Famous Hunted Poems by Famous Poets

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

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The Frost of Death was on the Pane --

by Emily Dickinson
 The Frost of Death was on the Pane --
"Secure your Flower" said he.
Like Sailors fighting with a Leak
We fought Mortality.

Our passive Flower we held to Sea --
To Mountain -- To the Sun --
Yet even on his Scarlet shelf
To crawl the Frost begun --

We pried him back
Ourselves we wedged
Himself and her between,
Yet easy as the narrow Snake
He forked his way...Read more of this...

The Italian In England

by Robert Browning
 That second time they hunted me
From hill to plain, from shore to sea,
And Austria, hounding far and wide
Her blood-hounds through the countryside,
Breathed hot and instant on my trace,— 
I made six days a hiding-place
Of that dry green old aqueduct
Where I and Charles, when boys, have plucked
The fire-flies from the roof above,
Bright creeping throuoh the moss they love.
—How long it...Read more of this...

79. Adam Armour's Prayer

by Robert Burns
 GUDE pity me, because I’m little!
For though I am an elf o’ mettle,
An’ can, like ony wabster’s shuttle,
 Jink there or here,
Yet, scarce as lang’s a gude kail-whittle,
 I’m unco *****.


An’ now Thou kens our waefu’ case;
For Geordie’s jurr we’re in disgrace,
Because we stang’d her through the place,
 An’ hurt her spleuchan;
For whilk we daurna show our face
 Within...Read more of this...

The Sun and Moon must make their haste --

by Emily Dickinson
 The Sun and Moon must make their haste --
The Stars express around
For in the Zones of Paradise
The Lord alone is burned --

His Eye, it is the East and West --
The North and South when He
Do concentrate His Countenance
Like Glow Worms, flee away --

Oh Poor and Far --
Oh Hindred Eye
That hunted for the Day --
The Lord a Candle entertains
Entirely for...Read more of this...

Chapter Headings

by Rudyard Kipling
 Plane Tales From the Hills
Look, you have cast out Love! What Gods are these
You bid me please?
The Three in One, the One in Three ? Not so!
To my own Gods I go.
It may be they shall give me greater ease
Than your cold Christ and tangled Trinities.
 Lispeth.

When the earth was sick and the skies were grey,
And the woods were...Read more of this...

A Dying Tiger -- moaned for Drink --

by Emily Dickinson
 A Dying Tiger -- moaned for Drink --
I hunted all the Sand --
I caught the Dripping of a Rock
And bore it in my Hand --

His Mighty Balls -- in death were thick --
But searching -- I could see
A Vision on the Retina
Of Water -- and of me --

'Twas not my blame -- who sped too slow --
'Twas not his...Read more of this...

Ailsie My Bairn

by Eugene Field
 Lie in my arms, Ailsie, my bairn,--
Lie in my arms and dinna greit;
Long time been past syn I kenned you last,
But my harte been allwais the same, my swete.

Ailsie, I colde not say you ill,
For out of the mist of your bitter tears,
And the prayers that rise from your bonnie eyes
Cometh a promise of oder yeres.

I mind the time...Read more of this...

The Nightingales Nest

by John Clare
 Up this green woodland-ride let's softly rove,
And list the nightingale— she dwells just here.
Hush ! let the wood-gate softly clap, for fear
The noise might drive her from her home of love ;
For here I've heard her many a merry year—
At morn, at eve, nay, all the live-long day,
As though she lived on song. This very spot,
Just where that old-man's-beard...Read more of this...

Breath of the Informer an Allegory

by T Wignesan
Remorseful, the noonday sun
Frizzles with the stealthy wind
Under the rubbery mountain green.
A calmness has come to rest
From having tossed in its sleep.
The forest has taken leave
Of the hunted horn and drum.
No more the tapper late of nap
Scurries to the haven of a nest.
No more the rattle whisper fades
To nothingness in a lonesome rest.
No more, no more, for the heavens
Sleep and...Read more of this...

Hiawathas Friends

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
 Two good friends had Hiawatha, 
Singled out from all the others, 
Bound to him in closest union, 
And to whom he gave the right hand 
Of his heart, in joy and sorrow; 
Chibiabos, the musician,
And the very strong man, Kwasind.
Straight between them ran the pathway, 
Never grew the grass upon it; 
Singing birds, that utter falsehoods, 
Story-tellers, mischief-makers, 
Found...Read more of this...

Frederick Douglass

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
 When it is finally ours, this freedom, this liberty, this beautiful 
and terrible thing, needful to man as air, 
usable as earth; when it belongs at last to all, 
when it is truly instinct, brain matter, diastole, systole, 
reflex action; when it is finally won; when it is more 
than the gaudy mumbo jumbo of politicians:
this man, this Douglass,...Read more of this...

The Faerie Queene: Book I Canto I

by Edmund Spenser
Lo I the man, whose Muse whilome did maske,
As time her taught in lowly Shepheards weeds,
Am now enforst a far unfitter taske,
For trumpets sterne to chaunge mine Oaten reeds,
And sing of Knights and Ladies gentle deeds;
Whose prayses having slept in silence long,
Me, all too meane, the sacred Muse areeds
To blazon broad emongst her learned throng:
Fierce warres and faithful loves shall...Read more of this...

