Famous Stormy Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Hush'd be the Camps To-day

by Walt Whitman
 1
HUSH’D be the camps to-day; 
And, soldiers, let us drape our war-worn weapons; 
And each with musing soul retire, to celebrate, 
Our dear commander’s death. 

No more for him life’s stormy conflicts;
Nor victory, nor defeat—no more time’s dark events, 
Charging like ceaseless clouds across the sky. 

2
But sing, poet, in our name; 
Sing of the love we bore him—because...Read more of this...

The Man Who Dreamed Of Faeryland

by William Butler Yeats
 He stood among a crowd at Dromahair;
His heart hung all upon a silken dress,
And he had known at last some tenderness,
Before earth took him to her stony care;
But when a man poured fish into a pile,
It Seemed they raised their little silver heads,
And sang what gold morning or evening sheds
Upon a woven world-forgotten isle
Where people love beside the ravelled...Read more of this...

High waving heather neath stormy blasts bending

by Emily Brontë
 High waving heather 'neath stormy blasts bending, 
Midnight and moonlight and bright shining stars, 
Darkness and glory rejoicingly blending, 
Earth rising to heaven and heaven descending, 
Man's spirit away from its drear dungeon sending, 
Bursting the fetters and breaking the bars.

All down the mountain sides wild forests lending 
One mighty voice to the life-giving wind, 
Rivers their banks in...Read more of this...

The Wreck of the Steamer London

by William Topaz McGonagall
 'Twas in the year of 1866, and on a very beautiful day,
That eighty-two passengers, with spirits light and gay,
Left Gravesend harbour, and sailed gaily away
On board the steamship "London,"
Bound for the city of Melbourne,
Which unfortunately was her last run,
Because she was wrecked on the stormy main,
Which has caused many a heart to throb with pain,
Because they will ne'er look...Read more of this...

Grif of the Bloody Hand

by William Topaz McGonagall
 In an immense wood in the south of Kent,
There lived a band of robbers which caused the people discontent;
And the place they infested was called the Weald,
Where they robbed wayside travellers and left them dead on the field. 

Their leader was called Grif, of the Bloody Hand,
And so well skilled in sword practice there's few could him withstand;
And sometimes...Read more of this...

Lament for Boromir

by J R R Tolkien
 Through Rohan over fen and field where the long grass grows,
The West Wind comes walking, and about the walls it goes.
'What news from the West, O wandering wind, do you bring to me tonight?
Have you seen Boromir the Tall by moon or by starlight?'
'I saw him ride over seven streams, over waters wide and grey.
I saw him walk in...Read more of this...

On Death

by Percy Bysshe Shelley
 The pale, the cold, and the moony smile
Which the meteor beam of a starless night
Sheds on a lonely and sea-girt isle,
Ere the dawning of morn's undoubted light,
Is the flame of life so fickle and wan
That flits round our steps till their strength is gone.

O man! hold thee on in courage of soul
Through the stormy shades of thy wordly way,
And...Read more of this...

468. Song—On the Seas and far away

by Robert Burns
 HOW can my poor heart be glad,
When absent from my sailor lad;
How can I the thought forego—
He’s on the seas to meet the foe?
Let me wander, let me rove,
Still my heart is with my love;
Nightly dreams, and thoughts by day,
Are with him that’s far away.


Chorus.—On the seas and far away,
On stormy seas and far away;
Nightly dreams and thoughts by...Read more of this...

Ye Mariners of England

by Thomas Campbell
 1 Ye Mariners of England
2 That guard our native seas,
3 Whose flag has braved, a thousand years,
4 The battle and the breeze--
5 Your glorious standard launch again
6 To match another foe!
7 And sweep through the deep,
8 While the stormy winds do blow,--
9 While the battle rages loud and long,
10 And the stormy winds do blow.

11 The spirits of your...Read more of this...

Ichabod!

by John Greenleaf Whittier
So fallen! so lost! the light withdrawn
     Which once he wore!
The glory from his gray hairs gone
     Forevermore!

Revile him not—the Tempter hath
     A snare for all;
And pitying tears, not scorn and wrath,
     Befit his fall!

Oh! dumb be passion's stormy rage,
    ...Read more of this...

Lord Ullins Daughter

by Thomas Campbell
 A chieftain, to the Highlands bound, 
Cries, ``Boatman, do not tarry! 
And I'll give thee a silver pound 
To row us o'er the ferry!''-- 

``Now, who be ye, would cross Lochgyle, 
This dark and stormy weather?'' 
``O, I'm the chief of Ulva's isle, 
And this, Lord Ullin's daughter.-- 

``And fast before her father's men 
Three days we've fled together,...Read more of this...

Gwin King of Norway

by William Blake
 Come, kings, and listen to my song:
When Gwin, the son of Nore,
Over the nations of the North
His cruel sceptre bore;
The nobles of the land did feed
Upon the hungry poor;
They tear the poor man's lamb, and drive
The needy from their door.

`The land is desolate; our wives
And children cry for bread;
Arise, and pull the tyrant down!
Let Gwin be humbl?d!'

Gordred the giant...Read more of this...

