Famous Gloom Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Down fall the tears from skies enwrapt in gloom,

by Omar Khayyam
Down fall the tears from skies enwrapt in gloom,
Without this drink, the flowers could never bloom!
As now these flowerets yield delight to me,
So shall my dust yield flowers,—God knows for whom....Read more of this...

Night on the Convoy

by Siegfried Sassoon
 (ALEXANDRIA-MARSEILLES)


Out in the blustering darkness, on the deck 
A gleam of stars looks down. Long blurs of black, 
The lean Destroyers, level with our track, 
Plunging and stealing, watch the perilous way 
Through backward racing seas and caverns of chill spray.
One sentry by the davits, in the gloom 
Stands mute: the boat heaves onward through the night. 
Shrouded is...Read more of this...

The Englishman In Italy

by Robert Browning
 (PIANO DI SORRENTO.)

Fortu, Frotu, my beloved one,
Sit here by my side,
On my knees put up both little feet!
I was sure, if I tried,
I could make you laugh spite of Scirocco;
Now, open your eyes— 
Let me keep you amused till he vanish
In black from the skies,
With telling my memories over
As you tell your beads;
All the memories plucked at Sorrento
—The flowers,...Read more of this...

Oh! Blame Not the Bard

by Thomas Moore
 Oh! blame not the bard, if he fly to the bowers 
Where Pleasure lies, carelessly smiling at Fame; 
He was born for much more, and in happier hours 
His soul might have burn'd with a holier flame. 
The string, that now languishes loose o'er the lyre, 
Might have bent a proud bow to the warrior's dart;
And the lip, which...Read more of this...

Ode to the Moon

by Mary Darby Robinson
 PALE GODDESS of the witching hour;
Blest Contemplation's placid friend; 
Oft in my solitary bow'r,
I mark thy lucid beam
From thy crystal car descend,
Whitening the spangled heath, and limpid sapphire stream. 

And oft, amidst the shades of night
I court thy undulating light;
When Fairies dance around the verdant ring,
Or frisk beside the bubbling spring,
When the thoughtless SHEPHERD'S song
Echoes thro' the silent air,
As...Read more of this...

Low Tide on Grand Pré

by Bliss Carman
 The sun goes down, and over all
These barren reaches by the tide
Such unelusive glories fall,
I almost dream they yet will bide
Until the coming of the tide.
And yet I know that not for us,
By any ecstasy of dream,
He lingers to keep luminous
A little while the grievous stream,
Which frets, uncomforted of dream--

A grievous stream, that to and fro
Athrough the fields of...Read more of this...

Till I Wake

by Adela Florence Cory Nicolson
   Alone, I wait, till her twilight gate
                        The Night slips quietly through,
   With shadow and gloom, and purple bloom,
             ...Read more of this...

The Three Voices

by Robert William Service
 The waves have a story to tell me,
 As I lie on the lonely beach;
Chanting aloft in the pine-tops,
 The wind has a lesson to teach;
But the stars sing an anthem of glory
 I cannot put into speech.

The waves tell of ocean spaces,
 Of hearts that are wild and brave,
Of populous city places,
 Of desolate shores they lave,
Of men...Read more of this...

Among the Pines

by Lucy Maud Montgomery
 Here let us linger at will and delightsomely hearken
Music aeolian of wind in the boughs of pine,
Timbrel of falling waters, sounds all soft and sonorous,
Worshipful litanies sung at a bannered shrine. 

Deep let us breathe the ripeness and savor of balsam,
Tears that the pines have wept in sorrow sweet,
With its aroma comes beguilement of things forgotten,
Long-past hopes of the...Read more of this...

Im Scared Of It All

by Robert William Service
 I'm scared of it all, God's truth! so I am;
It's too big and brutal for me.
My nerve's on the raw and I don't give a damn
For all the "hoorah" that I see.
I'm pinned between subway and overhead train,
Where automobillies swoop down:
Oh, I want to go back to the timber again --
I'm scared of the terrible town.

I want to go...Read more of this...

The Past

by William Cullen Bryant
THOU unrelenting Past! 
Strong are the barriers round thy dark domain  
And fetters sure and fast  
Hold all that enter thy unbreathing reign. 

Far in thy realm withdrawn 5 
Old empires sit in sullenness and gloom  
And glorious ages gone 
Lie deep within the shadow of thy womb. 

Childhood with all its mirth  
Youth Manhood Age...Read more of this...

Pardoned Out

by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
 I’m pardoned out. Again the stars
Shine on me with their myriad eyes.
So long I’ve peered ‘twixt iron bars, 
I’m awed by this expanse of skies.
The world is wider than I thought, 
And yet ‘tis not so wide, I know, 
But into its remotest spot
My tale of shame can go.

I’m pardoned out. Old Father Time
Who seemed to halt in horror,...Read more of this...

Ode For Memorial Day

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
Done are the toils and the wearisome marches,
Done is the summons of bugle and drum.
Softly and sweetly the sky over-arches,
Shelt'ring a land where Rebellion is dumb.
Dark were the days of the country's derangement,
Sad were the hours when the conflict was on,
But through the gloom of fraternal estrangement
God sent his light, and we welcome the dawn.
O'er the expanse of our mighty...Read more of this...

