Famous Shudder Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Krishna

by George William Russell
 I PAUSED beside the cabin door and saw the King of Kings at play,
Tumbled upon the grass I spied the little heavenly runaway.
The mother laughed upon the child made gay by its ecstatic morn,
And yet the sages spake of It as of the Ancient and Unborn.
I heard the passion breathed amid the honeysuckle scented glade,
And saw the King pass...Read more of this...

King Canute

by Victor Hugo
 ("Un jour, Kanut mourut.") 
 
 {Bk. X. i.} 


 King Canute died.{1} Encoffined he was laid. 
 Of Aarhuus came the Bishop prayers to say, 
 And sang a hymn upon his tomb, and held 
 That Canute was a saint—Canute the Great, 
 That from his memory breathed celestial perfume, 
 And that they saw him, they...Read more of this...

Dusty Doors

by Carl Sandburg
 CHILD of the Aztec gods,
how long must we listen here,
how long before we go?

The dust is deep on the lintels.
The dust is dark on the doors.
If the dreams shake our bones,
 what can we say or do?

Since early morning we waited.
Since early, early morning, child.
There must be dreams on the way now.
There must be a song for our bones.

The...Read more of this...

The Neophyte

by Aleister Crowley
 To-night I tread the unsubstantial way
That looms before me, as the thundering night
Falls on the ocean: I must stop, and pray
One little prayer, and then - what bitter fight
Flames at the end beyond the darkling goal?
These are my passions that my feet must read;
This is my sword, the fervour of my soul;
This is my Will, the crown upon my...Read more of this...

Cinema Calendar Of The Abstract Heart - 09

by Tristan Tzara
 the fibres give in to your starry warmth
a lamp is called green and sees
carefully stepping into a season of fever
the wind has swept the rivers' magic
and i've perforated the nerve
by the clear frozen lake
has snapped the sabre
but the dance round terrace tables
shuts in the shock of the marble shudder
new sober...Read more of this...

Saadi

by Ralph Waldo Emerson
 Trees in groves,
Kine in droves,
In ocean sport the scaly herds,
Wedge-like cleave the air the birds,
To northern lakes fly wind-borne ducks,
Browse the mountain sheep in flocks,
Men consort in camp and town,
But the poet dwells alone.

God who gave to him the lyre,
Of all mortals the desire,
For all breathing men's behoof,
Straitly charged him, "Sit aloof;"
Annexed a warning, poets say,
To the bright premium,—
Ever...Read more of this...

Spring Day

by Amy Lowell
 Bath
The day is fresh-washed and fair, and there is 
a smell of tulips and narcissus
in the air.
The sunshine pours in at the bath-room window and 
bores through the water
in the bath-tub in lathes and planes of greenish-white. It 
cleaves the water
into flaws like a jewel, and cracks it to bright light.
Little spots of sunshine lie on the surface of...Read more of this...

Leda And The Swan

by William Butler Yeats
 A sudden blow: the great wings beating still
Above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed
By the dark webs, her nape caught in his bill,
He holds her helpless breast upon his breast.

How can those terrified vague fingers push
The feathered glory from her loosening thighs?
And how can body, laid in that white rush,
But feel the strange heart beating where it lies?

A shudder...Read more of this...

Town Owl

by Laurie Lee
 On eves of cold, when slow coal fires,
rooted in basements, burn and branch,
brushing with smoke the city air;
When quartered moons pale in the sky,
and neons glow along the dark
like deadly nightshade on a briar;
Above the muffled traffic then
I hear the owl, and at his note
I shudder in my private chair.
For like an auger he has come
to roost among our...Read more of this...

The Philistine And The Bohemian

by Robert William Service
 She was a Philistine spick and span,
He was a bold Bohemian.
She had the mode, and the last at that;
He had a cape and a brigand hat.
She was so riant and chic and trim;
He was so shaggy, unkempt and grim.
On the rue de la Paix she was wont to shine;
The rue de la Gaîté was more his line.
She doted on...Read more of this...

The Old And The Young Bridegroom

by Victor Hugo
 ("L'homme auquel on vous destina.") 
 
 {HERNANI, Act I.} 


 Listen. The man for whom your youth is destined, 
 Your uncle, Ruy de Silva, is the Duke 
 Of Pastrana, Count of Castile and Aragon. 
 For lack of youth, he brings you, dearest girl, 
 Treasures of gold, jewels, and precious gems, 
 With which your...Read more of this...

The Shudder of the Sphinx

by Jean Delville
In the land of Huros, Rameses and Sesostris,
But in the time of the Latins and when ruddy Rome
Upraised in bronze and gold her wasted emperors,
This is the hour when the infinite penetrates the heart of man.

Like the elected orb of the great sacred haloes
With which the head of future saints should be encircled,
The moon in blossom smiles her ethereal dreams
In...Read more of this...

