Famous Gnaws Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Bride of Abydos The

...et. 
He rear'd me, not with tender help, 
But like the nephew of a Cain; [30] 
He watch'd me like a lion's whelp, 
That gnaws and yet may break his chain. 
My father's blood in every vein 
Is boiling; but for thy dear sake 
No present vengeance will I take; 
Though here I must no more remain. 
But first, beloved Zuleika! hear 
How Giaffir wrought this deed of fear. 

XIII. 

"How first their strife to rancour grew, 
If love or envy made them foes, 
It matters little if I knew...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)


Custer

...ned red men yield the untried field by flight.


XXXII.
Yet when these conquering heroes sink to rest, 
Dissatisfaction gnaws the leader's breast, 
For far away across vast seas of snows
Held prisoners still by hostile Arapahoes
And Cheyennes unsubdued, two captives wait.
On God and Custer hangs their future fate.
May the Great Spirit nerve the mortal's arm
To rescue suffering souls from worse than death's alarm.



XXXIII.
But ere they seek to rescue the oppressed, 
The vali...Read more of this...
by Wilcox, Ella Wheeler

Dialogue Between Ghost And Priest

...questions of a curious old fool?'

'In life, love gnawed my skin
To this white bone;
What love did then, love does now:
Gnaws me through.'

'What love,' asked Father Shawn, 'but too great love
Of flawed earth-flesh could cause this sorry pass?
Some damned condition you are in:
Thinking never to have left the world, you grieve
As though alive, shriveling in torment thus
To atone as shade for sin that lured blind man.'

'The day of doom
Is not yest come.
Until that time
A crock...Read more of this...
by Plath, Sylvia

Distress Coils

...Poem by Anne-Marie Derése, translated by Judith Skillman.

The waiting volcano inside us
gnaws, digs, trembles,
weighs its chances. 
Distress coils up,
shrinks silent like a sick beast.
We are unrecognizable,
unique
in the certainty of our ferocity....Read more of this...
by Skillman, Judith

Duino Elegies

...en it stayed with us that it moved in and never left.
Oh and night: there is night when a wind full of infinite space
gnaws at out faces. Whom would it not remain for-that longed-after
mildly disillusioning presence which the solitary heart
so painfully meets. Is it any less difficult for lovers?
But they keep on using each other to hide their own fate.
Don't you know yet? Fling the emptiness out of your arms
Into the spaces we breathe; perhaps the birds
will feel the...Read more of this...
by Rilke, Rainer Maria


II. The Pauper Witch of Grafton

...o splinters. What did that prove?
Not that he hadn't gnawed the hitching posts
He said he had, besides. Because a horse
Gnaws in the stable ain't no proof to me
He don't gnaw trees and posts and fences too.
But everybody took it for a proof.
I was a strapping girl of twenty then.
The smarty someone who spoiled everything
Was Arthur Amy. You know who he was.
That was the way he started courting me.
He never said much after we were married,
But I mistrusted be was none too prou...Read more of this...
by Frost, Robert

Lara

...t? 
Or did that silence prove his memory fix'd 
Too deep for words, indelible, unmix'd 
In that corroding secresy which gnaws 
The heart to shew the effect, but not the cause? 
Not so in him; his breast had buried both, 
Nor common gazers could discern the growth 
Of thoughts that mortal lips must leave half told; 
They choke the feeble words that would unfold. 

XVII. 

In him inexplicably mix'd appear'd 
Much to be loved and hated, sought and fear'd; 
Opinion varying o'er h...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)

Ode On A Distant Prospect Of Eton College

...Fear,
And Shame that skulks behind;
Or pining Love shall waste their youth,
Or Jealousy with rankling tooth,
That inly gnaws the secret heart,
And Envy wan, and faded Care,
Grim-visaged comfortless Despair,
And Sorrow's piercing dart.

Ambition this shall tempt to rise,
Then whirl the wretch from high,
To bitter Scorn a sacrifice,
And grinning Infamy.
The stings of Falsehood those shall try,
And hard Unkindness' altered eye,
That mocks the tear it forced to flow;
And keen Re...Read more of this...
by Gray, Thomas

Ollie McGee

...wrinkled and with yellow teeth,
And with broken pride and shameful humility,
I sank into the grave.
But what think you gnaws at my husband's heart?
The face of what I was, the face of what he made me!
These are driving him to the place where I lie.
In death, therefore, I am avenged....Read more of this...
by Masters, Edgar Lee

The Bride of Abydos

...et. 
He rear'd me, not with tender help, 
But like the nephew of a Cain; [30] 
He watch'd me like a lion's whelp, 
That gnaws and yet may break his chain. 
My father's blood in every vein 
Is boiling; but for thy dear sake 
No present vengeance will I take; 
Though here I must no more remain. 
But first, beloved Zuleika! hear 
How Giaffir wrought this deed of fear. 

XIII. 

