Famous Disasters Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Disasters poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous disasters poems. These examples illustrate what a famous disasters poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Burns, Robert
...weans,
An’ nought but his han’-daurk, to keep
Them right an’ tight in thack an’ rape.
An’ when they meet wi’ sair disasters,
Like loss o’ health or want o’ masters,
Ye maist wad think, a wee touch langer,
An’ they maun starve o’ cauld an’ hunger:
But how it comes, I never kent yet,
They’re maistly wonderfu’ contented;
An’ buirdly chiels, an’ clever hizzies,
Are bred in sic a way as this is.
CÆSAR But then to see how ye’re negleckit,
How huff’d, an’ cuff’d, an’ dis...Read more of this...
by
Nowlan, Alden
...th coloured lights and sirens.
Almost everyone is outdoors and strangers are conversing
excitedly
as they do during disasters when their involvement is
peripheral.
'What did he look like? ' the lieutenant is asking.
'I don't know, ' says the witness. 'He was naked.'
There is talk of dogs-this is no ordinary case
of indecent exposure, the man has been seen
a dozen times since the milkman spotted him and now
the sky is turning purple and voices
carry a long ...Read more of this...
by
Flynn, Nick
...nto the rock. Ten-year-olds
should stick with burning houses, car wrecks,
ships going down -- earthbound, tangible
disasters, arenas
where they can be heroes. You can run
back into a burning house, sinking ships
have lifeboats, the trucks will come
with their ladders, if you jump
you will be saved. A child
places her hand on the roof of a schoolbus,
& drives across a city of sand. She knows
the exact spot it will skid, at which point
the bridge will give...Read more of this...
by
Doty, Mark
...florist's,
the ghosts of their signs faint above the windows
lined, last week, with loaves and blooms.
We love disasters that have nothing to do
with us: the metal scoop seems shy, tentative,
a Japanese monster tilting its yellow head
and considering what to topple next. It's a weekday,
and those of us with the leisure to watch
are out of work, unemployable or academics,
joined by a thirst for watching something fall.
All summer, at loose ends, I've r...Read more of this...
by
Elytis, Odysseus
...
held responsible
To a crowd of foreign Powers always through
the intervention of your own
As it happens for the disasters
But let's imagine that in an old days' threshing-floor
which might be in an apartment-complex children
are playing and whoever loses
Should, according to the rules, tell the others
and give them a truth
Then everyone ends up holding in his
hand a small
Gift, silver poem. ...Read more of this...
by
Verhaeren, Emile
...irt with blossom, will you ever return?
Yet, if destiny, that wields the stars, spares us its pains, its blows and its disasters, perhaps one day you will return, and, before my eyes, interweave in measure your radiant steps;
And I will mingle with your glowing, gentle dance, winding in shade and sun over the lawns —like a last, immense and supreme hope—the steps and farewells of my "hours of evening."...Read more of this...
by
Matthews, William
...home."
Experience is a great teacher
of the value of experience,
its claustrophobic prudence,
its gloomy name-the-disasters-
in-advance charisma. Listen,
my wary one, it's far too late
to unlove each other. Instead let's cook
something elaborate and not
invite anyone to share it but eat it
all up very very slowly....Read more of this...
by
Goldsmith, Oliver
...as, and stern to view;
I knew him well, and every truant knew;
Well had the boding tremblers learned to trace
The day's disasters in his morning face;
Full well they laughed, with counterfeited glee,
At all his jokes, for many a joke had he;
Full well the busy whisper, circling round,
Conveyed the dismal tidings when he frowned;
Yet he was kind; or if severe in aught,
The love he bore to learning was in fault.
The village all declared how much he knew;
'Twas certain he co...Read more of this...
by
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...e second,
Coming from the invisible ether,
First a speck, and then a vulture,
Till the air is dark with pinions.
So disasters come not singly;
But as if they watched and waited,
Scanning one another's motions,
When the first descends, the others
Follow, follow, gathering flock-wise
Round their victim, sick and wounded,
First a shadow, then a sorrow,
Till the air is dark with anguish.
Now, o'er all the dreary North-land,
Mighty Peboan, the Winter,
Breathing on the lake...Read more of this...
by
Jeffers, Robinson
...d the net
Is being hauled in. They hardly feel the cords drawing, yet
they shine already. The inevitable mass-disasters
Will not come in our time nor in our children's, but we
and our children
Must watch the net draw narrower, government take all
powers--or revolution, and the new government
Take more than all, add to kept bodies kept souls--or anarchy,
the mass-disasters.
These things are Progress;
Do you marvel our verse is troubled or frowning, while i...Read more of this...
by
Hugo, Victor
...high estate,
Would be high treason in his bondman, Fate.
But all the while he felt himself alone,
Stunned with disasters few have ever known.
Sudden, a fear came o'er his troubled soul,
What more was written on the Future's scroll?
Was this an expiation? It must be, yea!
He turned to God for one enlightening ray.
"Is this the vengeance, Lord of Hosts?" he sighed,
But the first murmur on his parched lips died.
"Is this the vengeance? Must my glory...Read more of this...
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