Famous Moans Poems by Famous Poets

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

See also:

A Christmas Ghost Story

...mouldering soldier lies--your countryman.
Awry and doubled up are his gray bones,
And on the breeze his puzzled phantom moans
Nightly to clear Canopus: "I would know
By whom and when the All-Earth-gladdening Law
Of Peace, brought in by that Man Crucified,
Was ruled to be inept, and set aside?

And what of logic or of truth appears
In tacking 'Anno Domini' to the years?
Near twenty-hundred livened thus have hied,
But tarries yet the Cause for which He died."...Read more of this...
by Hardy, Thomas


A Letter to a Live Poet

...mprehensible at evening,
And symbols that mean nothing in the dawn.
The slow lines swell. The new style sighs. The Celt
Moans round with many voices.
God! to see
Gaunt anap?sts stand up out of the verse,
Combative accents, stress where no stress should be,
Spondee on spondee, iamb on choriamb,
The thrill of all the tribrachs in the world,
And all the vowels rising to the E!
To hear the blessed mutter of those verbs,
Conjunctions passionate toward each other's arms,
And epithe...Read more of this...
by Brooke, Rupert

Alastor: or the Spirit of Solitude

...brown magnificence
A narrow vale embosoms. There, huge caves,
Scooped in the dark base of their aëry rocks,
Mocking its moans, respond and roar forever.
The meeting boughs and implicated leaves
Wove twilight o'er the Poet's path, as, led
By love, or dream, or god, or mightier Death,
He sought in Nature's dearest haunt some bank,
Her cradle and his sepulchre. More dark 
And dark the shades accumulate. The oak,
Expanding its immense and knotty arms,
Embraces the light beech. Th...Read more of this...
by Shelley, Percy Bysshe

Balin and Balan

...ling air, 
Balin first woke, and seeing that true face, 
Familiar up from cradle-time, so wan, 
Crawled slowly with low moans to where he lay, 
And on his dying brother cast himself 
Dying; and HE lifted faint eyes; he felt 
One near him; all at once they found the world, 
Staring wild-wide; then with a childlike wail 
And drawing down the dim disastrous brow 
That o'er him hung, he kissed it, moaned and spake; 

'O Balin, Balin, I that fain had died 
To save thy life, have b...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord

Endymion: Book IV

...ail,
And from their treasures scatter pearled hail;
Great Brahma from his mystic heaven groans,
 And all his priesthood moans;
Before young Bacchus' eye-wink turning pale.--
Into these regions came I following him,
Sick hearted, weary--so I took a whim
To stray away into these forests drear
 Alone, without a peer:
And I have told thee all thou mayest hear.

 "Young stranger!
 I've been a ranger
In search of pleasure throughout every clime:
 Alas! 'tis not for me!
 Bewitch'd I...Read more of this...
by Keats, John


Howl

...raph records of nostalgic European 1930s German jazz finished the whiskey and threw up groaning into the bloody toilet, moans in their ears and the blast of colossal steamwhistles,
who barreled down the highways of the past journeying to each other’s hotrod-Golgotha jail-solitude watch or Birmingham jazz incarnation,
who drove crosscountry seventytwo hours to find out if I had a vision or you had a vision or he had a vision to find out Eternity,
who journeyed to Denver, wh...Read more of this...
by Ginsberg, Allen

Idylls of the King: The Passing of Arthur (excerpt)

...monstrous blasphemies,
Sweat, writhings, anguish, labouring of the lungs
In that close mist, and cryings for the light,
Moans of the dying, and voices of the dead.


Last, as by some one deathbed after wail
Of suffering, silence follows, or thro' death
Or deathlike swoon, thus over all that shore,
Save for some whisper of the seething seas,
A dead hush fell; but when the dolorous day
Grew drearier toward twilight falling, came
A bitter wind, clear from the North, and blew
The...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord

Lucretius

...Where never creeps a cloud, or moves a wind,
Nor ever falls the least white star of mow
Nor ever lowest roll of thunder moans,
Nor sound of human sorrow mounts to mar
Their sacred everlasting calm! and such,
Not all so fine, nor so divine a calm
Not such, nor all unlike it, man may gain
Letting his own life go. The Gods, the Godsl
If all be atoms, how then should the Gods
Being atomic not be dissoluble,
Not follow the great law? My master held
That Gods there are, for all men...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord

Middle Passage

...I 

Jesús, Estrella, Esperanza, Mercy: 

Sails flashing to the wind like weapons, 
sharks following the moans the fever and the dying; 
horror the corposant and compass rose. 

