Famous Frightened Poems by Famous Poets

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

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The Garden of Janus

by Aleister Crowley
 I

The cloud my bed is tinged with blood and foam.
The vault yet blazes with the sun
Writhing above the West, brave hippodrome
Whose gladiators shock and shun
As the blue night devours them, crested comb
Of sleep's dead sea
That eats the shores of life, rings round eternity!

II

So, he is gone whose giant sword shed flame
Into my bowels; my blood's bewitched;
My brain's afloat with...Read more of this...

The Frightened Man

by Louise Bogan
 In fear of the rich mouth
I kissed the thin,--
Even that was a trap
To snare me in.

Even she, so long
The frail, the scentless,
Is become strong,
And proves relentless.

O, forget her praise,
And how I sought her
Through a hazardous maze
By shafted water....Read more of this...

Genesis

by Vachel Lindsay
 I was but a half-grown boy, 
You were a girl-child slight. 
Ah, how weary you were! 
You had led in the bullock-fight... 
We slew the bullock at length 
With knives and maces of stone. 
And so your feet were torn, 
Your lean arms bruised to the bone. 

Perhaps 'twas the slain beast's blood 
We drank, or a root we...Read more of this...

Nellie Clark

by Edgar Lee Masters
 I was only eight years old;
And before I grew up and knew what it meant
I had no words for it, except
That I was frightened and told my Mother;
And that my Father got a pistol
And would have killed Charlie, who was a big boy,
Fifteen years old, except for his Mother.
Nevertheless the story clung to me.
But the man who married me,...Read more of this...

Number 3 on the Docket

by Amy Lowell
 The lawyer, are you?
Well! I ain't got nothin' to say.
Nothin'!
I told the perlice I hadn't nothin'.
They know'd real well 'twas me.
Ther warn't no supposin',
Ketchin' me in the woods as they did,
An' me in my house dress.
Folks don't walk miles an' miles
In the drifted snow,
With no hat nor wrap on 'em
Ef everythin's all right, I guess.
All right? Ha! Ha! Ha!
Nothin'...Read more of this...

When Night is almost done

by Emily Dickinson
 When Night is almost done --
And Sunrise grows so near
That we can touch the Spaces --
It's time to smooth the Hair --

And get the Dimples ready --
And wonder we could care
For that old -- faded Midnight --
That frightened -- but an Hour --...Read more of this...

To The Muse

by Robert Louis Stevenson
 It is all right. All they do
Is go in by dividing
One rib from another. I wouldn't
Lie to you. It hurts
Like nothing I know. All they do
Is burn their way in with a wire.
It forks in and out a little like the tongue
Of that frightened garter snake we caught
At Cloverfield, you and me, Jenny
So long ago.

I would lie to you
If...Read more of this...

Fairy Tale

by Katherine Mansfield
 Now this is the story of Olaf
Who ages and ages ago
Lived right on the top of a mountain,
A mountain all covered with snow.

And he was quite pretty and tiny
With beautiful curling fair hair
And small hands like delicate flowers--
Cheeks kissed by the cold mountain air.

He lived in a hut made of pinewood
Just one little room and a door
A table, a...Read more of this...

The Early Purges

by Seamus Heaney
 I was six when I first saw kittens drown.
Dan Taggart pitched them, 'the scraggy wee shits',
Into a bucket; a frail metal sound,

Soft paws scraping like mad. But their tiny din
Was soon soused. They were slung on the snout 
Of the pump and the water pumped in.

'Sure, isn't it better for them now?' Dan said.
Like wet gloves they bobbed and...Read more of this...

The Miraculous Escape of Robert Allan the Fireman

by William Topaz McGonagall
 'Twas in the year of 1858, and on October the fourteenth day,
That a fire broke out in a warehouse, and for hours blazed away;
And the warehouse, now destroyed, was occupied by the Messrs R. Wylie, Hill & Co.,
Situated in Buchanan Street, in the City of Glasgow. 

The flames burst forth about three o'clock in the afternoon,
And intimation of the...Read more of this...

The Watchman

by Lucy Maud Montgomery
 My Claudia, it is long since we have met, 
So kissed, so held each other heart to heart! 
I thought to greet thee as a conqueror comes, 
Bearing the trophies of his prowess home, 
But Jove hath willed it should be otherwise­
Jove, say I? Nay, some mightier stranger-god 
Who thus hath laid his heavy hand on me, 
No victor,...Read more of this...

The Rum Parade

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 Now ye gallant Sydney boys, who have left your household joys 
To march across the sea in search of glory, 
I am very much afraid that you do not love parade, 
But the rum parade is quite another story. 
For the influenza came and to spoil its little game, 
They ordered us to drink a curious mixture; 
Though at...Read more of this...

