Famous Catacomb Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Drab Habitation of Whom?

...Drab Habitation of Whom?
Tabernacle or Tomb --
Or Dome of Worm --
Or Porch of Gnome --
Or some Elf's Catacomb?...Read more of this...
by Dickinson, Emily


Fragment

...At last I entered a long dark gallery,
Catacomb-lined; and ranged at the side
Were the bodies of men from far and wide
Who, motion past, were nevertheless not dead.

"The sense of waiting here strikes strong;
Everyone's waiting, waiting, it seems to me;
What are you waiting for so long? --
What is to happen?" I said.

"O we are waiting for one called God," said they,
"(Though by some the Will, or...Read more of this...
by Hardy, Thomas

In the Time of Tyrants

...:
Always on broken ground
The seeds fall from the mind.

Always in darkest loam
A birthday is begun;
And from its catacomb
A candle lights the sun.

...Read more of this...
by Soutar, William

The Burglar Of Babylon

...
But they cling and spread like lichen,
 And people come and come.
There's one hill called the Chicken,
 And one called Catacomb;

There's the hill of Kerosene,
 And the hill of Skeleton,
The hill of Astonishment,
 And the hill of Babylon.

Micuçú was a burglar and killer,
 An enemy of society.
He had escaped three times
 From the worst penitentiary.

They don't know how many he murdered
 (Though they say he never raped),
And he wounded two policemen
 This last time he escape...Read more of this...
by Bishop, Elizabeth

The Butterfly in honored Dust

...The Butterfly in honored Dust
Assuredly will lie
But none will pass the Catacomb
So chastened as the Fly --...Read more of this...
by Dickinson, Emily


The Closet

...in the vague perfume of her coat. 

 See how the fedoras along the shelf are the several 
skulls of my father, in this catacomb of my family....Read more of this...
by Edson, Russell

The Soudan, The Sphinxes, The Cup, The Lamp

...narchs! the clepsydra weeps. 
 Wherefore? They see through future's gloomy deeps, 
 Through the church wall, into the catacomb, 
 And mark the change when thrones do graves become. 
 
 THE FIFTH SPHINX. 
 
 To swerve the earth seemed from its wonted path 
 When marched the Four of Asia in their wrath, 
 And when they were bound slaves to Cyrus' car, 
 The rivers shrank back from their banks afar. 
 "Who can this be," was Nineveh's appeal; 
 "Who dares to drag the ...Read more of this...
by Hugo, Victor

Words For A Trumpet Chorale Celebrating The Autumn

...
 Behold, above all, how the tall ball
 Called the body is but a drum, but a bell
 Summoning the soul
 To rise from the catacomb of sleep and fear
 To the blaze and death of summer,

Rising from the lithe forms of the pure
Furs of the rising flames, slender and supple,
Which are the consummation of the blaze of fall and of all....Read more of this...
by Schwartz, Delmore

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