Fit the Eighth (Hunting of the Snark )

by Lewis Carroll
 The Vanishing 

They sought it with thimbles, they sought it with care;
They pursued it with forks and hope; 
They threatened its life with a railway-share; 
They charmed it with smiles and soap. 
They shuddered to think that the chase might fail, 
And the Beaver, excited at last, 
Went bounding along on the tip of its tail, 
For the daylight...Read more of this...

Hunted

by Paul Eluard
 A few grains of dust more or less 
On ancient shoulders 
Locks of weakness on weary foreheads 
This theatre of honey and faded roses 
Where incalcuable flies 
Reply to the black signs that misery makes to them 
Despairing girders of a bridge 
Thrown across space 
Thrown across every street and every house 
Heavy wandering madnesses 
That we shall end...Read more of this...

The Grocery

by Amy Lowell
 "Hullo, Alice!"
"Hullo, Leon!"
"Say, Alice, gi' me a couple
O' them two for five cigars,
Will yer?"
"Where's your nickel?"
"My! Ain't you close!
Can't trust a feller, can yer."
"Trust you! Why
What you owe this store
Would set you up in business.
I can't think why Father 'lows it."
"Yer Father's a sight more neighbourly
Than you be. That's a fact.
Besides, he knows I got a vote."
"A vote! Oh,...Read more of this...

The Pearl Diver

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 Kanzo Makame, the diver, sturdy and small Japanee, 
Seeker of pearls and of pearl-shell down in the depths of the sea, 
Trudged o'er the bed of the ocean, searching industriously. 

Over the pearl-grounds the lugger drifted -- a little white speck: 
Joe Nagasaki, the "tender", holding the life-line on deck, 
Talked through the rope to the diver, knew when...Read more of this...

Christ Crucified

by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
 Now ere I slept, my prayer had been that I might see my way
To do the will of Christ, our Lord and Master, day by day; 
And with this prayer upon my lips, I knew not that I dreamed, 
But suddenly the world of night a pandemonium seemed.
From forest, and from slaughter house, from bull ring, and from stall,...Read more of this...

Sonnet CXXIX

by William Shakespeare
  The expense of spirit in a waste of shame
Is lust in action; and till action, lust
Is perjured, murderous, bloody, full of blame,
Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust,
Enjoy'd no sooner but despised straight,
Past reason hunted, and no sooner had
Past reason hated, as a swallow'd bait
On purpose laid to make the taker mad;
Mad in pursuit and in possession so;
Had,...Read more of this...

Auguries Of Innocence

by William Blake
 To see a world in a grain of sand
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour.
A robin redbreast in a cage
Puts all heaven in a rage.
A dove-house filled with doves and pigeons
Shudders hell through all its regions.
A dog starved at his master's gate
Predicts the ruin of the state.
A horse...Read more of this...

Song

by Anne Bronte
 We know where deepest lies the snow,
And where the frost-winds keenest blow,
O'er every mountain's brow,
We long have known and learnt to bear
The wandering outlaw's toil and care,
But where we late were hunted, there
Our foes are hunted now. 
We have their princely homes, and they
To our wild haunts are chased away,
Dark woods, and desert caves.
And we can range from hill...Read more of this...

Poem 90

by Edmund Spenser
 IN youth before I waxed old.
The blynd boy Venus baby,
For want of cunning made me bold,
In bitter byue to grope for honny.
But when he saw me stung and cry,
He tooke his wings and away did fly.
As Diane hunted on a day,
She chaunst to come where Cupid lay,
his quiuer by his head:
One of his shafts she stole away,
And one of...Read more of this...

The Oceans Song

by Victor Hugo
 We walked amongst the ruins famed in story 
Of Rozel-Tower, 
And saw the boundless waters stretch in glory 
And heave in power. 

O Ocean vast! We heard thy song with wonder, 
Whilst waves marked time. 
"Appear, O Truth!" thou sang'st with tone of thunder, 
"And shine sublime! 

"The world's enslaved and hunted down by beagles, 
To despots sold. 
Souls...Read more of this...

Oh Mother of a Mighty Race

by William Cullen Bryant
OH mother of a mighty race  
Yet lovely in thy youthful grace! 
The elder dames thy haughty peers  
Admire and hate thy blooming years. 
With words of shame 5 
And taunts of scorn they join thy name. 

For on thy cheeks the glow is spread 
That tints thy morning hills with red; 
Thy step¡ªthe wild deer's rustling feet...Read more of this...

The Fruit Shop

by Amy Lowell
 Cross-ribboned shoes; a muslin gown,
High-waisted, girdled with bright blue;
A straw poke bonnet which hid the frown
She pluckered her little brows into
As she picked her dainty passage through
The dusty street. "Ah, Mademoiselle,
A dirty pathway, we need rain,
My poor fruits suffer, and the shell
Of this nut's too big for its kernel, lain
Here in the sun it has shrunk again.
The baker down...Read more of this...

The Slave In The Dismal Swamp

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
 In dark fens of the Dismal Swamp
The hunted ***** lay;
He saw the fire of the midnight camp,
And heard at times a horse's tramp
And a bloodhound's distant bay.

Where will-o'-the-wisps and glow-worms shine,
In bulrush and in brake;
Where waving mosses shroud the pine,
And the cedar grows, and the poisonous vine
Is spotted like the snake;

Where hardly a human foot could pass,
Or a human...Read more of this...

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