Famous Blast Poems by Famous Poets

These are examples of famous Blast poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous blast poems. These examples illustrate what a famous blast poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).

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The Old And The Young Bridegroom

by Victor Hugo
 ("L'homme auquel on vous destina.") 
 
 {HERNANI, Act I.} 


 Listen. The man for whom your youth is destined, 
 Your uncle, Ruy de Silva, is the Duke 
 Of Pastrana, Count of Castile and Aragon. 
 For lack of youth, he brings you, dearest girl, 
 Treasures of gold, jewels, and precious gems, 
 With which your...Read more of this...

The Second Voyage

by Rudyard Kipling
 We've sent our little Cupids all ashore --
 They were frightened, they were tired, they were cold:
Our sails of silk and purple go to store,
 And we've cut away our mast of beaten gold
  (Foul weather!)
Oh 'tis hemp and singing pine for to stand against the brine,
 But Love he is our master as of old!

The sea has...Read more of this...

The Skeleton in Armor

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
"SPEAK! speak! thou fearful guest! 
Who, with thy hollow breast 
Still in rude armor drest, 
Comest to daunt me! 
Wrapt not in Eastern balms, 5 
But with thy fleshless palms 
Stretched, as if asking alms, 
Why dost thou haunt me?" 

Then, from those cavernous eyes 
Pale flashes seemed to rise, 10 
As when the Northern skies 
Gleam in December; 
And,...Read more of this...

As In Their Flight The Birds Of Song

by Robert Louis Stevenson
 AS in their flight the birds of song
Halt here and there in sweet and sunny dales,
But halt not overlong;
The time one rural song to sing
They pause; then following bounteous gales
Steer forward on the wing:
Sun-servers they, from first to last,
Upon the sun they wait
To ride the sailing blast.

So he awhile in our contested state,
Awhile abode, not longer, for his Sun...Read more of this...

Dream Song 64: Supreme my holdings greater yet my need

by John Berryman
 Supreme my holdings, greater yet my need,
thoughtless I go out. Dawn. Have I my cig's,
my flaskie O,
O crystal cock,-”my kneel has gone to seed,-”
and anybody's blessing? (Blast the MIGs
for making funble so

my tardy readying.) Yes, utter' that.
Anybody's blessing? -”Mr Bones,
you makes too much
démand. I might be 'fording you a hat:
it gonna rain. -”I knew a one of groans
& greed...Read more of this...

The Occultation Of Orion

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
 I saw, as in a dream sublime,
The balance in the hand of Time.
O'er East and West its beam impended;
And day, with all its hours of light,
Was slowly sinking out of sight,
While, opposite, the scale of night
Silently with the stars ascended.

Like the astrologers of eld,
In that bright vision I beheld
Greater and deeper mysteries.
I saw, with its celestial keys,
Its chords of...Read more of this...

To the Muse of Poetry

by Mary Darby Robinson
 EXULT MY MUSE! exult to see 
Each envious, waspish, jealous thing, 
Around its harmless venom fling, 
And dart its powerless fangs at THEE! 
Ne'er shalt THOU bend thy radiant wing, 
To sweep the dark revengeful string; 
Or meanly stoop, to steal a ray, 
E'en from RINALDO'S glorious lay, 
Tho' his transcendent Verse should twine 
About thy heart, each bliss...Read more of this...

The Hymn

by John Milton
 I

It was the Winter wilde,
While the Heav'n-born-childe, 
All meanly wrapt in the rude manger lies;
Nature in aw to him
Had doff't her gawdy trim,
With her great Master so to sympathize:
It was no season then for her
To wanton with the Sun her lusty Paramour.

II

Only with speeches fair
She woo'd the gentle Air
To hide her guilty front with innocent Snow,
And on her naked...Read more of this...

Felo de Se

by Amy Levy
 With Apologies to Mr. Swinburne.


For repose I have sighed and have struggled ; have sigh'd and have struggled in vain;
I am held in the Circle of Being and caught in the Circle of Pain.
I was wan and weary with life ; my sick soul yearned for death;
I was weary of women and war and the sea and the wind's...Read more of this...

Psalm 90 part 1

by Isaac Watts
 v.1-5 
C. M.
Man frail, and God eternal.

Our God, our help in ages past,
Our hope for years to come,
Our shelter from the stormy blast,
And our eternal home.

Under the shadow of thy throne
Thy saints have dwelt secure;
Sufficient is thine arm alone,
And our defence is sure.

Before the hills in order stood,
Or earth received her frame,
From everlasting thou art God,
To endless years the...Read more of this...

Farmer Dying

by Richard Hugo
 for Hank and Nancy

Seven thousand acres of grass have faded yellow
from his cough. These limp days, his anger,
legend forty years from moon to Stevensville,
lives on, just barely, in a Great Falls whore.
Cruel times, he cries, cruel winds. His geese roam
unattended in the meadow. The gold last leaves
of cottonwoods ride Burnt Fork creek away.
His geese grow fat without him. Same...Read more of this...

310. Tam o' Shanter: A Tale

by Robert Burns
 WHEN chapman billies leave the street,
And drouthy neibors, neibors, meet;
As market days are wearing late,
And folk begin to tak the gate,
While we sit bousing at the nappy,
An’ getting fou and unco happy,
We think na on the lang Scots miles,
The mosses, waters, slaps and stiles,
That lie between us and our hame,
Where sits our sulky, sullen dame,
Gathering her brows like gathering...Read more of this...

507. Song—Bonie Peg-a-Ramsay

by Robert Burns
 CAULD is the e’enin blast,
 O’ Boreas o’er the pool,
An’ dawin’ it is dreary,
 When birks are bare at Yule.


