Famous Croaking Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Autobiography

...o take to the road under diving planes
but I fell in love at almost sixty
in short comrades
even if today in Berlin I'm croaking of grief
 I can say I've lived like a human being
and who knows
 how much longer I'll live
 what else will happen to me


 This autobiography was written 
 in east Berlin on 11 September 1961...Read more of this...
by Hikmet, Nazim


Blessing The Cornfields

...pledge of good behavior!"
And he left him, grim and sulky,
Sitting in the morning sunshine
On the summit of the wigwam,
Croaking fiercely his displeasure,
Flapping his great sable pinions,
Vainly struggling for his freedom,
Vainly calling on his people!
Summer passed, and Shawondasee
Breathed his sighs o'er all the landscape,
From the South-land sent his ardor,
Wafted kisses warm and tender;
And the maize-field grew and ripened,
Till it stood in all the splendor
Of its garmen...Read more of this...
by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth

Charmides

...'Awake, already the pale moon
Washes the trees with silver, and the wave
Creeps grey and chilly up this sandy dune,
The croaking frogs are out, and from the cave
The nightjar shrieks, the fluttering bats repass,
And the brown stoat with hollow flanks creeps through the dusky
grass.

Nay, though thou art a god, be not so coy,
For in yon stream there is a little reed
That often whispers how a lovely boy
Lay with her once upon a grassy mead,
Who when his cruel pleasure he had do...Read more of this...
by Wilde, Oscar

Death Of A Naturalist

...en fields were rank
With cowdung in the grass the angry frogs
Invaded the flax-dam; I ducked through hedges
To a coarse croaking that I had not heard
Before. The air was thick with a bass chorus.
Right down the dam gross-bellied frogs were cocked
On sods; their loose necks pulsed like sails. Some hopped:
The slap and plop were obscene threats. Some sat
Poised like mud grenades, their blunt heads farting.
I sickened, turned, and ran. The great slime kings
Were gathered there f...Read more of this...
by Heaney, Seamus

Golfre Gothic Swiss Tale

...earl, most rich and rare!
Fix'd to a zone of amber.

And now the lowly Hovel shook,
The wicket open flying,
And by, the croaking RAVEN flew
And, whistling shrill, the night-blast blew
Like shrieks, that mark the dying!

But suddenly the tumult ceas'd--
And silence, still more fearful,
Around the little chamber spread
Such horrors as attend the dead,
Where no Sun glitters chearful!

"Now JESU HEAR ME!" GOLFRE cried,
"HEAR ME," a faint voice mutter'd!
The BARON drew his poniard...Read more of this...
by Robinson, Mary Darby


Lilys Menagerie

...hat a cackling, what a shrieking,

When near the door she takes her stand,

With her food-basket in her hand!
Oh what a croaking, what a squeaking!
Alive all the trees and the bushes appear,
While to her feet whole troops draw near;
The very fish within, the water clear
Splash with impatience and their heads protrude;
And then she throws around the food
With such a look!--the very gods delighting
(To say nought of beasts). There begins, then, a biting,
A picking, a pecking, a...Read more of this...
by von Goethe, Johann Wolfgang

Listening to the moon

...Listening to the moon,
gazing at the croaking of frogs
in a field of ripe rice....Read more of this...
by Buson, Yosa

Part 5 of Trout Fishing in America

...the collar of his

shirt. Deep water flowed through the lilies that were entwined

about his shoelaces. A bullfrog kept croaking in his watch

pocket and the air was filled with the sweet smell of ripe

blackberry bushes.

 He wore trout fishing in America as a costume to hide

his own appearance from the world while he performed his

deeds of murder in the night.

Who would have expected?

 Nobody !

 Scotland Yard?

 (Pouf !)

 They were always a hundred miles away, wearing...Read more of this...
by Brautigan, Richard

Sing of the Banner at Day-Break

...more with tender lip, nor musical labial sound, 
But, out of the night emerging for good, our voice persuasive no more,
Croaking like crows here in the wind. 

POET.(Finale.)
My limbs, my veins dilate; 
The blood of the world has fill’d me full—my theme is clear at last: 
—Banner so broad, advancing out of the night, I sing you haughty and resolute; 
I burst through where I waited long, too long, deafen’d and blinded;
My sight, my hearing and tongue, are come to me, (a little...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt

The Black Birds

...ing light among the tree-tops pale, 
I saw the sable birds on every limb, 
Clinging together closely in the shade, 
And croaking placidly their surly hymn. 
But, oh, the little land of peace and love
That those night-loving wings had poised above, --
Where was it gone?
Lost, lost forevermore!
Only a cottage, dull and gray,
In the cold light of dawn,
With iron bars across the door:
Only a garden where the withering heads 
Of flowers, presaging decay, 
Hung over barren beds: 
O...Read more of this...
by Dyke, Henry Van

The Caterpillar

...spray, 
I nibble it leaf by leaf away. 

Down beneath grow dandelions,
Daisies, old-man’s-looking-glasses; 
Rooks flap croaking across the lane. 
I eat and swallow and eat again. 

