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Famous Scare Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Bryant, William Cullen
...its enemies, 
The passions, at thy plainer footsteps shrink 
And tremble and are still. Oh, God! when thou 
Dost scare the world with falling thunderbolts, or fill, 
With all the waters of the firmament, 
The swift dark whirlwind that uproots the woods 
And drowns the village; when, at thy call, 
Uprises the great deep and throws himself 
Upon the continent, and overwhelms 
Its cities---who forgets not, at the sight 
Of these tremendous tokens of thy power, 
Hi...Read more of this...



by Silverstein, Shel
...e,
He's slurping the soda,
He's licking the ice.
And he lets out a roar
If you open the door.
And it gives me a scare
To know he's in there--
That Polary Bear
In our Fridgitydaire....Read more of this...

by Service, Robert William
...,
Peered with bright eyes from the bilberry spray;
Fiercely she faced us, dismayed but defiant,
Rushed at us bravely to scare us away.
Then my companion, a crazy young devil
(After, he told me he'd done it for fun)
Pretended to tremble, and raised his arm level,
And ere I could check him he blazed with his gun.

Headless she lay, from her neck the blood spouted,
And dappled her plumage, the poor, pretty thing!
Ten little chicks - oh, I know for I counted,
Came out and...Read more of this...

by Keats, John
...ronal of tender scions
For very idleness? Where'er thou art,
Methinks it now is at my will to start
Into thine arms; to scare Aurora's train,
And snatch thee from the morning; o'er the main
To scud like a wild bird, and take thee off
From thy sea-foamy cradle; or to doff
Thy shepherd vest, and woo thee mid fresh leaves.
No, no, too eagerly my soul deceives
Its powerless self: I know this cannot be.
O let me then by some sweet dreaming flee
To her entrancements: hither...Read more of this...

by Keats, John
...e down they came,
Crown'd with green leaves, and faces all on flame;
All madly dancing through the pleasant valley,
 To scare thee, Melancholy!
O then, O then, thou wast a simple name!
And I forgot thee, as the berried holly
By shepherds is forgotten, when, in June,
Tall chesnuts keep away the sun and moon:--
 I rush'd into the folly!

"Within his car, aloft, young Bacchus stood,
Trifling his ivy-dart, in dancing mood,
 With sidelong laughing;
And little rills of crimson wine...Read more of this...



by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...magic, and by fairy Kings and Queens; 
Or whether there be any city at all, 
Or all a vision: and this music now 
Hath scared them both, but tell thou these the truth.' 

Then that old Seer made answer playing on him 
And saying, 'Son, I have seen the good ship sail 
Keel upward, and mast downward, in the heavens, 
And solid turrets topsy-turvy in air: 
And here is truth; but an it please thee not, 
Take thou the truth as thou hast told it me. 
For truly as thou saye...Read more of this...

by Wilde, Oscar
...amps his feet upon the hearth, and flings
The sappy billets on the waning fire,
And laughs to see the sudden lightening scare
His children at their play, and yet, - the spring is in the air;

Already the slim crocus stirs the snow,
And soon yon blanched fields will bloom again
With nodding cowslips for some lad to mow,
For with the first warm kisses of the rain
The winter's icy sorrow breaks to tears,
And the brown thrushes mate, and with bright eyes the rabbit peers

From th...Read more of this...

by Keats, John
...ll!---No, by Tellus and her briny robes!
Over the fiery frontier of my realms
I will advance a terrible right arm
Shall scare that infant thunderer, rebel Jove,
And bid old Saturn take his throne again."---
He spake, and ceas'd, the while a heavier threat
Held struggle with his throat but came not forth;
For as in theatres of crowded men
Hubbub increases more they call out "Hush!"
So at Hyperion's words the phantoms pale
Bestirr'd themselves, thrice horrible and cold;
And...Read more of this...

by Shakur, Tupac
...Life through my bloodshot eyes
would scare a square 2 death
poverty,murder,violence
and never a moment 2 rest
Fun and games are few
but treasured like gold 2 me
cuz I realize that I must return
2 my spot in poverty
But mock my words when I say
my heart will not exist
unless my destiny comes through
and puts an end 2 all of this ...Read more of this...

by Frost, Robert
...to sow.
Luckily all she wanted of her name then
Was to rebuke her teacher with it next day,
And give the teacher a scare as from her father.
Anything further had been wasted on her,
Or so he tried to think to avoid blame.
She would forget it. She all but forgot it.
What he sowed with her slept so long a sleep,
And came so near death in the dark of years,
That when it woke and came to life again
The flower was different from the parent seed.
It carne b...Read more of this...

by Bryant, William Cullen
...ing light;
The hoarse jay screams to see her out so soon,
And small birds chirp and startle with affright;
Much doth it scare the superstitious wight,
Who dreams of sorry luck, and sore dismay;
While cow-boys think the day a dream of night,
And oft grow fearful on their lonely way,
Fancying that ghosts may wake, and leave their graves by day.

