm beneath an at-
mosphere as unrelenting as rock,
would rue us all, anathematize our earthly comforts, curse our surfeits 
and submissions.
I think I know, though I might rather not, why my roofers stay so clear 
to me and why the rest, 
the terror of that time, the reflexive disbelief and distancing, all we should 
hold on to, dims so.
I remember the president in his absurd protective booties, looking 
absolutely unafraid, the fool.
I remember a woman on the front page glaring across the misty Sus-
quehanna at those looming stacks.
But, more vividly, the men, silvered with glitter from the shingles, cling-
ing like starlings beneath the eaves.
Even the leftover carats of tar in the gutter, so black they seemed to suck 
the light out of the air.
By nightfall kids had come across them: every sidewalk on the block was 
scribbled with obscenities and hearts.

 Though you know it anyhow 
Listen to me, darling, now, 
Proving what I need not prove 
How I know I love you, love. 
Near and far, near and far, 
I am happy where you are; 
Likewise I have never larnt 
How to be it where you aren't. 
Far and wide, far and wide, 
I can walk with you beside; 
Furthermore, I tell you what, 
I sit and sulk where you are not. 
Visitors remark my frown 
Where you're upstairs and I am down, 
Yes, and I'm afraid I pout 
When I'm indoors and you are out; 
But how contentedly I view 
Any room containing you. 
In fact I care not where you be, 
Just as long as it's with me. 
In all your absences I glimpse 
Fire and flood and trolls and imps. 
Is your train a minute slothful? 
I goad the stationmaster wrothful. 
When with friends to bridge you drive 
I never know if you're alive, 
And when you linger late in shops 
I long to telephone the cops. 
Yet how worth the waiting for, 
To see you coming through the door. 
Somehow, I can be complacent 
Never but with you adjacent. 
Near and far, near and far, 
I am happy where you are; 
Likewise I have never larnt 
How to be it where you aren't. 
Then grudge me not my fond endeavor, 
To hold you in my sight forever; 
Let none, not even you, disparage 
Such a valid reason for a marriage.

 Troll sat alone on his seat of stone,
And munched and mumbled a bare old bone;
For many a year he had gnawed it near,
For meat was hard to come by.
Done by! Gum by!
In a cave in the hills he dwelt alone,
And meat was hard to come by.

Up came Tom with his big boots on.
Said he to Troll: 'Pray, what is yon?
For it looks like the shin o' my nuncle Tim.
As should be a-lyin' in the graveyard.
Caveyard! Paveyard!
This many a year has Tim been gone,
And I thought he were lyin' in the graveyard.'

'My lad,' said Troll, 'this bone I stole.
But what be bones that lie in a hole?
Thy nuncle was dead as a lump o' lead,
Afore I found his shinbone.
Tinbone! Skinbone!
He can spare a share for a poor old troll,
For he don't need his shinbone.'

Said Tom: 'I don't see why the likes o' thee
Without axin' leave should go makin' free
With the shank or the shin o' my father's kin;
So hand the old bone over!
Rover! Trover!
Though dead he be, it belongs to he;
So hand the old bone over!'

'For a couple o' pins,' says Troll, and grins,
'I'll eat thee too, and gnaw thy shins.
A bit o' fresh meat will go down sweet!
I'll try my teeth on thee now.
Hee now! See now!
I'm tired o' gnawing old bones and skins;
I've a mind to dine on thee now.'

But just as he thought his dinner was caught,
He found his hands had hold of naught.
Before he could mind, Tom slipped behind
And gave him the boot to larn him.
Warn him! Darn him!
A bump o' the boot on the seat, Tom thought,
Would be the way to larn him.

But harder than stone is the flesh and bone
Of a troll that sits in the hills alone.
As well set your boot to the mountain's root,
For the seat of a troll don't feel it.
Peel it! Heal it!
Old Troll laughed, when he heard Tom groan,
And he knew his toes could feel it.