The Wander-Light

by Henry Lawson
 And they heard the tent-poles clatter, 
And the fly in twain was torn – 
'Tis the soiled rag of a tatter 
Of the tent where I was born. 
And what matters it, I wonder? 
Brick or stone or calico? – 
Or a bush you were born under, 
When it happened long ago? 

And my beds were camp beds and...Read more of this...

Ichabod

by John Greenleaf Whittier
 So fallen! so lost! the light withdrawn
Which once he wore!
The glory from his gray hairs gone
Forevermore!

Revile him not, the Tempter hath
A snare for all;
And pitying tears, not scorn and wrath,
Befit his fall!

Oh, dumb be passion's stormy rage,
When he who might
Have lighted up and led his age,
Falls back in night.

Scorn! would the angels laugh, to mark
A bright soul driven,
Fiend-goaded, down...Read more of this...

The Star of Australasia

by Henry Lawson
 We boast no more of our bloodless flag, that rose from a nation's slime; 
Better a shred of a deep-dyed rag from the storms of the olden time. 
From grander clouds in our `peaceful skies' than ever were there before 
I tell you the Star of the South shall rise -- in the lurid clouds of war. 
It ever...Read more of this...

Temptation

by William Cowper
 The billows swell, the winds are high,
Clouds overcast my wintry sky;
Out of the depths to Thee I call, --
My fears are great, my strength is small.

O Lord, the pilot's part perform,
And guard and guide me through the storm;
Defend me from each threatening ill,
Control the waves, -- say, "Peace! be still."

Amidst the roaring of the sea
My soul still hangs her...Read more of this...

Tom Paine

by Robert William Service
 An Englishman was Thomas Paine
 Who bled for liberty;
But while his fight was far from vain
 He died in poverty:
Though some are of the sober thinking
 'Twas due to drinking.

Yet this is what appeals to me:
 Cobbet, a friend, loved him so well
He sailed across the surly sea
 To raw and rigid New Rochelle:
With none to say: 'Take him...Read more of this...

Lucy Gray

by William Wordsworth
Oft I had heard of Lucy Gray:
And, when I crossed the wild,
I chanced to see at break of day
The solitary child.

No mate, no comrade Lucy knew;
She dwelt on a wide moor,
--The sweetest thing that ever grew
Beside a human door!

You yet may spy the fawn at play,
The hare upon the green;
But the sweet face of Lucy Gray
Will never more be seen.

"To-night...Read more of this...

The General Public

by Stephen Vincent Benet
 "Ah, did you once see Shelley plain?" -- Browning. 
"Shelley? Oh, yes, I saw him often then," 
The old man said. A dry smile creased his face 
With many wrinkles. "That's a great poem, now! 
That one of Browning's! Shelley? Shelley plain? 
The time that I remember best is this -- 

A thin mire crept along the rutted ways,...Read more of this...

Where Lies The Land To Which The Ship Would Go

by Arthur Hugh Clough
 Where lies the land to which the ship would go?
Far, far ahead, is all her seamen know.
And where the land she travels from? Away,
Far, far behind, is all that they can say.

On sunny noons upon the deck's smooth face,
Linked arm in arm, how pleasant here to pace!
Or, o'er the stern reclining, watch below
The foaming wake far widening as we...Read more of this...

Absence

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
Good-night, my love, for I have dreamed of thee
In waking dreams, until my soul is lost—
Is lost in passion's wide and shoreless sea,
Where, like a ship, unruddered, it is tost
Hither and thither at the wild waves' will.
There is no potent Master's voice to still
This newer, more tempestuous Galilee!
The stormy petrels of my fancy fly
In warning course across the darkening green,
And,...Read more of this...

Young Munro the Sailor

by William Topaz McGonagall
 'Twas on a sunny morning in the month of May,
I met a pretty damsel on the banks o' the Tay;
I said, My charming fair one, come tell to me I pray,
Why do you walk alone on the banks o' the Tay. 

She said, Kind sir, pity me, for I am in great woe
About my young sailor lad, whose name...Read more of this...

Les Silhouettes

by Oscar Wilde
 The sea is flecked with bars of grey,
The dull dead wind is out of tune,
And like a withered leaf the moon
Is blown across the stormy bay.

Etched clear upon the pallid sand
Lies the black boat: a sailor boy
Clambers aboard in careless joy
With laughing face and gleaming hand.

And overhead the curlews cry,
Where through the dusky upland grass
The young brown-throated reapers pass,
Like...Read more of this...

Exposure

by Wilfred Owen
 I

Our brains ache, in the merciless iced east winds that knife us . . .
Wearied we keep awake because the night is silent . . .
Low drooping flares confuse our memory of the salient . . .
Worried by silence, sentries whisper, curious, nervous,
 But nothing happens.

Watching, we hear the mad gusts tugging on the wire.
Like twitching agonies of men...Read more of this...

The Two Spirits: An Allegory

by Percy Bysshe Shelley
 FIRST SPIRIT
O thou, who plum'd with strong desire 
Wouldst float above the earth, beware!
A Shadow tracks thy flight of fire--
Night is coming!
Bright are the regions of the air,
And among the winds and beams
It were delight to wander there--
Night is coming!SECOND SPIRIT
The deathless stars are bright above;
If I would cross the shade of night,
Within my heart is the lamp of...Read more of this...

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