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Famous Cowering Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Service, Robert William
...open water, through ache of insensate cold;
Up rivers wantonly winding in a land affianced to death,
 Till he came to a cowering cabin on the banks of the Nordenscold.

Then Clancy loosed his revolver, and he strode through the open door;
 And there was the man he sought for, crouching beside the fire;
The hair of his beard was singeing, the frost on his back was hoar,
 And ever he crooned and chanted as if he never would tire:--

"I panned and I panned in the shiny sand,...Read more of this...



by Keats, John
...sluggish wheels; solemn their toothed maws,
Their surly eyes brow-hidden, heavy paws
Uplifted drowsily, and nervy tails
Cowering their tawny brushes. Silent sails
This shadowy queen athwart, and faints away
In another gloomy arch.

 Wherefore delay,
Young traveller, in such a mournful place?
Art thou wayworn, or canst not further trace
The diamond path? And does it indeed end
Abrupt in middle air? Yet earthward bend
Thy forehead, and to Jupiter cloud-borne
Call ardent...Read more of this...

by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...
"In my work you never help me! 
In the Summer you are roaming 
Idly in the fields and forests; 
In the Winter you are cowering 
O'er the firebrands in the wigwam! 
In the coldest days of Winter 
I must break the ice for fishing; 
With my nets you never help me! 
At the door my nets are hanging, 
Dripping, freezing with the water; 
Go and wring them, Yenadizze! 
Go and dry them in the sunshine!"
Slowly, from the ashes, Kwasind 
Rose, but made no angry answer; 
From the lodge...Read more of this...

by Alighieri, Dante
...which Camilla of old, the virgin brave, 
 Turnus and Nisus died in strife. His chase 
 He shall not cease, nor any cowering-place 
 Her fear shall find her, till he drive her back, 
 From city to city exiled, from wrack to wrack 
 Slain out of life, to find the native hell 
 Whence envy loosed her. 
 For thyself were
 well 
 To follow where I lead, and thou shalt see 
 The spirits in pain, and hear the hopeless woe, 
 The unending cries, of those whose only plea 
 Is...Read more of this...

by Service, Robert William
...nce know; now shall they rue the day,
For by this sacred German slain, ten of these dogs shall pay."
They drove the cowering peasants forth, women and babes and men,
And from the last, with many a jeer, the Captain chose he ten;
Ten simple peasants, bowed with toil; they stood, they knew not why,
Against the grey wall of the church, hearing their children cry;
Hearing their wives and mothers wail, with faces dazed they stood.
A moment only. . . . Ready...Read more of this...



by Milton, John
...ir element, to draw the thinner air.' 
As thus he spake, each bird and beast behold 
Approaching two and two; these cowering low 
With blandishment; each bird stooped on his wing. 
I named them, as they passed, and understood 
Their nature, with such knowledge God endued 
My sudden apprehension: But in these 
I found not what methought I wanted still; 
And to the heavenly Vision thus presumed. 
O, by what name, for thou above all these, 
Above mankind, or aught th...Read more of this...

by Lowell, Amy
...reach you sooner. Are 
you startled, Dear?"
He broke into a run and followed her, And 
caught her, faint with fear,
Cowering and trembling as though she some evil
Spirit were seeing. "What means this uncivil
Greeting, Dear Heart?" He saw her 
senses blur.

XLVII
Swaying and catching at the seat, she tried To 
speak, but only gurgled in her throat.
At last, straining to hold herself, she cried To him for pity, 
and her strange words smote
A coldness through him...Read more of this...

by Untermeyer, Louis
...r feast.
What cheers ascend from horde on ravenous horde!
One hears the towering creature rend the seas,
Frustrated, cowering, and his pleas ignored.
In vain his great, belated tears are poured—
For this he was created, kept and nursed.
Cries burst from all the millions that attend:
"Ascend, Leviathan, it is the end!
We hunger and we thirst! Ascend!" ...
Observe him first, my friend.

God's deathless plaything rolls an eye
Five hundred thousand cubits high.
The s...Read more of this...

by Shelley, Percy Bysshe
...m was hushed with fear
If it thought it heard its father near;
And my two wild boys would near my knee
Cling, cowed and cowering fearfully.

