Famous Furious Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Heccar and Gaira

by Thomas Chatterton
 Where the rough Caigra rolls the surgy wave, 
Urging his thunders thro' the echoing cave; 
Where the sharp rocks, in distant horror seen, 
Drive the white currents thro' the spreading green; 
Where the loud tiger, pawing in his rage, 
Bids the black archers of the wilds engage; 
Stretch'd on the sand, two panting warriors lay, 
In all the burning...Read more of this...

Lilys Menagerie

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 [Goethe describes this much-admired Poem, which 
he wrote in honour of his love Lily, as being "designed to change 
his surrender of her into despair, by drolly-fretful images."]

THERE'S no menagerie, I vow,

Excels my Lily's at this minute;

She keeps the strangest creatures in it,
And catches them, she knows not how.

Oh, how they hop, and run, and rave,
And their clipp'd pinions...Read more of this...

The Faerie Queene: Book I Canto I

by Edmund Spenser
Lo I the man, whose Muse whilome did maske,
As time her taught in lowly Shepheards weeds,
Am now enforst a far unfitter taske,
For trumpets sterne to chaunge mine Oaten reeds,
And sing of Knights and Ladies gentle deeds;
Whose prayses having slept in silence long,
Me, all too meane, the sacred Muse areeds
To blazon broad emongst her learned throng:
Fierce warres and faithful loves shall...Read more of this...

Prayer For France

by Victor Hugo
 ("O Dieu, si vous avez la France.") 
 
 {VII., August, 1832.} 


 O God! if France be still thy guardian care, 
 Oh! spare these mercenary combats, spare! 
 The thrones that now are reared but to be broke; 
 The rights we render, and anon revoke; 
 The muddy stream of laws, ideas, needs, 
 Flooding our...Read more of this...

The Death of Nicou

by Thomas Chatterton
 On Tiber's banks, Tiber, whose waters glide 
In slow meanders down to Gaigra's side; 
And circling all the horrid mountain round, 
Rushes impetuous to the deep profound; 
Rolls o'er the ragged rocks with hideous yell; 
Collects its waves beneath the earth's vast shell; 
There for a while in loud confusion hurl'd, 
It crumbles mountains down and shakes the world....Read more of this...

Phantasmagoria CANTO VI ( Dyscomfyture )

by Lewis Carroll
 As one who strives a hill to climb,
Who never climbed before:
Who finds it, in a little time,
Grow every moment less sublime,
And votes the thing a bore: 

Yet, having once begun to try,
Dares not desert his quest,
But, climbing, ever keeps his eye
On one small hut against the sky
Wherein he hopes to rest: 

Who climbs till nerve and force are spent,
With...Read more of this...

The Dragon and The Undying

by Siegfried Sassoon
 All night the flares go up; the Dragon sings 
And beats upon the dark with furious wings; 
And, stung to rage by his own darting fires, 
Reaches with grappling coils from town to town; 
He lusts to break the loveliness of spires, 
And hurls their martyred music toppling down. 
Yet, though the slain are homeless as the breeze, 

Vocal...Read more of this...

How To Paint A Water Lily

by Ted Hughes
 To Paint a Water Lily

A green level of lily leaves
Roofs the pond's chamber and paves

The flies' furious arena: study
These, the two minds of this lady.

First observe the air's dragonfly
That eats meat, that bullets by

Or stands in space to take aim;
Others as dangerous comb the hum

Under the trees. There are battle-shouts
And death-cries everywhere hereabouts

But inaudible, so the eyes praise
To see...Read more of this...

The Olympic Girl

by John Betjeman
 The sort of girl I like to see
Smiles down from her great height at me.
She stands in strong, athletic pose
And wrinkles her retrouss? nose.
Is it distaste that makes her frown,
So furious and freckled, down
On an unhealthy worm like me?
Or am I what she likes to see?
I do not know, though much I care,
xxxxxxxx.....would I were
(Forgive me, shade of Rupert...Read more of this...

Two Months

by Rudyard Kipling
 June
No hope, no change! The clouds have shut us in,
 And through the cloud the sullen Sun strikes down
 Full on the bosom of the tortured Town,
Till Night falls heavy as remembered sin
That will not suffer sleep or thought of ease,
 And, hour on hour, the dry-eyed Moon in spite
 Glares through the haze and mocks with watery light
The...Read more of this...

A Boy in Church

by Robert Graves
 “Gabble-gabble,… brethren,… gabble-gabble!” 
My window frames forest and heather. 
I hardly hear the tuneful babble, 
Not knowing nor much caring whether 
The text is praise or exhortation,
Prayer or thanksgiving, or damnation. 

Outside it blows wetter and wetter, 
The tossing trees never stay still. 
I shift my elbows to catch better 
The full round sweep of heathered hill.
The tortured copse...Read more of this...

The Book of Urizen (excerpts)

by William Blake
 CHAPTER 1 

Lo, a shadow of horror is risen 
In Eternity! Unknown, unprolific,
Self-clos'd, all-repelling: what demon
Hath form'd this abominable void,
This soul-shudd'ring vacuum? Some said
"It is Urizen." But unknown, abstracted,
Brooding, secret, the dark power hid. 

CHAPTER 2 

Times on times he divided and measur'd
Space by space in his ninefold darkness,
Unseen, unknown; changes appear'd
Like desolate mountains, rifted furious
By the black winds...Read more of this...