To A Young Lady

by John Trumbull
 In vain, fair Maid, you ask in vain,
My pen should try th' advent'rous strain,
And following truth's unalter'd law,
Attempt your character to draw.
I own indeed, that generous mind
That weeps the woes of human kind,
That heart by friendship's charms inspired,
That soul with sprightly fancy fired,
The air of life, the vivid eye,
The flowing wit, the keen reply--
To paint these beauties as they...Read more of this...

Rinaldo to Laura Maria

by Mary Darby Robinson
 THOU! whose sublime poetic art 
Can pierce the pulses of the heart, 
Can force the treasur'd tear to flow 
In prodigality of woe; 
Or lure each jocund bliss to birth 
Amid the sportive bow'rs of mirth: 
LAURA DIVINE! I call thee now 
To yonder promontory's brow 
That props the skies; while at its feet 
With fruitless ire the billows...Read more of this...

Sensitive Burglar

by Robert William Service
 Selecting in the dining-room
 The silver of his choice,
The burglar heard from chamber gloom
 A female voice.
As cold and bitter as a toad,
 She spat a nasty name,
So even as his swag he stowed
 He blushed for shame.

'You dirty dog!' he heard her say,
 'I sniff your whisky stench.
I bet you've gambled half your pay,
 Or blown it on...Read more of this...

Ballad for Gloom

by Ezra Pound
 For God, our God is a gallant foe 
That playeth behind the veil. 

I have loved my God as a child at heart 
That seeketh deep bosoms for rest, 
I have loved my God as a maid to man— 
But lo, this thing is best: 

To love your God as a gallant foe that plays behind the veil; 
To...Read more of this...

Melancholy -- To Laura

by Friedrich von Schiller
 Laura! a sunrise seems to break
Where'er thy happy looks may glow.
Joy sheds its roses o'er thy cheek,
Thy tears themselves do but bespeak
The rapture whence they flow;
Blest youth to whom those tears are given--
The tears that change his earth to heaven;
His best reward those melting eyes--
For him new suns are in the skies!

Thy soul--a crystal river passing,
Silver-clear, and sunbeam-glassing,
Mays into...Read more of this...

Camp Follower's Song, Gomal River

by Adela Florence Cory Nicolson
   Along the hot and endless road,
     Calm and erect, with haggard eyes,
   The prisoner bore his fetters' load
     Beneath the scorching, azure skies.

   Serene and tall, with brows unbent,
     Without a hope, without a friend,
   He, under escort, onward...Read more of this...

Sonnet CLIV

by Francesco Petrarch
SONNET CLIV. Giunto Alessandro alla famosa tomba. HE FEARS THAT HE IS INCAPABLE OF WORTHILY CELEBRATING HER.  The son of Philip, when he saw the tombOf fierce Achilles, with a sigh, thus said:"O happy, whose achievements erst found roomFrom that illustrious trumpet to be spreadO'er earth for ever!"—But, beyond the gloomRead more of this...

Falling Asleep

by Siegfried Sassoon
 Voices moving about in the quiet house: 
Thud of feet and a muffled shutting of doors: 
Everyone yawning. Only the clocks are alert. 

Out in the night there’s autumn-smelling gloom 
Crowded with whispering trees; across the park
A hollow cry of hounds like lonely bells: 
And I know that the clouds are moving across the moon; 
The low, red, rising...Read more of this...

Reverie of Mahomed Akram at the Tamarind Tank

by Adela Florence Cory Nicolson
   The Desert is parched in the burning sun
   And the grass is scorched and white.
   But the sand is passed, and the march is done,
   We are camping here to-night.
        I sit in the shade of the Temple walls,
     ...Read more of this...

The Other Tiger

by Jorge Luis Borges
 A tiger comes to mind. The twilight here
Exalts the vast and busy Library
And seems to set the bookshelves back in gloom;
Innocent, ruthless, bloodstained, sleek
It wanders through its forest and its day
Printing a track along the muddy banks
Of sluggish streams whose names it does not know
(In its world there are no names or past
Or time to come, only the vivid...Read more of this...

Portrait of a Baby

by Stephen Vincent Benet
 He lay within a warm, soft world 
Of motion. Colors bloomed and fled, 
Maroon and turquoise, saffron, red, 
Wave upon wave that broke and whirled 
To vanish in the grey-green gloom, 
Perspectiveless and shadowy. 
A bulging world that had no walls, 
A flowing world, most like the sea, 
Compassing all infinity 
Within a shapeless, ebbing room, 
An endless tide...Read more of this...

The Dawn of Darkness

by George William Russell
 COME earth’s little children pit-pat from their burrows on the hill;
Hangs within the gloom its weary head the shining daffodil.
In the valley underneath us through the fragrance flit along
Over fields and over hedgerows little quivering drops of song.
All adown the pale blue mantle of the mountains far away
Stream the tresses of the twilight flying in the wake of day.
Night...Read more of this...

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