Famous Hardening Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Good-bye

by Walter de la Mare
 The last of last words spoken is, Good-bye -
The last dismantled flower in the weed-grown hedge,
The last thin rumour of a feeble bell far ringing,
The last blind rat to spurn the mildewed rye.

A hardening darkness glasses the haunted eye,
Shines into nothing the watcher's burnt-out candle,
Wreathes into scentless nothing the wasting incense,
Faints in the outer silence the hunting-cry.

Love of its...Read more of this...

They Feed They Lion

by Philip Levine
 Out of burlap sacks, out of bearing butter,
Out of black bean and wet slate bread,
Out of the acids of rage, the candor of tar,
Out of creosote, gasoline, drive shafts, wooden dollies,
They Lion grow. 

 Out of the gray hills
Of industrial barns, out of rain, out of bus ride, 
West Virginia to Kiss My Ass, out of buried aunties,
Mothers hardening...Read more of this...

The Book of Urizen: Chapter IX

by William Blake
 1. Then the Inhabitants of those Cities:
Felt their Nerves change into Marrow
And hardening Bones began 
In swift diseases and torments,
In throbbings & shootings & grindings
Thro' all the coasts; till weaken'd
The Senses inward rush'd shrinking,
Beneath the dark net of infection. 

2. Till the shrunken eyes clouded over
Discernd not the woven hipocrisy
But the streaky slime in their heavens
Brought together by narrowing...Read more of this...

Last Words to Miriam

by D. H. Lawrence
 Yours is the shame and sorrow, 
But the disgrace is mine; 
Your love was dark and thorough, 
Mine was the love of the sun for a flower 
He creates with his shine. 

I was diligent to explore you, 
Blossom you stalk by stalk, 
Till my fire of creation bore you 
Shrivelling down in the final dour 
Anguish -- then...Read more of this...

The Vandal

by Barry Tebb
 Someone has been tearing up the autumn,

Its ripped leaves ripple across the road

Flip liked hinged cards in the moist grass.

The rain-varnished houses vanish in smoke,

Drift on the air like blown-out breath in gusts:

So we forget frog-ponds and nut-gatherers,

Remember instead that weather’s for us

Who know too well its intentions, wind-keen,

Intense as the first frost hardening

Stubble grass to a tacky ice-blanket

Listen!...Read more of this...

The Death Baby

by Anne Sexton
 1. DREAMS

I was an ice baby.
I turned to sky blue.
My tears became two glass beads.
My mouth stiffened into a dumb howl.
They say it was a dream
but I remember that hardening.

My sister at six
dreamt nightly of my death:
"The baby turned to ice.
Someone put her in the refrigerator
and she turned as hard as a Popsicle."

I remember the stink of the liverwurst.
How...Read more of this...

A Years Carols

by Algernon Charles Swinburne
 JANUARY
HAIL, January, that bearest here
On snowbright breasts the babe-faced year
That weeps and trembles to be born.
Hail, maid and mother, strong and bright,
Hooded and cloaked and shod with white,
Whose eyes are stars that match the morn.
Thy forehead braves the storm's bent bow,
Thy feet enkindle stars of snow.

FEBRUARY
Wan February with weeping cheer,
Whose cold hand guides the youngling year
Down misty roads of...Read more of this...

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