Famous Devils Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Poor Earth

by Elinor Wylie
 It is not heaven: bitter seed 
Leavens its entrails with despair 
It is a star where dragons breed: 
Devils have a footing there.

The sky has bent it out of shape; 
The sun has strapped it to his wheel; 
Its course is crooked to escape 
Traps and gins of stone and steel.

It balances on air, and spins 
Snared by strong...Read more of this...

The Grocery

by Amy Lowell
 "Hullo, Alice!"
"Hullo, Leon!"
"Say, Alice, gi' me a couple
O' them two for five cigars,
Will yer?"
"Where's your nickel?"
"My! Ain't you close!
Can't trust a feller, can yer."
"Trust you! Why
What you owe this store
Would set you up in business.
I can't think why Father 'lows it."
"Yer Father's a sight more neighbourly
Than you be. That's a fact.
Besides, he knows I got a vote."
"A vote! Oh,...Read more of this...

The Boss of the Admiral Lynch

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 Did you ever hear tell of Chili? I was readin' the other day 
Of President Balmaceda and of how he was sent away. 
It seems that he didn't suit 'em -- they thought that they'd like a change, 
So they started an insurrection and chased him across the range. 
They seem to be restless people -- and, judging by...Read more of this...

A Tale Of The Thirteenth Floor

by Ogden Nash
 The hands of the clock were reaching high
In an old midtown hotel;
I name no name, but its sordid fame
Is table talk in hell.
I name no name, but hell's own flame
Illumes the lobby garish,
A gilded snare just off Times Square
For the maidens of the parish.

The revolving door swept the grimy floor
Like a crinoline grotesque,
And a lowly bum from an ancient...Read more of this...

Crumbling is not an instants Act

by Emily Dickinson
 Crumbling is not an instant's Act
A fundamental pause
Dilapidation's processes
Are organized Decays.

'Tis first a Cobweb on the Soul
A Cuticle of Dust
A Borer in the Axis
An Elemental Rust --

Ruin is formal -- Devil's work
Consecutive and slow --
Fail in an instant, no man did
Slipping -- is Crash's law....Read more of this...

The Blind And The Dead

by Robert William Service
 She lay like a saint on her copper couch;
 Like an angel asleep she lay,
In the stare of the ghoulish folks that slouch
 Past the Dead and sneak away.

Then came old Jules of the sightless gaze,
 Who begged in the streets for bread.
Each day he had come for a year of days,
 And groped his way to the Dead.

"What's...Read more of this...

Modern Love XXVII: Distraction is the Panacea

by George Meredith
 Distraction is the panacea, Sir! 
I hear my oracle of Medicine say. 
Doctor! that same specific yesterday 
I tried, and the result will not deter 
A second trial. Is the devil's line 
Of golden hair, or raven black, composed? 
And does a cheek, like any sea-shell rosed, 
Or clear as widowed sky, seem most divine? 
No matter, so I...Read more of this...

The Ballad Of The Brand

by Robert William Service
 'Twas up in a land long famed for gold, where women were far and rare,
Tellus, the smith, had taken to wife a maiden amazingly fair;
Tellus, the brawny worker in iron, hairy and heavy of hand,
Saw her and loved her and bore her away from the tribe of a Southern land;
Deeming her worthy to queen his home and mother him...Read more of this...

The Passing Strange

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...

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...

Song (Go And Catch A Falling Star)

by John Donne
 Go and catch a falling star,
Get with child a mandrake root,
Tell me where all past years are,
Or who cleft the Devil's foot,
Teach me to hear mermaids singing,
Or to keep off envy's stinging,
And find
What wind
Serves to advance an honest mind.

If thou be'st born to strange sights,
Things invisible to see,
Ride ten thousand days and nights,
Till age snow white hairs on thee;
Thou,...Read more of this...

Many red devils ran from my heart

by Stephen Crane
 Many red devils ran from my heart
And out upon the page,
They were so tiny
The pen could mash them.
And many struggled in the ink.
It was strange
To write in this red muck
Of things from my heart....Read more of this...

A Birthday

by Aleister Crowley
 "Aug." 10, 1911.

Full moon to-night; and six and twenty years
Since my full moon first broke from angel spheres!
A year of infinite love unwearying ---
No circling seasons, but perennial spring!
A year of triumph trampling through defeat,
The first made holy and the last made sweet
By this same love; a year of wealth and woe,
Joy, poverty, health, sickness --- all one glow
In...Read more of this...

My Husky Team

by Robert William Service
 I met an ancient man who mushed
With Peary to the Pole.
Said I, "In all that land so hushed
What most inspired your soul?"
He looked at me with bleary eye,
He scratched a hoary head:
"You know that Sourdoughs jest cain't lie
So here's the dope," he said.

