Famous Burst Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Easter Week

by Joyce Kilmer
 See the land, her Easter keeping, 
Rises as her Maker rose. 
Seeds, so long in darkness sleeping, 
Burst at last from winter snows. 
Earth with heaven above rejoices; 
Fields and gardens hail the spring; 
Shaughs and woodlands ring with voices, 
While the wild birds build and sing. 

You, to whom your Maker granted 
Powers to those sweet birds unknown,...Read more of this...

Three Odes To My Friend

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 THESE are the most singular of all the Poems 
of Goethe, and to many will appear so wild and fantastic, as to 
leave anything but a pleasing impression. Those at the beginning, 
addressed to his friend Behrisch, were written at the age of eighteen, 
and most of the remainder were composed while he was still quite 
young. Despite, however,...Read more of this...

Balbus

by Marriott Edgar
 I'll tell you the story of Balbus, 
You know, him as builded a wall;
I'll tell you the reason he built it, 
And the place where it happened an' all.

This 'ere Balbus, though only a Tackler, 
Were the most enterprising of men;
He'd heard Chicken Farms were lucrative, 
So he went out and purchased a hen.

'Twere a White Wyandot he called...Read more of this...

In The Beginning

by Rainer Maria Rilke
 In the beginning was the three-pointed star,
One smile of light across the empty face,
One bough of bone across the rooting air,
The substance forked that marrowed the first sun,
And, burning ciphers on the round of space,
Heaven and hell mixed as they spun.

In the beginning was the pale signature,
Three-syllabled and starry as the smile,
And after came the imprints on the water,
Stamp...Read more of this...

The Seafarer

by Ezra Pound
 (From the early Anglo-Saxon text) 

May I for my own self song's truth reckon,
Journey's jargon, how I in harsh days
Hardship endured oft.
Bitter breast-cares have I abided,
Known on my keel many a care's hold,
And dire sea-surge, and there I oft spent
Narrow nightwatch nigh the ship's head
While she tossed close to cliffs. Coldly afflicted,
My feet were by frost benumbed.
Chill its chains...Read more of this...

The sun has burst the sky

by Jenny Joseph
 The sun has burst the sky
Because I love you
And the river its banks.

The sea laps the great rocks
Because I love you
And takes no heed of the moon dragging it away
And saying coldly 'Constancy is not for you'.
The blackbird fills the air
Because I love you
With spring and lawns and shadows falling on lawns.

The people walk in the street and laugh
I...Read more of this...

The Djinns

by Victor Hugo
 ("Murs, ville et port.") 
 
 {XXVIII., Aug. 28, 1828.} 


 Town, tower, 
 Shore, deep, 
 Where lower 
 Cliff's steep; 
 Waves gray, 
 Where play 
 Winds gay, 
 All sleep. 
 
 Hark! a sound, 
 Far and slight, 
 Breathes around 
 On the night 
 High and higher, 
 Nigh and nigher, 
...Read more of this...

English In 1819

by Percy Bysshe Shelley
 An old, mad, blind, despised, and dying king,-- 
Princes, the dregs of their dull race, who 
Through public scorn,--mud from a muddy spring,-- 
Rulers who neither see, nor feel, nor know, 
But leech-like to their fainting country cling, 
Till they drop, blind in blood, without a blow,-- 
A people starved and stabbed in the untilled field,-- 
An army, which...Read more of this...

It Is A Spring Afternoon

by Anne Sexton
 Everything here is yellow and green.
Listen to its throat, its earthskin,
the bone dry voices of the peepers
as they throb like advertisements.
The small animals of the woods
are carrying their deathmasks
into a narrow winter cave.
The scarecrow has plucked out
his two eyes like diamonds
and walked into the village.
The general and the postman
have taken off their packs.
This has all happened before
but nothing here...Read more of this...

Lepanto

by G K Chesterton
 White founts falling in the Courts of the sun, 
And the Soldan of Byzantium is smiling as they run; 
There is laughter like the fountains in that face of all men feared, 
It stirs the forest darkness, the darkness of his beard; 
It curls the blood-red crescent, the crescent of his lips; 
For the inmost sea of all the...Read more of this...

Narva and Mored

by Thomas Chatterton
 Recite the loves of Narva and Mored 
The priest of Chalma's triple idol said. 
High from the ground the youthful warriors sprung, 
Loud on the concave shell the lances rung: 
In all the mystic mazes of the dance, 
The youths of Banny's burning sands advance, 
Whilst the soft virgin panting looks behind, 
And rides upon the pinions of the...Read more of this...

The Ghost of the Murderers Hut

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 My horse had been lamed in the foot 
In the rocks at the back of the run, 
So I camped at the Murderer's Hut, 
At the place where the murder was done. 

The walls were all spattered with gore, 
A terrible symbol of guilt; 
And the bloodstains were fresh on the floor 
Where the blood of the victim was...Read more of this...

The City of Dreadful Thirst

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 The stranger came from Narromine and made his little joke-- 
"They say we folks in Narromine are narrow-minded folk. 
But all the smartest men down here are puzzled to define 
A kind of new phenomenon that came to Narromine. 

