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Famous Quaking Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Burns, Robert
...leave the springs o’ Calvin,
For gumlie dubs of your ain delvin!
Ye sons of Heresy and Error,
Ye’ll some day squeel in quaking terror,
When Vengeance draws the sword in wrath.
And in the fire throws the sheath;
When Ruin, with his sweeping besom,
Just frets till Heav’n commission gies him;
While o’er the harp pale Misery moans,
And strikes the ever-deep’ning tones,
Still louder shrieks, and heavier groans!


 Your pardon, sir, for this digression:
I maist forgat my Dedic...Read more of this...



by Bradstreet, Anne
...My weak'ned fainting body now to reel?
15 This physic-purging-potion I have taken
16 Will bring Consumption or an Ague quaking,
17 Unless some Cordial thou fetch from high,
18 Which present help may ease my malady.
19 If I decease, dost think thou shalt survive?
20 Or by my wasting state dost think to thrive?
21 Then weigh our case, if 't be not justly sad.
22 Let me lament alone, while thou art glad. 

New England. 

23 And thus, alas, your state you much de...Read more of this...

by Dryden, John
...hating David, but the king;
The Solymaean rout; well vers'd of old
In godly faction, and in treason bold;
Cow'ring and quaking at a conqu'ror's sword,
But lofty to a lawful prince restor'd;
Saw with disdain an Ethnic plot begun,
And scorn'd by Jebusites to be out-done.
Hot Levites headed these; who pull'd before
From th'Ark, which in the Judges' days they bore,
Resum'd their Cant, and with a zealous cry,
Pursu'd their old belov'd Theocracy.
Where Sanhedrin and Priest...Read more of this...

by Owen, Wilfred
...the brow and laid him back.
And in the happy no-time of his sleeping,
Death took him by the heart. There was a quaking
Of the aborted life within him leaping ...
Then chest and sleepy arms once more fell slack.
And soon the slow, stray blood came creeping
From the intrusive lead, like ants on track.

 * * * 

Whether his deeper sleep lie shaded by the shaking
Of great wings, and the thoughts that hung the stars,
High pillowed on calm pillows of Go...Read more of this...

by Sidney, Sir Philip
...ngth he perch'd himself in Stellaes ioyful face,
Whose faire skin, beamy eyes, like morning sun on snow,
Deceiu'd the quaking boy, who thought, from so pure light,
Effects of liuely heat must needs in nature grow:
But she, most faire, most cold, made him thence take his flight
To my close heart, where, while some firebrands he did lay,
He burnt vn'wares his wings, and cannot flie away. 
IX 

Queen Virtues Court, which some call Stellaes face,
Prepar'd by Natures...Read more of this...



by Emerson, Ralph Waldo
...ful round of work.
Their cords of love so public are,
They intertwine the farthest star.
The throbbing sea, the quaking earth,
Yield sympathy and signs of mirth;
Is none so high, so mean is none,
But feels and seals this union.
Even the tell Furies are appeased,
The good applaud, the lost are eased.

Love's hearts are faithful, but not fond,
Bound for the just, but not beyond;
Not glad, as the low-loving herd,
Of self in others still preferred,
But they have h...Read more of this...

by Gregory, Rg
...hs
did i not understand the fist of fate
that waited naughty boys who could not wait
thunderous gods glared through the quaking panes
a corporate wrath set back my growing pains

forget the scented lips the creeping bliss
of such a nurse's presence on my flesh
locked in i'd been an hour or more amiss
they thought i'd done a bunk or slipped the leash
when found i'd gone all blue like frozen fish
those scented lips discharged their angry bile
and cupid's dart fell short a scorn...Read more of this...

by Homer,
...d handmaids much less skillful were holding him now.

All night long they sought to appease the glorious goddess, quaking with fear. But, as soon as dawn began to show, they told powerful Celeus all things without fail, as the lovely-crowned goddess Demeter charged them. So Celeus called the countless people to an assembly and bade them make a goodly temple for rich-haired Demeter and an altar upon the rising hillock. And they obeyed him right speedily and h...Read more of this...

by Lorde, Audre
...ry?

III.
Did the secret of my sisters steal your tongue
like I stole money from your midnight pockets
stubborn and quaking
as you threaten to shoot me if I am the one? 
The naked lightbulbs in our kitchen ceiling
glint off your service revolver
as you load whispering.

Did two little dark girls in Grenada
dart like flying fish
between your averted eyes
and my pajamaless body
our last adolescent summer?
Eavesdropped orations
to your shaving mirror
our most intense con...Read more of this...

by Whittier, John Greenleaf
...rths and homes your manacles and gyves!

We wage no war, we lift no arm, we fling no torch within
The fire-damps of the quaking mine beneath your soil of sin;
We leave ye with your bondmen, to wrestle, while ye can,
With the strong upward tendencies and God-like soul of man!

