Famous Piercing Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Milton's Appeal To Cromwell

by Victor Hugo
 ("Non! je n'y puis tenir.") 
 
 {CROMWELL, Act III. sc. iv.} 


 Stay! I no longer can contain myself, 
 But cry you: Look on John, who bares his mind 
 To Oliver—to Cromwell, Milton speaks! 
 Despite a kindling eye and marvel deep 
 A voice is lifted up without your leave; 
 For I was never...Read more of this...

A Ballad (thesis For A Doctors Degree)

by Andrei Voznesensky
 My doc announced yesterday : 
 "You may have talent, though it's hidden, 
 your beak, however, is frost-bitten, 
 so stick at home on a cold day". 

 The nose, eh? 

 As irretrievable as time, 
 conforming to the laws of medicine, 
 your nose, like that of any person, 
 keep growing 
 steadily, 
 with...Read more of this...

The Song

by Andrei Voznesensky
 Sailor, my dear, my heaven-made spouse! 
 There is one thing that I beg of you, man: 
 Kiss any strangers, and give them your flowers, 
 love many women. But, pray, don't love one. 


 These are the words that I send with my letter, 
 piercing land after land they will moan; 
 stay there as long...Read more of this...

Vanity (I)

by George Herbert
 The fleet astronomer can bore 
And thread the spheres with his quick-piercing mind: 
He views theirs stations, walks from door to door, 
Surveys, as if he had designed 
To make a purchase there: he sees their dances, 
And knoweth long before, 
Both their full-eyed aspects, and secret glances. 

The nimble diver with his side 
Cuts through the working waves,...Read more of this...

Renunciation -- is a piercing Virtue --

by Emily Dickinson
 Renunciation -- is a piercing Virtue --
The letting go
A Presence -- for an Expectation --
Not now --
The putting out of Eyes --
Just Sunrise --
Lest Day --
Day's Great Progenitor --
Outvie
Renunciation -- is the Choosing
Against itself --
Itself to justify
Unto itself --
When larger function --
Make that appear --
Smaller -- that Covered Vision -- Here --...Read more of this...

The Bandit

by Robert William Service
 Upon his way to rob a Bank
 He paused to watch a fire;
Though crowds were pressing rank on rank
 He pushed a passage nigher;
Then sudden heard, piercing and wild,
 The screaming of a child.

A Public Enemy was he,
 A hater of the law;
He looked around for bravery
 But only fear he saw;
Then to the craven crowds amaze
 He plunged...Read more of this...

The Cross-Roads

by Amy Lowell
 A bullet through his heart at dawn. On 
the table a letter signed
with a woman's name. A wind that goes howling round the 
house,
and weeping as in shame. Cold November dawn peeping through 
the windows,
cold dawn creeping over the floor, creeping up his cold legs,
creeping over his cold body, creeping across his cold face.
A glaze of thin yellow sunlight...Read more of this...

Mont Blanc: Lines Written in the Vale of Chamouni

by Percy Bysshe Shelley
 I
The everlasting universe of things 
Flows through the mind, and rolls its rapid waves,
Now dark--now glittering--now reflecting gloom--
Now lending splendour, where from secret springs
The source of human thought its tribute brings
Of waters--with a sound but half its own,
Such as a feeble brook will oft assume,
In the wild woods, among the mountains lone,
Where waterfalls around it leap for ever,
Where woods...Read more of this...

Behind the Arras

by Bliss Carman
 I like the old house tolerably well, 
Where I must dwell 
Like a familiar gnome; 
And yet I never shall feel quite at home. 
I love to roam. 
Day after day I loiter and explore 
From door to door; 
So many treasures lure 
The curious mind. What histories obscure 
They must immure! 

I hardly know which room I care...Read more of this...

Before the Dawn

by Federico García Lorca
 But like love
the archers
are blind

Upon the green night,
the piercing saetas
leave traces of warm
lily.

The keel of the moon
breaks through purple clouds
and their quivers
fill with dew.

Ay, but like love
the archers
are blind!...Read more of this...

Yesterday and Today XII

by Kahlil Gibran
 The gold-hoarder walked in his palace park and with him walked his troubles. And over his head hovered worries as a vulture hovers over a carcass, until he reached a beautiful lake surrounded by magnificent marble statuary. 

He sat there pondering the water which poured from the mouths of the statues like thoughts flowing freely from a lover's imagination,...Read more of this...

Variations of an Air

by G K Chesterton
 Old King Cole
Was a merry old soul
And a merry old soul was he
He called for his pipe 
and he called for his bowl 
and he called for his fiddlers three


after Lord Tennyson


Cole, that unwearied prince of Colchester, 
Growing more gay with age and with long days 
Deeper in laughter and desire of life 
As that Virginian climber on our...Read more of this...

The Prayers of God

by W. E. B. Du Bois
Name of God's Name!
Red murder reigns;
All hell is loose;
On gold autumnal air
Walk grinning devils, barbed and hoofed;
While high on hills of hate,
Black-blossomed, crimson-sky'd,
Thou sittest, dumb.
Father Almighty!
This earth is mad!
Palsied, our cunning hands;
Rotten, our gold;
Our argosies reel and stagger
Over empty seas;
All the long aisles
Of Thy Great Temples, God,
Stink with the entrails
Of our souls.
And Thou art dumb.
Above the thunder of Thy Thunders,...Read more of this...

