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Famous Scalding Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Amjad, Majeed
...s. they seek a home
lost in dust beneath their feet

On a heap of squalid unscrubbed pans
immersed in simmering scalding water
the toiling sweating hands do seek
the blessed home
for ages they have thought and dreamed.

In towns flourshing
along the banks of mountain brooks
stays a-while
a fleeting cloud of gloom....... The Home!
and from an urban sheeted roof
curls into waves of trailing smoke.

The brook is limpid murm...Read more of this...



by Thomas, Dylan
...pull upon my nerves,
My sisters tears that sing upon my head
My brothers' blood that salts my open wounds


Heir to the scalding veins that hold love's drop,
My fallen filled, that had the hint of death,
Heir to the telling senses that alone
Acquaint the flesh with a remembered itch,
I round this heritage as rounds the sun
His windy sky, and, as the candles moon,
Cast light upon my weather. I am heir
To women who have twisted their last smile,
To children who were suckled...Read more of this...

by Service, Robert William
...that toil-worn upcasting,
Their homes, their babies and their wives
Destroyed in one fell blasting!
Imagine that swift-scalding hell! . . .
And though, mayhap, it seems a
Fantastic, far-fetched parallel -
Remember . . . Hiroshima....Read more of this...

by Petrarch, Francesco
...BR>And thus my woeful days unto this hour have pass'dIn smoky sighs and scalding tears, my wearied life to waste;[Pg 312]O Lord! what graces great I fled, and eke refusedTo serve this cruel crafty Sire that doubtless trust abused." "What wit can use such words to ar...Read more of this...

by Sexton, Anne
...a stature in her bed.

Then once,
by terrible chance,
love took her in his big boat
and she shoveled the ocean
in a scalding joy.

Then,
slowly,
love seeped away,
the boat turned into paper
and she knew her fate,
at last.
Turn where you belong,
into a deaf mute
that metal house,
let him drill you into no one....Read more of this...



by Keats, John
...-born Circe. The crew had gone,
By one and one, to pale oblivion;
And I was gazing on the surges prone,
With many a scalding tear and many a groan,
When at my feet emerg'd an old man's hand,
Grasping this scroll, and this same slender wand.
I knelt with pain--reached out my hand--had grasp'd
These treasures--touch'd the knuckles--they unclasp'd--
I caught a finger: but the downward weight
O'erpowered me--it sank. Then 'gan abate
The storm, and through chill aguish...Read more of this...

by Keats, John
...et the blows, the buffets vile?
Are ye not smitten by a youngling arm?
Dost thou forget, sham Monarch of the waves,
Thy scalding in the seas? What! have I rous'd
Your spleens with so few simple words as these?
O joy! for now I see ye are not lost:
O joy! for now I see a thousand eyes
Wide-glaring for revenge!"---As this he said,
He lifted up his stature vast, and stood,
Still without intermission speaking thus:
"Now ye are flames, I'll tell you how to burn,
And purge the ethe...Read more of this...

by Thomas, Dylan
...the creasing flesh, filed
Through all the irons in the grass, metal
Of suns in the man-melting night.

Heir to the scalding veins that hold love's drop, costly
A creature in my bones I
Rounded my globe of heritage, journey
In bottom gear through night-geared man.

I dreamed my genesis and died again, shrapnel
Rammed in the marching heart, hole
In the stitched wound and clotted wind, muzzled
Death on the mouth that ate the gas.

Sharp in my second death I marked t...Read more of this...

by Dickinson, Emily
...aved -- I see --
Too rescued -- Fear too dim to me
That I could spell the Prayer
I knew so perfect -- yesterday --
That Scalding One -- Sabachthani --
Recited fluent -- here --

Earth would have been too much -- I see --
And Heaven -- not enough for me --
I should have had the Joy
Without the Fear -- to justify --
The Palm -- without the Calvary --
So Savior -- Crucify --
Defeat -- whets Victory -- they say --
The Reefs -- in old Gethsemane --
Endear the Coast -- beyond!
'Tis...Read more of this...

