Famous Coldly Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Chorus of Eden Spirits

by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
 HEARKEN, oh hearken! let your souls behind you 
Turn, gently moved! 
Our voices feel along the Dread to find you, 
O lost, beloved! 
Through the thick-shielded and strong-marshalled angels, 
They press and pierce: 
Our requiems follow fast on our evangels,— 
Voice throbs in verse. 
We are but orphaned spirits left in Eden 
A time ago: 
God gave us golden...Read more of this...

The Barrier

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
 The Midnight wooed the Morning Star, 
And prayed her: "Love come nearer; 
Your swinging coldly there afar 
To me but makes you dearer."

The Morning Star was pale with dole 
As said she, low replying: 
"Oh, lover mine, soul of my soul, 
For you I too am sighing."

"But One ordained when we were born, 
In spite of love's insistence, 
That...Read more of this...

The Lost Battle

by Victor Hugo
 ("Allah! qui me rendra-") 
 
 {XVI., May, 1828.} 


 Oh, Allah! who will give me back my terrible array? 
 My emirs and my cavalry that shook the earth to-day; 
 My tent, my wide-extending camp, all dazzling to the sight, 
 Whose watchfires, kindled numberless beneath the brow of night, 
 Seemed oft unto the sentinel that...Read more of this...

Living In Sin

by Adrienne Rich
 She had thought the studio would keep itself;
no dust upon the furniture of love.
Half heresy, to wish the taps less vocal,
the panes relieved of grime. A plate of pears,
a piano with a Persian shawl, a cat
stalking the picturesque amusing mouse
had risen at his urging.
Not that at five each separate stair would writhe
under the milkman's tramp; that morning light
so coldly...Read more of this...

The Alien Boy

by Mary Darby Robinson
 'Twas on a Mountain, near the Western Main
An ALIEN dwelt. A solitary Hut
Built on a jutting crag, o'erhung with weeds,
Mark'd the poor Exile's home. Full ten long years
The melancholy wretch had liv'd unseen
By all, save HENRY, a lov'd, little Son
The partner of his sorrows. On the day
When Persecution, in the sainted guise
Of Liberty, spread wide its venom'd pow'r,
The brave,...Read more of this...

July Fourth By The Ocean

by Robinson Jeffers
 The continent's a tamed ox, with all its mountains,
Powerful and servile; here is for plowland, here is
 for park and playground, this helpless
Cataract for power; it lies behind us at heel
All docile between this ocean and the other. If
 flood troubles the lowlands, or earthquake
Cracks walls, it is only a slave's blunder or the
 natural
Shudder of a new made...Read more of this...

Mesopotamia

by Rudyard Kipling
  1917

They shall not return to us, the resolute, the young,
 The eager and whole-hearted whom we gave:
But the men who left them thriftily to die in their own dung,
 Shall they come with years and honour to the grave?

They shall not return to us; the strong men coldly slain
 In sight of help denied from day to day:
But...Read more of this...

Sonnet XXXV: What Means the Mist

by Mary Darby Robinson
 What means the mist opaque that veils these eyes;
Why does yon threat'ning tempest shroud the day?
Why does thy altar, Venus, fade away,
And on my breast the dews of horror rise?
Phaon is false! be dim ye orient Skies;
And let black Erebus succeed your ray;
Let clashing thunders roll, and lightning play;
Phaon is false! and hopeless Sappho dies!
"Farewell! my Lesbian love, you...Read more of this...

The Despot

by Edith Nesbit
 1 The garden mould was damp and chill,
2 Winter had had his brutal will
3 Since over all the year's content
4 His devastating legions went. 

5 Then Spring's bright banners came: there woke
6 Millions of little growing folk
7 Who thrilled to know the winter done,
8 Gave thanks, and strove towards the sun. 

9 Not so the elect; reserved, and slow
10...Read more of this...

Love and Folly

by William Cullen Bryant
 Love's worshippers alone can know
The thousand mysteries that are his;
His blazing torch, his twanging bow,
His blooming age are mysteries.
A charming science--but the day
Were all too short to con it o'er;
So take of me this little lay,
A sample of its boundless lore.

As once, beneath the fragrant shade
Of myrtles breathing heaven's own air,
The children, Love and Folly, played--
A quarrel rose betwixt...Read more of this...

The Forsaken Merman

by Matthew Arnold
 Come, dear children, let us away;
Down and away below!
Now my brothers call from the bay,
Now the great winds shoreward blow,
Now the salt tides seaward flow;
Now the wild white horses play,
Champ and chafe and toss in the spray.
Children dear, let us away!
This way, this way!

Call her once before you go— 
Call once yet!
In a voice that she will know:
'Margaret! Margaret!'
Children's...Read more of this...

A Ripple Song

by Rudyard Kipling
 Once red ripple came to land
 In the golden sunset burning--
 Lapped against a maiden's hand,
 By the ford returning.

