Famous Scourges Poems by Famous Poets

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

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454. Epistle from Esopus to Maria

...s my wretched lines I date,
To tell Maria her Esopus’ fate.


“Alas! I feel I am no actor here!”
’Tis real hangmen real scourges bear!
Prepare Maria, for a horrid tale
Will turn thy very rouge to deadly pale;
Will make thy hair, tho’ erst from gipsy poll’d,
By barber woven, and by barber sold,
Though twisted smooth with Harry’s nicest care,
Like hoary bristles to erect and stare.
The hero of the mimic scene, no more
I start in Hamlet, in Othello roar;
Or, haughty Chieftain, ’...Read more of this...
by Burns, Robert


A Grave

...out of the
 seaweed;
the birds swim through the air at top speed, emitting cat-calls
 as heretofore—
the tortoise-shell scourges about the feet of the cliffs, in motion
 beneath them;
and the ocean, under the pulsation of lighthouses and noise of
 bell-bouys,
advances as usual, looking as if it were not that ocean in which
 dropped things are bound to sink—
in which if they turn and twist, it is neither with volition nor
 consciousness....Read more of this...
by Moore, Marianne

Ainsi Va le Monde

...le eager vengeance op'd her thousand eyes; 
While the hir'd slave, the fiend of wrath, design'd 
To lash, with scorpion scourges, human-kind­ 
Dragg'd with ingenious pangs, the tardy hour, 
To feed the rancour of insatiate Pow'r. 

Blest be the favor'd delegates of Heav'n, 
To whose illustrious souls the task was giv'n 
To wrench the bolts of tyranny­and dare 
The petrifying confines of despair; 
With Heav'n's own breeze to cheer the gasping breath, 
And spread broad sun-shin...Read more of this...
by Robinson, Mary Darby

Four Songs Of Four Seasons

...re for them
Forth, with a prayer for them:
Shall not God care for them
Angels not keep?
Spare not the surges
Thy stormy scourges;
Spare us the dirges
Of wives that weep.
Turn back the waves for us:
Dig no fresh graves for us,
Wind, in the manifold gulfs of the deep.

O stout north-easter,
Sea-king, land-waster,
For all thine haste, or
Thy stormy skill,
Yet hadst thou never,
For all endeavour,
Strength to dissever
Or strength to spill,
Save of his giving
Who gave our living,
W...Read more of this...
by Swinburne, Algernon Charles

Hymn 30

...light.

Look, how rebellious men deride
The tender patience of my God!
But they shall see thy lifted hand,
And feel the scourges of thy rod.

Hark! the Eternal rends the sky,
A mighty voice before him goes;
A voice of music to his friends,
But threat'ning thunder to his foes.

Come, children, to your Father's arms,
Hide in the chambers of my grace,
Till the fierce storms be overblown,
And my revenging fury cease.

My sword shall boast its thousands slain,
And drink the blood ...Read more of this...
by Watts, Isaac


Hymn Of Man

...before thee and humbled in dust,
By the dread wherewith life was astounded and shamed out of sense of its trust,
By the scourges of doubt and repentance that fell on the soul at thy nod,
Thou art judged, O judge, and the sentence is gone forth against thee, O God.
Thy slave that slept is awake; thy slave but slept for a span;
Yea, man thy slave shall unmake thee, who made thee lord over man.
For his face is set to the east, his feet on the past and its dead;
The sun rearisen ...Read more of this...
by Swinburne, Algernon Charles

I see the Four-fold Man

...ke Albion from his long and cold repose; 
For Bacon and Newton, sheath'd in dismal steel, their terrors hang 
Like iron scourges over Albion: reasonings like vast serpents 
Infold around my limbs, bruising my minute articulations. 

I turn my eyes to the schools and universities of Europe 
And there behold the Loom of Locke, whose Woof rages dire, 
Wash'd by the Water-wheels of Newton: black the cloth 
In heavy wreaths folds over every nation: cruel works 
Of many Wheels I vi...Read more of this...
by Blake, William

Jerusalem: I see the Four-fold Man The Humanity in deadly sleep

...wake Albion from his long and cold repose;
For Bacon and Newton, sheath'd in dismal steel, their terrors hang
Like iron scourges over Albion: reasonings like vast serpents
Infold around my limbs, bruising my minute articulations.

