Famous Howl Poems by Famous Poets

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

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The Gramaphone At Fond-Du-Lac

by Robert William Service
 Now Eddie Malone got a swell grammyfone to draw all the trade to his store;
An' sez he: "Come along for a season of song, which the like ye had niver before."
Then Dogrib, an' Slave, an' Yellow-knife brave, an' Cree in his dinky canoe,
Confluated near, to see an' to hear Ed's grammyfone make its dayboo.

Then Ed turned the crank, an'...Read more of this...

64. Fragment of Song—'My Jean!'

by Robert Burns
 THO’ cruel fate should bid us part,
 Far as the pole and line,
Her dear idea round my heart,
 Should tenderly entwine.
Tho’ mountains, rise, and deserts howl,
 And oceans roar between;
Yet, dearer than my deathless soul,
 I still would love my Jean....Read more of this...

Fit the Third ( Hunting of the Snark )

by Lewis Carroll
 The Baker's Tale 

They roused him with muffins--they roused him with ice--
They roused him with mustard and cress--
They roused him with jam and judicious advice--
They set him conundrums to guess. 
When at length he sat up and was able to speak,
His sad story he offered to tell;
And the Bellman cried "Silence! Not even a shriek!"
And excitedly tingled his bell....Read more of this...

Rinaldo to Laura Maria

by Mary Darby Robinson
 THOU! whose sublime poetic art 
Can pierce the pulses of the heart, 
Can force the treasur'd tear to flow 
In prodigality of woe; 
Or lure each jocund bliss to birth 
Amid the sportive bow'rs of mirth: 
LAURA DIVINE! I call thee now 
To yonder promontory's brow 
That props the skies; while at its feet 
With fruitless ire the billows...Read more of this...

Tortoise Shout

by D. H. Lawrence
 I thought he was dumb, said he was dumb,
Yet I've heard him cry.
First faint scream,
Out of life's unfathomable dawn,
Far off, so far, like a madness, under the horizon's dawning rim,
Far, far off, far scream.
Tortoise in extremis.
Why were we crucified into sex?
Why were we not left rounded off, and finished in ourselves,
As we began,
As he certainly began, so perfectly alone?

A...Read more of this...

61. Second Epistle to J. Lapraik

by Robert Burns
 WHILE new-ca’d kye rowte at the stake
An’ pownies reek in pleugh or braik,
This hour on e’enin’s edge I take,
 To own I’m debtor
To honest-hearted, auld Lapraik,
 For his kind letter.


Forjesket sair, with weary legs,
Rattlin the corn out-owre the rigs,
Or dealing thro’ amang the naigs
 Their ten-hours’ bite,
My awkart Muse sair pleads and begs
 I would na write.


The tapetless, ramfeezl’d...Read more of this...

Footnote To Howl

by Allen Ginsberg
 Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! 
 Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! 
The world is holy! The soul is holy! The skin is holy! 
 The nose is holy! The tongue and cock and hand 
 and ******* holy! 
Everything is holy! everybody's holy! everywhere is 
 holy! everyday is in eternity! Everyman's an 
...Read more of this...

the Labirinth

by Jorge Luis Borges
The Labyrinth I

Zeus himself could not undo the web
of stone closing around me. I have forgotten
the men I was before; I follow the hated
path of monotonous walls
that is my destiny. Severe galleries
which curve in secret circles
to the end of the years. Parapets
cracked by the days' usury.
In the pale dust I have discerned
signs that frighten me. In the concave
evenings the air...Read more of this...

There was an Old Man with an Owl

by Edward Lear
There was an Old Man with an Owl,Who continued to bother and howl;He sat on a rail, and imbibed bitter ale,Which refreshed that Old Man and his Owl. ...Read more of this...

The Chinese Nightingale

by Vachel Lindsay
 A Song in Chinese Tapestries


"How, how," he said. "Friend Chang," I said,
"San Francisco sleeps as the dead—
Ended license, lust and play:
Why do you iron the night away?
Your big clock speaks with a deadly sound,
With a tick and a wail till dawn comes round.
While the monster shadows glower and creep,
What can be better for man than sleep?"

"I will tell you...Read more of this...

On The Road

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
I 's boun' to see my gal to-night—
Oh, lone de way, my dearie!
De moon ain't out, de stars ain't bright—
Oh, lone de way, my dearie!
Dis hoss o' mine is pow'ful slow,
But when I does git to yo' do'
Yo' kiss 'll pay me back, an' mo',
Dough lone de way, my dearie.
De night is skeery-lak an' still—
Oh, lone de way, my dearie!
'Cept...Read more of this...

The Relapse

by Henry Vaughan
 My God, how gracious art thou! I had slipt 
Almost to hell, 
And on the verge of that dark, dreadful pit 
Did hear them yell, 
But O thy love! thy rich, almighty love 
That sav'd my soul, 
And checkt their fury, when I saw them move, 
And heard them howl; 
O my sole comfort, take no more these ways,...Read more of this...

