Famous Burning Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Burning poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous burning poems. These examples illustrate what a famous burning poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Shakespeare, William
...
Whose white weighs down the airy scale of praise;
Take all these similes to your own command,
Hallow'd with sighs that burning lungs did raise;
What me your minister, for you obeys,
Works under you; and to your audit comes
Their distract parcels in combined sums.
''Lo, this device was sent me from a nun,
Or sister sanctified, of holiest note;
Which late her noble suit in court did shun,
Whose rarest havings made the blossoms dote;
For she was sought by spirits of riches...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...se pigmies, these little piping
straws,
these gnats, that fill the hour, to pass for poets;)
Bards with songs as from burning coals, or the lightning’s fork’d stripes!
Ample Ohio’s bards—bards for California! inland bards—bards of the war;)
(As a wheel turns on its axle, so I find my chants turning finally on the war;)
Bards of pride! Bards tallying the ocean’s roar, and the swooping eagle’s
scream!
You, by my charm, I invoke!...Read more of this...
by
Service, Robert William
...h November skies
An apple blossom peer;
Upon a branch as bleak as night
It gleamed exultant on my sight,
A fairy beacon burning bright
Of hope and cheer.
"Alas!" said I, "poor foolish thing,
Have you mistaken this for Spring?
Behold, the thrush has taken wing,
And Winter's near."
Serene it seemed to lift its head:
"The Winter's wrath I do not dread,
Because I am," it proudly said,
"A Pioneer.
"Some apple blossom must be first,
With beauty's urgency to burst
Into...Read more of this...
by
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...y the farmer
Sat in his elbow-chair, and watched how the flames and the smoke-wreaths
Struggled together like foes in a burning city. Behind him,
Nodding and mocking along the wall, with gestures fantastic,
Darted his own huge shadow, and vanished away into darkness.
Faces, clumsily carved in oak, on the back of his arm-chair
Laughed in the flickering light, and the pewter plates on the dresser
Caught and reflected the flame, as shields of armies the sunshine.
Fra...Read more of this...
by
Ginsberg, Allen
...terical naked,
dragging themselves through the ***** streets at dawn
looking for an angry fix,
angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly
connection to the starry dynamo in the machin-
ery of night,
who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat
up smoking in the supernatural darkness of
cold-water flats floating across the tops of cities
contemplating jazz,
who bared their brains to Heaven under the El and
saw Mohammedan angels staggering o...Read more of this...
by
Alighieri, Dante
...in me
Is gracious, that the piteous sights I see
I share not, nor myself can shrink to feel
The flame of all this burning. One there is
In height among the Holiest placed, and she
- Mercy her name - among God's mysteries
Dwells in the midst, and hath the power to see
His judgments, and to break them. This sharp
I tell thee, when she saw, she called, that so
Leaned Lucia toward her while she spake - and said,
"One that is faithful to thy name is spe...Read more of this...
by
Byron, George (Lord)
...'d
They deem'd him better than his air express'd.
VIII.
'Twas strange — in youth all action and all life,
Burning for pleasure, not averse from strife;
Woman — the field — the ocean — all that gave
Promise of gladness, peril of a grave,
In turn he tried — he ransack'd all below,
And found his recompence in joy or woe,
No tame, trite medium; for his feelings sought
In that intenseness an escape from thought:
The tempest of his heart in scorn had gazed
On ...Read more of this...
by
Wordsworth, William
...bsp;But gaze upon her Face. I told her of the Knight, that wore Upon his Shield a burning Brand; And that for ten long Years he woo'd The Lady of the Land. I told her, how he pin'd: and, ah! The low, the deep, the pleading tone, With which I sang another's Love, Interpreted my own. She lis...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...came to
release him;
The three were all torn, and cover’d with the boy’s blood.
At eleven o’clock began the burning of the bodies:
That is the tale of the murder of the four hundred and twelve young men.
35
Would you hear of an old-fashion’d sea-fight?
Would you learn who won by the light of the moon and stars?
List to the story as my grandmother’s father, the sailor, told it to me.
Our foe was no skulk in his ship, I tell you, (said he;)
H...Read more of this...
by
Chesterton, G K
...led with faces that moved like foam,
Like faces in a dream.
And men rode out of the eastern lands,
Broad river and burning plain;
Trees that are Titan flowers to see,
And tiger skies, striped horribly,
With tints of tropic rain.
Where Ind's enamelled peaks arise
Around that inmost one,
Where ancient eagles on its brink,
Vast as archangels, gather and drink
The sacrament of the sun.