 Dainty foot and gentle breast--
 Here, across, be glad and rest.
 "Maiden, wait," the ripplee saith;
 "Wait awhile, for I am Death!"

 "Where my lover calls I go--
 Shame it were to treat him coldly--
 'Twas a fish that...Read more of this...

Asking For Roses

by Robert Frost
 A house that lacks, seemingly, mistress and master,
With doors that none but the wind ever closes,
Its floor all littered with glass and with plaster;
It stands in a garden of old-fashioned roses.

I pass by that way in the gloaming with Mary;
'I wonder,' I say, 'who the owner of those is.'
'Oh, no one you know,' she answers me airy,
'But one we...Read more of this...

Five Bells

by Kenneth Slessor
 Time that is moved by little fidget wheels 
Is not my time, the flood that does not flow. 
Between the double and the single bell 
Of a ship's hour, between a round of bells 
From the dark warship riding there below, 
I have lived many lives, and this one life 
Of Joe, long dead, who lives between five bells....Read more of this...

Discordants

by Conrad Aiken
 I. (Bread and Music)

Music I heard with you was more than music, 
And bread I broke with you was more than bread; 
Now that I am without you, all is desolate; 
All that was once so beautiful is dead. 

Your hands once touched this table and this silver, 
And I have seen your fingers hold this glass. 
These things...Read more of this...

Blindmans Buff

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 OH, my Theresa dear!
Thine eyes, I greatly fear,

Can through the bandage see!
Although thine eyes are bound,
By thee I'm quickly found,

And wherefore shouldst thou catch but me?

Ere long thou held'st me fast,
With arms around me cast,

Upon thy breast I fell;
Scarce was thy bandage gone,
When all my joy was flown,

Thou coldly didst the blind repel.

He groped on ev'ry side,
His limbs he...Read more of this...

The Night is Darkening Around Me

by Emily Brontë
 The night is darkening round me,
The wild winds coldly blow ;
But a tyrant spell has bound me,
And I cannot, cannot go. 

The giant trees are bending
Their bare boughs weighed with snow ;
The storm is fast descending,
And yet I cannot go. 

Clouds beyond clouds above me,
Wastes beyond wastes below ;
But nothing drear can move me :
I will not, cannot go....Read more of this...

The Outlaws

by Rudyard Kipling
 Through learned and laborious years
 They set themselves to find
Fresh terrors and undreamed-of fears
 To heap upon mankind.

ALl that they drew from Heaven above
 Or digged from earth beneath,
They laid into their treasure-trove
 And arsenals of death:

While, for well-weighed advantage sake,
 Ruler and ruled alike
Built up the faith they meant to break
 When the fit hour should strike.

They traded...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...

She is Far From the Land

by Thomas Moore
 She is far from the land where her young hero sleeps, 
And lovers are round her, sighing; 
But coldly she turns from their gaze, and weeps, 
For her heart in his grave is lying. 

She sings the wild song of her dear native plains, 
Every note which he loved awaking; -- 
Ah! little they think, who delight in her...Read more of this...

The Cool Web

by Robert Graves
 Children are dumb to say how hot the day is,
How hot the scent is of the summer rose,
How dreadful the black wastes of evening sky,
How dreadful the tall soldiers drumming by.

But we have speech, to chill the angry day,
And speech, to dull the rose's cruel scent.
We spell away the overhanging night,
We spell away the soldiers and the fright.

There's a...Read more of this...

The Granny Grey a Love Tale

by Mary Darby Robinson
 DAME DOWSON, was a granny grey,
Who, three score years and ten,
Had pass'd her busy hours away,
In talking of the Men !
They were her theme, at home, abroad,
At wake, and by the winter fire,
Whether it froze, or blew, or thaw'd,
In sunshine or in shade, her ire
Was never calm'd; for still she made
Scandal her pleasure--and her trade!

A Grand-daughter DAME DOWSON had--
As...Read more of this...

The Ballade Of The Mistletoe Bough

by Ellis Parker Butler
 I am standing under the mistletoe,
 And I smile, but no answering smile replies
For her haughty glance bids me plainly know
 That not for me is the thing I prize;
Instead, from her coldly scornful eyes,
 Indifference looks on my barefaced guile;
She knows, of course, what my act implies—
 But look at those lips! Do they hint a smile?

I stand...Read more of this...

The House Of Dust: Part 04: 05: The Bitter Love-Song

by Conrad Aiken
 No, I shall not say why it is that I love you—
Why do you ask me, save for vanity?
Surely you would not have me, like a mirror,
Say 'yes,—your hair curls darkly back from the temples,
Your mouth has a humorous, tremulous, half-shy sweetness,
Your eyes are April grey. . . .with jonquils in them?'
No, if I tell at all, I shall...Read more of this...

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