Famous Ravening Poems by Famous Poets

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

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The Trail Of Ninety-Eight

by Robert William Service
 Gold! We leapt from our benches. Gold! We sprang from our stools.
Gold! We wheeled in the furrow, fired with the faith of fools.
Fearless, unfound, unfitted, far from the night and the cold,
Heard we the clarion summons, followed the master-lure--Gold!

Men from the sands of the Sunland; men from the woods of the West;
Men from the farms and the cities, into...Read more of this...

How Good Are The Poor

by Victor Hugo
 ("Il est nuit. La cabane est pauvre.") 
 
 {Bk. LII. iii.} 
 
 'Tis night—within the close stout cabin door, 
 The room is wrapped in shade save where there fall 
 Some twilight rays that creep along the floor, 
 And show the fisher's nets upon the wall. 
 
 In the dim corner, from the oaken...Read more of this...

The White Lights

by Edwin Arlington Robinson
 When in from Delos came the gold 
That held the dream of Pericles, 
When first Athenian ears were told 
The tumult of Euripides, 
When men met Aristophanes,
Who fledged them with immortal quills— 
Here, where the time knew none of these, 
There were some islands and some hills. 

When Rome went ravening to see 
The sons of mothers end their...Read more of this...

Boadicea

by Alfred Lord Tennyson
 While about the shore of Mona those Neronian legionaries
Burnt and broke the grove and altar of the Druid and Druidess,
Far in the East Boadicea, standing loftily charioted,
Mad and maddening all that heard her in her fierce volubility,
Girt by half the tribes of Britain, near the colony Camulodune,
Yell'd and shriek'd between her daughters o'er a wild confederacy. 

`They that scorn...Read more of this...

The Earthly Paradise: Apology

by William Morris
 Of Heaven or Hell I have no power to sing,
I cannot ease the burden of your fears,
Or make quick-coming death a little thing,
Or bring again the pleasure of past years,
Nor for my words shall ye forget your tears,
Or hope again for aught that I can say,
The idle singer of an empty day.

But rather, when aweary of your mirth,
From full...Read more of this...

Thrushes

by Ted Hughes
 Terrifying are the attent sleek thrushes on the lawn,
More coiled steel than living - a poised
Dark deadly eye, those delicate legs
Triggered to stirrings beyond sense - with a start, a bounce, 
a stab
Overtake the instant and drag out some writhing thing. 
No indolent procrastinations and no yawning states,
No sighs or head-scratchings. Nothing but bounce and stab 
And a ravening...Read more of this...

201. Birthday Ode for 31st December 1787

by Robert Burns
 AFAR 1 the illustrious Exile roams,
 Whom kingdoms on this day should hail;
 An inmate in the casual shed,
 On transient pity’s bounty fed,
 Haunted by busy memory’s bitter tale!
 Beasts of the forest have their savage homes,
 But He, who should imperial purple wear,
Owns not the lap of earth where rests his royal head!
 His wretched refuge, dark...Read more of this...

Ariosto. Orlando Furioso Canto X 91-99

by Alan Seeger
 Ruggiero, to amaze the British host, 
And wake more wonder in their wondering ranks, 
The bridle of his winged courser loosed, 
And clapped his spurs into the creature's flanks; 
High in the air, even to the topmost banks 
Of crudded cloud, uprose the flying horse, 
And now above the Welsh, and now the Manx, 
And now across the sea...Read more of this...

O lovelier than the lovely dame (O MATRE PULCHRA)

by Horace
     O lovelier than the lovely dame
       That bore you, sentence as you please
     Those scurril verses, be it flame
       Your vengeance craves, or Hadrian seas.
     Not Cybele, nor he that haunts
    ...Read more of this...

The Bankrupt Peace-Maker

by Vachel Lindsay
 I opened the ink-well and smoke filled the room.
The smoke formed the giant frog-cat of my doom.
His web feet left dreadful slime tracks on the floor.
He had hammer and nails that he laid by the door.
He sprawled on the table, claw-hands in my hair.
He looked through my heart to the mud that was there.
Like a black-mailer hating his victim...Read more of this...

Cliche Came Out of its Cage

by C S Lewis
 1

You said 'The world is going back to Paganism'. 
Oh bright Vision! I saw our dynasty in the bar of the House 
Spill from their tumblers a libation to the Erinyes, 
And Leavis with Lord Russell wreathed in flowers, heralded with flutes, 
Leading white bulls to the cathedral of the solemn Muses 
To pay where due the glory of...Read more of this...

529. Song—How cruel are the parents

by Robert Burns
 HOW cruel are the parents
 Who riches only prize,
And to the wealthy booby
 Poor Woman sacrifice!
Meanwhile, the hapless Daughter
 Has but a choice of strife;
To shun a tyrant Father’s hate—
 Become a wretched Wife.


The ravening hawk pursuing,
 The trembling dove thus flies,
To shun impelling ruin,
 Awhile her pinions tries;
Till, of escape despairing,
 No shelter or retreat,
She trusts the ruthless...Read more of this...

The Tale of the Tiger-Tree

by Vachel Lindsay
 A Fantasy, dedicated to the little poet Alice Oliver Henderson, ten years old. 

The Fantasy shows how tiger-hearts are the cause of war in all ages. It shows how the mammoth forces may be either friends or enemies of the struggle for peace. It shows how the dream of peace is unconquerable and eternal.


I

Peace-of-the-Heart, my own for long,
Whose shining...Read more of this...

The Crystal

by Sidney Lanier
 At midnight, death's and truth's unlocking time,
When far within the spirit's hearing rolls
The great soft rumble of the course of things --
A bulk of silence in a mask of sound, --
When darkness clears our vision that by day
Is sun-blind, and the soul's a ravening owl
For truth and flitteth here and there about
Low-lying woody tracts of time and oft
Is minded...Read more of this...

Lyonesse

by Alan Seeger
 In Lyonesse was beauty enough, men say: 
Long Summer loaded the orchards to excess, 
And fertile lowlands lengthening far away, 
In Lyonesse. 


Came a term to that land's old favoredness: 
Past the sea-walls, crumbled in thundering spray, 
Rolled the green waves, ravening, merciless. 


Through bearded boughs immobile in cool decay, 
Where sea-bloom covers corroding palaces, 
The mermaid glides with...Read more of this...

A Sunrise Song

by Sidney Lanier
 Young palmer sun, that to these shining sands
Pourest thy pilgrim's tale, discoursing still
Thy silver passages of sacred lands,
With news of Sepulchre and Dolorous Hill,

Canst thou be he that, yester-sunset warm,
Purple with Paynim rage and wrack desire,
Dashed ravening out of a dusty lair of Storm,
Harried the west, and set the world on fire?

Hast thou perchance repented, Saracen Sun?
Wilt warm the...Read more of this...

Supernatural Songs

by William Butler Yeats
 I. Ribh at the Tomb of Baile and Aillinn

Because you have found me in the pitch-dark night
With open book you ask me what I do.
Mark and digest my tale, carry it afar
To those that never saw this tonsured head
Nor heard this voice that ninety years have cracked.
Of Baile and Aillinn you need not speak,
All know their tale, all know...Read more of this...

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