And men brake out of the northern lands,
Enormous lands alone,
Where a spell is ...Read more of this...
by
Baudelaire, Charles
...lands unknown and void of breath,
Drawn by the rumour of the Dance of Death.
From Seine's cold quays to Ganges' burning stream,
The mortal troupes dance onward in a dream;
They do not see, within the opened sky,
The Angel's sinister trumpet raised on high.
In every clime and under every sun,
Death laughs at ye, mad mortals, as ye run;
And oft perfumes herself with myrrh, like ye
And mingles with your madness, irony!"...Read more of this...
by
Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...e us, and against the chapel door
Laid lance, and entered, and we knelt in prayer.
And there the hermit slaked my burning thirst,
And at the sacring of the mass I saw
The holy elements alone; but he,
"Saw ye no more? I, Galahad, saw the Grail,
The Holy Grail, descend upon the shrine:
I saw the fiery face as of a child
That smote itself into the bread, and went;
And hither am I come; and never yet
Hath what thy sister taught me first to see,
This Holy Thing, fai...Read more of this...
by
Chaucer, Geoffrey
...r to devise* *describe
The greate clamour, and the waimenting*, *lamenting
Which that the ladies made at the brenning* *burning
Of the bodies, and the great honour
That Theseus the noble conqueror
Did to the ladies, when they from him went:
But shortly for to tell is mine intent.
When that this worthy Duke, this Theseus,
Had Creon slain, and wonnen Thebes thus,
Still in the field he took all night his rest,
And did with all the country as him lest*. *pleased
To ransac...Read more of this...
by
Scott, Sir Walter
...g hound;
The crag is high, the scaur is deep,
Yet shrink not from the desperate leap:
Parched are thy burning lips and brow,
Yet by the fountain pause not now;
Herald of battle, fate, and fear,
Stretch onward in thy fleet career!
The wounded hind thou track'st not now,
Pursuest not maid through greenwood bough,
Nor priest thou now thy flying pace
With rivals in the mountain race;
But danger, death, and warrior ...Read more of this...
by
Blake, William
...Fancy
An Angel came to me and said. O pitiable foolish young man!
O horrible! O dreadful state! consider the hot burning dungeon
thou art preparing for thyself to all eternity, to which thou art
going in such career.
I said. perhaps you will be willing to shew me my eternal
lot & we will contemplate together upon it and see whether your
lot or mine is most desirable
So he took me thro' a stable & thro' a church & down into
the church vault at the end of which w...Read more of this...
by
Poe, Edgar Allan
...ack the word, "Lenore:"
Merely this and nothing more. 30
Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning,
Soon again I heard a tapping somewhat louder than before.
"Surely," said I, "surely that is something at my window lattice;
Let me see, then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore;
Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore: 35
'T is the wind and nothing more."
Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a f...Read more of this...
by
Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
...broken fingernails of dirty hands.
My people humble people who expect
Nothing."
la la
To Carthage then I came
Burning burning burning burning
O Lord Thou pluckest me out
O Lord Thou pluckest
burning
IV. DEATH BY WATER
Phlebas the Phoenician, a fortnight dead,
Forgot the cry of gulls, and the deep sea swell
And the profit and loss.
A
current under sea
Picked his bones in whispers. As he rose and fell
He passed the stages of his age and youth
Entering th...Read more of this...
by
Miller, Alice Duer
...saw my home with sudden yearning—
The small white wooden house, the grass-green door,
My father's study with the fire burning,
And books piled on the floor.
I saw the moon-faced clock that told the hours,
The crimson Turkey carpet, worn and frayed,
The heavy dishes—gold with birds and flowers—
Fruits of the China trade.
I saw the jack o' lanterns, friendly, frightening,
Shine from our gateposts every Hallow-e'en;
I saw the oak tree, shattered once by lightnin...Read more of this...
by
Akhmatova, Anna
...ed, dead man said,
Death's angel thus awaits me at deathbed.
Forgive me now. Lord teaches to forgive.
In burning agony my flesh does live,
And already the spirit gently sleeps,
A garden I recall, tender with autumn leaves
And cries of cranes, and the black fields around..
How sweet it would be with you underground!
x x x
The muse has left along narrow
And winding street,
And with large drops of dew
Were sprinkled her feet.
For lo...Read more of this...
by
Fisher, Antwone
...to sleep.
Who will cry for the little boy?
He never had for keeps.
Who will cry for the little boy?
He walked the burning sand
Who will cry for the little boy?
The boy inside the man.
Who will cry for the little boy?
Who knows well hurt and pain
Who will cry for the little boy?
He died again and again.
Who will cry for the little boy?
A good boy he tried to be
Who will cry for the little boy?
Who cries inside of me...Read more of this...
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