Famous Ghastly Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Ghastly poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous ghastly poems. These examples illustrate what a famous ghastly poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Bryant, William Cullen
...
Of his arch enemy Death---yea, seats himself
Upon the tyrant's throne---the sepulchre,
And of the triumphs of his ghastly foe
Makes his own nourishment. For he came forth
From thine own bosom, and shall have no end.
There have been holy men who hid themselves
Deep in the woody wilderness, and gave
Their lives to thought and prayer, till they outlived
The generation born with them, nor seemed
Less aged than the hoary trees and rocks
Around them;...Read more of this...
by
Brackenridge, Hugh Henry
...the gen'ral deluge drown'd the world,
Where could their tribes have found security?
Where find their fate but in the ghastly deep?
Unless, as others dream, some chosen few
High on the Andes 'scap'd the gen'ral death,
High on the Andes wrapt in endless snow,
Where winter in his wildest fury reigns.
But here Philosophers oppose the scheme,
The earth, say they, nor hills nor mountains knew
E'er yet the universal flood prevail'd:
But when the mighty waters rose alo...Read more of this...
by
Shelley, Percy Bysshe
...th gentle motion between banks
Of mossy slope, and on a placid stream,
Beneath a woven grove, it sails, and, hark!
The ghastly torrent mingles its far roar
With the breeze murmuring in the musical woods.
Where the embowering trees recede, and leave
A little space of green expanse, the cove
Is closed by meeting banks, whose yellow flowers
Forever gaze on their own drooping eyes,
Reflected in the crystal calm. The wave
Of the boat's motion marred their pensive task,
Wh...Read more of this...
by
Milton, John
...ed it Haemony, and gave it me,
And bade me keep it as of sovran use
'Gainst all enchantments, mildew blast, or damp,
Or ghastly Furies' apparition.
I pursed it up, but little reckoning made,
Till now that this extremity compelled.
But now I find it true; for by this means
I knew the foul enchanter, though disguised,
Entered the very lime-twigs of his spells,
And yet came off. If you have this about you
(As I will give you when we go), you may
Boldly assault the ne...Read more of this...
by
Keats, John
...is friends
Who know him not. Each diligently bends
Towards common thoughts and things for very fear;
Striving their ghastly malady to cheer,
By thinking it a thing of yes and no,
That housewives talk of. But the spirit-blow
Was struck, and all were dreamers. At the last
Endymion said: "Are not our fates all cast?
Why stand we here? Adieu, ye tender pair!
Adieu!" Whereat those maidens, with wild stare,
Walk'd dizzily away. Pained and hot
His eyes went after the...Read more of this...
by
Hugo, Victor
...I rather should have hewn your limbs away,
And left you crawling on your stumps, I say,—
But now die fast."
Ghastly, with starting eyes,
The King without a cry or struggle dies.
One dead—but lo! the other stands bold-faced,
Defiant; for the knight, when he unlaced
His cuirass, had his trusty sword laid down,
And Sigismond now grasps it as his own.
The monster-youth laughed at the silv'ry beard,
And, sword in hand, a murderer glad appeared.
...Read more of this...
by
Byron, George (Lord)
...se might smile, but some had seen
They scarce knew what, but more than should have been.
Why gazed he so upon the ghastly head
Which hands profane had gather'd from the dead,
That still beside his open'd volume lay,
As if to startle all save him away?
Why slept he not when others were at rest?
Why heard no music, and received no guest?
All was not well, they deem'd — but where the wrong?
Some knew perchance — but 'twere a tale too long;
And such besides were too...Read more of this...
by
Marvell, Andrew
...ry and of Charles his sire.
Harry sits down, and in his open side
The grisly wound reveals of which he died,
And ghastly Charles, turning his collar low,
The purple thread about his neck does show,
Then whispering to his son in words unheard,
Through the locked door both of them disappeared.
The wondrous night the pensive King revolves,
And rising straight on Hyde's disgrace resolves.
At his first step, he Castlemaine does find,
Bennet, and Coventry, as...Read more of this...
by
Blake, William
...wind doth move
Silently invisibly.
I told my love I told my love 5
I told her all my heart
Trembling cold in ghastly fears.
Ah! she did depart!
Soon after she was gone from me
A traveller came by 10
Silently invisibly:
He took her with a sigh....Read more of this...
by
Milton, John
...surably; all things shall be your prey."
He ceased; for both seemed highly pleased, and Death
Grinned horrible a ghastly smile, to hear
His famine should be filled, and blessed his maw
Destined to that good hour. No less rejoiced
His mother bad, and thus bespake her sire:--
"The key of this infernal Pit, by due
And by command of Heaven's all-powerful King,
I keep, by him forbidden to unlock
These adamantine gates; against all force
Death ready stands to in...Read more of this...
by
Wilde, Oscar
...tions given as thy prey!