Middle Passage: 
voyage through death 
to life upon these shores. 

"10 April 1800-- 
Blacks rebellious. Crew uneasy. Our linguist says 
their moaning is a prayer for death, 
our and their own. Some try to starve themselves. 
Lost three this morning leaped with crazy laughter 
to the wa...Read more of this...
by Hayden, Robert

Ode To Salt

...alt
in the desert.
Near Antofagasta
the nitrous
pampa
resounds:
a broken
voice,
a mournful
song.

In its caves
the salt moans, mountain
of buried light,
translucent cathedral,
crystal of the sea, oblivion
of the waves.

And then on every table
in the world,
salt,
we see your piquant
powder
sprinkling
vital light
upon
our food. Preserver
of the ancient
holds of ships,
discoverer
on
the high seas,
earliest
sailor
of the unknown, shifting
byways of the foam.
Dust of the sea, in ...Read more of this...
by Neruda, Pablo

Saving a Train

...was born. 

Then; 'Father! father!' cried Carl in his loudest tone,
'Father! father!' he shouted again in very pitiful moans;
But no answering voice did reply,
Which caused him to heave a deep-fetched sigh. 

And now to brave Carl the truth was clear
That he had lost his father dear,
And he cried, 'My poor father's lost, and cannot be found,
He's gone down with the bridge, and has been drowned.' 

But he resolves to save the on-coming train,
So every nerve and muscle he does...Read more of this...
by McGonagall, William Topaz

Sea Song

...s In the white
beach hollow... She hugs her hands, She sobs, she shrills, And the echoes
shriek In the rocky hills. She moans: "It is lost! Let it be! Let it be! I
am old. I'm too cold. I am frightened... the sea Is too loud... it is lost,
It is gone..." Memory Wails in my far away home. 1913...Read more of this...
by Mansfield, Katherine

Song of the Indian Maid

...from their treasures scatter pearl¨¨d hail; 
Great Brahma from his mystic heaven groans, 120 
And all his priesthood moans, 
Before young Bacchus' eye-wink turning pale. 
Into these regions came I, following him, 
Sick-hearted, weary¡ªso I took a whim 
To stray away into these forests drear, 125 
Alone, without a peer: 
And I have told thee all thou mayest hear. 

Young Stranger! 
I've been a ranger 
In search of pleasure throughout every clime; 130 
Alas! 'tis ...Read more of this...
by Keats, John

The City In the Sea

...the filmy Heaven.
The waves have now a redder glow-
The hours are breathing faint and low-
And when amid no earthly moans 
Down down that town shall settle hence 
Hell rising from a thousand thrones 
Shall do it reverence....Read more of this...
by Poe, Edgar Allan

The Earthly Paradise: The Lady of the Land

...k his stand.


But for a while that unknown noise increased,
A rattling, that with strident roars did blend
And whining moans; but suddenly it ceased,
A fearful thing stood at the cloister's end
And eyed him for a while, then 'gan to wend
Adown the cloisters, and began again
That rattling, and the moan like fiends in pain.


And as it came on towards him, with its teeth
The body of a slain goat did it tear,
The blood whereof in its hot jaws did seethe,
And on its tongue he sa...Read more of this...
by Morris, William

The Haunted House

...loodhound at his haunches.

The window jingled in its crumbled frame,
And through its many gaps of destitution
Dolorous moans and hollow sighings came,
Like those of dissolution.

The wood-louse dropped, and rolled into a ball,
Touched by some impulse occult or mechanic;
And nameless beetles ran along the wall
In universal panic.

