Famous Darkest Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Darkest poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous darkest poems. These examples illustrate what a famous darkest poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Robert William Service
The Wanderlust has lured me to the seven lonely seas,
Has dumped me on the tailing-piles of dearth;
The Wanderlust has haled me from the morris chairs of ease,
Has hurled me to the ends of all the earth.
How bitterly I've cursed it, oh, the Painted Desert knows,
The wraithlike heights that hug the pallid plain,
The all-but-fluid silence, -- yet the longing grows...Read more of this...
by
Rg Gregory
up the ladder and round the bend
age spirals like a convolvulus
its bells break into the light
catching breath with their beauty
but how in the sightless earth
its roots work to a wise agenda
for all the seasonal pleasures
sun and open air afford us
we grow below more tightly
(knowing squeezed into essence)
till each pinch of inner space
networks our darkest truths
the convolvulus keeps climbing
probing wise...Read more of this...
by
Henry Lawson
The night too quickly passes
And we are growing old,
So let us fill our glasses
And toast the Days of Gold;
When finds of wondrous treasure
Set all the South ablaze,
And you and I were faithful mates
All through the roaring days!
Then stately ships came sailing
From every harbour's mouth,
And sought the land of promise...Read more of this...
by
Anne Bronte
Believe not those who say
The upward path is smooth,
Lest thou shouldst stumble in the way
And faint before the truth.
It is the only road
Unto the realms of joy;
But he who seeks that blest abode
Must all his powers employ.
Bright hopes and pure delights
Upon his course may beam,
And there amid the sternest heights,
The sweetest flowerets gleam; --
On all her breezes...Read more of this...
by
Samuel Johnson
CONDEMN'D to Hope's delusive mine,
As on we toil from day to day,
By sudden blasts or slow decline
Our social comforts drop away.
Well tried through many a varying year,
See Levet to the grave descend,
Officious, innocent, sincere,
Of every friendless name the friend.
Yet still he fills affection's eye,
Obscurely wise and coarsely kind;
Nor, letter'd Arrogance, deny
Thy praise to merit unrefined.
When fainting nature call'd for...Read more of this...
by
Nazim Hikmet
1
I carved your name on my watchband
with my fingernail.
Where I am, you know,
I don't have a pearl-handled jackknife
(they won't give me anything sharp)
or a plane tree with its head in the clouds.
Trees may grow in the yard,
but I'm not allowed
to see the sky overhead...
How many others are in this place?
I don't know.
I'm alone far from them,
they're all...Read more of this...
by
John Masefield
Out of the earth to rest or range
Perpetual in perpetual change,
The unknown passing through the strange.
Water and saltness held together
To tread the dust and stand the weather,
And plough the field and stretch the tether,
To pass the wine-cup and be witty,
Water the sands and build the city,
Slaughter like devils and have pity,
Be red with rage and pale with lust,
Make beauty...Read more of this...
by
Eugene Field
Star of the East, that long ago
Brought wise men on their way
Where, angels singing to and fro,
The Child of Bethlehem lay--
Above that Syrian hill afar
Thou shinest out to-night, O Star!
Star of the East, the night were drear
But for the tender grace
That with thy glory comes to cheer
Earth's loneliest, darkest place;
For by that charity we see
Where there is hope for...Read more of this...
by
Mary Darby Robinson
O, let me seize thy pen sublime
That paints, in melting dulcet rhyme,
The glowing pow'r, the magic art,
Th' extatic raptures of the Heart;
Soft Beauty's timid smile serene,
The dimples of Love's sportive mien;
The sweet descriptive tale to trace;
To picture Nature's winning grace;
To steal the tear from Pity's eye;
To catch the sympathetic sigh;
O teach me,...Read more of this...
by
Anne Bronte
Eternal power of earth and air,
Unseen, yet seen in all around,
Remote, but dwelling everywhere,
Though silent, heard in every sound.
If e'er thine ear in mercy bent
When wretched mortals cried to thee,
And if indeed thy Son was sent
To save lost sinners such as me.
Then hear me now, while kneeling here;
I lift to thee my heart and eye
And all my...Read more of this...
by
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
I stand beneath the tree, whose branches shade
Thy western window, Chapel of St. John!
And hear its leaves repeat their benison
On him, whose hand thy stones memorial laid;
Then I remember one of whom was said
In the world's darkest hour, "Behold thy son!"
And see him living still, and wandering on
And waiting for the advent long delayed.
Not only tongues of the apostles...Read more of this...
by
Henry Lawson
White handkerchiefs wave from the short black pier
As we glide to the grand old sea --
But the song of my heart is for none to hear
If one of them waves for me.
A roving, roaming life is mine,
Ever by field or flood --
For not far back in my father's line
Was a dash of...Read more of this...
by
Sir John Suckling
When, dearest I but think of thee,
Methinks all things that lovely be
Are present, and my soul delighted:
For beauties that from worth arise
Are like the grace of deities,
Still present with us, tho’ unsighted.
