Famous Dank Poems by Famous Poets

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

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The Song of the Little Hunter

by Rudyard Kipling
 Ere Mor the Peacock flutters, ere the Monkey People cry,
 Ere Chil the Kite swoops down a furlong sheer,
Through the Jungle very softly flits a shadow and a sigh--
 He is Fear, O Little Hunter, he is Fear! 
Very softly down the glade runs a waiting, watching shade,
 And the whisper spreads and widens far and near.
And the sweat...Read more of this...

The Fifth Ode Of Horace. Lib. I

by John Milton
 Quis multa gracilis te puer in Rosa
Rendred almost word for word without Rhyme according to the
Latin Measure, as near as the Language permit.

WHAT slender Youth bedew'd with liquid odours
Courts thee on Roses in some pleasant Cave,
Pyrrha for whom bind'st thou
In wreaths thy golden Hair,
Plain in thy neatness; O how oft shall he
On Faith and changed Gods complain: and Seas
Rough...Read more of this...

Sonnet 20

by John Milton
 XX

Lawrence, of virtuous father virtuous son,
Now that the fields are dank, and ways are mire,
Where shall we sometimes meet, and by the fire
Help waste a sullen day, what may be won
From the hard season gaining? Time will run
On smoother, till Favonius re-inspire
The frozen earth, and clothe in fresh attire
The lily and rose, that neither sowed nor spun.
What neat repast...Read more of this...

Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came

by Robert Browning
My first thought was, he lied in every word,
That hoary cripple, with malicious eye
Askance to watch the working of his lie
On mine, and mouth scarce able to afford
Suppression of the glee, that pursed and scored
Its edge, at one more victim gained thereby.

What else should he be set for, with his staff?
What, save to waylay with his lies, ensnare
All travellers who...Read more of this...

The Charge of the Second Iowa Cavalry

by Ellis Parker Butler
 Comrades, many a year and day
 Have fled since that glorious 9th of May
 When we made the charge at Farmington.
 But until our days on earth are done
 Our blood will burn and our hearts beat fast
 As we tell of the glorious moments we passed,
 When we rode on the guns with a mighty shout
 And saved...Read more of this...

Small Frogs Killed On The Highway

by James Wright
 Still,
I would leap too
Into the light,
If I had the chance.
It is everything, the wet green stalk of the field
On the other side of the road.
They crouch there, too, faltering in terror
And take strange wing. Many
Of the dead never moved, but many
Of the dead are alive forever in the split second
Auto headlights more sudden
Than their drivers know.
The drivers burrow backward...Read more of this...

Massachusetts To Virginia

by John Greenleaf Whittier
 The blast from Freedom's Northern hills, upon its Southern way,
Bears greeting to Virginia from Massachusetts Bay:
No word of haughty challenging, nor battle bugle's peal,
Nor steady tread of marching files, nor clang of horsemen's steel,

No trains of deep-mouthed cannon along our highways go;
Around our silent arsenals untrodden lies the snow;
And to the land-breeze of our ports, upon their errands far,
A...Read more of this...

Ode to Meditation

by Mary Darby Robinson
 SWEET CHILD OF REASON! maid serene; 
With folded arms, and pensive mien, 
Who wand'ring near yon thorny wild, 
So oft, my length'ning hours beguil'd; 
Thou, who within thy peaceful call, 
Canst laugh at LIFE'S tumultuous care, 
While calm repose delights to dwell 
On beds of fragrant roses there; 
Where meek-ey'd PATIENCE waits to greet 
The woe-worn Trav'ller's weary feet,...Read more of this...

Assurance

by Emma Lazarus
 Last night I slept, and when I woke her kiss 
Still floated on my lips. For we had strayed 
Together in my dream, through some dim glade, 
Where the shy moonbeams scarce dared light our bliss. 
The air was dank with dew, between the trees, 
The hidden glow-worms kindled and were spent. 
Cheek pressed to cheek, the cool, the...Read more of this...

The Hippopotamus

by Ogden Nash
 Behold the hippopotamus!
We laugh at how he looks to us,
And yet in moments dank and grim,
I wonder how we look to him.

Peace, peace, thou hippopotamus!
We really look all right to us,
As you no doubt delight the eye
Of other hippopotami....Read more of this...

General William Booth Enters into Heaven

by Vachel Lindsay
 [To be sung to the tune of The Blood of the Lamb with indicated instrument] 


I 

[Bass drum beaten loudly.]

Booth led boldly with his big bass drum --
(Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?)
The Saints smiled gravely and they said: "He's come."
(Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?)
Walking lepers followed, rank on rank,
Lurching bravoes from...Read more of this...

Coldness in Love

by D. H. Lawrence
And you remember, in the afternoon
The sea and the sky went grey, as if there had sunk
A flocculent dust on the floor of the world: the festoon
Of the sky sagged dusty as spider cloth,
And coldness clogged the sea, till it ceased to croon.

A dank, sickening scent came up from the grime
Of weed that blackened the shore, so that I recoiled
Feeling...Read more of this...

The Pool

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
By the pool that I see in my dreams, dear love,
I have sat with you time and again;
And listened beneath the dank leaves, dear love,
To the sibilant sound of the rain.
And the pool, it is silvery bright, dear love,
And as pure as the heart of a maid,
As sparkling and dimpling, it darkles and shines
In the depths of the heart of...Read more of this...

