Famous Fire Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Fire poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous fire poems. These examples illustrate what a famous fire poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
See also:
by
Emily Dickinson
To my small Hearth His fire came --
And all my House aglow
Did fan and rock, with sudden light --
'Twas Sunrise -- 'twas the Sky --
Impanelled from no Summer brief --
With limit of Decay --
'Twas Noon -- without the News of Night --
Nay, Nature, it was Day --...Read more of this...
by
Henry Van Dyke
Like a long arrow through the dark the train is darting,
Bearing me far away, after a perfect day of love's delight:
Wakeful with all the sad-sweet memories of parting,
I lift the narrow window-shade and look out on the night.
Lonely the land unknown, and like a river flowing,
Forest and field and hill are gliding backward still athwart my dream;
Till in...Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
My fire gives forth no smoke-cloud here below,
My stock-in-trade no profit here below,
And you, who call me tavern-haunter, know
There is indeed no tavern here below...Read more of this...
by
Rg Gregory
the dream of the white bird flying
offers a freedom as tasty as nectar
how our lips purse to the goddess’s pap
at the want of such swoops through the air
to be rid of the drag on our legs
the sloshing through drudgery and mire
the daily entangling with bramble
the hurt of our hair caught in barbs
when there in the bowl of our eye
that...Read more of this...
by
John Berryman
Tell it to the forest fire, tell it to the moon,
mention it in general to the moon
on the way down,
he's about to have his lady, permanent;
and this is the worst of all came ever sent
writhing Henry's way.
Ha ha, fifth column, quisling, genocide,
he held his hands & laught from side to side
a loverly time.
The berries & the rods left him...Read more of this...
by
Langston Hughes
The gold moth did not love him
So, gorgeous, she flew away.
But the gray moth circled the flame
Until the break of day.
And then, with wings like a dead desire,
She fell, fire-caught, into the flame....Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
The largest Fire ever known
Occurs each Afternoon --
Discovered is without surprise
Proceeds without concern --
Consumes and no report to men
An Occidental Town,
Rebuilt another morning
To be burned down again....Read more of this...
by
Gerard Manley Hopkins
Cloud-puffball, torn tufts, tossed pillows ' flaunt forth, then chevy on an air-
built thoroughfare: heaven-roysterers, in gay-gangs ' they throng; they glitter in marches.
Down roughcast, down dazzling whitewash, ' wherever an elm arches,
Shivelights and shadowtackle in long ' lashes lace, lance, and pair.
Delightfully the bright wind boisterous ' ropes, wrestles, beats earth bare
Of yestertempest's creases; in pool and rut...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
An olive fire's a lovely thing;
Somehow it makes me think of Spring
As in my grate it over-spills
With dancing flames like daffodils.
They flirt and frolic, twist and twine,
The brassy fire-irons wink and shine. . . .
Leap gold, you flamelets! Laugh and sing:
An olive fire's a lovely thing.
An olive fire's a household shrine:
A crusty loaf, a jug of wine,
An apple and...Read more of this...
by
Paul Laurence Dunbar
Some folks t'inks hit's right an' p'opah,
Soon ez bedtime come erroun',
Fu' to scramble to de kiver,
Lak dey 'd hyeahed de trumpet soun'.
But dese people dey all misses
Whut I mos'ly does desiah;
Dat 's de settin' roun' an' dozin',
An' a-noddin' by de fiah.
When you 's tiahed out a-hoein',
Er a-followin' de plough,
Whut's de use of des a-fallin'
On yo' pallet lak a cow?
W'y, de...Read more of this...
by
Edmund Spenser
My love is like to ice, and I to fire:
how comes it then that this her cold so great
is not dissolv'd through my so hot desire,
but harder grows, the more I her entreat?