"Last summer up in Narromine 'twas gettin' rather warm-- 
Two hundred in the water bag, and lookin' like a storm--...Read more of this...

Death Of A Naturalist

by Seamus Heaney
 All year the flax-dam festered in the heart
Of the townland; green and heavy headed
Flax had rotted there, weighted down by huge sods.
Daily it sweltered in the punishing sun.
Bubbles gargled delicately, bluebottles
Wove a strong gauze of sound around the smell.
There were dragon-flies, spotted butterflies,
But best of all was the warm thick slobber
Of frogspawn that grew like clotted water
In the shade...Read more of this...

Patriotism 02 Nelson Pitt Fox

by Sir Walter Scott
 TO mute and to material things
New life revolving summer brings;
The genial call dead Nature hears,
And in her glory reappears.
But oh, my Country's wintry state
What second spring shall renovate?
What powerful call shall bid arise
The buried warlike and the wise;

The mind that thought for Britain's weal,
The hand that grasp'd the victor steel?
The vernal sun new life bestows
Even on the meanest flower...Read more of this...

Failure

by Rupert Brooke
 Because God put His adamantine fate
Between my sullen heart and its desire,
I swore that I would burst the Iron Gate,
Rise up, and curse Him on His throne of fire.
Earth shuddered at my crown of blasphemy,
But Love was as a flame about my feet;
Proud up the Golden Stair I strode; and beat
Thrice on the Gate, and entered with a cry...Read more of this...

Sonnet XXXVI

by Francesco Petrarch
SONNET XXXVI. Mentre che 'l cor dagli amorosi vermi. HAD SHE NOT DIED SO EARLY, HE WOULD HAVE LEARNED TO PRAISE HER MORE WORTHILY.  While on my heart the worms consuming prey'dOf Love, and I with all his fire was caught;The steps of my fair wild one still I soughtTo trace o'er...Read more of this...

The Old Woman of Berkeley

by Robert Southey
 The Raven croak'd as she sate at her meal, 
And the Old Woman knew what he said, 
And she grew pale at the Raven's tale, 
And sicken'd and went to her bed. 

'Now fetch me my children, and fetch them with speed,' 
The Old Woman of Berkeley said, 
'The Monk my son, and my daughter the Nun, 
Bid them...Read more of this...

The Shanty On The Rise

by Henry Lawson
 When the caravans of wool-teams climbed the ranges from the West, 
On a spur among the mountains stood `The Bullock-drivers' Rest'; 
It was built of bark and saplings, and was rather rough inside, 
But 'twas good enough for bushmen in the careless days that died -- 
Just a quiet little shanty kept by `Something-in-Disguise', 
As the bushmen called the...Read more of this...

The Quality of Courage

by Stephen Vincent Benet
 Black trees against an orange sky, 
Trees that the wind shook terribly, 
Like a harsh spume along the road, 
Quavering up like withered arms, 
Writhing like streams, like twisted charms 
Of hot lead flung in snow. Below 
The iron ice stung like a goad, 
Slashing the torn shoes from my feet, 
And all the air was bitter sleet. 

And...Read more of this...

The Storm

by Katherine Mansfield
 I Ran to the forest for shelter,
Breathless, half sobbing;
I put my arms round a tree,
Pillowed my head against the rough bark.
"Protect me," I said. "I am a lost child."
But the tree showered silver drops on my face and hair.
A wind sprang up from the ends of the earth;
It lashed the forest together.
A huge green wave thundered and burst over...Read more of this...

Past Carin

by Henry Lawson
 Now up and down the siding brown 
The great black crows are flyin', 
And down below the spur, I know, 
Another `milker's' dyin'; 
The crops have withered from the ground, 
The tank's clay bed is glarin', 
But from my heart no tear nor sound, 
For I have gone past carin' -- 
Past worryin' or carin', 
Past feelin' aught or...Read more of this...

Group From Tartarus

by Friedrich von Schiller
 Hark! like the sea in wrath the heavens assailing,
Or like a brook through rocky basin wailing,
Comes from below, in groaning agony,
A heavy, vacant torment-breathing sigh!
Their faces marks of bitter torture wear,
While from their lips burst curses of despair;
Their eyes are hollow, and full of woe,
And their looks with heartfelt anguish
Seek Cocytus' stream that runs wailing below,
For the bridge o'er...Read more of this...

The Gardens

by Emile Verhaeren
The landscape now reveals a change;
A stair—that twinèd elm-boughs hold
Enclosed 'mid hedges mystic, strange—
Inaugurates a green and gold
Vision of gardens, range on range.


Each step's a hope, that doth ascend
Stairwise to expectation's height;
A weary way it is to wend
While noonday suns are burning bright.
But rest waits at the evening's end.


Streams, that wash white from sin, flow deep,
And round about the fresh...Read more of this...

For M.W

by Jean Toomer
 There is no transcience of twilight in
 The beauty of your soft dusk-dimpled face,
 No flicker of a slender flame in space,
In crucibles, fragility crystalline.
There is no fragrance of the jessamine
 About you, no pathos of some old place
 At dusk, that crumbles like moth-eaten lace
Beneath the touch. Nor has there ever been.

Your love is like the folk-song's flaming...Read more of this...

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