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Famous Hornet Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Sassoon, Siegfried
...ar and worship Chance, 
Creep and blink through cannon thunder. 
Rifles crack and bullets flick, 
Sing and hum like hornet-swarms. 
Bones are smashed and buried quick. 
Yet, through stunning battle storms, 
All the while I watch the spark 
Lit to guide me; for I know 
Dreams will triumph, though the dark 
Scowls above me where I go. 
You can hear me; you can mingle 
Radiant folly with my jingle. 
War's a joke for me and you 
While we know such dreams are t...Read more of this...



by Martí, José
...d
And when she bade me good-bye.

I trembled once, when I flung
The vineyard gate, and to my dread,
The wicked hornet had stung
My little girl on the forehead.

I rejoiced once and felt lucky
The day that my jailer came
To read the death warrant to me
That bore his tears and my name.

I hear a sigh across the earth,
I hear a sigh over the deep:
It is no sign reaching my hearth,
But my son waking from sleep.

If they say I have obtained
The p...Read more of this...

by Sexton, Anne
...him. For six years he studied up. I prayed
against God Himself for my boy. But he stayed.

Christ was a hornet inside his head. I guess
I'd better stitch the zipper in this dress.

I guess I'll get along. I always did.
Across the hall from me's an old invalid,

aside of him, a young one -- he carries on
with a girl who pretends she comes to use the john.

The old one with the bad breath and his bed all mussed,
he smiles and talks to them.Read more of this...

by Lee, Li-Young
...I still see him bend that way-left hand braced 
on knee, creaky-to lift and hold to my 
eye a rotten pear. In it, a hornet 
spun crazily, glazed in slow, glistening juice. 

It was my father I saw this morning 
waving to me from the trees. I almost 
called to him, until I came close enough 
to see the shovel, leaning where I had 
left it, in the flickering, deep green shade. 

White rice steaming, almost done. Sweet green peas 
fried in onions. Shrimp ...Read more of this...

by Sexton, Anne
...d delicate,
billow and flutter and drop
like the Victorian skirts
of my two maiden aunts
who kept an antique shop.

Hornets have been sent.
They cluster like floral arrangements on the screen.
Hornets, dragging their thin stingers,
hover outside, all knowing,
hissing: the hornet knows.
I heard it as a child
but what was it that he meant?
The hornet knows!
What happened to Jack and Doc and Reggy?
Who remembers what lurks in the heart of man?
What did The Green ...Read more of this...



by Browning, Robert
...n Sin,
What he bought of Emperor Aldabrod,
He sold it to Sultan Saladin:
Till, caught by Pope Clement, a-buzzing there,
Hornet-prince of the mad wasps' hive,
And clipt of his wings in Paris square,
They bring him now to be burned alive.
[_And wanteth there grace of lute or
clavicithern, ye shall say to confirm
him who singeth---_
We bring John now to be burned alive.

III.

In the midst is a goodly gallows built;
'Twixt fork and fork, a stake is stuck;
But first t...Read more of this...

by Sexton, Anne
...A red-hot needle
hangs out of him, he steers by it
as if it were a rudder, he
would get in the house any way he could
and then he would bounce from window
to ceiling, buzzing and looking for you.
Do not sleep for he is there wrapped in the curtain.
Do not sleep for he is there under the shelf.
Do not sleep for he wants to sew up your skin,
he w...Read more of this...

by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...Conceits himself as God that he can make
Figs out of thistles, silk from bristles, milk
From burning spurge, honey from hornet-combs
And men from beasts--Long live the king of fools!"


And down the city Dagonet danced away;
But thro' the slowly-mellowing avenues
And solitary passes of the wood
Rode Tristram toward Lyonnesse and the west.
Before him fled the face of Queen Isolt
With ruby-circled neck, but evermore
Past, as a rustle or twitter in the wood
Made dull his inn...Read more of this...

by Smart, Christopher
...bel bless with the Wasp, who is the Lord's architect, and buildeth his edifice in armour. 

Let Jehu bless with the Hornet, who is the soldier of the Lord to extirpate abomination and to prepare the way of peace. 

Let Mattithiah bless with the Bat, who inhabiteth the desolations of pride and flieth amongst the tombs. 