by Rich, Adrienne
...roked the sweated temples
and steered the boat there through this hot
misblotted sunlight, critical light
imperceptibly scalding
the skin these hands will also salve....Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...fixed, imagining 
For one forbidden tree a multitude 
Now risen, to work them further woe or shame; 
Yet, parched with scalding thirst and hunger fierce, 
Though to delude them sent, could not abstain; 
But on they rolled in heaps, and, up the trees 
Climbing, sat thicker than the snaky locks 
That curled Megaera: greedily they plucked 
The fruitage fair to sight, like that which grew 
Near that bituminous lake where Sodom flamed; 
This more delusive, not the touch, but tast...Read more of this...

by Petrarch, Francesco
...SPAN class=i0>For, tiger-like, so swift it is in parting.Alas! the snow black shall it be and scalding,The sea waterless, and fish upon the mountain,The Thames shall back return into his fountain,And where he rose the sun shall take [his] lodging,Ere I in this find peace or quietness;Or that Love, or my Lady, right wisely,...Read more of this...

by Robinson, Mary Darby
...baneful spells shall bind
The purer passions of my mind;
No more, false Love, shall jealous fears
Inflame my check with scalding tears;
Or shake my vanquish'd sense, or rend
My aching heart with poignant throes,
Or with tumultuous fevers blend,
Self-wounding, visionary woes.­ 

No more I'll waste the midnight hour 
In expectation's silent bow'r; 
And musing o'er thy transcripts dear, 
Efface their sorrows with a tear. 
No more with timid fondness wait 
Till morn unfol...Read more of this...

by Frost, Robert
...ck was rising to a nearer clank.
Here it came breasting like a horse in skirts.
(He stood well back for fear of scalding squirts.)
Then for a moment all there was was size
Confusion and a roar that drowned the cries
He raised against the gods in the machine.
Then once again the sandbank lay serene.
The traveler's eye picked up a turtle train,
between the dotted feet a streak of tail,
And followed it to where he made out vague
But certain signs of buried tu...Read more of this...

by Holmes, Oliver Wendell
...g creatures hear 
The maelstroms of the photosphere! 
And is thy bosom decked with flowers 
That steal their bloom from scalding showers? 
And hast thou cities, domes, and towers, 
And life, and love that makes it dear, 
And death that fills thy tribes with fear? 


Lost in my dream, my spirit soars 
Through paths the wandering angels know; 
My all-pervading thought explores 
The azure ocean's lucent shores; 
I leave my mortal self below, 
As up the star-lit stairs I climb, 
...Read more of this...

by Baudelaire, Charles
...friend, remember, is the motto of the world. 

`Flowing founts of inspiration leave their sources parched and dry, 
Scalding tears of indignation sear the hearts that beat too high; 
Chilly waters thrown upon it drown the fire that's in the bard; 
And the banter of the critic hurts his heart till it grows hard. 
At the fame your muse may offer let your lip in scorn be curled, 
`Self and Pelf', my friend, remember, that's the motto of the world. 

`Shun the fields ...Read more of this...

by Cook, Eliza
...he nursed me ; 'twas there she died :
And Memory flows with lava tide.
Say it is folly, and deem me weak,
While the scalding drops start down my cheek ;
But I love it, I love it ; and cannot tear
My soul from a mother's old Arm-chair....Read more of this...

by Lowell, Amy
...f angels' wings
Fanning the smoke, and voices will flower through the strings.
He dares no farther vision, and with scalding eyes
Waits upon the daylight and his great emprise.
The cold, grey light of dawn was whitening the 
wall
When the Boy, fine-drawn by sleeplessness, started his ritual.
He washed, all shivering and pointed like a flame.
He threw the shutters open, and in the window-frame
The morning glimmered like a tarnished Venice glass.
He took his...Read more of this...

by Carew, Thomas
...rich array 
Welcome the coming of the long'd-for May. 
Now all things smile; only my love doth lour; 
Nor hath the scalding noonday sun the power 
To melt that marble ice, which still doth hold 
Her heart congeal'd, and makes her pity cold. 
The ox, which lately did for shelter fly 
Into the stall, doth now securely lie 
In open fields; and love no more is made 
By the fireside, but in the cooler shade 
Amyntas now doth with his Chloris sleep 
Under a sycamore, and a...Read more of this...

by Rossetti, Christina
...umb.
O merry friends, go your own way, I have never a word to say.

What would I give for tears! Not smiles but scalding tears,
To wash the black mark clean, and to thaw the frost of years,
To wash the stain ingrain, and to make me clean again....Read more of this...

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