Famous Suffocating Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Suffocating poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous suffocating poems. These examples illustrate what a famous suffocating poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Whitman, Walt
...time, with brandish’d sword;)
I see the gaps cut by the enemy’s volleys, (quickly fill’d up, no delay;)
I breathe the suffocating smoke—then the flat clouds hover low, concealing all;
Now a strange lull comes for a few seconds, not a shot fired on either side;
Then resumed, the chaos louder than ever, with eager calls, and orders of officers;
While from some distant part of the field the wind wafts to my ears a shout of applause,
(some
special success;)
And ever the s...Read more of this...
by
Lawson, Henry
...man sees
Nothing. Nothing! but the maddening sameness of the stunted trees!
Lonely hut where drought's eternal -- suffocating atmosphere --
Where the God forgottcn hatter dreams of city-life and beer.
Treacherous tracks that trap the stranger, endless roads that gleam and glare,
Dark and evil-looking gullies -- hiding secrets here and there!
Dull, dumb flats and stony "rises," where the bullocks sweat and bake,
And the sinister "gohanna," and the lizard, and t...Read more of this...
by
Lawrence, D. H.
...the lilies of death the Unconquerable,
but come, give us our turn.
Enough of the virgins and lilies, of passionate, suffocating perfume of corruption,
no more narcissus perfume, lily harlots, the blades of sensation
piercing the flesh to blossom of death.
Have done, have done with this shuddering, delicious business
of thrilling ruin in the flesh, of pungent passion, of rare, death-edged ecstasy.
Give us our turn, give us a chance, let our hour strike,
O soon, soo...Read more of this...
by
Lowell, Amy
...light.
His eyelids burnt and quivered with the strain
Of looking, and against his temples beat
The all enshrouding, suffocating dark.
He stumbled, lurched, and struck against a door
That opened, and a howl of obscene mirth
Grated his senses, wallowing on the floor
Lay men, and dogs and women in the dirt.
He sickened, loathing it, and as he gazed
The candle guttered, flared, and then went out.
Through travail of ignoble midnight streets
He came at last to shelt...Read more of this...
by
Lowell, Amy
...position;
He could not move.
Something weighed him down,
He could not breathe.
He was gasping,
Pinned down and suffocating.
He opened his eyes.
The curtains of the window were flung back,
The fire and the candle were out,
And the room was filled with green moonlight.
And pressed against the window-pane
Was a wide, round face,
Winking -- winking --
Solemnly dropping one eyelid after the other.
Tick -- tock -- went the watch under his pillow,
Wink -- wi...Read more of this...
by
Housman, A E
...d.
But from my grave across my brow
Plays no wind of healing now,
And fire and ice within me fight
Beneath the suffocating night....Read more of this...
by
Brautigan, Richard
...or the claws of an animal.
Yes, it is even all right for a trout to be killed by pollution,
to die in a river of suffocating human excrement.
There are trout that die of old age and their white beards
flow to the sea.
All these things are in the natural order of death, but for
a trout to die from a drink of port wine, that is another thing.
No mention of it in "The treatyse of fysshynge wyth an
angle," in the Boke of St. Albans, published 1496....Read more of this...
by
Byron, George (Lord)
...and intense;
The rock, the vulture, and the chain,
All that the proud can feel of pain,
The agony they do not show,
The suffocating sense of woe,
Which speaks but in its loneliness,
And then is jealous lest the sky
Should have a listener, nor will sigh
Until its voice is echoless.
Titan! to thee the strife was given
Between the suffering and the will,
Which torture where they cannot kill;
And the inexorable Heaven,
And the deaf tyranny of Fate,
The ruling principle of Ha...Read more of this...
by
Shelley, Percy Bysshe
...Which never yet I heard elsewhere
But in our native land, recurs,
Even here where now we meet. It stirs
Too much of suffocating sorrow!
In the dell of yon dark chestnut wood
Is a stone seat, a solitude
Less like our own. The ghost of peace
Will not desert this spot. To-morrow,
If thy kind feelings should not cease,
We may sit here.
ROSALIND
Thou lead, my sweet,
And I will follow.
HENRY
'T is Fenici's seat
Where you are going? This is not the way,
Mamma;...Read more of this...
by
McGonagall, William Topaz
...couldn't check nor yet command.
Oh, heaven! I must confess it was no joke
To see them struggling in the midst of suffocating smoke,
Each man struggling hard, no doubt, to save his life,
When he thought of his dear children and his wife.
But still the merciless flame shot up higher and higher;
Oh, God! it is terrible and cruel to perish by fire;
Alas! it was saddening and fearful to behold,
When I think of it, kind Christians, it makes my blood run cold.
Wha...Read more of this...
by
Lawson, Henry
...d bushman sees
Nothing -- Nothing! but the sameness of the ragged, stunted trees!
Lonely hut where drought's eternal, suffocating atmosphere
Where the God-forgotten hatter dreams of city life and beer.
Treacherous tracks that trap the stranger,
endless roads that gleam and glare,
Dark and evil-looking gullies, hiding secrets here and there!
Dull dumb flats and stony rises, where the toiling bullocks bake,
And the sinister `gohanna', and the lizard, and the snake....Read more of this...
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