The Ballad Of The Ice-Worm Cocktail

by Robert William Service
 To Dawson Town came Percy Brown from London on the Thames.
A pane of glass was in his eye, and stockings on his stems.
Upon the shoulder of his coat a leather pad he wore,
To rest his deadly rifle when it wasn't seeking gore;
The which it must have often been, for Major Percy Brown,
According to his story was a hunter of...Read more of this...

Fear No More

by William Shakespeare
 Fear no more the heat o' the sun; 
Nor the furious winter's rages, 
Thou thy worldly task hast done, 
Home art gone, and ta'en thy wages; 
Golden lads and girls all must, 
As chimney sweepers come to dust. 

Fear no more the frown of the great, 
Thou art past the tyrant's stroke: 
Care no more to clothe and eat;...Read more of this...

The Arrival of the Bee Box

by Sylvia Plath
I ordered this, clean wood box 
Square as a chair and almost too heavy to lift. 
I would say it was the coffin of a midget 
Or a square baby 
Were there not such a din in it. 

The box is locked, it is dangerous. 
I have to live with it overnight 
And I can't keep away from it. 
There...Read more of this...

The Pagan World

by Matthew Arnold
 In his cool hall, with haggard eyes,
The Roman noble lay;
He drove abroad, in furious guise,
Along the Appian way.

He made a feast, drank fierce and fast,
And crowned his hair with flowers—
No easier nor no quicker passed
The impracticable hours.

The brooding East with awe beheld
Her impious younger world.
The Roman tempest swelled and swelled,
And on her head was hurled.

The East bowed low before...Read more of this...

The Furious Gun

by Sir Thomas Wyatt
 The furious gun in his raging ire, 
When that the bowl is rammed in too sore 
And that the flame cannot part from the fire, 
Cracketh in sunder, and in the air doth roar 
The shivered pieces; right so doth my desire, 
Whose flame increaseth from more to more, 
Which to let out I dare not look or speak;...Read more of this...

Lines Written on the Sea-Coast

by Mary Darby Robinson
 SWIFT o'er the bounding deep the VESSEL glides,
Its streamers flutt'ring in the summer gales,
The lofty mast the breezy air derides,
As gaily o'er the glitt'ring surf she sails. 

Now beats each gallant heart with innate joys,
Bright hopes and tender fears alternate vie,
Dear schemes of pure delight the mind employs,
And the soul glistens in the tearful eye. 

The fond expecting Maid...Read more of this...

With French to Kimberley

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 The Boers were down on Kimberley with siege and Maxim gun; 
The Boers were down on Kimberley, their numbers ten to one! 
Faint were the hopes the British had to make the struggle good -- 
Defenceless in an open plain the Diamond City stood. 
They built them forts with bags of sand, they fought from roof and wall, 
They...Read more of this...

Elegy Upon Tiger

by Jonathan Swift
 Her dead lady's joy and comfort,
Who departed this life
The last day of March, 1727:
To the great joy of Bryan
That his antagonist is gone.

And is poor Tiger laid at last so low?
O day of sorrow! -Day of dismal woe!
Bloodhounds, or spaniels, lap-dogs, 'tis all one,
When Death once whistles -snap! -away they're gone.
See how she lies, and hangs her lifeless ears,
Bathed...Read more of this...

Narva and Mored

by Thomas Chatterton
 Recite the loves of Narva and Mored 
The priest of Chalma's triple idol said. 
High from the ground the youthful warriors sprung, 
Loud on the concave shell the lances rung: 
In all the mystic mazes of the dance, 
The youths of Banny's burning sands advance, 
Whilst the soft virgin panting looks behind, 
And rides upon the pinions of the...Read more of this...

To a Gentleman on His Voyage to Great-Britain

by Phillis Wheatley
 While others chant of gay Elysian scenes,
Of balmy zephyrs, and of flow'ry plains,
My song more happy speaks a greater name,
Feels higher motives and a nobler flame.
For thee, O R-----, the muse attunes her strings,
And mounts sublime above inferior things.
I sing not now of green embow'ring woods,
I sing not now the daughters of the floods,
I sing not of the storms...Read more of this...

Hohenlinden

by Thomas Campbell
 1 On Linden, when the sun was low,
2 All bloodless lay the untrodden snow,
3 And dark as winter was the flow
4 Of Iser, rolling rapidly.

5 But Linden saw another sight
6 When the drum beat at dead of night,
7 Commanding fires of death to light
8 The darkness of her scenery.

9 By torch and trumpet fast arrayed,
10 Each horseman drew his...Read more of this...

20. Stanzas on the same Occasion

by Robert Burns
 WHY am I loth to leave this earthly scene?
 Have I so found it full of pleasing charms?
 Some drops of joy with draughts of ill between—
 Some gleams of sunshine ’mid renewing storms,
 Is it departing pangs my soul alarms?
 Or death’s unlovely, dreary, dark abode?
 For guilt, for guilt, my terrors are in arms:
 I tremble to...Read more of this...

The Driver

by Friedrich von Schiller
 "What knight or what vassal will be so bold
As to plunge in the gulf below?
See! I hurl in its depths a goblet of gold,
Already the waters over it flow.
The man who can bring back the goblet to me,
May keep it henceforward,--his own it shall be."

Thus speaks the king, and he hurls from the height
Of the cliffs that, rugged and...Read more of this...

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