Famous Cruelty Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Cruelty poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous cruelty poems. These examples illustrate what a famous cruelty poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
D. H. Lawrence
What large, dark hands are those at the window
Lifted, grasping in the yellow light
Which makes its way through the curtain web
At my heart to-night?
Ah, only the leaves! So leave me at rest,
In the west I see a redness come
Over the evening's burning breast --
For now the pain is numb.
The woodbine creeps...Read more of this...
by
Francesco Petrarch
[Pg 124] CANZONE XVI. Italia mia, benchè 'l parlar sia indarno. TO THE PRINCES OF ITALY, EXHORTING THEM TO SET HER FREE. O my own Italy! though words are vainThe mortal wounds to close,Unnumber'd, that thy beauteous bosom stain,Yet may it soothe my painTo sigh forth Tyber's woes,Read more of this...
by
Elinor Wylie
My locks are shorn for sorrow
Of love which may not be;
Tomorrow and tomorrow
Are plotting cruelty.
The winter wind tangles
These ringlets half-grown,
The sun sprays with spangles
And rays like his own.
Oh, quieter and colder
Is the stream; he will wait;
When my curls touch my shoulder
He will comb them straight....Read more of this...
by
Francesco Petrarch
[Pg 60] BALLATA IV. Perchè quel che mi trasse ad amar prima. HE WILL ALWAYS LOVE HER, THOUGH DENIED THE SIGHT OF HER. Though cruelty denies my viewThose charms which led me first to love;To passion yet will I be true,Nor shall my will rebellious prove.Amid the curls...Read more of this...
by
Sir Philip Sidney
WITH how sad steps, O moon, thou climb'st the skies!
How silently, and with how wan a face!
What! may it be that even in heavenly place
That busy archer his sharp arrows tries?
Sure, if that long-with-love-acquainted eyes
Can judge of love, thou feel'st a lover's case:
I read it in thy looks; thy languish'd grace
To me,...Read more of this...
by
Hayden Carruth
Just over the horizon a great machine of death is roaring and
rearing.
One can hear it always. Earthquake, starvation, the ever-
renewing field of corpse-flesh.
In this valley the snow falls silently all day and out our window
We see the curtain of it shifting and folding, hiding us away in
our little house,
We see earth smoothened and beautified, made like...Read more of this...
by
Edmund Spenser
LEaue lady, in your glasse of christall clene,
Your goodly selfe for euermore to vew:
and in my selfe, my inward selfe I meane,
most liuely lyke behold your semblant trew.
Within my hart, though hardly it can shew,
thing so diuine to vew of earthly eye:
the fayre Idea of your celestiall hew,
and euery part remaines immortally:
And were it not that through your cruelty,
with...Read more of this...
by
Ellis Parker Butler
The cruelty of P. L. Brown—
(He had ten toes as good as mine)
Was known to every one in town,
And, if he never harmed a noun,
He loved to make verbs shriek and whine.
The “To be” family’s just complaints—
(Brown had ten toes as good as mine)
Made Brown cast off the last restraints:
He smashed the “Is nots” into “Ain’ts”
And kicked both mood...Read more of this...
by
Edmund Spenser
HOw long shall this lyke dying lyfe endure,
And know no end of her owne mysery:
but wast and weare away in termes vnsure,
twixt feare and hope depending doubtfully.
Yet better were attonce to let me die,
and shew the last ensample of your pride:
then to torment me thus with cruelty,
to proue your powre, which I too wel haue tride.
But yet if in...Read more of this...
by
May Swenson
The binocular owl,
fastened to a limb
like a lantern
all night long,
sees where all
the other birds sleep:
towhee under leaves,
titmouse deep
in a twighouse,
sapsucker gripped
to a knothole lip,
redwing in the reeds,
swallow in the willow,
flicker in the oak -
but cannot see poor
whippoorwill
under the hill
in deadbrush nest,
who's awake, too -
with stricken eye
flayed by the moon
her brindled breast
repeats, repeats, repeats its plea
for cruelty....Read more of this...
by
Edmund Spenser
THe loue which me so cruelly tormenteth,
So pleasing is in my extreamest paine:
that all the more my sorrow it augmenteth,
the more I loue and doe embrace my bane.
Ne doe I wish (for wishing were but vaine)
to be acquit fro my continuall smart:
but ioy her thrall for euer to remayne,
and yield for pledge my poore captyued hart
The which that it...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
It's not for laws I've broken
That bitter tears I've wept,
But solemn vows I've spoken
And promises unkept;
It's not for sins committed
My heart is full of rue,
but gentle acts omitted,
Kind deeds I did not do.
I have outlived the blindness,
The selfishness of youth;
The canker of unkindness,
The cruelty of truth;
The searing hurt of rudeness . . .
