Famous Bleed Poems by Famous Poets

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

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A Funeral Fantasie

by Friedrich von Schiller
 Pale, at its ghastly noon,
Pauses above the death-still wood--the moon;
The night-sprite, sighing, through the dim air stirs;
The clouds descend in rain;
Mourning, the wan stars wane,
Flickering like dying lamps in sepulchres!
Haggard as spectres--vision-like and dumb,
Dark with the pomp of death, and moving slow,
Towards that sad lair the pale procession come
Where the grave closes on the night below.

With dim, deep-sunken eye,
Crutched...Read more of this...

Sonnet II: Not At First Sight

by Sir Philip Sidney
 Not at first sight, nor with a dribbed shot 
Love gave the wound, which while I breathe will bleed; 
But known worth did in mine of time proceed, 
Till by degrees it had full conquest got: 

I saw and liked, I liked but loved not; 
I lov'd, but straight did not what Love decreed. 
At length to love's decrees...Read more of this...

The Puzzled Game-Birds

by Thomas Hardy
 They are not those who used to feed us 
When we were young--they cannot be - 
These shapes that now bereave and bleed us? 
They are not those who used to feed us, - 
For would they not fair terms concede us? 
- If hearts can house such treachery 
They are not those who used to feed us 
When...Read more of this...

O soul! whose lot it is to bleed with pain,

by Omar Khayyam
O soul! whose lot it is to bleed with pain,
And daily change of fortune to sustain,
Into this body wherefore didst thou come,
Seeing thou must at last go forth again?...Read more of this...

Sonnet VII: When Nature

by Sir Philip Sidney
 When Nature made her chief work, Stella's eyes, 
In color black why wrapp'd she beams so bright? 
Would she in beamy black, like painter wise, 
Frame daintiest lustre, mix'd of shades and light? 

Or did she else that sober hue devise, 
In object best to knit and strength our sight, 
Lest if no veil those brave gleams did disguise,...Read more of this...

A Vision upon the Fairy Queen

by Sir Walter Raleigh
Methought I saw the grave where Laura lay,
   Within that temple where the vestal flame
   Was wont to burn; and, passing by that way,
   To see that buried dust of living fame,
Whose tomb fair Love, and fairer Virtue kept:
   All suddenly I saw the Fairy Queen;
   At whose approach the...Read more of this...

To A Gentlewoman For A Friend

by William Strode
 No marvell if the Sunne's bright eye
Shower downe hott flames; that qualitie
Still waytes on light; but when wee see
Those sparkling balles of ebony
Distil such heat, the gazer straight
Stands so amazed at the sight
As when the lightning makes a breach
Through pitchie clouds: can lightning reach
The marrowe hurting not the skynne?
Your eyes to me the same have byn;
Can jett invite the...Read more of this...

Poem On His Birthday

by Dylan Thomas
 In the mustardseed sun,
By full tilt river and switchback sea
 Where the cormorants scud,
In his house on stilts high among beaks
 And palavers of birds
This sandgrain day in the bent bay's grave
 He celebrates and spurns
His driftwood thirty-fifth wind turned age;
 Herons spire and spear.

 Under and round him go
Flounders, gulls, on their cold, dying trails,
 Doing what they...Read more of this...

Pastoral Stanzas

by Mary Darby Robinson
 WHEN AURORA'S soft blushes o'erspread the blue hill,
And the mist dies away at the glances of morn;
When the birds join the music that floats on the rill,
And the beauties of spring the young woodlands adorn. 

To breathe the pure air and enliven my soul,
I bound from my cottage exulting and gay;
No care to molest me, no pow'r to controul,
I...Read more of this...

Gehazi

by Rudyard Kipling
 1915

Whence comest thou, Gehazi,
 So reverend to behold,
In scarlet and in ermines
 And chain of England's gold?"

"From following after Naaman
 To tell him all is well,
Whereby my zeal hath made me
 A Judge in Israel."

Well done; well done, Gehazi!
 Stretch forth thy ready hand,
Thou barely 'scaped from judgment,
 Take oath to judge the land
Unswayed by gift of money
 Or...Read more of this...

Tilly

by James Joyce
 He travels after a winter sun,
Urging the cattle along a cold red road,
Calling to them, a voice they know,
He drives his beasts above Cabra.

The voice tells them home is warm.
They moo and make brute music with their hoofs.
He drives them with a flowering branch before him,
Smoke pluming their foreheads.

Boor, bond of the herd,
Tonight stretch full by the fire!
I bleed...Read more of this...

From an Essay on Man

by Alexander Pope
 Heav'n from all creatures hides the book of fate,
All but the page prescrib'd, their present state:
From brutes what men, from men what spirits know:
Or who could suffer being here below?
The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed today,
Had he thy reason, would he skip and play?
Pleas'd to the last, he crops the flow'ry food,
And licks the hand just rais'd to...Read more of this...

A Poets Death is His Life IV

by Kahlil Gibran
 The dark wings of night enfolded the city upon which Nature had spread a pure white garment of snow; and men deserted the streets for their houses in search of warmth, while the north wind probed in contemplation of laying waste the gardens. There in the suburb stood an old hut heavily laden with snow and on the verge...Read more of this...