Tom's leg is game, since home he came,
And his bootless foot is lasting lame;
But Troll don't care, and he's still there
With the bone he boned from its owner.
Doner! *****!
Troll's old seat is still the same,
And the bone he boned from its owner!

 (Rock Lake, Canada)

In this country there is neither measure nor balance
To redress the dominance of rocks and woods,
The passage, say, of these man-shaming clouds.

No gesture of yours or mine could catch their attention,
No word make them carry water or fire the kindling
Like local trolls in the spell of a superior being.

Well, one wearies of the Public Gardens: one wants a vacation
Where trees and clouds and animals pay no notice;
Away from the labeled elms, the tame tea-roses.

It took three days driving north to find a cloud
The polite skies over Boston couldn't possibly accommodate.
Here on the last frontier of the big, brash spirit

The horizons are too far off to be chummy as uncles;
The colors assert themselves with a sort of vengeance.
Each day concludes in a huge splurge of vermilions

And night arrives in one gigantic step.
It is comfortable, for a change, to mean so little.
These rocks offer no purchase to herbage or people:

They are conceiving a dynasty of perfect cold.
In a month we'll wonder what plates and forks are for.
I lean to you, numb as a fossil. Tell me I'm here.

The Pilgrims and Indians might never have happened.
Planets pulse in the lake like bright amoebas;
The pines blot our voices up in their lightest sighs.

Around our tent the old simplicities sough
Sleepily as Lethe, trying to get in.
We'll wake blank-brained as water in the dawn.

 "OH, when I was a little Ghost, 
A merry time had we! 
Each seated on his favourite post, 
We chumped and chawed the buttered toast 
They gave us for our tea." 

"That story is in print!" I cried. 
"Don't say it's not, because 
It's known as well as Bradshaw's Guide!" 
(The Ghost uneasily replied 
He hardly thought it was). 

"It's not in Nursery Rhymes? And yet 
I almost think it is - 
'Three little Ghosteses' were set 
'On posteses,' you know, and ate 
Their 'buttered toasteses.' 

"I have the book; so if you doubt it - " 
I turned to search the shelf. 
"Don't stir!" he cried. "We'll do without it: 
I now remember all about it; 
I wrote the thing myself. 

"It came out in a 'Monthly,' or 
At least my agent said it did: 
Some literary swell, who saw 
It, thought it seemed adapted for 
The Magazine he edited. 

"My father was a Brownie, Sir; 
My mother was a Fairy. 
The notion had occurred to her, 
The children would be happier, 
If they were taught to vary. 

"The notion soon became a craze; 
And, when it once began, she 
Brought us all out in different ways - 
One was a Pixy, two were Fays, 
Another was a Banshee; 

"The Fetch and Kelpie went to school 
And gave a lot of trouble; 
Next came a Poltergeist and Ghoul, 
And then two Trolls (which broke the rule), 
A Goblin, and a Double - 

"(If that's a snuff-box on the shelf," 
He added with a yawn, 
"I'll take a pinch) - next came an Elf, 
And then a Phantom (that's myself), 
And last, a Leprechaun. 

"One day, some Spectres chanced to call, 
Dressed in the usual white: 
I stood and watched them in the hall, 
And couldn't make them out at all, 
They seemed so strange a sight. 

"I wondered what on earth they were, 
That looked all head and sack; 
But Mother told me not to stare, 
And then she twitched me by the hair, 
And punched me in the back. 

"Since then I've often wished that I 
Had been a Spectre born. 
But what's the use?" (He heaved a sigh.) 
"THEY are the ghost-nobility, 
And look on US with scorn. 

"My phantom-life was soon begun: 
When I was barely six, 
I went out with an older one - 
And just at first I thought it fun, 
And learned a lot of tricks. 

"I've haunted dungeons, castles, towers - 
Wherever I was sent: 
I've often sat and howled for hours, 
Drenched to the skin with driving showers, 
Upon a battlement. 