The subtle spider, that, from overhead,
Hung like a spy on human guilt and error,
Suddenly turned, and up its slender thread
Ran with a nimble terr...Read more of this...
by Hood, Thomas

The Idiot Boy

...nbsp;And thence full many a sound she hears,  Which she to Susan will not tell.   Poor Susan moans, poor Susan groans,  "As sure as there's a moon in heaven,"  Cries Betty, "he'll be back again;  They'll both be here, 'tis almost ten,  They'll both be here before eleven."   Poor Susan moans, poor Susan groans,  The clock gives warning for eleven;  'Tis on the stroke—"If Joh...Read more of this...
by Wordsworth, William

The Quality of Courage

...t begin to melt 
Upon my face as I breathed deeper, 
But lay there warmly, like a sleeper 
Who shifts his arm once, and moans low, 
And then sinks back to night. Slow, slow, 
And still as Death, came Sleep and Death 
And looked at me with quiet breath. 
Unbending figures, black and stark 
Against the intense deeps of the dark. 
Tall and like trees. Like sweet and fire 
Rest crept and crept along my veins, 
Gently. And there were no more pains. . . . 

Was it not better so to ...Read more of this...
by Benet, Stephen Vincent

The Space Heater

...ke that. And I was so moved, that he
would act undignified, to help me,
that I cried, not trying to stop, but as if
the moans made sentences which bore
some human message. If he would cast himself toward the
outlet for me, as if bending with me in my old
shame and horror, then I would rest
on his art-and the heater purred, like a creature
or the familiar of a creature, or the child of a familiar,
the father of a child, the spirit of a father,
the healing of a spirit, the visi...Read more of this...
by Olds, Sharon

The Water-Nymph

...s,
Blows airy kisses, gestures wild,
Plays with the waves - caresses, splashes -
Now laughs, now whimpers like a child,
Moans tenderly, calls louder, louder...
"Come, monk, come, monk! To me, to me!.."
Then - disappears in limpid water,
And all is silent instantly...

On the third day the zealous hermit
Was sitting by the shore, in love,
Awaiting the delightful mermaid,
As shade was covering the grove...
Dark ceded to the sun's emergence;
Our monk had wholly disappeared -
Bef...Read more of this...
by Pushkin, Alexander

Dont forget to view our wonderful member Moans poems.

Get a Premium Membership
Get more exposure for your poetry and more features with a Premium Membership.
Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry

Member Area

My Admin
Profile and Settings
Edit My Poems
Edit My Quotes
Edit My Short Stories
Edit My Articles
My Comments Inboxes
My Comments Outboxes
Soup Mail
Poetry Contests
Contest Results/Status
Followers
Poems of Poets I Follow
Friend Builder

Soup Social

Poetry Forum
New/Upcoming Features
The Wall
Soup Facebook Page
Who is Online
Link to Us

Member Poems

Poems - Top 100 New
Poems - Top 100 All-Time
Poems - Best
Poems - by Topic
Poems - New (All)
Poems - New (PM)
Poems - New by Poet
Poems - Read
Poems - Unread

Member Poets

Poets - Best New
Poets - New
Poets - Top 100 Most Poems
Poets - Top 100 Most Poems Recent
Poets - Top 100 Community
Poets - Top 100 Contest

Famous Poems

Famous Poems - African American
Famous Poems - Best
Famous Poems - Classical
Famous Poems - English
Famous Poems - Haiku
Famous Poems - Love
Famous Poems - Short
Famous Poems - Top 100

Famous Poets

Famous Poets - Living
Famous Poets - Most Popular
Famous Poets - Top 100
Famous Poets - Best
Famous Poets - Women
Famous Poets - African American
Famous Poets - Beat
Famous Poets - Cinquain
Famous Poets - Classical
Famous Poets - English
Famous Poets - Haiku
Famous Poets - Hindi
Famous Poets - Jewish
Famous Poets - Love
Famous Poets - Metaphysical
Famous Poets - Modern
Famous Poets - Punjabi
Famous Poets - Romantic
Famous Poets - Spanish
Famous Poets - Suicidal
Famous Poets - Urdu
Famous Poets - War

Poetry Resources

Anagrams
Bible
Book Store
Character Counter
Cliché Finder
Poetry Clichés
Common Words
Copyright Information
Grammar
Grammar Checker
Homonym
Homophones
How to Write a Poem
Lyrics
Love Poem Generator
New Poetic Forms
Plagiarism Checker
Poetry Art
Publishing
Random Word Generator
Spell Checker
What is Good Poetry?
Word Counter