The Woman

by R S Thomas
 So beautiful--God himself quailed 
at her approach: the long body curved 
like the horizon. Why had he made 
her so? How would it be, she said, 
leaning towards him, if instead of 
quarreling over it, we divided it 
between us? You can have all the credit 
for its invention, if you will leave the ordering 
of it to me....Read more of this...

To Dianeme

by Robert Herrick
 I could but see thee yesterday
Stung by a fretful bee;
And I the javelin suck'd away,
And heal'd the wound in thee.

A thousand thorns, and briars, and stings
I have in my poor breast;
Yet ne'er can see that salve which brings
My passions any rest.

As Love shall help me, I admire
How thou canst sit and smile
To see me bleed, and not desire
To staunch...Read more of this...

Sensibility

by Robert William Service
 I

Once, when a boy, I killed a cat.
I guess it's just because of that
A cat evokes my tenderness,
And takes so kindly my caress.
For with a rich, resonant purr
It sleeks an arch or ardent fur
So vibrantly against my shin;
And as I tickle tilted chin
And rub the roots of velvet ears
Its tail in undulation rears.
Then tremoring with all its might,
In blissful...Read more of this...

To My Lord Fairfax

by John Milton
 Fairfax, whose Name in Arms through Europe rings,
 And fills all Mouths with Envy or with Praise,
 And all her Jealous Monarchs with Amaze.
 And Rumours loud which daunt remotest Kings,
Thy firm unshaken Valour ever brings
 Victory home, while new Rebellions raise
 Their Hydra-heads, and the false North displays
 Her broken League to Imp her Serpent Wings:
O yet! a...Read more of this...

On The Lord Gen. Fairfax At The Seige Of Colchester

by John Milton
 Fairfax, whose name in armes through Europe rings
Filling each mouth with envy, or with praise,
And all her jealous monarchs with amaze,
And rumors loud, that daunt remotest kings,
Thy firm unshak'n vertue ever brings
Victory home, though new rebellions raise
Their Hydra heads, & the fals North displaies
Her brok'n league, to impe their serpent wings,
O yet a nobler task awaites thy hand;
Yet what...Read more of this...

The Ballad Of Father Gilligan

by William Butler Yeats
 The old priest Peter Gilligan
Was weary night and day;
For half his flock were in their beds,
Or under green sods lay.

Once, while he nodded on a chair,
At the moth-hour of eve,
Another poor man sent for him,
And he began to grieve.

'I have no rest, nor joy, nor peace,
For people die and die';
And after cried he, 'God forgive!
My body spake, not I!'

He...Read more of this...

Modern Love XIX: No State Is Enviable

by George Meredith
 No state is enviable. To the luck alone 
Of some few favoured men I would put claim. 
I bleed, but her who wounds I will not blame. 
Have I not felt her heart as 'twere my own 
Beat thro' me? could I hurt her? heaven and hell! 
But I could hurt her cruelly! Can I let 
My Love's old...Read more of this...

A True Story

by Ann Taylor
 Little Ann and her mother were walking one day
Through London's wide city so fair,
And business obliged them to go by the way
That led them through Cavendish Square. 
And as they pass'd by the great house of a Lord,
A beautiful chariot there came,
To take some most elegant ladies abroad, 
Who straightway got into the same. 

The ladies in feathers and...Read more of this...

Psalm 83

by John Milton
 Be not thou silent now at length
O God hold not thy peace,
Sit not thou still O God of strength
We cry and do not cease.
For lo thy furious foes now *swell
And *storm outrageously, *Jehemajun.
And they that hate thee proud and fill
Exalt their heads full hie.
Against thy people they *contrive *Jagnarimu.
*Their Plots and Counsels deep, *Sod. 
*Them to ensnare they chiefly...Read more of this...

Modern Love XXVI: Love Ere He Bleeds

by George Meredith
 Love ere he bleeds, an eagle in high skies,
Has earth beneath his wings: from reddened eve
He views the rosy dawn. In vain they weave
The fatal web below while far he flies.
But when the arrow strikes him, there's a change.
He moves but in the track of his spent pain,
Whose red drops are the links of a harsh chain,
Binding him to...Read more of this...

The Captives Dream

by Anne Bronte
 Methought I saw him but I knew him not;
He was so changed from what he used to be,
There was no redness on his woe-worn cheek,
No sunny smile upon his ashy lips,
His hollow wandering eyes looked wild and fierce,
And grief was printed on his marble brow,
And O I thought he clasped his wasted hands,
And raised his haggard eyes to Heaven,...Read more of this...

Astrophel and Stella VII: WhenNature Made her Chief Work

by Sir Philip Sidney
 When Nature made her chief work, Stella's eyes,
In colour black why wrapt she beams so bright?
Would she in beamy black, like painter wise,
Frame daintiest lustre, mix'd of shades and light?
Or did she else that sober hue devise,
In object best to knit and strength our sight;
Lest, if no veil these brave gleams did disguise,
They, sunlike, should more dazzle than delight?
Or...Read more of this...

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