Famous Eerie Poems by Famous Poets

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

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A November Night

by Sara Teasdale
 There! See the line of lights,
A chain of stars down either side the street --
Why can't you lift the chain and give it to me,
A necklace for my throat? I'd twist it round
And you could play with it. You smile at me
As though I were a little dreamy child
Behind whose eyes the fairies live. . . . And see,
The...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...

445. The Minstel at Lincluden

by Robert Burns
 AS I stood by yon roofless tower,
 Where the wa’flow’r scents the dery air,
Where the howlet mourns in her ivy bower,
 And tells the midnight moon her care.


Chorus.—A lassie all alone, was making her moan,
 Lamenting our lads beyond the sea:
In the bluidy wars they fa’, and our honour’s gane an’ a’,
 And broken-hearted we maun die.


The winds were...Read more of this...

444. Song—A Fiddler in the North

by Robert Burns
 AMANG the trees, where humming bees,
 At buds and flowers were hinging, O,
Auld Caledon drew out her drone,
 And to her pipe was singing, O:
’Twas Pibroch, Sang, Strathspeys, and Reels,
 She dirl’d them aff fu’ clearly, O:
When there cam’ a yell o’ foreign squeels,
 That dang her tapsalteerie, O.


Their capon craws an’ ***** “ha, ha’s,”
 They made our lugs...Read more of this...

59. Death and Dr. Hornbook

by Robert Burns
 SOME books are lies frae end to end,
And some great lies were never penn’d:
Ev’n ministers they hae been kenn’d,
 In holy rapture,
A rousing whid at times to vend,
 And nail’t wi’ Scripture.


But this that I am gaun to tell,
Which lately on a night befell,
Is just as true’s the Deil’s in hell
 Or Dublin city:
That e’er he nearer comes oursel’
...Read more of this...

Bookshelf

by Robert William Service
 I like to think that when I fall,
A rain-drop in Death's shoreless sea,
This shelf of books along the wall,
Beside my bed, will mourn for me.

Regard it. . . . Aye, my taste is *****.
Some of my bards you may disdain.
Shakespeare and Milton are not here;
Shelly and Keats you seek in vain.
Wordsworth, Tennyson, Browning too,
Remarkably are not in view.

Who are...Read more of this...

426. Song—By Allan Stream

by Robert Burns
 BY Allan stream I chanc’d to rove,
 While Phoebus sank beyond Benledi;
The winds are whispering thro’ the grove,
 The yellow corn was waving ready:
I listen’d to a lover’s sang,
 An’ thought on youthfu’ pleasures mony;
And aye the wild-wood echoes rang—
 “O, dearly do I love thee, Annie!


“O, happy be the woodbine bower,
 Nae nightly bogle make it eerie;
Nor ever...Read more of this...

382. Song—I'll meet thee on the Lea Rig

by Robert Burns
 WHEN o’er the hill the eastern star
 Tells bughtin time is near, my jo,
And owsen frae the furrow’d field
 Return sae dowf and weary O;
Down by the burn, where birken buds
 Wi’ dew are hangin clear, my jo,
I’ll meet thee on the lea-rig,
 My ain kind Dearie O.


At midnight hour, in mirkest glen,
 I’d rove, and ne’er be eerie,...Read more of this...

70. Epistle to the Rev. John M'Math

by Robert Burns
 WHILE at the stook the shearers cow’r
To shun the bitter blaudin’ show’r,
Or in gulravage rinnin scowr
 To pass the time,
To you I dedicate the hour
 In idle rhyme.


My musie, tir’d wi’ mony a sonnet
On gown, an’ ban’, an’ douse black bonnet,
Is grown right eerie now she’s done it,
 Lest they should blame her,
An’ rouse their holy thunder on it
...Read more of this...

Letters From A Man In Solitary

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...

392. Song—Poortith cauld and restless love

by Robert Burns
 O POORTITH cauld, and restless love,
 Ye wrack my peace between ye;
Yet poortith a’ I could forgive,
 An ’twere na for my Jeanie.


Chorus.—O why should Fate sic pleasure have,
 Life’s dearest bands untwining?
Or why sae sweet a flower as love
 Depend on Fortune’s shining?


The warld’s wealth, when I think on,
 It’s pride and a’ the lave o’t;
O fie on...Read more of this...

A Winter Daybreak Above Vence

by James Wright
 The night's drifts
Pile up below me and behind my back,
Slide down the hill, rise again, and build
Eerie little dunes on the roof of the house.
In the valley below me,
Miles between me and the town of St.-Jeannet,
The road lamps glow.
They are so cold, they might as well be dark.
Trucks and cars
Cough and drone down there between the golden
Coffins of greenhouses,...Read more of this...

