Famous Consuming Poems by Famous Poets

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

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The Iliad: Book VI (excerpt)

by Alexander Pope
 He said, and pass'd with sad presaging heart
To seek his spouse, his soul's far dearer part;
At home he sought her, but he sought in vain:
She, with one maid of all her menial train,
Had thence retir'd; and, with her second joy,
The young Astyanax, the hope of Troy,
Pensive she stood on Ilion's tow'ry height,
Beheld the war, and sicken'd at the sight;
There...Read more of this...

The Creation I

by Kahlil Gibran
 The God separated a spirit from Himself and fashioned it into Beauty. He showered upon her all the blessings of gracefulness and kindness. He gave her the cup of happiness and said, "Drink not from this cup unless you forget the past and the future, for happiness is naught but the moment." And He also gave her a cup...Read more of this...

John Brown

by Edwin Arlington Robinson
 Though for your sake I would not have you now 
So near to me tonight as now you are, 
God knows how much a stranger to my heart 
Was any cold word that I may have written; 
And you, poor woman that I made my wife,
You have had more of loneliness, I fear, 
Than I—though I have been the...Read more of this...

Morning Midday And Evening Sacrifice

by Gerard Manley Hopkins
 The dappled die-away
Cheek and wimpled lip,
The gold-wisp, the airy-grey
Eye, all in fellowship—
This, all this beauty blooming,
This, all this freshness fuming,
Give God while worth consuming. 

Both thought and thew now bolder
And told by Nature: Tower;
Head, heart, hand, heel, and shoulder
That beat and breathe in power—
This pride of prime's enjoyment
Take as for tool, not toy meant
And hold at Christ's employment. 

The...Read more of this...

Sonnet FOUND IN LAURA'S TOMB

by Francesco Petrarch
[Pg 406] SONNET FOUND IN LAURA'S TOMB. Qui reposan quei caste e felice ossa.  Here peaceful sleeps the chaste, the happy shadeOf that pure spirit, which adorn'd this earth:Pure fame, true beauty, and transcendent worth,Rude stone! beneath thy rugged breast are laid.Death sudden snatch'd the dear lamented maid!Read more of this...

Milton: But in the Wine-presses the Human Grapes Sing not nor Dance

by William Blake
 But in the Wine-presses the human grapes sing not nor dance: 
They howl and writhe in shoals of torment, in fierce flames consuming,
In chains of iron and in dungeons circled with ceaseless fires,
In pits and dens and shades of death, in shapes of torment and woe:
The plates and screws and racks and saws and cords and fires and cisterns
The...Read more of this...

Mare Rubrum

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
In Life's Red Sea with faith I plant my feet,
[Pg 111]And wait the sound of that sustaining word
Which long ago the men of Israel heard,
When Pharaoh's host behind them, fierce and fleet,
Raged on, consuming with revengeful heat.
Why are the barrier waters still unstirred?—
That struggling faith may die of hope deferred?
Is God not sitting in His ancient seat?
The billows...Read more of this...

A Summer Night

by George William Russell
 HER mist of primroses within her breast
Twilight hath folded up, and o’er the west,
Seeking remoter valleys long hath gone,
Not yet hath come her sister of the dawn.
Silence and coolness now the earth enfold,
Jewels of glittering green, long mists of gold,
Hazes of nebulous silver veil the height,
And shake in tremors through the shadowy night.
Heard through the stillness, as in whispered...Read more of this...

To Ireland In The Coming Times

by William Butler Yeats
 Know, that I would accounted be
True brother of a company
That sang, to sweeten Ireland's wrong,
Ballad and story, rann and song;
Nor be I any less of them,
Because the red-rose-bordered hem
Of her, whose history began
Before God made the angelic clan,
Trails all about the written page.
When Time began to rant and rage
The measure of her flying feet
Made Ireland's heart hegin to beat;
And...Read more of this...

Affliction

by George Herbert
 When thou didst entice to thee my heart, 
I thought the service brave: 
So many joys I writ down for my part, 
Besides what I might have
Out of my stock of natural delights, 
Augmented with thy gracious benefits.

I looked on thy furniture so fine, 
And made it fine to me: 
Thy glorious household-stuff did me entwine, 
And 'tice me...Read more of this...

The Wizard in the Street

by Vachel Lindsay
 [Concerning Edgar Allan Poe]


Who now will praise the Wizard in the street 
With loyal songs, with humors grave and sweet — 
This Jingle-man, of strolling players born, 
Whom holy folk have hurried by in scorn, 
This threadbare jester, neither wise nor good, 
With melancholy bells upon his hood? 

The hurrying great ones scorn his Raven's croak, 
And well may...Read more of this...

Song of Diego Valdez

by Rudyard Kipling
 The God of Fair Beginnings
 Hath prospered here my hand --
The cargoes of my lading,
 And the keels of my command.
For out of many ventures
 That sailed with hope as high,
My own have made the better trade,
 And Admiral am I.

To me my King's much honour,
 To me my people's love --
To me the pride of Princes
 And power...Read more of this...

Enigma

by Thomas Moore
 Some men are born to gather women's tears,
To give a harbour to their timorous fears,
To take them as the dry earth takes the rain,
As the dark wood the warm wind from the plain;
Yet their own tears remain unshed,
Their own tumultuous fears unsaid,
And, seeming steadfast as the forest and the earth
Shaken are they with pain.
They cry for voice as earth...Read more of this...