Yet but awhile the slumbering weather flings
Its murky prison round— then winds wake loud;
With sudden stir the startled forest si...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...rostrate on yon lake of fire, 
As we erewhile, astounded and amazed; 
No wonder, fallen such a pernicious height!" 
 He scare had ceased when the superior Fiend 
Was moving toward the shore; his ponderous shield, 
Ethereal temper, massy, large, and round, 
Behind him cast. The broad circumference 
Hung on his shoulders like the moon, whose orb 
Through optic glass the Tuscan artist views 
At evening, from the top of Fesole, 
Or in Valdarno, to descry new lands, 
Rivers, o...Read more of this...

by Frost, Robert
...its white neck of mushroom stuff
Short off, and died against the window-pane.”

“Brother Meserve, take care, you’ll scare yourself
More than you will us with such nightmare talk.
It’s you it matters to, because it’s you
Who have to go out into it alone.”

“Let him talk, Helen, and perhaps he’ll stay.”

“Before you drop the curtain—I’m reminded:
You recollect the boy who came out here
To breathe the air one winter—had a room
Down at the Averys’? Well, one sunny...Read more of this...

by Nash, Ogden
...s,
There isn't any Jabez Dawes!'


Said Jabez then with impudent vim,
'Oh, yes there is, and I am him!
Your magic don't scare me, it doesn't'
And suddenly he found he wasn't!
From grimy feet to grimy locks,
Jabez became a Jack-in-the-box,
An ugly toy with springs unsprung,
Forever sticking out his tongue.


The neighbors heard his mournful squeal;
They searched for him, but not with zeal.
No trace was found of Jabez Dawes,
Which led to thunderous applause,
And people ...Read more of this...

by Masefield, John
...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 stretched along the bench full length, 
Or crossed to window seat to pat 
Black Silas Jones's little cat. 
At four I called, "You devil's own, 
The second trumpet shall be blown. 
The second trump, the second blast; 
Hell's flames are loosed, and judgment's passed. 
Too lat...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...icy worm around them steal,
And shudder, as the reptiles creep
To revel o'er their rotting sleep,
Without the power to scare away
The cold consumers of their clay I
It is as if the desert-bird,
Whose beak unlocks her bosom's stream
To still her famished nestlings' scream,
Nor mourns a life to them transferred,
Should rend her rash devoted breast,
And find them flown her empty nest.
The keenest pangs the wretched find
Are rapture to the dreary void,
The leafless desert of...Read more of this...

by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...as I beaten down by little men, 
Mean knights, to whom the moving of my sword 
And shadow of my spear had been enow 
To scare them from me once; and then I came 
All in my folly to the naked shore, 
Wide flats, where nothing but coarse grasses grew; 
But such a blast, my King, began to blow, 
So loud a blast along the shore and sea, 
Ye could not hear the waters for the blast, 
Though heapt in mounds and ridges all the sea 
Drove like a cataract, and all the sand 
Swept like ...Read more of this...

by Scott, Sir Walter
...ll start in Stirling's porch;
     And when I light the nuptial torch,
     A thousand villages in flames
     Shall scare the slumbers of King James!—
     Nay, Ellen, blench not thus away,
     And, mother, cease these signs, I pray;
     I meant not all my heat might say.—
     Small need of inroad or of fight,
     When the sage Douglas may unite
     Each mountain clan in friendly band,
     To guard the passes of their land,
     Till the foiled King from pat...Read more of this...

by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...aid: 'for that inscription there, 
I think no more of deadly lurks therein, 
Than in a clapper clapping in a garth, 
To scare the fowl from fruit: if more there be, 
If more and acted on, what follows? war; 
Your own work marred: for this your Academe, 
Whichever side be Victor, in the halloo 
Will topple to the trumpet down, and pass 
With all fair theories only made to gild 
A stormless summer.' 'Let the Princess judge 
Of that' she said: 'farewell, Sir--and to you....Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...ht, and air,
And then of darkness too:
I had no thought, no feeling - none -
Among the stones I stood a stone,
And was, scare conscious what I wist,
As shrubless crags within the mist;
For all was blank, and bleak, and grey;
It was not night - it was day;
It was not even the dungeon-light,
So hateful to my heavy sight,
But vacancy absorbing space,
And fixedness - without a place;
There were no stars - no earth - no time -
No check - no change - no good, no crime -
But silence...Read more of this...

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Book: Shattered Sighs