544. Song—Crowdie ever mair

by Robert Burns
 O THAT I had ne’er been married,
 I wad never had nae care,
Now I’ve gotten wife an’ weans,
 An’ they cry “Crowdie” evermair.


Chorus.—Ance crowdie, twice crowdie,
 Three times crowdie in a day
Gin ye crowdie ony mair,
 Ye’ll crowdie a’ my meal away.


Waefu’ Want and Hunger fley me,
 Glowrin’ by the hallan en’;
Sair I fecht them at the door,
 But...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...

207. Song—I'm O'er Young to Marry yet

by Robert Burns
 Chorus.—I’m o’er young, I’m o’er young,
 I’m o’er young to marry yet;
I’m o’er young, ’twad be a sin
 To tak me frae my mammy yet.


I AM my mammny’s ae bairn,
 Wi’ unco folk I weary, sir;
And lying in a man’s bed,
 I’m fley’d it mak me eerie, sir.
 I’m o’er young, &c.


My mammie coft me a new gown,
 The...Read more of this...

Night

by Sidney Lanier
 A pale enchanted moon is sinking low
Behind the dunes that fringe the shadowy lea, 
And there is haunted starlight on the flow
Of immemorial sea.

I am alone and need no more pretend
Laughter or smile to hide a hungry heart;
I walk with solitude as with a friend
Enfolded and apart.

We tread an eerie road across the moor
Where shadows weave upon their ghostly...Read more of this...

Call Me Away

by Anne Bronte
 Call me away; there's nothing here,
That wins my soul to stay;
Then let me leave this prospect drear,
And hasten far away. 
To our beloved land I'll flee,
Our land of thought and soul,
Where I have roved so oft with thee,
Beyond the world's control.

I'll sit and watch those ancient trees,
Those Scotch firs dark and high;
I'll listen to the eerie breeze,
Among their branches...Read more of this...

Calverlys

by Edwin Arlington Robinson
 We go no more to Calverly's,
For there the lights are few and low;
And who are there to see by them,
Or what they see, we do not know.
Poor strangers of another tongue
May now creep in from anywhere,
And we, forgotten, be no more
Than twilight on a ruin there.

We two, the remnant. All the rest
Are cold and quiet. You nor I,
Nor fiddle...Read more of this...

Lady button-eyes

by Eugene Field
 When the busy day is done,
And my weary little one
Rocketh gently to and fro;
When the night winds softly blow,
And the crickets in the glen
Chirp and chirp and chirp again;
When upon the haunted green
Fairies dance around their queen -
Then from yonder misty skies
Cometh Lady Button-Eyes.

Through the murk and mist and gloam
To our quiet, cozy home,
Where to singing, sweet and low,
Rocks...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...

Avis

by Duncan Campbell Scott
 With a golden rolling sound 
Booming came a bell,
From the aery in the tower
Eagles fell;
So with regal wings 
Hurled, and gleaming sound and power, 
Sprang the fatal spell.

Ten a storm of burnished doves
Gleaming from the cote
Flurried by the almonry
O'er the moat,--
Fell and soared and fell
With the arc and iris eye
Burning breast and throat.

Avis heard the beaten bell
Break the quiet...Read more of this...

Over The Parapet

by Robert William Service
 All day long when the shells sail over
 I stand at the sandbags and take my chance;
But at night, at night I'm a reckless rover,
 And over the parapet gleams Romance.
Romance! Romance! How I've dreamed it, writing
 Dreary old records of money and mart,
Me with my head chuckful of fighting
 And the blood of vikings to thrill my heart.

But...Read more of this...

An April Night

by Lucy Maud Montgomery
 The moon comes up o'er the deeps of the woods,
And the long, low dingles that hide in the hills,
Where the ancient beeches are moist with buds
Over the pools and the whimpering rills; 

And with her the mists, like dryads that creep
From their oaks, or the spirits of pine-hid springs,
Who hold, while the eyes of the world are asleep,
With the...Read more of this...

March 26 1974

by Richard Wilbur
 R.Frost 100th B'day

The air was soft, the ground still cold.
In wet dull pastures where I strolled
Was something I could not believe.
Dead grass appeared to slide and heave,
Though still too frozen-flat to stir,
And rocks to twitch, and all to blur.
What was this rippling of the land?
Was matter getting out of hand
And making free with natural law?
I stopped and blinked, and...Read more of this...

446. A Vision

by Robert Burns
 AS I stood by yon roofless tower,
 Where the wa’flower scents the dewy air,
Where the howlet mourns in her ivy bower,
 And tells the midnight moon her care.


The winds were laid, the air was still,
 The stars they shot alang the sky;
The fox was howling on the hill,
 And the distant echoing glens reply.


The stream, adown its hazelly path,
...Read more of this...

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