"It's quite old-fashioned now to groan 
When you begin to speak: 
This is the newest thing in tone - " 
And here (it chilled me to the bone) 
He gave an AWFUL squeak. 

"Perhaps," he added, "to YOUR ear 
That sounds an easy thing? 
Try it yourself, my little dear! 
It took ME something like a year, 
With constant practising. 

"And when you've learned to squeak, my man, 
And caught the double sob, 
You're pretty much where you began: 
Just try and gibber if you can! 
That's something LIKE a job! 

"I'VE tried it, and can only say 
I'm sure you couldn't do it, e- 
ven if you practised night and day, 
Unless you have a turn that way, 
And natural ingenuity. 

"Shakspeare I think it is who treats 
Of Ghosts, in days of old, 
Who 'gibbered in the Roman streets,' 
Dressed, if you recollect, in sheets - 
They must have found it cold. 

"I've often spent ten pounds on stuff, 
In dressing as a Double; 
But, though it answers as a puff, 
It never has effect enough 
To make it worth the trouble. 

"Long bills soon quenched the little thirst 
I had for being funny. 
The setting-up is always worst: 
Such heaps of things you want at first, 
One must be made of money! 

"For instance, take a Haunted Tower, 
With skull, cross-bones, and sheet; 
Blue lights to burn (say) two an hour, 
Condensing lens of extra power, 
And set of chains complete: 

"What with the things you have to hire - 
The fitting on the robe - 
And testing all the coloured fire - 
The outfit of itself would tire 
The patience of a Job! 

"And then they're so fastidious, 
The Haunted-House Committee: 
I've often known them make a fuss 
Because a Ghost was French, or Russ, 
Or even from the City! 

"Some dialects are objected to - 
For one, the IRISH brogue is: 
And then, for all you have to do, 
One pound a week they offer you, 
And find yourself in Bogies!

 "Tie stille, barn min!
Imorgen kommer Fin,
Fa'er din, 
Og gi'er dich Esbern Snares öine og hjerte at lege med!"
Zealand Rhyme.


"BUILD at Kallundborg by the sea
A church as stately as church may be,
And there shalt thou wed my daughter fair,"
Said the Lord of Nesvek to Esbern Snare.

And the Baron laughed. But Esbern said,
"Though I lose my soul, I will Helva wed!"
And off he strode, in his pride of will,
To the Troll who dwelt in Ulshoi hill.

"Build, O Troll, a church for me
At Kallundborg by the mighty sea;
Build it stately, and build it fair,
Build it quickly," said Esbern Snare.

But the sly Dwarf said, "No work is wrought
By Trolls of the Hills, O man, for naught.
What wilt thou give for thy church so fair?"
"Set thy own price," quoth Esbern Snare.

"When Kallundborg church is builded well,
Thou must the name of its builder tell,
Or thy heart and thy eyes must be my boon."
"Build," said Esbern, "and build it soon."

By night and by day the Troll wrought on;
He hewed the timbers, he piled the stone;
But day by day, as the walls rose fair,
Darker and sadder grew Esbern Snare.

He listened by night, he watched by day,
He sought and thought, but he dared not pray;
In vain he called on the Elle-maids shy,
And the Neck and the Nis gave no reply.

Of his evil bargain far and wide
A rumor ran through the country-side;
And Helva of Nesvek, young and fair,
Prayed for the soul of Esbern Snare.

And now the church was wellnigh done;
One pillar it lacked, and one alone;
And the grim Troll muttered, "Fool thou art!
To-morrow gives me thy eyes and heart!"

By Kallundborg in black despair,
Through wood and meadow, walked Esbern Snare,
Till, worn and weary, the strong man sank
Under the birches on Ulshoi bank.

At his last day's work he heard the Troll
Hammer and delve in the quarry's hole;
Before him the church stood large and fair:
"I have builded my tomb," said Esbern Snare.