Strayed Crab

by Elizabeth Bishop
 This is not my home. How did I get so far from water? It must 
be over that way somewhere. 
 I am the color of wine, of tinta. The inside of my powerful 
right claw is saffron-yellow. See, I see it now; I wave it like a 
flag. I am dapper and elegant; I move with great precision,...Read more of this...

The House Of Dust: Part 02: 10: Sudden Death

by Conrad Aiken
 'Number four—the girl who died on the table—
The girl with golden hair—'
The purpling body lies on the polished marble.
We open the throat, and lay the thyroid bare . . .

One, who held the ether-cone, remembers
Her dark blue frightened eyes.
He heard the sharp breath quiver, and saw her breast
More hurriedly fall and rise.
Her hands made futile gestures, she turned her...Read more of this...

For Australia

by Henry Lawson
 Now, with the wars of the world begun, they'll listen to you and me, 
Now while the frightened nations run to the arms of democracy, 
Now, when our blathering fools are scared, and the years have proved us right – 
All unprovided and unprepared, the Outpost of the White! 

"Get the people – no matter how," that is the...Read more of this...

Duino Elegies: The First Elegy

by Rainer Maria Rilke
 Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the angels'
hierarchies? and even if one of them suddenly
pressed me against his heart, I would perish
in the embrace of his stronger existence.
For beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror
which we are barely able to endure and are awed
because it serenely disdains to annihilate us.
Each single angel is terrifying.
And so...Read more of this...

The Playground of Life XIX

by Kahlil Gibran
 One hour devoted to the pursuit of Beauty 
And Love is worth a full century of glory 
Given by the frightened weak to the strong. 


From that hour comes man's Truth; and 
During that century Truth sleeps between 
The restless arms of disturbing dreams. 


In that hour the soul sees for herself 
The Natural Law, and for that century...Read more of this...

A Fantasy

by Louise Gluck
 I'll tell you something: every day
people are dying. And that's just the beginning.
Every day, in funeral homes, new widows are born,
new orphans. They sit with their hands folded,
trying to decide about this new life.

Then they're in the cemetery, some of them
for the first time. They're frightened of crying,
sometimes of not crying. Someone leans over,
tells them what to do next,...Read more of this...

We Are Those People

by Robinson Jeffers
 I have abhorred the wars and despised the liars, laughed at the frightened
And forecast victory; never one moment's doubt.
But now not far, over the backs of some crawling years, the next
Great war's column of dust and fire writhes
Up the sides of the sky: it becomes clear that we too may suffer
What others have, the brutal horror of defeat—
Or if...Read more of this...

Fleeing Away

by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
 My thoughts soar not as they ought to soar, 
Higher and higher on soul-lent wings; 
But ever and often and more and more 
They are dragged down earthward by little things, 
By little troubles and little needs, 
As a lark might be tangled among the weeds.

My purpose is not what it ought to be, 
Steady and fixed, like a...Read more of this...

You

by Barry Tebb
 “Remember, you loved me, when we were young, one day”



The words of the song in Tauber’s mellifluous tenor

Haunt my nights and days, make me tremble when I hear

Your voice on the phone, sadden me when I can’t make into your smile

The pucker of your lips, the gleam in your eye.



The day we met is with me still, you asked...Read more of this...

Tweedle-Dum And Tweedle-Dee

by Mother Goose
Tweedle-dum and Tweedle-dee
    Resolved to have a battle,
For Tweedle-dum said Tweedle-dee
    Had spoiled his nice new rattle.

Just then flew by a monstrous crow,
    As big as a tar barrel,
Which frightened both the heroes so,
    They quite forgot their quarrel....Read more of this...

Fit the First: ( Hunting of the Snark )

by Lewis Carroll
 The Landing 

"Just the place for a Snark!" the Bellman cried,
As he landed his crew with care;
Supporting each man on the top of the tide
By a finger entwined in his hair. 
"Just the place for a Snark! I have said it twice:
That alone should encourage the crew.
Just the place for a Snark! I have said it thrice:
What I tell...Read more of this...

The Storming of the Dargai Heights

by William Topaz McGonagall
 'Twas on the 20th of November, and in the year of 1897,
That the cheers of the Gordon Highlanders ascended to heaven,
As they stormed the Dargai heights without delay,
And made the Indian rebels fly in great dismay. 

"Men of the Gordon Highlanders," Colonel Mathias said,
"Now, my brave lads, who never were afraid,
Our General says ye must take Dargai heights to-day;
So,...Read more of this...

Hildebrand

by Hilaire Belloc
 Who was frightened by a Passing Motor, and was brought to Reason 

"Oh murder! What was that, Papa!"
"My child, It was a Motor-Car,
A most Ingenious Toy!
Designed to Captivate and Charm
Much rather than to rouse Alarm
In any English Boy.

"What would your Great Grandfather who
Was Aide-de-Camp to General Brue,
And lost a leg at Waterloo,
And Quatre-Bras and Ligny too!
And died at Trafalgar!-
What...Read more of this...

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