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Famous Brimstone Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Burns, Robert
...with frugal care in massive waxen piles,
Are doom’d by Man, that tyrant o’er the weak,
The death o’ devils, smoor’d wi’ brimstone reek:
The thundering guns are heard on ev’ry side,
The wounded coveys, reeling, scatter wide;
The feather’d field-mates, bound by Nature’s tie,
Sires, mothers, children, in one carnage lie:
(What warm, poetic heart but inly bleeds,
And execrates man’s savage, ruthless deeds!)
Nae mair the flow’r in field or meadow springs,
Nae mair the grove with a...Read more of this...



by Burns, Robert
...le John! rumble John, mount the steps with a groan,
 Cry the book is with heresy cramm’d;
Then out wi’ your ladle, deal brimstone like aidle,
 And roar ev’ry note of the D—’d.
Rumble John! 6 And roar ev’ry note of the D—’d.


Simper James! simper James, leave your fair Killie dames,
 There’s a holier chase in your view:
I’ll lay on your head, that the pack you’ll soon lead,
 For puppies like you there’s but few,
Simper James! 7 For puppies like you there’s but few.Read more of this...

by Burns, Robert
...erin blink,
An’ tips auld drucken Nanse the wink,
May Sautan gie her doup a clink
 Within his yett,
An’ fill her up wi’ brimstone drink,
 Red-reekin het.


Though Jock an’ hav’rel Jean are merry—
Some devil seize them in a hurry,
An’ waft them in th’ infernal wherry
 Straught through the lake,
An’ gie their hides a noble curry
 Wi’ oil of aik!


As for the jurr-puir worthless body!
She’s got mischief enough already;
Wi’ stanged hips, and buttocks bluidy
 She’s suffer’d sa...Read more of this...

by Burns, Robert
...udrons,
And aye he catch’d the tither wretch,
 To fry them in his caudrons;
But now his Honour maun detach,
 Wi’ a’ his brimstone squadrons,
 Fast, fast this day.


See, see auld Orthodoxy’s faes
 She’s swingein thro’ the city!
Hark, how the nine-tail’d cat she plays!
 I vow it’s unco pretty:
There, Learning, with his Greekish face,
 Grunts out some Latin ditty;
And Common-sense is gaun, she says,
 To mak to Jamie Beattie
 Her plaint this day.


But there’s Morality h...Read more of this...

by Watts, Isaac
...e Lord delights in them that speak
The words of truth; but every liar
Must have his portion in the lake
That burns with brimstone and with fire....Read more of this...



by Lindsay, Vachel
...ottle size have pranced from you to-day,
And seized my pen for hobby-horse as witches ride a broom,
And left a trail of brimstone words and blots and gobs of gloom.
And yet when I am extra good and say my prayers at night, 
And mind my ma, and do the chores, and speak to folks polite,
My bottle spreads a rainbow-mist, and from the vapor fine
Ten thousand troops from fairyland come riding in a line.
I've seen them on their chargers race around my study chair,
They open...Read more of this...

by Heaney, Seamus
...to mix it in with water.
Those smells brought tears to the eyes, we inhaled
A kind of greeny burning and thought of brimstone.
But the slop of the actual job
Of brushing walls, the watery grey
Being lashed on in broad swatches, then drying out
Whiter and whiter, all that worked like magic.
Where had we come from, what was this kingdom
We knew we'd been restored to? Our shadows
Moved on the wall and a tar border glittered
The full length of the house, a black divid...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...th' uplifted spear 
Of their great Sultan waving to direct 
Their course, in even balance down they light 
On the firm brimstone, and fill all the plain: 
A multitude like which the populous North 
Poured never from her frozen loins to pass 
Rhene or the Danaw, when her barbarous sons 
Came like a deluge on the South, and spread 
Beneath Gibraltar to the Libyan sands. 
Forthwith, form every squadron and each band, 
The heads and leaders thither haste where stood 
Their g...Read more of this...

by Watts, Isaac
...at may the bold transgressors fear?
His very soul abhors their ways.

On impious wretches he shall rain
Tempests of brimstone, fire, and death;
Such as he kindled on the plain
Of Sodom, with his angry breath.

The righteous Lord loves righteous souls,
Whose thoughts and actions are sincere;
And with a gracious eye beholds
The men that his own image bear....Read more of this...

by Lanier, Sidney
...k,
And yon-side, lo! an endless wrack
And rabble of souls,' sighed Sense,
`Their eyes upturned and begged and burned
In brimstone lakes, and a Hand above
Beat back the hands that upward yearned --'
`Nay!' quoth Love --

"`Yea, yea, sweet Prince; thyself shalt see,
Wilt thou but down this slope with me;
'Tis palpable,' whispered Sense.
-- At the foot of the hill a living rill
Shone, and the lilies shone white above;
`But now 'twas black, 'twas a river, this rill,'
(`Black?...Read more of this...

by Kipling, Rudyard
...They told their tales of wreck and wrong,
 Of shame and lust and fraud,
They backed their toughest statements with
 The Brimstone of the Lord,
And crackling oaths went to and fro
 Across the fist-banged board.

And there was Hans the blue-eyed Dane,
 Bull-throated, bare of arm,
Who carried on his hairy chest
 The maid Ultruda's charm --
The little silver crucifix
 That keeps a man from harm.

And there was Jake Withouth-the-Ears,
 And Pamba the Malay,
And Carboy Gin t...Read more of this...

by Chesterton, G K
...In the valley of the Thames,
Come over the hills roaring
Above their roofs, and pouring
On spire and stair and flooring
Brimstone and pitch and flames.

Sheer o'er the great chalk uplands
And the hill of the Horse went he,
Till high on Hampshire beacons
He saw the southern sea.

High on the heights of Wessex
He saw the southern brine,
And turned him to a conquered land,
And where the northern thornwoods stand,
And the road parts on either hand,
There came to him a sig...Read more of this...

by Chaucer, Geoffrey
...es black, and pilled* beard: *scanty
Of his visage children were sore afeard.
There n'as quicksilver, litharge, nor brimstone,
Boras, ceruse, nor oil of tartar none,
Nor ointement that woulde cleanse or bite,
That him might helpen of his whelkes* white, *pustules
Nor of the knobbes* sitting on his cheeks. *buttons
Well lov'd he garlic, onions, and leeks,
And for to drink strong wine as red as blood.
Then would he speak, and cry as he were wood;
And when that he we...Read more of this...

by Southey, Robert
...came, and the tapers' flame 
A frightful stench did make; 
And they burnt as though they had been dipt 
In the burning brimstone lake. 

And the loud commotion, like the rushing of ocean, 
Grew momently more and more; 
And strokes as of a battering ram 
Did shake the strong church door. 

The bellmen, they for very fear 
Could toll the bell no longer; 
And still as louder grew the strokes 
Their fear it grew the stronger. 

The Monk and Nun forgot their beads, 
T...Read more of this...

by von Goethe, Johann Wolfgang
...lie ye now,
Nothing can save you from the slough.

Not boldness, not regret for crime.
Lie, then, and writhe in brimstone fire!
'Twas ye yourselves drew down Mine ire,

Lie and lament throughout all time!
And also ye, whom I selected,

E'en ye forever I disown,
For ye My saving grace rejected

Ye murmur? blame yourselves alone!

"Ye might have lived with Me in bliss,
For I of yore had promis'd this;

Ye sinn'd, and all My precepts slighted
Wrapp'd in the sleep of sin ...Read more of this...

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