I 'll tell thee truth: I loved another.
His name in my ear was ever ringing,
His form to my brain was ever clinging;
Yet, if some stranger breathed that name,
My lips turned white, and my heart beat fast. 
My nights were once haunted by dreams of flame,
My days were dim in the shadow cast
By the memory of the same!
Day and ni...Read more of this...

by Arnold, Matthew
...ow
Firm harness'd by the mane; a chief
With shout and shaken spear,
Stands at the prow, and guides them; but astern
The cowering merchants, in long robes,
Sit pale beside their wealth
Of silk-bales and of balsam-drops,
Of gold and ivory,
Of turquoise-earth and amethyst,
Jasper and chalcedony,
And milk-barred onyx-stones.
The loaded boat swings groaning
In the yellow eddies;
The Gods behold him.
They see the Heroes
Sitting in the dark ship
On the foamless, long-heaving...Read more of this...

by Lowell, Amy
...den, 
sung
By youthful minstrels, on the moonlight flung
In cadences and falls, to ease a queen,
Widowed and childless, cowering in a screen
Of myrtles, whose life hangs with all its threads unstrung....Read more of this...

by Service, Robert William
...Artic knows.
In dreams the Lapland withes gloomed like gargoyles overhead,
While the devils three of Helsinkee came cowering by his bed.
"Go take," said they, "the yellow loot he's clinking in his belt,
And leave the sneaking wolverines to snout around his pelt.
Last night he called you Swedish scum, from out the glory-hole;
To-day he said you were a bum, and damned your mother's soul.
Go, plug with lead his scurvy head, and grab his greasy gold . . .<...Read more of this...

by Service, Robert William
...an's scream?
Was it a door that shattered, shell-like, under his blow?
Was it his saint, that strumpet, dishevelled and cowering low?
Was it her lover, that wild thing, that twisted and gouged and tore?
Was it a man he was crushing, whose head he beat on the floor?
Laughing the while at its weakness, till sudden he stayed his hand--
Through the red ring of his madness flamed the thought of the Brand.

Then bound he the naked Philo with thongs that cut in the flesh,
And th...Read more of this...

by Frost, Robert
...eness. 
Sand grains should sugar in the natal dew 
The babe born to the desert, the sand storm 
Retard mid-waste my cowering caravans-- 
"There are bees in this wall." He struck the clapboards, 
Fierce heads looked out; small bodies pivoted. 
We rose to go. Sunset blazed on the windows....Read more of this...

by Bryant, William Cullen
...br> 

Here in the quiet earth they laid apart 
No man of iron mould and bloody hands  
Who sought to wreak upon the cowering lands 
The passions that consumed his restless heart; 15 
But one of tender spirit and delicate frame  
Gentlest in mien and mind  
Of gentle womankind  
Timidly shrinking from the breath of blame: 
One in whose eyes the smile of kindness made 20 
Its haunt like flowers by sunny brooks in May  
Yet at the thought of others' pain a shade 
Of...Read more of this...

by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...ts,
Strangers seemed they in the village;
Very pale and haggard were they,
As they sat there sad and silent,
Trembling, cowering with the shadows.
Was it the wind above the smoke-flue,
Muttering down into the wigwam?
Was it the owl, the Koko-koho,
Hooting from the dismal forest?
Sure a voice said in the silence:
"These are corpses clad in garments,
These are ghosts that come to haunt you,
From the kingdom of Ponemah,
From the land of the Hereafter!"
Homeward now came Hiaw...Read more of this...

by Moore, Marianne
...few creatures who can make one
 breathe faster and make one erecter.
 Not afraid of anything is he,
 and then goes cowering forth, tread paced to meet an obstacle
at every step. Consistent with the
 formula--warm blood, no gills, two pairs of hands and a few hairs--
 that
 is a mammal; there he sits on his own habitat,
 serge-clad, strong-shod. The prey of fear, he, always
 curtailed, extinguished, thwarted by the dusk, work partly
 done,
 says to the alternating...Read more of this...

by Service, Robert William
...>
"With proper care" -- how could I give her that,
Half of me dead? . . . I crawled down to the street.
Cowering beside the wall, I held my hat
And begged of every one I chanced to meet.
I got some pennies, bought her milk and bread,
And so I fought to keep the Doom away;
And yet I saw with agony of dread
My dear one sinking, sinking day by day.
And then I was awakened in the night:
"Please take my hands, I'm cold," I heard her sigh;
And soft she whisp...Read more of this...

by Lawrence, D. H.
...iecemeal our bodies are dying 
and our strength leaves us, 
and our soul cowers naked in the dark rain over the flood, 
cowering in the last branches of the tree of our life. 

VII 

We are dying, we are dying, so all we can do 
is now to be willing to die, and to build the ship 
of death to carry the soul on the longest journey. 

A little ship, with oars and food 
and little dishes, and all accoutrements 
fitting and ready for the departing soul. 

Now launch th...Read more of this...

by Arnold, Matthew
...ess'd by the mane; a chief
189 With shout and shaken spear,
190 Stands at the prow, and guides them; but astern
191 The cowering merchants, in long robes,
192 Sit pale beside their wealth
193 Of silk-bales and of balsam-drops,
194 Of gold and ivory,
195 Of turquoise-earth and amethyst,
196 Jasper and chalcedony,
197 And milk-barred onyx-stones.
198 The loaded boat swings groaning
199 In the yellow eddies;
200 The Gods behold him. 

201 They see the Heroes
202 Sitting ...Read more of this...

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Book: Reflection on the Important Things