"That hike was like a devil's dream,
Just blizzards, gales and fogs,
But I was leadin' wi' my team
O'...Read more of this...

Devils

by Alexander Pushkin
 Storm-clouds hurtle, storm-clouds hover;
Flying snow is set alight
By the moon whose form they cover;
Blurred the heavens, blurred the night.
On and on our coach advances,
Little bell goes din-din-din...
Round are vast, unknown expanses;
Terror, terror is within.

-- Faster, coachman! "Can't, sir, sorry:
Horses, sir, are nearly dead.
I am blinded, all is blurry,
All snowed up; can't see ahead.
Sir, I tell you on the level:
We...Read more of this...

The Shooting Of Dan McGrew

by Robert William Service
 A bunch of the boys were whooping it up in the Malamute saloon;
The kid that handles the music-box was hitting a jag-time tune;
Back of the bar, in a solo game, sat Dangerous Dan McGrew,
And watching his luck was his light-o'-love, the lady that's known as Lou.

When out of the night, which was fifty below, and into the din and...Read more of this...

87. The Twa Dogs

by Robert Burns
 ’TWAS 1 in that place o’ Scotland’s isle,
That bears the name o’ auld King Coil,
Upon a bonie day in June,
When wearin’ thro’ the afternoon,
Twa dogs, that were na thrang at hame,
Forgather’d ance upon a time.
 The first I’ll name, they ca’d him Caesar,
Was keepit for His Honor’s pleasure:
His hair, his size, his mouth, his lugs,
Shew’d he was nane o’...Read more of this...

When Klopstock England Defied

by William Blake
 When Klopstock England defied,
Uprose William Blake in his pride;
For old Nobodaddy aloft
. . . and belch'd and cough'd;
Then swore a great oath that made Heaven quake,
And call'd aloud to English Blake.
Blake was giving his body ease,
At Lambeth beneath the poplar trees.
From his seat then started he
And turn'd him round three times three.
The moon at that sight blush'd scarlet red,
The...Read more of this...

The Trail Of No Return

by Robert William Service
 So now I take a bitter road
 Whereon no bourne I see,
And wearily I lift the load
 That once I bore with glee.
For me no more by sea or shore
 Adventure's star shall burn,
As I forsake wild ways to take
 The Trail of No Return.

Such paths of peril I have trod:
 In sun and shade they lay.
And some went...Read more of this...

Modern Love XVII: At Dinner She Is Hostess

by George Meredith
 At dinner, she is hostess, I am host. 
Went the feast ever cheerfuller? She keeps 
The Topic over intellectual deeps 
In buoyancy afloat. They see no ghost. 
With sparkling surface-eyes we ply the ball: 
It is in truth a most contagious game: 
HIDING THE SKELETON, shall be its name. 
Such play as this the devils might appal! 
But here's...Read more of this...

I stood upon a high place

by Stephen Crane
 I stood upon a high place,
And saw, below, many devils
Running, leaping,
and carousing in sin.
One looked up, grinning,
And said, "Comrade! Brother!"...Read more of this...

The Imperfect Lover

by Siegfried Sassoon
 I never asked you to be perfect—did I?— 
Though often I’ve called you sweet, in the invasion 
Of mastering love. I never prayed that you 
Might stand, unsoiled, angelic and inhuman, 
Pointing the way toward Sainthood like a sign-post. 

Oh yes, I know the way to heaven was easy. 
We found the little kingdom of our passion 
That all...Read more of this...

Sonnet XV: Since to Obtain Thee

by Michael Drayton
 His Remedy for Love

Since to obtain thee nothing will be stead, 
I have a med'cine that shall cure my love, 
The powder of her heart dried, when she is dead, 
That gold nor honor ne'er had power to move, 
Mixt with her tears, that ne'er her true-love crost 
Nor at fifteen ne'er long'd to be a bride, 
Boil'd with...Read more of this...

Zone

by Guillaume Apollinaire
ZONE 


In the end you are tired of this ancient world 
Shepherd oh Eiffel Tower the herd of bridges is bleating this morning 

You've had enough of living in Greek and Roman antiquity 

Here even the cars look antique 
Only religion has stayed new religion 
Has stayed simple like the hangars at Port-Aviation 

You alone in Europe are not ancient...Read more of this...

Captivity

by Robert William Service
 O meadow lark, so wild and free,
It cannot be, it cannot be,
That men to merchandise your spell
Do close you in a wicker hell!

O hedgerow thrush so mad with glee,
it cannot be, it cannot be,
They rape you from your hawthorn foam
To make a cell of steel your home!

O blackbird in the orchard tree,
In cannot be, it cannot be,
That devils in...Read more of this...

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