Famous Dreary Poems by Famous Poets

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

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The Glory

by Edward Thomas
 The glory of the beauty of the morning, -
The cuckoo crying over the untouched dew; 
The blackbird that has found it, and the dove
That tempts me on to something sweeter than love; 
White clouds ranged even and fair as new-mown hay; 
The heat, the stir, the sublime vacancy
Of sky and meadow and forest and my own heart: -
The glory...Read more of this...

The School Boy

by William Blake
 I love to rise in a summer morn,
When the birds sing on every tree;
The distant huntsman winds his horn,
And the sky-lark sings with me.
O! what sweet company.

But to go to school in a summer morn,
O! it drives all joy away;
Under a cruel eye outworn.
The little ones spend the day,
In sighing and dismay.

Ah! then at times I drooping sit,
And spend...Read more of this...

Magdalen

by Amy Levy
 All things I can endure, save one. 
The bare, blank room where is no sun;
The parcelled hours; the pallet hard;
The dreary faces here within;
The outer women's cold regard;
The Pastor's iterated "sin";--
These things could I endure, and count
No overstrain'd, unjust amount;
No undue payment for such bliss--
Yea, all things bear, save only this:
That you, who knew what thing would be,
Have wrought...Read more of this...

Sonnet LXVII: On Passing over a Dreary Tract

by Charlotte Turner Smith
 Swift fleet the billowy clouds along the sky,
Earth seems to shudder at the storm aghast;
While only beings as forlorn as I,
Court the chill horrors of the howling blast.
Even round yon crumbling walls, in search of food,
The ravenous Owl foregoes his evening flight,
And in his cave, within the deepest wood,
The Fox eludes the tempest of the night.
But to my heart...Read more of this...

Tegners Drapa

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
 Heard a voice, that cried, 
"Balder the Beautiful 
Is dead, is dead!" 
And through the misty air 
Passed like the mournful cry 
Of sunward sailing cranes.

I saw the pallid corpse 
Of the dead sun 
Borne through the Northern sky. 
Blasts from Niffelheim 
Lifted the sheeted mists 
Around him as he passed.

And the voice forever cried, 
"Balder the Beautiful 
Is...Read more of this...

214. Song—How Long and Dreary is the Night

by Robert Burns
 HOW long and dreary is the night,
 When I am frae my dearie!
I sleepless lie frae e’en to morn,
 Tho’ I were ne’er so weary:
I sleepless lie frae e’en to morn,
 Tho’ I were ne’er sae weary!


When I think on the happy days
 I spent wi’ you my dearie:
And now what lands between us lie,
 How can I be...Read more of this...

Up The Country

by Henry Lawson
 I am back from up the country -- very sorry that I went -- 
Seeking for the Southern poets' land whereon to pitch my tent; 
I have lost a lot of idols, which were broken on the track, 
Burnt a lot of fancy verses, and I'm glad that I am back. 
Further out may be the pleasant scenes of...Read more of this...

Winter

by Walter de la Mare
 A wrinkled crabbed man they picture thee, 
Old Winter, with a rugged beard as grey 
As the long moss upon the apple-tree; 
Blue-lipt, an icedrop at thy sharp blue nose, 
Close muffled up, and on thy dreary way 
Plodding alone through sleet and drifting snows. 
They should have drawn thee by the high-heapt hearth, 
Old Winter! seated in thy...Read more of this...

Dreams

by Anne Bronte
 While on my lonely couch I lie,
I seldom feel myself alone,
For fancy fills my dreaming eye
With scenes and pleasures of its own. 
Then I may cherish at my breast
An infant's form beloved and fair,
May smile and soothe it into rest
With all a Mother's fondest care. 

How sweet to feel its helpless form
Depending thus on me alone!
And while I hold...Read more of this...

The Apartment House

by Joyce Kilmer
 Severe against the pleasant arc of sky
The great stone box is cruelly displayed.
The street becomes more dreary from its shade,
And vagrant breezes touch its walls and die.
Here sullen convicts in their chains might lie,
Or slaves toil dumbly at some dreary trade.
How worse than folly is their labor made
Who cleft the rocks that this might rise on high!
Yet, as I...Read more of this...

The Ideal And The Actual Life

by Friedrich von Schiller
 Forever fair, forever calm and bright,
Life flies on plumage, zephyr-light,
For those who on the Olympian hill rejoice--
Moons wane, and races wither to the tomb,
And 'mid the universal ruin, bloom
The rosy days of Gods--With man, the choice,
Timid and anxious, hesitates between
The sense's pleasure and the soul's content;
While on celestial brows, aloft and sheen,
The beams of both are blent.

Seekest thou on...Read more of this...

A Greek Girl

by Amy Levy
 I may not weep, not weep, and he is dead.
A weary, weary weight of tears unshed
Through the long day in my sad heart I bear;
The horrid sun with all unpitying glare
Shines down into the dreary weaving-room,
Where clangs the ceaseless clatter of the loom,
And ceaselessly deft maiden-fingers weave
The fine-wrought web; and I from morn till eve
Work with the rest, and...Read more of this...

