Famous Hate Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Prometheus

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
Prometheus stole from Heaven the sacred fire
And swept to earth with it o'er land and sea.
He lit the vestal flames of poesy,
Content, for this, to brave celestial ire.
Wroth were the gods, and with eternal hate
Pursued the fearless one who ravished Heaven
That earth might hold in fee the perfect leaven
To lift men's souls above their low estate.
But judge you now, when...Read more of this...

A Song of the White Men

by Rudyard Kipling
 1899

Now, this is the cup the White Men drink
 When they go to right a wrong,
And that is the cup of the old world's hate--
 Cruel and strained and strong.
We have drunk that cup--and a bitter, bitter cup--
 And tossed the dregs away.
But well for the world when the White Men drink
 To the dawn of the White Man's...Read more of this...

I had no time to hate because

by Emily Dickinson
I had no time to hate, because
The grave would hinder me,
And life was not so ample I
Could finish enmity.

Nor had I time to love, but since
Some industry must be,
The little toil of love, I thought,
Was large enough for me....Read more of this...

Hate

by James Stephens
 My enemy came nigh, 
And I 
Stared fiercely in his face. 
My lips went writhing back in a grimace, 
And stern I watched him with a narrow eye. 
Then, as I turned away, my enemy, 
That bitter heart and savage, said to me: 
"Some day, when this is past, 
When all the arrows that we have are cast, 
We...Read more of this...

Sonnet XLVIII: Cupid I Hate Thee

by Michael Drayton
 Cupid, I hate thee, which I'd have thee know; 
A naked starveling ever may'st thou be. 
Poor rogue, go pawn thy fascia and thy bow 
For some few rags wherewith to cover thee. 
Or, if thou'lt not, thy archery forbear, 
To some base rustic do thyself prefer, 
And when corn's sown or grown into the ear, 
Practise thy quiver...Read more of this...

The World

by George Herbert
 1 I saw Eternity the other night,
2 Like a great ring of pure and endless light,
3 All calm, as it was bright;
4 And round beneath it, Time in hours, days, years,
5 Driv'n by the spheres
6 Like a vast shadow mov'd; in which the world
7 And all her train were hurl'd.
8 The doting lover in his quaintest strain
9 Did there...Read more of this...

Hate

by Carl Sandburg
 ONE man killed another. The saying between them had been “I’d give you the shirt off my back.”

The killer wept over the dead. The dead if he looks back knows the killer was sorry. It was a shot in one second of hate out of ten years of love.

Why is the sun a red ball in the six o’clock...Read more of this...

Let such pure hate still underprop

by Henry David Thoreau
 "Friends, Romans, Countrymen, and Lovers."

Let such pure hate still underprop 
Our love, that we may be 
Each other's conscience, 
And have our sympathy 
Mainly from thence. 

We'll one another treat like gods, 
And all the faith we have 
In virtue and in truth, bestow 
On either, and suspicion leave 
To gods below. 

Two solitary stars-- 
Unmeasured systems far 
Between...Read more of this...

Sonnet 142: Love is my sin and thy dear virtue hate

by William Shakespeare
 Love is my sin, and thy dear virtue hate,
Hate of my sin, grounded on sinful loving,
O, but with mine, compare thou thine own state,
And thou shalt find it merits not reproving,
Or if it do, not from those lips of thine
That have profaned their scarlet ornaments
And sealed false bonds of love as oft as mine,
Robbed others' beds' revenues of their...Read more of this...

Sonnet 90: Then hate me when thou wilt; if ever now

by William Shakespeare
 Then hate me when thou wilt; if ever, now;
Now, while the world is bent my deeds to cross,
join with the spite of fortune, make me bow,
And do not drop in for an after-loss.
Ah, do not, when my heart hath 'scaped this sorrow,
Come in the rearward of a conquered woe;
Give not a windy night a rainy morrow,
To linger out a...Read more of this...

304. Song—I Murder hate

by Robert Burns
 I MURDER hate by flood or field,
 Tho’ glory’s name may screen us;
In wars at home I’ll spend my blood—
 Life-giving wars of Venus.
The deities that I adore
 Are social Peace and Plenty;
I’m better pleas’d to make one more,
 Than be the death of twenty.


I would not die like Socrates,
 For all the fuss of Plato;
Nor would I with...Read more of this...

Love Of Jerusalem

by Yehuda Amichai
 There is a street where they sell only red meat
And there is a street where they sell only clothes and perfumes. And there
is a day when I see only cripples and the blind
And those covered with leprosy, and spastics and those with twisted lips.

Here they build a house and there they destroy
Here they dig into the earth
And there they...Read more of this...