By mercies great and small,
I've come to...Read more of this...
by
Andrew Marvell
Oblig'd by frequent visits of this man,
Whom as Priest, Poet, and Musician,
I for some branch of Melchizedeck took,
(Though he derives himself from my Lord Brooke)
I sought his Lodging; which is at the Sign
Of the sad Pelican; Subject divine
For Poetry: There three Stair Cases high,
Which signifies his triple property,
I found at last a Chamber, as 'twas said,
But seem'd a Coffin...Read more of this...
by
Andrew Marvell
Daphnis must from Chloe part:
Now is come the dismal Hour
That must all his Hopes devour,
All his Labour, all his Art.
Nature, her own Sexes foe,
Long had taught her to be coy:
But she neither knew t' enjoy,
Nor yet let her Lover go.
But, with this sad News surpriz'd,
Soon she let that Niceness fall;
And would gladly yield to all,
So it had his stay...Read more of this...
by
D. H. Lawrence
What large, dark hands are those at the window
Lifted, grasping the golden light
Which weaves its way through the creeper leaves
To my heart's delight?
Ah, only the leaves! But in the west,
In the west I see a redness come
Over the evening's burning breast--
...Read more of this...
by
Siegfried Sassoon
Sleep; and my song shall build about your bed
A paradise of dimness. You shall feel
The folding of tired wings; and peace will dwell
Throned in your silence: and one hour shall hold
Summer, and midnight, and immensity
Lulled to forgetfulness. For, where you dream,
The stately gloom of foliage shall embower
Your slumbering thought with tapestries of...Read more of this...
by
Victor Hugo
("Enfants! Oh! revenez!")
{XXII, April, 1837}
Children, come back—come back, I say—
You whom my folly chased away
A moment since, from this my room,
With bristling wrath and words of doom!
What had you done, you bandits small,
With lips as red as roses all?
What crime?—what wild and...Read more of this...
by
David Lehman
What can you say about the Mets
down three games to none
one run down with six outs to go
Cedeno singles steals second Mora walks
they pull off a double steal
and Olerud singles them home
off the previously unhittable John Rocker
(look at his eyes, he's so intense
he looks cross-eyed) and we're still alive
and I'm still fourteen years old
and the kids in the movie...Read more of this...
by
Edmund Spenser
THe wanton boy was shortly wel recured,
of that his malady:
But he soone after fresh againe enured,
his former cruelty.
And since that time he wounded hath my selfe
with his sharpe dart of loue:
And now forgets the cruell carelesse elfe,
his mothers heast to proue.
So now I languish till he please,
my pining anguish to appease....Read more of this...
by
Francesco Petrarch
SONNET CXXXVI. Pien d' un vago pensier, che me desvia. HIS TONGUE IS TIED BY EXCESS OF PASSION. Such vain thought as wonted to mislead meIn desert hope, by well-assurèd moan,Makes me from company to live alone,In following her whom reason bids me flee.She fleeth as fast by gentle cruelty;And...Read more of this...
by
Ehsan Sehgal
Though my heart wants;
I wish I would open my lips
I wish I would say something
I wish I would express my emotions
I wish I would love my beloved
But I am silent and watching
Every way of life
The time is testing me
How far I can go
Actually I am afraid of the result
and the reality
Human's cruelty
...Read more of this...
by
Robert Burns
O THOU Great Being! what Thou art,
Surpasses me to know;
Yet sure I am, that known to Thee
Are all Thy works below.
Thy creature here before Thee stands,
All wretched and distrest;
Yet sure those ills that wring my soul
Obey Thy high behest.
Sure, Thou, Almighty, canst not act
From cruelty or wrath!
O, free my weary eyes from tears,
Or close them...Read more of this...
by
Ted Hughes
The tractor stands frozen - an agony
To think of. All night
Snow packed its open entrails. Now a head-pincering gale,
A spill of molten ice, smoking snow,
Pours into its steel.
At white heat of numbness it stands
In the aimed hosing of ground-level fieriness.
It defied flesh and won't start.
Hands are like wounds already
Inside armour gloves, and feet are unbelievable
As if the toe-nails...Read more of this...
by
Edgar Lee Masters
Why did you bruise me with your rough places
If you did not want me to tell you about them?
And stifle me with your stupidities,
If you did not want me to expose them?
And nail me with the nails of cruelty,
If you did not want me to pluck the nails forth
And fling them in your faces?
And starve me because I refused...Read more of this...
by
Erin Belieu
When I think of the many people
who privately despise children,
I can't say I'm completely shocked,
having been one. I was not
exceptional, uncomfortable as that is
to admit, and most children are not
exceptional. The particulars of
cruelty, sizes Large and X-Large,
memory gnawing it like
a fat dog, are ordinary: Mean Miss
Smigelsky from the sixth grade;
the orthodontist who
slapped you for crying out. Children
frighten us, other...Read more of this...
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