Or how comes it that my exceeding heat
is not delayed by her heart frozen cold,
but that I burn much more in boiling sweat,
and feel my flames augmented...Read more of this...
by
Charles Bukowski
"They only burn themselves to reach Paradise"
- Mne. Nhu
original courage is good,
motivation be damned,
and if you say they are trained
to feel no pain,
are they
guarenteed this?
is it still not possible
to die for somebody else?
you sophisticates
who lay back and
make statements of explanation,
I have seen the red rose burning
and this means more....Read more of this...
by
Robert Frost
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favour fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice....Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
You cannot put a Fire out --
A Thing that can ignite
Can go, itself, without a Fan --
Upon the slowest Night --
You cannot fold a Flood --
And put it in a Drawer --
Because the Winds would find it out --
And tell your Cedar Floor --...Read more of this...
by
D. H. Lawrence
I
Ah, you stack of white lilies, all white and gold,
I am adrift as a sunbeam, and without form
Or having, save I light on you to warm
Your pallor into radiance, flush your cold
White beauty into incandescence: you
Are not a stack of white lilies to-night, but a white
And clustered star transfigured by me to-night,
And lighting these ruddy leaves like a star dropped...Read more of this...
by
William Butler Yeats
While I wrought out these fitful Danaan rhymes,
My heart would brim with dreams about the times
When we bent down above the fading coals
And talked of the dark folk who live in souls
Of passionate men, like bats in the dead trees;
And of the wayward twilight companies
Who sigh with mingled sorrow and content,
Because their blossoming dreams have never bent
Under the fruit...Read more of this...
by
Derek Walcott
After that hot gospeller has levelled all but the churched sky,
I wrote the tale by tallow of a city's death by fire;
Under a candle's eye, that smoked in tears, I
Wanted to tell, in more than wax, of faiths that were snapped like wire.
All day I walked abroad among the rubbled tales,
Shocked at each wall that stood on the street...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
Ashes denote that Fire was --
Revere the Grayest Pile
For the Departed Creature's sake
That hovered there awhile --
Fire exists the first in light
And then consolidates
Only the Chemist can disclose
Into what Carbonates....Read more of this...
by
William Strode
Faire Chloris, standing by the Fire,
An amorous coale with hot desire
Leapt on her breast, but could not melt
The chaste snow there--which when it felt
For shame it blusht; and then it died
There where resistance did abide,
And lest she should take it unkind
Repentant ashes left behind....Read more of this...
by
Lucy Maud Montgomery
Now at our casement the wind is shrilling,
Poignant and keen
And all the great boughs of the pines between
It is harping a lone and hungering strain
To the eldritch weeping of the rain;
And then to the wild, wet valley flying
It is seeking, sighing,
Something lost in the summer olden.
When night was silver and day...Read more of this...
by
T S (Thomas Stearns) Eliot
The river's tent is broken: the last fingers of leaf
Clutch and sink into the wet bank. The wind
Crosses the brown land, unheard. The nymphs are departed.
Sweet Thames, run softly, till I end my song.
The river bears no empty bottles, sandwich papers,
Silk handkerchiefs, cardboard boxes, cigarette ends
Or...Read more of this...
by
Elinor Wylie
For this you've striven
Daring, to fail:
Your sky is riven
Like a tearing veil.
For this, you've wasted
Wings of your youth;
Divined, and tasted
Bitter springs of truth.
From sand unslakèd
Twisted strong cords,
And wandering naked
Among trysted swords.
There's a word unspoken,
A knot untied.
Whatever is broken
The earth may hide.
The road was jagged
Over sharp stones:...Read more of this...
by
Claude McKay
No engines shrieking rescue storm the night,
And hose and hydrant cannot here avail;
The flames laugh high and fling their challenging light,
And clouds turn gray and black from silver-pale.
The fire leaps out and licks the ancient walls,
And the big building bends and twists and groans.
A bar drops from its place; a rafter falls
Burning...Read more of this...
by
Robert Louis Stevenson
The lamps now glitter down the street;
Faintly sound the falling feet;
And the blue even slowly falls
About the garden trees and walls.
Now in the falling of the gloom
The red fire paints the empty room:
And warmly on the roof it looks,
And flickers on the back of books.
Armies march by tower and spire
Of...Read more of this...
by
Henry Lawson
The squatter saw his pastures wide
Decrease, as one by one
The farmers moving to the west
Selected on his run;
Selectors took the water up
And all the black soil round;
The best grass-land the squatter had
Was spoilt by Ross's Ground.
Now many schemes to shift old Ross
Had racked the squatter's brains,
But Sandy had the...Read more of this...
Dont forget to view our wonderful member Fire poems.