And now - thy gates lie open night and day,
The grass grows green on every tower and hall,
The ghastly fig hath cleft thy bastioned wall;
And where thy mailed warriors stood at rest
The midnight owl hath made her secret nest.
O fallen! fallen! from thy high estate,
O city trammelled in the toils of Fate,
Doth nought remain of all thy glorious days,
But a dull shield, a crown of withered bays!
Yet who beneath this night of wars and fears,
From tra...Read more of this...
by
Byron, George (Lord)
...that pang where more than madness lies!
The worm that will not sleep — and never dies;
Thought of the gloomy day and ghastly night,
That dreads the darkness, and yet loathes the light,
That winds around, and tears the quivering heart!
Ah! wherefore not consume it — and depart!
Woe to thee, rash and unrelenting chief!
Vainly thou heap'st the dust upon thy head,
Vainly the sackcloth o'er thy limbs doth spread;
By that same hand Abdallah — Selim — bled.
Now let it...Read more of this...
by
Masefield, John
...de me dizzy.
The sky had all God's warning writ
In bloody marks all over it,
And over all I thought there was
A ghastly light besides the gas.
The Devil's tasks and Devil's rages
Were giving me the Devil's wages.
In Market-place it's always light,
The big shop windows make it bright;
And in the press of people buying
I spied a little fellow crying
Because his mother'd gone inside
And left him there, and so he cried.
And mother'd beat him when she ...Read more of this...
by
Wordsworth, William
...the storming army came, And Fire from hell reared his gigantic shape, And Murder, by the ghastly gleam, and Rape Seized their joint prey, the mother and the child! But from these crazing thoughts my brain, escape! —For weeks the balmy air breathed soft and mild, And on the gliding vessel Heaven and Ocean smiled. Some mighty gulph of separation past, ...Read more of this...
by
Bradstreet, Anne
...of Doom,
3.70 Nor yet the heavy reckoning for to come,
3.71 Though dangers do attend me every hour
3.72 And ghastly death oft threats me with her power:
3.73 Sometimes by wounds in idle combats taken,
3.74 Sometimes by Agues all my body shaken;
3.75 Sometimes by Fevers, all my moisture drinking,
3.76 My heart lies frying, and my eyes are sinking.
3.77 Sometimes the Cough, Stitch, painful Pleurisy,
3.78 With sad affrights of death, do me...Read more of this...
by
Chaucer, Geoffrey
...
There stood the temple of Mars Armipotent,
Wrought all of burnish'd steel, of which th' entry
Was long and strait, and ghastly for to see.
And thereout came *a rage and such a vise*, *such a furious voice*
That it made all the gates for to rise.
The northern light in at the doore shone,
For window on the walle was there none
Through which men mighten any light discern.
The doors were all of adamant etern,
Y-clenched *overthwart and ende-long* *crossways and lengt...Read more of this...
by
Scott, Sir Walter
...ow.'
XXIX.
Ellen and Margaret fearfully
Sought comfort in each other's eye,
Then turned their ghastly look, each one,
This to her sire, that to her son.
The hasty color went and came
In the bold cheek of Malcohm Graeme,
But from his glance it well appeared
'T was but for Ellen that he feared;
While, sorrowful, but undismayed,
The Douglas thus his counsel said:
'Brave Roderick, though the tempest roar,
...Read more of this...
by
Poe, Edgar Allan
...decorum of the countenance it wore,¡ª
"Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou," I said, "art sure no craven, 45
Ghastly grim and ancient Raven wandering from the Nightly shore:
Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night's Plutonian shore!"
Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."
Much I marvelled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly,
Though its answer little meaning¡ªlittle relevancy bore; 50
For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being
E...Read more of this...
by
Shelley, Percy Bysshe
...leaves them still
Farther behind & deeper in the shade.
But not the less with impotence of will
They wheel, though ghastly shadows interpose
Round them & round each other, and fulfill
Their work and to the dust whence they arose
Sink & corruption veils them as they lie
And frost in these performs what fire in those.
Struck to the heart by this sad pageantry,
Half to myself I said, "And what is this?
Whose shape is that within the car? & why"-
I would have added--"is ...Read more of this...
by
Shelley, Percy Bysshe
...kes,
Strewn with faint blooms like bridal-chamber floors,
Where naked boys bridling tame water-snakes,
Or charioteering ghastly alligators,
Had left on the sweet waters mighty wakes
Of those huge forms;--within the brazen doors
Of the Great Labyrinth slept both boy and beast,
Tired with the pomp of their Osirian feast.
And where within the surface of the river
The shadows of the massy temples lie,
And never are erased, but tremble ever
Like things which every cloud can d...Read more of this...
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