And he closed his eyes the sight to hide,
When he heard a light step at his side:
"O Esbern Snare! a sweet voice said,
"Would I might die now in thy stead!"

With a grasp by love and by fear made strong,
He held her fast, and he held her long;
With the beating heart of a bird afeard,
She hid her face in his flame-red beard.

"O love!" he cried, "let me look to-day
In thine eyes ere mine are plucked away;
Let me hold thee close, let me feel thy heart
Ere mine by the Troll is torn apart!

"I sinned, O Helva, for love of thee!
Pray that the Lord Christ pardon me!"
But fast as she prayed, and faster still,
Hammered the Troll in Ulshoi hill.

He knew, as he wrought, that a loving heart
Was somehow baffling his evil art;
For more than spell of Elf or Troll
Is a maiden's prayer for her lover's soul.

And Esbern listened, and caught the sound
Of a Troll-wife singing underground:
"To-morrow comes Fine, father thine:
Lie still and hush thee, baby mine!

"Lie still, my darling! next sunrise
Thou'lt play with Esbern Snare's heart and eyes!"
"Ho! ho!" quoth Esbern, "is that your game?
Thanks to the Troll-wife, I know his name!"

The Troll he heard him, and hurried on
To Kallundborg church with the lacking stone.
"Too late, Gaffer Fine!" cried Esbern Snare;
And Troll and pillar vanished in air!

That night the harvesters heard the sound
Of a woman sobbing underground,
And the voice of the Hill-Troll loud with blame
Of the careless singer who told his name.

Of the Troll of the Church they sing the rune
By the Northern Sea in the harvest moon;
And the fishers of Zealand hear him still
Scolding his wife in Ulshoi hill.

And seaward over its groves of birch
Still looks the tower of Kallundborg church
Where, first at its altar, a wedded pair,
Stood Helva of Nesvek and Esbern Snare!

 Out on the mountain over the town,
All night long, all night long,
The trolls go up and the trolls go down,
Bearing their packs and crooning a song;
And this is the song the hill-folk croon,
As they trudge in the light of the misty moon,--
This is ever their dolorous tune:
"Gold, gold! ever more gold,--
Bright red gold for dearie!"

Deep in the hill the yeoman delves
All night long, all night long;
None but the peering, furtive elves
See his toil and hear his song;
Merrily ever the cavern rings
As merrily ever his pick he swings,
And merrily ever this song he sings:
"Gold, gold! ever more gold,--
Bright red gold for dearie!"

Mother is rocking thy lowly bed
All night long, all night long,
Happy to smooth thy curly head
And to hold thy hand and to sing her song;
'T is not of the hill-folk, dwarfed and old,
Nor the song of the yeoman, stanch and bold,
And the burden it beareth is not of gold;
But it's "Love, love!--nothing but love,--
Mother's love for dearie!"

 It is time for all the heroes to go home
if they have any, time for all of us common ones
to locate ourselves by the real things
we live by.

Far to the north, or indeed in any direction,
strange mountains and creatures have always lurked-
elves, goblins, trolls, and spiders:-we
encounter them in dread and wonder,

But once we have tasted far streams, touched the gold,
found some limit beyond the waterfall,
a season changes, and we come back, changed
but safe, quiet, grateful.

Suppose an insane wind holds all the hills
while strange beliefs whine at the traveler's ears,
we ordinary beings can cling to the earth and love
where we are, sturdy for common things.

 NOW they sing the hero loud; -- 
But they sing him in his shroud. 

Torch he kindled for his land; 
On his brow ye set its brand. 

Taught by him to wield a glaive; 
Through his heart the steel ye drave. 

Trolls he smote in hard-fought fields; 
Ye bore him down 'twixt traitor shields. 

But the shining spoils he won, 
These ye treasure as your own.-- 

Dim them not, that so the dead 
Rest appeased his thorn-crowned head.