But for us and for our children, the vow which we have given
For freedom and humanity is registered in heaven;
No slave-hunt in our borders, - no pirate on our strand!
No fetters in the Bay State, - no s...Read more of this...

by Thomas, Dylan
...h blessed, unborn God and His Ghost,
 And every soul His priest,
Gulled and chanter in young Heaven's fold
 Be at cloud quaking peace,

 But dark is a long way.
He, on the earth of the night, alone
 With all the living, prays,
Who knows the rocketing wind will blow
 The bones out of the hills,
And the scythed boulders bleed, and the last
 Rage shattered waters kick
Masts and fishes to the still quick starts,
 Faithlessly unto Him

 Who is the light of old
And air shaped H...Read more of this...

by Gibran, Kahlil
...lakes. 
I cannot find him, for Substance 
Has spirited him to the clamorous 
City and placed him on the throne 
Of quaking, metal riches. 


I call for him with the voice of 
Knowledge and the song of Wisdom. 
He does not hearken, for Substance 
Has enticed him into the dungeon 
Of selfishness, where avarice dwells. 


I seek him in the field of Contentment, 
But I am alone, for my rival has 
Imprisoned him in the cave of gluttony 
And greed, and locked him t...Read more of this...

by Sidney, Sir Philip
...ngth he perch'd himself in Stella's joyful face, 

Whose fair skin, beamy eyes, like morning sun on snow, 
Deceiv'd the quaking boy, who thought from so pure light 
Effects of lively heat must needs in nature grow. 

But she most fair, most cold, made him thence take his flight 
To my close heart, where while some firebrands he did lay, 
He burnt un'wares his wings, and cannot fly away....Read more of this...

by Service, Robert William
...outing and spouting, and everyone rapt and still.

Proud as a prince was Billie, bang in the footlights' glare,
And quaking for him was Millie, as she followed every word;
Then just as he reached the climax, ranting and sawing the air -
Ugh! How it makes me shudder! The horrible thing occurred...

'Twas the day when frocks were frilly, and skirts were scraping the ground,
And the snowy flounces of Millie like sea foam round her swept;
Humbly adoring I watched ...Read more of this...

by Masefield, John
...eeching 
Daft Bible-prophet chap a-preaching, 
Had put th'old mare in such a taking 
she'd thought the bloody earth was quaking. 
And others come and spread a tale 
Of cut-throats out of Gloucester jail, 
And how we needed extra cops 
With all them Welsh come picking hops: 
With drunken Welsh in all our sheds 
We might be murdered in our beds.

By all accounts, both men and wives 
Had had the scare up of their lives.

I ate and drank and gathered strength, 
And st...Read more of this...

by Scott, Sir Walter
...or's lance,
     'Tis hard for such to view, unfurled,
     The curtain of the future world.
     Yet, witness every quaking limb,
     My sunken pulse, mine eyeballs dim,
     My soul with harrowing anguish torn,
     This for my Chieftain have I borne!—
     The shapes that sought my fearful couch
     A human tongue may ne'er avouch;
     No mortal man—save he, who, bred
     Between the living and the dead,
     Is gifted beyond nature's law
     Had e'er surv...Read more of this...

by Larkin, Philip
...e wind was all possessed
And carried to a rich country.

The second ship turned towards the east,
Over the sea, the quaking sea,
And the wind hunted it like a beast
To anchor in captivity.

The third ship drove towards the north,
Over the sea, the darkening sea,
But no breath of wind came forth,
And the decks shone frostily.

The northern sky rose high and black
Over the proud unfruitful sea,
East and west the ships came back
Happily or unhappily:

But the third w...Read more of this...

by Frost, Robert
...im leisure for stargazing.
Often he bid me come and have a look
Up the brass barrel, velvet black inside,
At a star quaking in the other end.
I recollect a night of broken clouds
And underfoot snow melted down to ice,
And melting further in the wind to mud.
Bradford and I had out the telescope.
We spread our two legs as we spread its three,
Pointed our thoughts the way we pointed it,
And standing at our leisure till the day broke,
Said some of the best things ...Read more of this...

by Jong, Erica
...lf
by means
of runners,

that nobody
gives it to you,
not even me
to you,

but that you
must seize it
with your own
two quaking hands
& pluck
the strawberry
it bears
in the green
ungrumbling

Spring....Read more of this...

by Shakespeare, William
...senses all dismay'd,
She tells them 'tis a causeless fantasy,
And childish error, that they are afraid;
Bids them leave quaking, bids them fear no more:--
And with that word she spied the hunted boar;

Whose frothy mouth, bepainted all with red,
Like milk and blood being mingled both together,
A second fear through all her sinews spread,
Which madly hurries her she knows not whither:
This way she runs, and now she will no further,
But back retires to rate the boar for murther...Read more of this...

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Book: Shattered Sighs