To Mr. Lawrence

by John Milton
 Lawrence, of virtuous father virtuous son, 
Now that the fields are dank, and ways are mire, 
Where shall we sometimes meet, and by the fire 
Help waste a sullen day, what may be won 
From the hard season gaining? Time will run
On smoother, till Favonius reinspire 
The frozen earth, and clothe in fresh attire 
The lily and rose, that...Read more of this...

The Palace of Humbug

by Lewis Carroll
 Lays of Mystery,
Imagination, and Humor 

Number 1 

I dreamt I dwelt in marble halls,
And each damp thing that creeps and crawls
Went wobble-wobble on the walls. 

Faint odours of departed cheese,
Blown on the dank, unwholesome breeze,
Awoke the never ending sneeze. 

Strange pictures decked the arras drear,
Strange characters of woe and fear,
The humbugs of the social sphere. 

One showed a vain...Read more of this...

Break of Day

by Siegfried Sassoon
 There seemed a smell of autumn in the air 
At the bleak end of night; he shivered there 
In a dank, musty dug-out where he lay, 
Legs wrapped in sand-bags,—lumps of chalk and clay 
Spattering his face. Dry-mouthed, he thought, ‘To-day
We start the damned attack; and, Lord knows why, 
Zero’s at nine; how bloody if I’m done in 
Under...Read more of this...

The Farewell

by Lucy Maud Montgomery
 Of A Virginia Slave Mother To Her Daughters Sold Into Southern Bondage

Gone, gone, -- sold and gone 
To the rice-swamp dank and lone. 
Where the slave-whip ceaseless swings 
Where the noisome insect stings 
Where the fever demon strews 
Poison with the falling dews 
Where the sickly sunbeams glare 
Through the hot and misty air; 
Gone, gone, -- sold and...Read more of this...

The Secret

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
What says the wind to the waving trees?
What says the wave to the river?
What means the sigh in the passing breeze?
Why do the rushes quiver?
Have you not heard the fainting cry
Of the flowers that said "Good-bye, good-bye"?
List how the gray dove moans and grieves
Under the woodland cover;
List to the drift of the falling leaves,
List to the wail of the lover.
Have...Read more of this...

Exmoor

by Amy Clampitt
 Lost aboard the roll of Kodac-
olor that was to have super-
seded all need to remember
Somerset were: a large flock

of winter-bedcover-thick-
pelted sheep up on the moor;
a stile, a church spire, 
and an excess, at Porlock,

of tenderly barbarous antique
thatch in tandem with flower-
beds, relentlessly pictur-
esque, along every sidewalk;

a millwheel; and a millbrook 
running down brown as beer.
Exempt from the disaster.
however, as...Read more of this...

The Sands of Dee

by Charles Kingsley
 1 "O Mary, go and call the cattle home,
2 And call the cattle home,
3 And call the cattle home
4 Across the sands of Dee";
5 The western wind was wild and dank with foam,
6 And all alone went she.

7 The western tide crept up along the sand,
8 And o'er and o'er the sand,
9 And round and round the sand,
10 As...Read more of this...

Sonnet 17

by John Milton
 XVII


Lawrence of vertuous Father vertuous Son,
Now that the Fields are dank, and ways are mire,
Where shall we sometimes meet, and by the fire
Help wast a sullen day; what may be Won
From the hard Season gaining: time will run
On smoother, till Favonius re-inspire
The frozen earth; and cloth in fresh attire
The Lillie and Rose, that neither sow'd nor spun.
What neat repast...Read more of this...

The Choral Union

by Siegfried Sassoon
 He staggered in from night and frost and fog 
And lampless streets: he’d guzzled like a hog 
And drunk till he was dazed. And now he came 
To hear—he couldn’t call to mind the name— 
But he’d been given a ticket for the show,
And thought he’d (hiccup) chance his luck and go. 

The hall swam in his eyes, and...Read more of this...

Dr. sam

by Eugene Field
 TO MISS GRACE KING

Down in the old French quarter,
Just out of Rampart street,
I wend my way
At close of day
Unto the quaint retreat
Where lives the Voodoo Doctor
By some esteemed a sham,
Yet I'll declare there's none elsewhere
So skilled as Doctor Sam
With the claws of a deviled crawfish,
The juice of the prickly prune,
And the quivering dew
From a yarb that grew
In the light...Read more of this...

The Tourist From Syracuse

by Donald Justice
 One of those men who can be a car salesman or a tourist from Syracuse or a
hired assassin.
-- John D. MacDonald

You would not recognize me.
Mine is the face which blooms in
The dank mirrors of washrooms
As you grope for the light switch.

My eyes have the expression
Of the cold eyes of statues
Watching their pigeons return
From the feed you have scattered,

And I...Read more of this...

Blue Bell The

by Emily Brontë
 The blue bell is the sweetest flower
That waves in summer air;
Its blossoms have the mightiest power
To soothe my spirit's care. 

There is a spell in purple heath
Too wildly, sadly dear;
The violet has a fragrant breath
But fragrance will not cheer. 

The trees are bare, the sun is cold;
And seldom, seldom seen;
The heavens have lost their zone of gold
The earth its...Read more of this...

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