Mariana

by Alfred Lord Tennyson
WITH BLACKEST moss the flower-plots 
Were thickly crusted, one and all: 
The rusted nails fell from the knots 
That held the pear to the gable-wall. 
The broken sheds look'd sad and strange: 
Unlifted was the clinking latch; 
Weeded and worn the ancient thatch 
Upon the lonely moated grange. 
She only said, "My life is dreary, 
He cometh not," she said;...Read more of this...

485. Song—How lang and dreary is the night

by Robert Burns
 HOW lang and dreary is the night
 When I am frae my Dearie;
I restless lie frae e’en to morn
 Though I were ne’er sae weary.


Chorus.—For oh, her lanely nights are lang!
 And oh, her dreams are eerie;
And oh, her window’d heart is sair,
 That’s absent frae her Dearie!


When I think on the lightsome days
 I spent wi’ thee, my...Read more of this...

III. O Thou whose stern command and precepts pure..

by William Lisle Bowles
 O THOU, whose stern command and precepts pure 
(Tho' agony in every vein should start, 
And slowly drain the blood-drops from the heart) 
Have bade the patient spirit still endure; 
Thou, who to sorrow hast a beauty lent, 
On the dark brow, with resolution clad, 
Illumining the dreary traces sad, 
Like the cold taper on a monument; 
O firm...Read more of this...

To Contemplation

by Robert Southey
 Faint gleams the evening radiance thro' the sky,
The sober twilight dimly darkens round;
In short quick circles the shrill bat flits by,
And the slow vapour curls along the ground.

Now the pleas'd eye from yon lone cottage sees
On the green mead the smoke long-shadowing play;
The Red-breast on the blossom'd spray
Warbles wild her latest lay,
And sleeps along the dale the silent breeze.
Calm...Read more of this...

The Toy Band

by Sir Henry Newbolt
 A Song of the Great Retreat

Dreary lay the long road, dreary lay the town, 
Lights out and never a glint o' moon: 
Weary lay the stragglers, half a thousand down, 
Sad sighed the weary big Dragoon. 
"Oh! if I'd a drum here to make them take the road again, 
Oh! if I'd a fife to wheedle, Come, boys, come!...Read more of this...

Presentiment

by Charlotte Bronte
 ' SISTER, you've sat there all the day,
Come to the hearth awhile;
The wind so wildly sweeps away,
The clouds so darkly pile.
That open book has lain, unread,
For hours upon your knee;
You've never smiled nor turned your head
What can you, sister, see ? ' 

' Come hither, Jane, look down the field;
How dense a mist creeps on !
The path, the hedge,...Read more of this...

In Memoriam A. H. H.

by Alfred Lord Tennyson
Strong Son of God, immortal Love,
   Whom we, that have not seen thy face,
   By faith, and faith alone, embrace,
Believing where we cannot prove;
 
Thine are these orbs of light and shade;
   Thou madest Life in man and brute;
   Thou madest Death; and lo, thy foot
Is on the skull which thou hast...Read more of this...

Requiescat In Pace!

by Jean Ingelow
My heart is sick awishing and awaiting:
  The lad took up his knapsack, he went, he went his way;
And I looked on for his coming, as a prisoner through the grating
  Looks and longs and longs and wishes for its opening day.
On the wild purple mountains, all alone with no other,
  The strong terrible mountains he longed,...Read more of this...

Good-Bye Little Cabin

by Robert William Service
 O dear little cabin, I've loved you so long,
And now I must bid you good-bye!
I've filled you with laughter, I've thrilled you with song,
And sometimes I've wished I could cry.
Your walls they have witnessed a weariful fight,
And rung to a won Waterloo:
But oh, in my triumph I'm dreary to-night --
Good-bye, little cabin, to you!

Your roof is bewhiskered, your floor...Read more of this...

A Fish Answers

by James Henry Leigh Hunt
 Amazing monster! that, for aught I know, 
With the first sight of thee didst make our race 
For ever stare! O flat and shocking face, 
Grimly divided from the breast below! 
Thou that on dry land horribly dost go 
With a split body and most ridiculous pace, 
Prong after prong, disgracer of all grace, 
Long-useless-finned, haired, upright, unwet, slow!...Read more of this...

517. Song—O wat ye wha's in yon town

by Robert Burns
 Chorus—O wat ye wha’s in yon town,
 Ye see the e’enin sun upon,
The dearest maid’s in yon town,
 That e’ening sun is shining on.


NOW haply down yon gay green shaw,
 She wanders by yon spreading tree;
How blest ye flowers that round her blaw,
 Ye catch the glances o’ her e’e!
 O wat ye wha’s, &c.


How blest ye birds that...Read more of this...

The Soldier Of Fortune

by Robert William Service
 "Deny your God!" they ringed me with their spears;
Blood-crazed were they, and reeking from the strife;
Hell-hot their hate, and venom-fanged their sneers,
And one man spat on me and nursed a knife.
And there was I, sore wounded and alone,
I, the last living of my slaughtered band.
Oh sinister the sky, and cold as stone!
In one red laugh of horror reeled the...Read more of this...

Rain In Summer

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
 How beautiful is the rain!
After the dust and heat,
In the broad and fiery street,
In the narrow lane,
How beautiful is the rain!

How it clatters along the roofs,
Like the tramp of hoofs
How it gushes and struggles out
From the throat of the overflowing spout!

Across the window-pane
It pours and pours;
And swift and wide,
With a muddy tide,
Like a river down the gutter roars
The rain,...Read more of this...

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