Hiawathas photographing ( Part V )

by Lewis Carroll
 Last, the youngest son was taken:
Very rough and thick his hair was,
Very round and red his face was,
Very dusty was his jacket,
Very fidgety his manner.
And his overbearing sisters
Called him names he disapproved of:
Called him Johnny, 'Daddy's Darling,'
Called him Jacky, 'Scrubby School-boy.'
And, so awful was the picture,
In comparison the others
Seemed, to one's bewildered fancy,
To have partially succeeded.


Finally my Hiawatha
Tumbled all...Read more of this...

Right's Security

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
What if the wind do howl without,
And turn the creaking weather-vane;
What if the arrows of the rain
Do beat against the window-pane?
Art thou not armored strong and fast
Against the sallies of the blast?
Art thou not sheltered safe and well
Against the flood's insistent swell?
What boots it, that thou stand'st alone,
And laughest in the battle's face
When all the weak have fled the place
And...Read more of this...

A Fire-Truck

by Richard Wilbur
 Right down the shocked street with a
 siren-blast
That sends all else skittering to the
 curb,
Redness, brass, ladders and hats hurl
 past,
 Blurring to sheer verb,

Shift at the corner into uproarious gear
And make it around the turn in a squall
 of traction,
The headlong bell maintaining sure and
 clear,
 Thought is degraded action!

Beautiful, heavy, unweary, loud,
 obvious thing!
I stand here purged...Read more of this...

Frustration

by Robert William Service
 Gazing to gold seraph wing,
With wistful wonder in my eyes,
A blue-behinded ape, I swing
Upon the palms of Paradise.

A parakeet of gaudy hue
Upon a flame tree smugly rocks;
Oh, we're a precious pair, we two,
I gibber while the parrot squawks.

"If I had but your wings," I sigh,
"How ardently would I aspire
To soar celestially high
And mingle with yon angel choir."

His beady eye...Read more of this...

Sunshine

by Robert William Service
 I

Flat as a drum-head stretch the haggard snows;
The mighty skies are palisades of light;
The stars are blurred; the silence grows and grows;
Vaster and vaster vaults the icy night.
Here in my sleeping-bag I cower and pray:
"Silence and night, have pity! stoop and slay."

I have not slept for many, many days.
I close my eyes with weariness -- that's all.
I still have...Read more of this...

Kittens

by Robert William Service
 A ray of sun strayed softly round,
For something to caress,
Until a resting place it found
Of joy and thankfulness;
'Twas Minette, our Angora cat,
With deep contented purr,
Relaxed in rapture on a mat,
Three kittens nuzzling her.

With tenderness the sunbeam kissed
her fur of silver-grey;
Her eyes held an ecstatic mist,
In boundless bliss she lay;
The sunny radiance seemed to hold
Her longer than it should,
As if...Read more of this...

The Batchelors Song

by Thomas Flatman
 Like a Dog with a bottle, fast ti'd to his tail,
Like Vermin in a trap, or a Thief in a Jail,
 Or like a Tory in a Bog,
 Or an Ape with a Clog:
Such is the man, who when he might go free,
 Does his liberty loose,
 For a Matrimony noose,
 And sels himself into Captivity;
The Dog he do's...Read more of this...

Courtship

by Mark Strand
 There is a girl you like so you tell her
your ***** is big, but that you cannot get yourself
to use it. Its demands are ridiculous, you say,
even self-defeating, but to be honored, somehow,
briefly, inconspicuously in the dark.

When she closes her eyes in horror,
you take it all back. You tell her you're almost
a girl yourself and can understand why she...Read more of this...

The Teak Forest

by Adela Florence Cory Nicolson
   Whether I loved you who shall say?
   Whether I drifted down your way
   In the endless River of Chance and Change,
   And you woke the strange
   Unknown longings that have no names,
   But burn us all in their hidden flames,
       ...Read more of this...

Dream Song 83: Op. posth. no. 6

by John Berryman
 I recall a boil, whereupon as I had to sit,
just where, and when I had to, for deadlines.
O I could learn to type standing,
but isn't it slim to be slumped off from that,
problems undignified, fiery dig salt mines?-”
Content on one's black flat:

soming no deadline-”is all ancient nonsense-”
no typewriters-”ha! ha!-”no typewriters-”
alas!
For I have much to open, I know immense
troubles &...Read more of this...

Galoots

by Carl Sandburg
 GALOOTS, you hairy, hankering,
Snousle on the bones you eat, chew at the gristle and lick the last of it.
Grab off the bones in the paws of other galoots—hook your claws in their sleazy mouths—snap and run.
If long-necks sit on their rumps and sing wild cries to the winter moon, chasing their tails to the flickers of foolish stars …...Read more of this...

The Ballad of East and West

by Rudyard Kipling
 Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,
Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God's great Judgment Seat;
But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,
When two strong men stand face to face, tho' they come from the ends of the earth!

Kamal is out with twenty men to raise the...Read more of this...

Night

by William Blake
THE sun descending in the west  
The evening star does shine; 
The birds are silent in their nest. 
And I must seek for mine. 
The moon like a flower 5 
In heaven's high bower  
With silent delight 
Sits and smiles on the night. 

Farewell green fields and happy grove  
Where flocks have took delight: 10 
Where lambs...Read more of this...

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