The Sea And the Hills

by Rudyard Kipling
 1902
Who hath desired the Sea? -- the sight of salt wind-hounded --
The heave and the halt and the hurl and the crash of the comber win hounded?
The sleek-barrelled swell before storm, grey, foamless, enormous, and growing --
Stark calm on the lap of the Line or the crazy-eyed hurricane blowing --
His Sea in no showing the same his Sea and...Read more of this...

Messidor

by Algernon Charles Swinburne
 Put in the sickles and reap;
For the morning of harvest is red,
And the long large ranks of the corn
Coloured and clothed as the morn
Stand thick in the fields and deep
For them that faint to be fed.
Let all that hunger and weep
Come hither, and who would have bread
Put in the sickles and reap.

Coloured and clothed as the morn,
The grain grows...Read more of this...

Bat

by D. H. Lawrence
 At evening, sitting on this terrace, 
When the sun from the west, beyond Pisa, beyond the mountains of Carrara 
Departs, and the world is taken by surprise ... 

When the tired flower of Florence is in gloom beneath the glowing 
Brown hills surrounding ... 

When under the arches of the Ponte Vecchio 
A green light enters against stream, flush...Read more of this...

When We Two Parted

by George (Lord) Byron
When we two parted
  In silence and tears,
Half broken-hearted
  To sever for years,
Pale grew thy cheek and cold,
  Colder thy kiss;
Truly that hour foretold
  Sorrow to this.

The dew of the morning
  Sunk chill on my brow—
It felt like the warning
  Of what I feel now.
Thy vows are all broken,
  And light is thy...Read more of this...

The Cobweb

by Raymond Carver
 A few minutes ago, I stepped onto the deck
of the house. From there I could see and hear the water,
and everything that's happened to me all these years.
It was hot and still. The tide was out.
No birds sang. As I leaned against the railing
a cobweb touched my forehead.
It caught in my hair. No one can blame me that I...Read more of this...

Almighty Death

by W. E. B. Du Bois
Softly, quite softly—
For I hear, above the murmur of the sea,
Faint and far-fallen footsteps, as of One
Who comes from out beyond the endless ends of Time,
With voice that downward looms thro' singing stars;
Its subtle sound I see thro' these long-darkened eyes,
I hear the Light He bringeth on His hands—
Almighty Death!
Softly, oh, softly, lest He pass me by,
And that unquivering Light...Read more of this...

Which is the best -- the Moon or the Crescent?

by Emily Dickinson
 Which is the best -- the Moon or the Crescent?
Neither -- said the Moon --
That is best which is not -- Achieve it --
You efface the Sheen.

Not of detention is Fruition --
Shudder to attain.
Transport's decomposition follows --
He is Prism born....Read more of this...

it was once called

by Rg Gregory
 it comes like a convict
squeezing through bars
and is gone before
the promptest siren

it suddenly turns
in the ear or rides
the eye of a thought
before dissolving

i have it in a faint
taste or shudder
an ache like a spring
high in the mountains

it was once called love
and now a longing
for a song to be heard
that doesn't bear singing...Read more of this...

A Tale of the Sea

by William Topaz McGonagall
 A pathetic tale of the sea I will unfold,
Enough to make one's blood run cold;
Concerning four fishermen cast adrift in a dory.
As I've been told I'll relate the story.
T'was on the 8th April on the afternoon of that day
That the village of Louisburg was thrown into a wild state or dismay, 

And the villagers flew to the beach in...Read more of this...

The Crowded Street

by William Cullen Bryant
LET me move slowly through the street  
Filled with an ever-shifting train  
Amid the sound of steps that beat 
The murmuring walks like autumn rain. 

How fast the flitting figures come! 5 
The mild the fierce the stony face; 
Some bright with thoughtless smiles and some 
Where secret tears have left their trace. 

They pass¡ªto toil to strife...Read more of this...

Far Within Us #2

by Vasko Popa
 Look here's that uninvited
Alien presence look it's here

A shudder on the ocean of tea in the cup
Rust taking hold
On the edges of our laughter
A snake coiled in the depths of the mirror

Will I be able to hide you
From your face in mine

Look it's the third shadow
On our imagined walk
Unexpected abyss
Between our words
Hoofs clattering
Below the vaults of our palates

Will I...Read more of this...

On the Mystery of the Incarnation

by Denise Levertov
 It's when we face for a moment
the worst our kind can do, and shudder to know
the taint in our own selves, that awe
cracks the mind's shell and enters the heart:
not to a flower, not to a dolphin,
to no innocent form
but to this creature vainly sure
it and no other is god-like, God
(out of compassion for our ugly
failure to evolve) entrusts,
as...Read more of this...

The Song Of The Camp-Fire

by Robert William Service
 Heed me, feed me, I am hungry, I am red-tongued with desire;
Boughs of balsam, slabs of cedar, gummy fagots of the pine,
Heap them on me, let me hug them to my eager heart of fire,
Roaring, soaring up to heaven as a symbol and a sign.
Bring me knots of sunny maple, silver birch and tamarack;
Leaping, sweeping, I will lap them...Read more of this...

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