Famous Guttering Poems by Famous Poets

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

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A Spell before Winter

...d have gone,
Brought down by the wind, then by hammering rain
Bruised and discolored, when October's flame
Goes blue to guttering in the cusp, this land
Sinks deeper into silence, darker into shade.
There is a knowledge in the look of things,
The old hills hunch before the north wind blows.

Now I can see certain simplicities
In the darkening rust and tarnish of the time,
And say over the certain simplicities,
The running water and the standing stone,
The yellow haze of the w...Read more of this...
by Nemerov, Howard


Dulce Et Decorum Est

...k green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sore...Read more of this...
by Owen, Wilfred

Eddis Service

...re to attend."

The altar-lamps were lighted, --
 An old marsh-donkey came,
Bold as a guest invited,
 And stared at the guttering flame.

The storm beat on at the windows,
 The water splashed on the floor,
And a wet, yoke-weary bullock
 Pushed in through the open door.

"How do I know what is greatest,
 How do I know what is least?
That is My Father's business,"
 Said Eddi, Wilfrid's priest.

"But -- three are gathered together --
 Listen to me and attend.
I bring good news, ...Read more of this...
by Kipling, Rudyard

God

...In his malodorous brain what slugs and mire,
Lanthorned in his oblique eyes, guttering burned!
His body lodged a rat where men nursed souls.
The world flashed grape-green eyes of a foiled cat
To him. On fragments of an old shrunk power,
On shy and maimed, on women wrung awry,
He lay, a bullying hulk, to crush them more.
But when one, fearless, turned and clawed like bronze,
Cringing was easy to blunt these stern paws,
And he would we...Read more of this...
by Rosenberg, Isaac

Now Hollow Fires Burn Out to Black

...Now hollow fires burn out to black, 
And lights are guttering low: 
Square your shoulders, lift your pack, 
And leave your friends and go. 

Oh never fear, man, nought's to dread, 
Look not to left nor right: 
In all the endless road you tread 
There's nothing but the night....Read more of this...
by Housman, A E


Old Susan

...When Susan's work was done, she'd sit 
With one fat guttering candle lit, 
And window opened wide to win 
The sweet night air to enter in; 
There, with a thumb to keep her place 
She'd read, with stern and wrinkled face. 
Her mild eyes gliding very slow 
Across the letters to and fro, 
While wagged the guttering candle flame 
In the wind that through the window came. 
And sometimes in the silence she 
Would m...Read more of this...
by de la Mare, Walter

Sword Blades and Poppy Seed

...You must begin to work again.
Here are the things which you require."
By the fading light of the dying fire,
And by the guttering candle's flare,
I saw the old man standing there.
He handed me a packet, tied
With crimson tape, and sealed. "Inside
Are seeds of many differing flowers,
To occupy your utmost powers
Of storied vision, and these swords
Are the finest which my shop affords.
Go home and use them; do not spare
Yourself; let that be all your care.
Whatever you have mea...Read more of this...
by Lowell, Amy

The Cremona Violin

...
In the great chandeliers. A maze of curled
And powdered periwigs past her eyes swirled.
She smelt the smoke of candles guttering,
And caught the glint of jewelled fans fluttering
All round her in the boxes. Red and 
gold,
The house, like rubies set in filigree,
Filliped the candlelight about, and bold
Young sparks with eye-glasses, unblushingly
Ogled fair beauties in the balcony.
An officer went by, his steel spurs jangling.
Behind Charlotta an old man was wrangling
About a ...Read more of this...
by Lowell, Amy

The Derelict

...Gangs of the prying gull
That shriek and scrabble on the riven hatches!
 For roar that dumbed the gale,
 My hawse-pipes guttering wail,
Sobbing my heart out through the uncounted watches!

 Blind in the hot blue ring
 Through all my points I swing --
Swing and return to shift the sun anew.
 Blind in my well-known sky
 I hear the stars go by,
Mocking the prow that cannot hold one true!

 White on my wasted path
 Wave after wave in wrath
Frets 'gainst his fellow, warring where ...Read more of this...
by Kipling, Rudyard

The Dream

...gold
over Sydney, smoke-pale, rising out of the bay....)
But the day is an up-turned cup
and its sun a junk of red iron
guttering in sluggish-green water--
where shall I pour my dream?...Read more of this...
by Bogan, Louise

The Dug-Out

...one arm bent across your sullen, cold,
Exhausted face? It hurts my heart to watch you,
Deep-shadowed from the candle's guttering gold;
And you wonder why I shake you by the shoulder;
Drowsy, you mumble and sigh and turn your head . . . .
You are too young to fall asleep for ever;
And when you sleep you remind me of the dead....Read more of this...
by Sassoon, Siegfried

The Sentry

...ug-out, and he knew,
And gave us hell, for shell on frantic shell
Hammered on top, but never quite burst through.
Rain, guttering down in waterfalls of slime
Kept slush waist high, that rising hour by hour,
Choked up the steps too thick with clay to climb.
What murk of air remained stank old, and sour
With fumes of whizz-bangs, and the smell of men
Who'd lived there years, and left their curse in the den,
If not their corpses. . . .
 There we herded from the blast
Of whizz-ba...Read more of this...
by Owen, Wilfred

The White Peacock

...hadow. 
Doors creak; from secret parts of the chateau come the scuffle and worry of rats. 

Orange light drips from the guttering candles, 
Eddying over the vast embroideries of the bed 
Stirring the monstrous tapestries, 
Retreating before the sable impending gloom of the canopy 
With a swift thrust and sparkle of gold, 
Lipping my hands, 
Then 
Rippling back abashed before the ominous silences 
Like the swift turns and starts of an overpowered fencer 
Who sees before him Ho...Read more of this...
by Benet, Stephen Vincent

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