Cauld blaws the e’enin blast,
 When bitter bites the frost,
And, in the mirk and dreary drift,
 The hills and glens are lost:


Ne’er sae murky blew the night
 That drifted o’er the hill,
But bonie Peg-a-Ramsay
 Gat grist to her mill....Read more of this...

Oh Wert Thou In The Cauld Blast

by Robert Burns
 Oh wert thou in the cauld blast,
On yonder lea, on yonder lea,
My plaidie to the angry airt,
I'd shelter thee, I'd shelter thee;
Or did misfortune's bitter storms
Around thee blaw, around thee blaw,
Thy bield should be my bosom,
To share it a', to share it a'.

Or were I in the wildest waste,
Sae black and bare, sae black and bare,
The desart were a...Read more of this...

Leffingwell

by Edwin Arlington Robinson
 I—THE LURE

No, no,—forget your Cricket and your Ant, 
For I shall never set my name to theirs 
That now bespeak the very sons and heirs 
Incarnate of Queen Gossip and King Cant. 
The case of Leffingwell is mixed, I grant,
And futile Seems the burden that he bears; 
But are we sounding his forlorn affairs 
Who brand him parasite and...Read more of this...

Loves Last Adieu

by George (Lord) Byron
 The roses of Love glad the garden of life,
Though nurtur'd 'mid weeds dropping pestilent dew,
Till Time crops the leaves with unmerciful knife,
Or prunes them for ever, in Love's last adieu!

In vain, with endearments, we soothe the sad heart,
In vain do we vow for an age to be true;
The chance of an hour may command us to part,
Or Death disunite...Read more of this...

Stanzas to Flora

by Mary Darby Robinson
 LET OTHERS wreaths of ROSES twine
With scented leaves of EGLANTINE;
Enamell'd buds and gaudy flow'rs,
The pride of FLORA'S painted bow'rs;
Such common charms shall ne'er be wove
Around the brows of him I LOVE. 

Fair are their beauties for a day, 
But swiftly do they fade away; 
Each PINK sends forth its choicest sweet 
AURORA'S warm embrace to meet; 
And each inconstant...Read more of this...

555. Song—O wert thou in the cauld blast

by Robert Burns
 O WERT thou in the cauld blast,
 On yonder lea, on yonder lea,
My plaidie to the angry airt,
 I’d shelter thee, I’d shelter thee;
Or did Misfortune’s bitter storms
 Around thee blaw, around thee blaw,
Thy bield should be my bosom,
 To share it a’, to share it a’.


Or were I in the wildest waste,
 Sae black and bare, sae black...Read more of this...

The Weakest Thing

by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
 Which is the weakest thing of all
Mine heart can ponder?
The sun, a little cloud can pall
With darkness yonder?
The cloud, a little wind can move
Where'er it listeth?
The wind, a little leaf above,
Though sere, resisteth?

What time that yellow leaf was green,
My days were gladder;
But now, whatever Spring may mean,
I must grow sadder.
Ah me! a leaf with sighs can wring
My lips asunder—...Read more of this...

A Sailor's Song

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
Oh for the breath of the briny deep,
And the tug of the bellying sail,
With the sea-gull's cry across the sky
And a passing boatman's hail.
For, be she fierce or be she gay,
The sea is a famous friend alway.
Ho! for the plains where the dolphins play,
And the bend of the mast and spars,
And a fight at night with the wild sea-sprite
When the...Read more of this...

57. Holy Willie's Prayer

by Robert Burns
 O THOU, who in the heavens does dwell,
Who, as it pleases best Thysel’,
Sends ane to heaven an’ ten to hell,
 A’ for Thy glory,
And no for ony gude or ill
 They’ve done afore Thee!


I bless and praise Thy matchless might,
When thousands Thou hast left in night,
That I am here afore Thy sight,
 For gifts an’ grace
A burning and a...Read more of this...

The Deserted Cottage

by Mary Darby Robinson
 Who dwelt in yonder lonely Cot,
Why is it thus forsaken?
It seems, by all the world forgot,
Above its path the high grass grows,
And through its thatch the northwind blows
--Its thatch, by tempests shaken.

And yet, it tops a verdant hill
By Summer gales surrounded:
Beneath its door a shallow rill
Runs brawling to the vale below,
And near it sweetest flowrets grow
By banks of willow...Read more of this...

Sonnet LVIII

by Francesco Petrarch
SONNET LVIII. O giorno, o ora, o ultimo momento. HE MOURNS HIS WANT OF PERCEPTION AT THAT MEETING.  O Day, O hour, O moment sweetest, last,O stars conspired to make me poor indeed!O look too true, in which I seem'd to read.At parting, that my happiness was past;Now my full loss...Read more of this...

The Blood-Red Fourragere

by Robert William Service
 What was the blackest sight to me
Of all that campaign?
A naked woman tied to a tree
With jagged holes where her breasts should be,
Rotting there in the rain.

On we pressed to the battle fray,
Dogged and dour and spent.
Sudden I heard my Captain say:
"Voilà! Kultur has passed this way,
And left us a monument."

So I looked and I saw our Colonel there,
And...Read more of this...

The Too-Late Born

by Archibald MacLeish
 We too, we too, descending once again
The hills of our own land, we too have heard
Far off --- Ah, que ce cor a longue haleine ---
The horn of Roland in the passages of Spain,
The first, the second blast, the failing third,
And with the third turned back and climbed once more
The steep road southward, and heard faint the sound
Of swords,...Read more of this...

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