Thus while I sit and sigh the day
With all his borrow’d lights away,
Till night’s black wings do overtake me,
Thinking on thee, thy beauties then,
As sudden lights do sleepy...Read more of this...
by
Henry Lawson
They have eaten their fill at your tables spread,
Like friends since the land was won;
And they rise with a cry of "Australia's dead!"
With the wheeze of "Australia's done!"
Oh, the theme is stale, but they tell the tale
(How the weak old tale will keep!)
Like the crows that croak on a splintered rail,
That have...Read more of this...
by
Isaac Watts
v.6-10
C. M.
Midnight thoughts recollected.
'Twas in the watches of the night
I thought upon thy power,
I kept thy lovely face in sight
Amidst the darkest hour.
My flesh lay resting on my bed,
My soul arose on high:
"My God, my life, my hope," I said,
"Bring thy salvation nigh."
My spirit labors up thine hill,
And climbs the heav'nly road;
But thy right hand upholds me still,
While...Read more of this...
by
John Milton
Hence, vain deluding Joys,
............The brood of Folly without father bred!
How little you bested
............Or fill the fixed mind with all your toys!
Dwell in some idle brain,
............And fancies fond with gaudy shapes possess,
As thick and numberless
............As the gay motes that people the sun-beams,
Or likest hovering dreams,
............The fickle pensioners of Morpheus' train.
But, hail! thou Goddess sage and holy!
Hail, divinest Melancholy!
Whose saintly visage...Read more of this...
by
Isaac Watts
The saint's safety and hope in evil times.
Lord, if thou dost not soon appear,
Virtue and truth will fly away;
A faithful man amongst us here
Will scarce be found, if thou delay.
The whole discourse, when neighbors meet,
Is filled with trifles loose and vain;
Their lips are flattery and deceit,
And their proud language is profane.
But lips that with deceit abound
Shall not maintain their...Read more of this...
by
Emile Verhaeren
As with others, an hour has its ill-humour: the peevish hour or a malevolent humour has sometimes stamped our hearts with its black seals; and yet, in spite of all, even at the close of the darkest days, never have our hearts said the irrevocable words.
A radiant and glowing sincerity was our joy and counsel, and our passionate soul found...Read more of this...
by
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
O ye dead Poets, who are living still
Immortal in your verse, though life be fled,
And ye, O living Poets, who are dead
Though ye are living, if neglect can kill,
Tell me if in the darkest hours of ill,
With drops of anguish falling fast and red
From the sharp crown of thorns upon your head
Ye were not glad your errand to fulfill?
Yes;...Read more of this...
by
Fannie Isabelle Sherrick
Girlhood, the dearest time of joy and love,
The sunny spring of gladness and of peace,
The time that joins its links with heaven above,
And all that's pure below; a running ease
Of careless thought beguiles the murmuring stream
Of girlish life, and as some sweet, vague dream,
The fleeting days go by; fair womanhood
Comes oft to lure the girlish feet away,
But by the brooklet...Read more of this...
by
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
[Goethe describes this much-admired Poem, which
he wrote in honour of his love Lily, as being "designed to change
his surrender of her into despair, by drolly-fretful images."]
THERE'S no menagerie, I vow,
Excels my Lily's at this minute;
She keeps the strangest creatures in it,
And catches them, she knows not how.
Oh, how they hop, and run, and rave,
And their clipp'd pinions...Read more of this...
by
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
However the battle is ended,
Though proudly the victor comes
With fluttering flags and prancing nags
And echoing roll of drums.
Still truth proclaims this motto,
In letters of living light, -
No Question is ever settled,
Until it is settled right.
Though the heel of the strong oppressor
May grind the weak to dust,
And the voices of fame with one acclaim
May call him great and just,
Let those...Read more of this...
by
Thomas Moore
'Tis gone, and for ever, the light we saw breaking,
Like Heaven's first dawn o'er the sleep of the dead --
When Man, from the slumber of ages awaking,
Look'd upward, and bless'd the pure ray, ere it fled.
'Tis gone, and the gleams it has left of its burning,
But deepen the long night of bondage and mourning,...Read more of this...
by
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Long have the poets vaunted, in their lays,
Old times, old loves, old friendships, and old wine
Why should the old monopolise all praise?
Then let the new claim mine.
Give me strong new friends, when the old prove weak,
Or fail me in my darkest hour of need;
Why perish with the ship that springs a leak,
Or lean upon...Read more of this...
by
Carl Sandburg
THERE will be a rusty gun on the wall, sweetheart,
The rifle grooves curling with flakes of rust.
A spider will make a silver string nest in the darkest, warmest corner of it.
The trigger and the range-finder, they too will be rusty.
And no hands will polish the gun, and it will hang on the wall.
Forefingers and thumbs will point absently and...Read more of this...
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