Here come raindrops helter-skelter; 
I munch and nibble unregarding:
Hawthorn leaves are juicy and firm. 
I’ll mind my business: I’m a good worm. 

When I’m old, tired, melancholy, 
I’ll build a leaf-green mausoleum 
Close by, here on this lovely spray,
And die and dream the ages away. 

Some say ...Read more of this...
by Graves, Robert

The City Bushman

...ter trickled gently down your back 
Till your saddle-weary backbone fell a-aching to the roots 
And you almost felt the croaking of the bull-frog in your boots -- 
Sit and shiver in the saddle, curse the restless stock and cough 
Till a squatter's irate dummy cantered up to warn you off? 
Did you fight the drought and pleuro when the `seasons' were asleep, 
Felling sheoaks all the morning for a flock of starving sheep, 
Drinking mud instead of water -- climbing trees and lopp...Read more of this...
by Lawson, Henry

The Hammers

...re from the forge
You can see the Sergeant, with swollen gorge,
Puffing, and gurgling, and choking;
The bellows keep on croaking.
They wheeze,
And sneeze,
Creak! Bang! Squeeze!
And the hammer strokes fall like buzzing bees
Or pattering rain,
Or faster than these,
Like the hum of a waterfall struck by a breeze.
Clank! from the bellows-chain pulled up and down.
Clank!
And sunshine twinkles on Victorine's flank,
Starting it to blue,
Dropping it to black.
Clack! Clack!
Tap-a-tap!...Read more of this...
by Lowell, Amy

The Man Who Raised Charlestown

...nd sent them here and there, 
The arms and ammunition were gathered in the square; 
While peaceful folk were praying or croaking, every one, 
He was working with his blacksmiths at the carriage of a gun. 

While the Council sat on Sunday, and the church bells rang their peal, 
The quiet man was mending a broken waggon wheel; 
While they passed their resolutions on his doings (and the likes), 
From a pile his men brought to him he was choosing poles for pikes. 

(They were han...Read more of this...
by Lawson, Henry

The peter-bird

...hanged all those folk into birds and shrieked with demoniac venom:
"Fly away over the land, moaning your Peter forever,
Croaking of Peter, the boy who didn't believe there were hoodoos,
Crooning of Peter, the fool who scouted at stories of witches,
Crying of Peter for aye, forever outcalling for Peter!"

This is the story they tell; so in good sooth saith the legend;
As I have told it to you, so tell the folk and the legend.
That it is true I believe, for on the breezes this ...Read more of this...
by Field, Eugene

The Raven

...at this ominous bird of yore—
What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore
            Meant in croaking “Nevermore.”

    This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing
To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom’s core;
    This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining
    On the cushion’s velvet lining that the lamp-light gloated o’er,
But whose velvet-violet lining with the lamp-light gloating o’er,
     ...Read more of this...
by Poe, Edgar Allan

The Seas Wash In The Hollow Of The Heart..

...rn from that road's beguiling ease; return
to your hunger's turret. Enter, climb the stair
chill with disuse, where the croaking toad of time
regards from shimmering eyes your slow ascent
and the drip, drip, of darkness glimmers on the stone
to show you how your longing waits alone.
What alchemy shines from under that shut door,
spinning out gold from the hollow of the heart?

Enter the turret of your love, and lie
close in the arms of the sea; let in new suns
that beat and e...Read more of this...
by Levertov, Denise

The Soudan, The Sphinxes, The Cup, The Lamp

..., turning pale, stared at the TEN aghast. 
 "Before to-morrow's night," he said, "in dust to rest, 
 These walls with croaking images shall be downcast; 
 I will not have fiends speak when angels are addressed." 
 But while Zim at the Sphinxes clenched his hand and shook, 
 The cup in which it seems the rich wine sweetly breathes, 
 The cup with jewels sparkling, met his lowered look, 
 Dwelling on the rim which the rippling wine enwreathes. 
 "Ha! You!" Zim cried, "h...Read more of this...
by Hugo, Victor

To Ladies Of A Certain Age

...e,
By malice tuned, with venom hung,
That blast of virtue and of fame,
That herald to the court of shame;
Less dire the croaking raven's throat,
Though death's dire omens swell the note.


Contented tread the vale of years,
Devoid of malice, guilt and fears;
Let soft good humour, mildly gay,
Gild the calm evening of your day,
And virtue, cheerful and serene,
In every word and act be seen.
Virtue alone with lasting grace,
Embalms the beauties of the face,
Instructs the speakin...Read more of this...
by Trumbull, John

Warble for Lilac-Time

...t berries; 
Gather the welcome signs, (as children, with pebbles, or stringing shells;) 
Put in April and May—the hylas croaking in the ponds—the elastic air,
Bees, butterflies, the sparrow with its simple notes, 
Blue-bird, and darting swallow—nor forget the high-hole flashing his golden wings, 
The tranquil sunny haze, the clinging smoke, the vapor, 
Spiritual, airy insects, humming on gossamer wings, 
Shimmer of waters, with fish in them—the cerulean above;
All that is joc...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt

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