I turn my eyes to the schools and universities of Europe
And there behold the Loom of Locke, whose Woof rages dire,
Wash'd by the Water-wheels of Newton: black the cloth
In heavy wreaths folds over every nation: cruel works
Of many Wheels I view, wh...Read more of this...
by Blake, William

John Wasson

...the forests,
We built the school houses, built the bridges,
Leveled the roads and tilled the fields
Alone with poverty, scourges, death-
If Harry Wilmans who fought the Filipinos
Is to have a flag on his grave
Take it from mine!...Read more of this...
by Masters, Edgar Lee

Psalm 107 last part

...Colonies planted; or, Nations blessed and punished.
A Psalm for New England.

When God, provoked with daring crimes,
Scourges the madness of the times,
He turns their fields to barren sand,
And dries the rivers from the land.

His word can raise the springs again,
And make the withered mountains green;
Send showery blessings from the skies,
And harvests in the desert rise.

[Where nothing dwelt but beasts of prey,
Or men as fierce and wild as they,
He bids th' oppressed an...Read more of this...
by Watts, Isaac

Psalm 119. last part

...ced my conscience to a stand,
And brought my wand'ring soul to God!

Foolish and vain, I went astray
Ere I had felt thy scourges, Lord;
I left my guide, and lost my way;
But now I love and keep thy word.

ver. 71 

'Tis good for me to wear the yoke,
For pride is apt to rise and swell;
'Tis good to bear my Father's stroke,
That I might learn his statutes well.

ver. 72 

The law that issues from thy mouth
Shall raise my cheerful passions more
Than all the treasures of the sout...Read more of this...
by Watts, Isaac

Psalm 94 part 1

...ovidence's and thy book
Shall make them know their God.

Blest is the man thy hands chastise,
And to his duty draw;
Thy scourges make thy children wise
When they forget thy law.

But God will ne'er cast off his saints,
Nor his own promise break
He pardons his inheritance
For their Redeemer's sake....Read more of this...
by Watts, Isaac

Seaweed

...WHEN descends on the Atlantic 
The gigantic 
Storm-wind of the equinox  
Landward in his wrath he scourges 
The toiling surges 5 
Laden with seaweed from the rocks: 

From Bermuda's reefs; from edges 
Of sunken ledges  
In some far-off bright Azore; 
From Bahama and the dashing 10 
Silver-flashing 
Surges of San Salvador; 

From the tumbling surf that buries 
The Orkneyan skerries  
Answering the hoarse Hebrides; 15 
And from wrecks of ship...Read more of this...
by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth

The Hemp

...e gray slaves glean, 
The hemp sprouts up, and the earth is seen 
Veiled with a tenuous mist of green. 

And Hawk still scourges the Caribbees, 
And many men kneel at his knees. 

Sir Henry sits in his house alone, 
And his eyes are hard and dull like stone. 

And the waves beat, and the winds roar, 
And all things are as they were before. 

And the days pass, and the weeks pass, 
And nothing changes but the grass. 

But down where the fireflies are like eyes, 
And the damps ...Read more of this...
by Benet, Stephen Vincent

The Soudan, The Sphinxes, The Cup, The Lamp

...terrace of her tomb 
 Is Queen Nitrocis, thinking all alone, 
 Upon her line, long tenants of the throne, 
 Terrors, scourges of the Greeks and Hebrews, 
 Harsh and bloodthirsty, narrow in their views. 
 Against the pure scroll of the sky, a blot, 
 Stands out her sepulchre, a fatal spot 
 That seems a baneful breath around to spread. 
 The birds which chance to near it, drop down dead. 
 The queen is now attended on by shades, 
 Which have replaced, in horrid guise...Read more of this...
by Hugo, Victor

To The Genius Of Africa

...r
That taints those dungeons of despair,
By those who there imprison'd die
Where the black herd promiscuous lie,
By the scourges blacken'd o'er
And stiff and hard with human gore,
By every groan of deep distress
By every curse of wretchedness,
By all the train of Crimes that flow
From the hopelessness of Woe,
By every drop of blood bespilt,
By Afric's wrongs and Europe's guilt,
Awake! arise! avenge!

And thou hast heard! and o'er their blood-fed plains
Swept thine avenging hu...Read more of this...
by Southey, Robert

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