"How first their strife to rancour grew, 
If love or envy made them foes, 
It matters little if I knew...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)

The Broken Balance

...ad and the sea-cliff, bitter wild grass
Stands narrowed between the people and the storm.
The ocean winter after winter gnaws at its earth, the wheels and the feet
Summer after summer encroach and destroy.
Stubborn green life, for the cliff-eater I cannot comfort you, ignorant which color,
Gray-blue or pale-green, will please the late stars;
But laugh at the other, your seed shall enjoy wonderful vengeances and suck
The arteries and walk in triumph on the faces....Read more of this...
by Jeffers, Robinson

The Enemy

...d and cleaned
The mystic nourishment that fortifies?

—O Sorrow—O Sorrow—Time consumes Life,
And the obscure enemy that gnaws at my heart
Uses the blood that I lose to play my part....Read more of this...
by Baudelaire, Charles

The Four Ages of Man

...aught.
4.87 Be I of worth, of learning, or of parts,
4.88 I judge I should have room in all men's hearts;
4.89 And envy gnaws if any do surmount.
4.90 I hate for to be had in small account.
4.91 If Bias like, I'm stript unto my skin;
4.92 I glory in my wealth I have within.
4.93 Thus good, and bad, and what I am, you see,
4.94 Now in a word, what my diseases be:
4.95 The vexing Stone, in bladder and in reins,
4.96 Torments me with intolerable pains;
4.97 The windy cholic oft ...Read more of this...
by Bradstreet, Anne

The Irreparable

...
Make souls the targets of their hate? 
Witch, do you know accurs?d hearts? 

The Might-have-been with tooth accursed 
Gnaws at the piteous souls of men, 
The deep foundations suffer first, 
And all the structure crumbles then 
Beneath the bitter tooth accursed. 

II.

Often, when seated at the play, 
And sonorous music lights the stage, 
I see the frail hand of a Fay 
With magic dawn illume the rage 
Of the dark sky. Oft at the play 

A being made of gauze and fire 
Casts t...Read more of this...
by Baudelaire, Charles

The Mantra-Yoga

...!
An hurtful joy, a fascinating shame
Is this great ache that grips the heart of me.

Even as a cancer, so this passion gnaws
Away my soul, and will not ease its jaws
Till I am dead. Then let me die! Who knows
But that this corpse committed to the earth
May be the occasion of some happier birth?
Spring's earliest snowdrop? Summer's latest rose?

II

Thou knowest what asp hath fixed its lethal tooth
In the white breast that trembled like a flower
At thy name whispered. thou ha...Read more of this...
by Crowley, Aleister

The Santa-Fe Trail (A Humoresque)

...shopper vain 
Though he eats a hole in my shirt like a door.
I let him out, give him one chance more.
Perhaps, while he gnaws my hat in his whim,
Grasshopper lyrics occur to him.

I am a tramp by the long trail's border,
Given to squalor, rags and disorder.
I nap and amble and yawn and look,
Write fool-thoughts in my grubby book,
Recite to the children, explore at my ease,
Work when I work, beg when I please,
Give crank-drawings, that make folks stare
To the half-grown boys i...Read more of this...
by Lindsay, Vachel

The Universal Republic

...clanks— 
 It beats the time to nations' thanks— 
 At last, a peaceful strain! 
 
 'Tis rust, not gore, that gnaws the guns, 
 And shattered shells are but the runs 
 Where warring insects cope; 
 And all the headsman's racks and blades 
 And pincers, tools of tyrants' aids, 
 Are buried with the rope. 
 
 Upon the sky-line glows i' the dark 
 The Sun that now is but a spark; 
 But soon will be unfurled— 
 The glorious banner of us all, 
 The flag that r...Read more of this...
by Hugo, Victor

To A Madonna

...iscreet, 
Can make no Moon of Silver for thy feet 
To have for Footstool, then thy heel shall rest 
Upon the snake that gnaws within my breast, 
Victorious Queen of whom our hope is born! 
And thou shalt trample down and make a scorn 
Of the vile reptile swollen up with hate. 
And thou shalt see my thoughts, all consecrate, 
Like candles set before thy flower-strewn shrine, 
O Queen of Virgins, and the taper-shine 
Shall glimmer star-like in the vault of blue, 
With eyes of f...Read more of this...
by Baudelaire, Charles

Walls

...ame
they have built great and high walls around me.

And now I sit here and despair.
I think of nothing else: this fate gnaws at my mind;

for I had many things to do outside.
Ah why did I not pay attention when they were building the walls.

But I never heard any noise or sound of builders.
Imperceptibly they shut me from the outside world....Read more of this...
by Cavafy, Constantine P

Worm Either Way

...s turned, 
in either case, a worm. 

The conforming worm stays just inside the skin 
respectably unseen, and cheerfully gnaws away at the heart of life, 
making it all rotten inside. 

The unconforming worm -- that is, the worm that has turned -- 
gnaws just the same, gnawing the substance out of life, 
but he insists on gnawing a little hole in the social epidermis 
and poking his head out and waving himself 
and saying: Look at me, I am not respectable, 
I do all the things...Read more of this...
by Lawrence, D. H.

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