La Solitude de St. Amant

by Katherine Philips
 1

O! Solitude, my sweetest choice
Places devoted to the night,
Remote from tumult, and from noise,
How you my restless thoughts delight!
O Heavens! what content is mine,
To see those trees which have appear'd
From the nativity of Time,
And which hall ages have rever'd,
To look to-day as fresh and green,
As when their beauties first were seen!


2

A cheerful wind does court them so,
And with such...Read more of this...

Fire

by Dorothea Mackeller
 This life that we call our own
Is neither strong nor free;
A flame in the wind of death,
It trembles ceaselessly. 

And this all we can do
To use our little light
Before, in the piercing wind,
It flickers into night: 

To yield the heat of the flame,
To grudge not, but to give
Whatever we have of strength,
That one more flame may live....Read more of this...

Lines to the memory of Richard Boyle Esq

by Mary Darby Robinson
 "Fate snatch'd him early to the pitying sky."

- POPE. 


IF WORTH, too early to the grave consign'd,
Can claim the pitying tear, or touch the mind ?
If manly sentiments unstain'd by art,
Could waken FRIENDSHIP, or delight the heart ?
Ill-fated youth ! to THEE the MUSE shall pay
The last sad tribute of a mournful lay;
On thy lone grave shall MAY'S soft...Read more of this...

Prothalamion

by Delmore Schwartz
 "little soul, little flirting,
 little perverse one
 where are you off to now?
 little wan one, firm one
 little exposed one...
 and never make fun of me again."


Now I must betray myself.
The feast of bondage and unity is near,
And none engaged in that great piety
When each bows to the other, kneels, and takes
Hand in hand, glance and glance, care...Read more of this...

Symphonic Studies (After Schumann)

by Emma Lazarus
 Prelude 

Blue storm-clouds in hot heavens of mid-July 
Hung heavy, brooding over land and sea: 
Our hearts, a-tremble, throbbed in harmony 
With the wild, restless tone of air and sky. 
Shall we not call im Prospero who held 
In his enchanted hands the fateful key 
Of that tempestuous hour's mystery, 
And with controlling wand our spirits spelled, 
With him...Read more of this...

Light

by John Milton
 HAIL holy light, ofspring of Heav'n first-born, 
Or of th' Eternal Coeternal beam 
May I express thee unblam'd? since God is light, 
And never but in unapproached light 
Dwelt from Eternitie, dwelt then in thee, 
Bright effluence of bright essence increate. 
Or hear'st thou rather pure Ethereal stream, 
Whose Fountain who shall tell? before the Sun, 
Before the Heavens...Read more of this...

The City That Will Not Repent

by Vachel Lindsay
 Climbing the heights of Berkeley 
Nightly I watch the West. 
There lies new San Francisco, 
Sea-maid in purple dressed, 
Wearing a dancer's girdle 
All to inflame desire: 
Scorning her days of sackcloth, 
Scorning her cleansing fire. 

See, like a burning city 
Sets now the red sun's dome. 
See, mystic firebrands sparkle 
There on each store and home. 
See how...Read more of this...

the bouncing spider

by Rg Gregory
 schnyder schnyder
the bouncing spider
had a song 
wound up inside her

she'd had it taped
on a silken spool
this was the song
she sang as a rule

o little fly
come be my friend
i have fly's gold
for you to spend

i'll wrap you in silks
to make you pretty
if you refuse
then more's the pity

the silk-voice warbled
through the wood
the best bird-song
didn't seem so good

but no flies came
they were...Read more of this...

Woods in Winter

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
 When winter winds are piercing chill,
And through the hawthorn blows the gale,
With solemn feet I tread the hill,
That overbrows the lonely vale.

O'er the bare upland, and away
Through the long reach of desert woods,
The embracing sunbeams chastely play,
And gladden these deep solitudes.

Where, twisted round the barren oak,
The summer vine in beauty clung,
And summer winds the stillness broke,
The crystal icicle is...Read more of this...

XI. Written at Ostend

by William Lisle Bowles
 HOW sweet the tuneful bells' responsive peal! 
As when, at opening morn, the fragrant breeze 
Breathes on the trembling sense of wan disease, 
So piercing to my heart their force I feel! 
And hark! with lessening cadence now they fall, 
And now, along the white and level tide, 
They fling their melancholy music wide, 
Bidding me many a tender...Read more of this...

The Ballad Of The Black Fox Skin

by Robert William Service
 I

There was Claw-fingered Kitty and Windy Ike living the life of shame,
When unto them in the Long, Long Night came the man-who-had-no-name;
Bearing his prize of a black fox pelt, out of the Wild he came.

His cheeks were blanched as the flume-head foam when the brown spring freshets flow;
Deep in their dark, sin-calcined pits were his sombre eyes aglow;
They knew...Read more of this...

The Old Age Of Queen Maeve

by William Butler Yeats
 A certain poet in outlandish clothes
Gathered a crowd in some Byzantine lane,
Talked1 of his country and its people, sang
To some stringed instrument none there had seen,
A wall behind his back, over his head
A latticed window. His glance went up at time
As though one listened there, and his voice sank
Or let its meaning mix into the strings.

Maeve the great queen...Read more of this...

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