Hymn 42

by Isaac Watts
 Divine wrath and mercy.

Nah. 1:1-3; Heb. 12:29. 

Adore and tremble, for our God
Is a consuming fire!
His jealous eyes his wrath inflame,
And raise his vengeance higher.

Almighty vengeance, how it burns!
How bright his fury glows!
Vast magazines of plagues and storms
Lie treasured for his foes.

Those heaps of wrath, by slow degrees,
Are forced into a flame;
But kindled, oh! how fierce they blaze!
And rend...Read more of this...

Veni Creator

by Bliss Carman
 I

LORD of the grass and hill, 
Lord of the rain, 
White Overlord of will, 
Master of pain, 

I who am dust and air 
Blown through the halls of death, 
Like a pale ghost of prayer,— 
I am thy breath. 

Lord of the blade and leaf, 
Lord of the bloom, 
Sheer Overlord of grief, 
Master of doom, 

Lonely as wind...Read more of this...

Song of the Future

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 'Tis strange that in a land so strong 
So strong and bold in mighty youth, 
We have no poet's voice of truth 
To sing for us a wondrous song. 
Our chiefest singer yet has sung 
In wild, sweet notes a passing strain, 
All carelessly and sadly flung 
To that dull world he thought so vain. 

"I care for nothing,...Read more of this...

The Palace and the Hut XXIX

by Kahlil Gibran
 Part One


As night fell and the light glittered in the great house, the servants stood at the massive door awaiting the coming of the guests; and upon their velvet garments shown golden buttons. 

The magnificent carriages drew into the palace park and the nobles entered, dressed in gorgeous raiment and decorated with jewels. The instruments filled the air with...Read more of this...

Upon the Priory Grove His Usual Retirement

by Henry Vaughan
 Hail sacred shades! cool, leavy House! 
Chaste treasurer of all my vows, 
And wealth! on whose soft bosom laid 
My love's fair steps I first betrayed: 
Henceforth no melancholy flight, 
No sad wing, or hoarse bird of night, 
Disturb this air, no fatal throat 
Of raven, or owl, awake the note 
Of our laid echo, no voice dwell 
Within...Read more of this...

Lord of my Hearts Elation

by Bliss Carman
 Lord of my heart's elation,
Spirit of things unseen,
Be thou my aspiration
Consuming and serene!
Bear up, bear out, bear onward
This mortal soul alone,
To selfhood or oblivion,
Incredibly thine own,—
As the foamheads are loosened
And blown along the sea,
Or sink and merge forever
In that which bids them be.

I, too, must climb in wonder,
Uplift at thy command,—
Be one with my frail fellows
Beneath the wind's strong...Read more of this...

To Music To Becalm His Fever

by Robert Herrick
 Charm me asleep, and melt me so
With thy delicious numbers;
That being ravish'd, hence I go
Away in easy slumbers.
Ease my sick head,
And make my bed,
Thou Power that canst sever
From me this ill;--
And quickly still,
Though thou not kill
My fever.

Thou sweetly canst convert the same
From a consuming fire,
Into a gentle-licking flame,
And make it thus expire.
Then make me weep
My pains asleep,
And give me...Read more of this...

The Song of the Pilgrims

by Rupert Brooke
 (Halted around the fire by night, after moon-set, they sing this beneath the trees.)

What light of unremembered skies
Hast thou relumed within our eyes,
Thou whom we seek, whom we shall find? . . .
A certain odour on the wind,
Thy hidden face beyond the west,
These things have called us; on a quest
Older than any road we trod,
More endless than desire. ....Read more of this...

The Flaming Circle

by Louis Untermeyer
Though for fifteen years you have chaffed me across the table,
Slept in my arms and fingered my plunging heart,
I scarcely know you; we have not known each other.
For all the fierce and casual contacts, something keeps us apart.
Are you struggling, perhaps, in a world that I see only dimly,
Except as it sweeps toward the star on which I stand alone?
Are...Read more of this...

Black Stone On Top Of Nothing

by Philip Levine
 Still sober, César Vallejo comes home and finds a black ribbon 
around the apartment building covering the front door. 
He puts down his cane, removes his greasy fedora, and begins 
to untangle the mess. His neighbors line up behind him 
wondering what's going on. A middle-aged woman carrying 
a loaf of fresh bread asks him to step aside so...Read more of this...

The General Public

by Stephen Vincent Benet
 "Ah, did you once see Shelley plain?" -- Browning. 
"Shelley? Oh, yes, I saw him often then," 
The old man said. A dry smile creased his face 
With many wrinkles. "That's a great poem, now! 
That one of Browning's! Shelley? Shelley plain? 
The time that I remember best is this -- 

A thin mire crept along the rutted ways,...Read more of this...

Felixstowe or The Last of Her Order

by John Betjeman
 With one consuming roar along the shingle
The long wave claws and rakes the pebbles down
To where its backwash and the next wave mingle,
A mounting arch of water weedy-brown
Against the tide the off-shore breezes blow.
Oh wind and water, this is Felixstowe.

In winter when the sea winds chill and shriller
Than those of summer, all their cold unload
Full on the gimcrack attic...Read more of this...

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