Let Elias which is the innocency of the Lord rejoice with the Dove. 

Let Asaph rejoice with the Nightingale -- The musician of the Lord! and ...Read more of this...

by Smart, Christopher
...ifrage -- the bird of prey and the man of prayer. 

Let Naomi rejoice with Pseudosphece who is between a wasp and a hornet. 

Let Ruth rejoice with the Tumbler -- it is a pleasant thing to feed him and be thankful. 

Let Ram rejoice with the Fieldfare, who is a good gift from God in the season of scarcity. 

Let Manoah rejoice with Cerastes, who is a Dragon with horns. 

Let Talmai rejoice with Alcedo, who makes a cradle for it's young, which is rock'd by ...Read more of this...

by Ammons, A R
...t accelerates, secretary bird ****, turtle
**** suspension invites, remora **** slightly in

advance of the shark ****, hornet **** (difficult to
assess), camel **** that slaps the ghastly dry
siliceous, frog ****, beetle ****, bat **** (the

marmoreal), contemptible cat ****, penguin ****,
hermit crab ****, prairie hen ****, cougar ****, eagle
**** (high totem stuff), buffalo **** (hardly less

lofty), otter ****, beaver **** (from the animal of
alluvial dreams)—a vast ordur...Read more of this...

by Whittier, John Greenleaf
...rape's clusters shine;
Of the black wasp's cunning way,
Mason of his walls of clay,
And the architectural plans
Of gray hornet artisans!
For, eschewing books and tasks,
Nature answers all he asks;
Hand in hand with her he walks,
Face to face with her he talks,
Part and parcel of her joy, -
Blessings on the barefoot boy!

Oh for boyhood's time of June,
Crowding years in one brief moon,
When all things I heard or saw,
Me, their master, waited for.
I was rich in flowers and ...Read more of this...

by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...e through his nostrils,
Through his teeth he buzzed and muttered
Words of anger and resentment,
Hot and humming, like a hornet.
"I will slay this Pau-Puk-Keewis,
Slay this mischief-maker!" said he.
"Not so long and wide the world is,
Not so rude and rough the way is,
That my wrath shall not attain him,
That my vengeance shall not reach him!"
Then in swift pursuit departed
Hiawatha and the hunters
On the trail of Pau-Puk-Keewis,
Through the forest, where he passed it,
...Read more of this...

by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...nceits himself as God that he can make 
Figs out of thistles, silk from bristles, milk 
From burning spurge, honey from hornet-combs, 
And men from beasts--Long live the king of fools!' 

And down the city Dagonet danced away; 
But through the slowly-mellowing avenues 
And solitary passes of the wood 
Rode Tristram toward Lyonnesse and the west. 
Before him fled the face of Queen Isolt 
With ruby-circled neck, but evermore 
Past, as a rustle or twitter in the wood 
Made d...Read more of this...

by Thomson, James
...ing, 
Attending thy Retreat, and round thy Wain,
Slow-rolling, onward to the Southern Sky.

BEHOLD! the well-pois'd Hornet, hovering, hangs,
With quivering Pinions, in the genial Blaze;
Flys off, in airy Circles: then returns, 
And hums, and dances to the beating Ray.
Nor shall the Man, that, musing, walks alone,
And, heedless, strays within his radiant Lists,
Go unchastis'd away. -- Sometimes, a Fleece
Of Clouds, wide-scattering, with a lucid Veil, 
Soft, shadow ...Read more of this...

by Jonson, Ben
...LXXVIII. — TO HORNET. HORNET, thou hast thy wife drest for the stall, To draw thee custom: but herself gets all....Read more of this...

by Nash, Ogden
...true love;
But the big dog is to her
Like a scarlet rag to a Longhorn,
Or a suitcase to a porter;
The day he sat on the hornet
I distinctly heard her purr.

Well, how can you blame the little dog,
Who was once the household darling?
He romps like a young Adonis,
She droops like an old mustache;
No wonder she steals his corner,
No wonder she comes out snarling,
No wonder she calls him Cochon
And even Espèce de vache.

Yet once I wanted a sandwich,
Either caviar or cucu...Read more of this...

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