La Passion Vaincue

by Anne Kingsmill Finch
 On the Banks of the Severn a desperate Maid 
(Whom some Shepherd, neglecting his Vows, had betray'd,) 
Stood resolving to banish all Sense of the Pain, 
And pursue, thro' her Death, a Revenge on the Swain. 
Since the Gods, and my Passion, at once he defies; 
Since his Vanity lives, whilst my Character dies; 
No more (did she say)...Read more of this...

A Rusty Nail

by Robert William Service
 I ran a nail into my hand,
 The wound was hard to heal;
So bitter was the pain to stand
 I thought how it would feel,
To have spikes thrust through hands and feet,
 Impaled by hammer beat.

Then hoisted on a cross of oak
 Against the sullen sky,
With all about the jeering follk
 Who joyed to see me die;
Die hardly in...Read more of this...

To A Small Boy Standing On My Shoes While I Am Wearing Them

by Ogden Nash
 Let's straighten this out, my little man,
And reach an agreement if we can.
I entered your door as an honored guest.
My shoes are shined and my trousers are pressed,
And I won't stretch out and read you the funnies
And I won't pretend that we're Easter bunnies.
If you must get somebody down on the floor,
What in the hell are your parents for?
I...Read more of this...

Black Swans

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 As I lie at rest on a patch of clover 
In the Western Park when the day is done. 
I watch as the wild black swans fly over 
With their phalanx turned to the sinking sun; 
And I hear the clang of their leader crying 
To a lagging mate in the rearward flying, 
And they fade away in the...Read more of this...

To A Lady

by George (Lord) Byron
 O! had my Fate been join'd with thine,
As once this pledge appear'd a token,
These follies had not, then, been mine,
For, then, my peace had not been broken.

To thee, these early faults I owe,
To thee, the wise and old reproving:
They know my sins, but do not know
'Twas thine to break the bonds of loving.

For once my soul, like thine, was...Read more of this...

Boaz Asleep

by Victor Hugo
 Boaz, overcome with weariness, by torchlight 
made his pallet on the threshing floor 
where all day he had worked, and now he slept 
among the bushels of threshed wheat.

The old man owned wheatfields and barley, 
and though he was rich, he was still fair-minded. 
No filth soured the sweetness of his well. 
No hot iron of torture whitened in...Read more of this...

Honours Martyr

by Emily Brontë
 The moon is full this winter night;
The stars are clear, though few;
And every window glistens bright,
With leaves of frozen dew. 

The sweet moon through your lattice gleams
And lights your room like day;
And there you pass, in happy dreams,
The peaceful hours away! 

While I, with effort hardly quelling
The anguish in my breast,
Wander about the silent dwelling,
And cannot think of rest....Read more of this...

Hate

by Robert William Service
 I had a bitter enemy,
His heart to hate he gave,
And when I died he swore that he
Would dance upon my grave;
That he would leap and laugh because
A livid corpse was I,
And that's the reason why I was
In no great haste to die. 

And then - such is the quirk of fate,
One day with joy I read,
Despite his vitalizing hate
My...Read more of this...

I Hate This City

by Adela Florence Cory Nicolson
   I hate this City, seated on the Plain,
     The clang and clamour of the hot Bazar,
   Knowing, amid the pauses of my pain,
     This month the Almonds bloom in Kandahar.

   The Almond-trees, that sheltered my Delight,
     Screening my happiness as evening...Read more of this...

I had no time to Hate

by Emily Dickinson
 I had no time to Hate --
Because
The Grave would hinder Me --
And Life was not so
Ample I
Could finish -- Enmity --

Nor had I time to Love --
But since
Some Industry must be --
The little Toil of Love --
I thought
Be large enough for Me --...Read more of this...

Hugos pool in the forest

by Eugene Field
 How calm, how beauteous and how cool--
How like a sister to the skies,
Appears the broad, transparent pool
That in this quiet forest lies.
The sunshine ripples on its face,
And from the world around, above,
It hath caught down the nameless grace
Of such reflections as we love.

But deep below its surface crawl
The reptile horrors of the night--
The dragons, lizards, serpents--all
The hideous brood that...Read more of this...

LEnvoi

by Robert William Service
 My job is done; my rhymes are ranked and ready,
 My word-battalions marching verse by verse;
Here stanza-companies are none too steady;
 There print-platoons are weak, but might be worse.
And as in marshalled order I review them,
 My type-brigades, unfearful of the fray,
My eyes that seek their faults are seeing through them
 Immortal visions of an epic day.

It seems I'm...Read more of this...

While The Bannock Bakes

by Robert William Service
 Light up your pipe again, old chum, and sit awhile with me;
I've got to watch the bannock bake -- how restful is the air!
You'd little think that we were somewhere north of Sixty-three,
Though where I don't exactly know, and don't precisely care.
The man-size mountains palisade us round on every side;
The river is a-flop with fish, and ripples silver-clear;
The midnight...Read more of this...

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