Famous Thorns Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Thorns poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous thorns poems. These examples illustrate what a famous thorns poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Gerard Manley Hopkins
upon the Unemployed
Tom—garlanded with squat and surly steel
Tom; then Tom's fallowbootfellow piles pick
By him and rips out rockfire homeforth—sturdy Dick;
Tom Heart-at-ease, Tom Navvy: he is all for his meal
Sure, 's bed now. Low be it: lustily he his low lot (feel
That ne'er need hunger, Tom; Tom seldom sick,
Seldomer heartsore; that treads through, prickproof, thick
Thousands of thorns, thoughts) swings though....Read more of this...
by
Omer Tarin
I. You are not dead
Why do they call you
Mohen-jo-daro,
“ Mounds-of-the-Dead”?
You are not dead!
You have never been dead
Or buried
Or cremated
By the scorching banks of the Sindhu;
Historians have conspired against you
A thousand and one tales
Have besmirched your name
Misguided fools have imagined
Your obituary to be true;
Sentimental fools have sung elegies
By their own graves
Garlanded their own biers,
Cursed the stars and howled...Read more of this...
by
Isaac Watts
The banquet of love.
SS 2:1-4,6,7.
Behold the Rose of Sharon here,
The Lily which the valleys bear;
Behold the Tree of Life, that gives
Refreshing fruit and healing leaves.
Amongst the thorns so lilies shine;
Amongst wild gourds the noble vine;
So in mine eyes my Savior proves,
Amidst a thousand meaner loves.
Beneath his cooling shade I sat,
To shield me from the burning heat;
Of heav'ly fruit...Read more of this...
by
Aleister Crowley
[Dedicated to General J.C.F. Fuller]
Velvet soft the night-star glowed
Over the untrodden road,
Through the giant glades of yew
Where its ray fell light as dew
Lighting up the shimmering veil
Maiden pure and aery frail
That the spiders wove to hide
Blushes of the sylvan bride
Earth, that trembled with delight
At the male caress of Night.
Velvet...Read more of this...
by
Siegfried Sassoon
EVENING was in the wood, louring with storm.
A time of drought had sucked the weedy pool
And baked the channels; birds had done with song.
Thirst was a dream of fountains in the moon,
Or willow-music blown across the water 5
Leisurely sliding on by weir and mill.
Uneasy was the man who wandered, brooding,
His face a little...Read more of this...
by
Anne Sexton
for my friend Ruth, who urges me to make an
appointment for the Sacrament of Confesson
Concerning your letter in which you ask
me to call a priest and in which you ask
me to wear The Cross that you enclose;
your own cross,
your dog-bitten cross,
no larger than a thumb,
small and wooden, no thorns, this rose --
I pray to its shadow,
that gray place
where it...Read more of this...
by
Mary Darby Robinson
By the side of the brook, where the willow is waving
Why sits the wan Youth, in his wedding-suit gay!
Now sighing so deeply, now frantickly raving
Beneath the pale light of the moon's sickly ray.
Now he starts, all aghast, and with horror's wild gesture,
Cries, "AGNES is coming, I know her white vesture!
"See! see! how she beckons me on to the willow,
"Where,...Read more of this...
by
Rabindranath Tagore
"What comes from your willing
hands I take. I beg for nothing
more."
"Yes, yes, I know you, modest
mendicant, you ask for all that one
has."
"If there be a stray flower for me
I will wear it in my heart."
"But if there be thorns?"
"I will endure them."
"Yes, yes, I know you, modest
mendicant, you ask for all that one
has."
"If but once you should raise...Read more of this...
by
W S Merwin
For Galway Kinnell
The rust a little pile of western color lies
At the end of its travels
Our instrument no longer.
Those who believe
In death have their worship cut out for them.
As for myself we
Continue
An old
Scar of light our trumpet
Pilgrims with thorns
To the eye of the cold
Under flags made by the blind
In one fist
Their letter that vanishes
If the hand...Read more of this...
by
William Shakespeare
No more be grieved at that which thou hast done:
Roses have thorns, and silver fountains mud;
Clouds and eclipses stain both moon and sun,
And loathsome canker lives in sweetest bud.
All men make faults, and even I in this,
Authorizing thy trespass with compare,
Myself corrupting, salving thy amiss,
Excusing thy sins more than thy sins are;
For to thy sensual fault I bring in...Read more of this...
by
Kathleen Raine
Primrose, anemone, bluebell, moss
Grow in the Kingdom of the Cross
And the ash-tree's purple bud
Dresses the spear that sheds his blood.
With the thorns that pierce his brow
Soft encircling petals grow
For in each flower the secret lies
Of the tree that crucifies.
Garden by the water clear
All must die who enter here!...Read more of this...
by
Du Fu
Wagons rumble rumble Hhorses whinny whinny Foot person bow arrow each at waist Father mother wife children go mutual see off Dust dust not see Xianyang bridge Pull clothes stamp foot bar way weep Weep sound directly up strike clouds clouds Road side passerby ask foot person Foot person only say mark down often Some from ten...Read more of this...
by
Mary Darby Robinson
"WHEN will my troubled soul have rest?"
The beauteous LEWIN cried;
As thro' the murky shade of night
With frantic step she hied.
"When shall those eyes my GYNNETH'S face,
My GYNNETH'S form survey ?
When shall those longing eyes again
Behold the dawn of day ?"
Cold are the dews that wet my cheek,
The night-mist damps the ground;
Appalling echoes strike mine ear,
And spectres gleam...Read more of this...
by
Anne Sexton
Consider
a girl who keeps slipping off,
arms limp as old carrots,
into the hypnotist's trance,
into a spirit world
speaking with the gift of tongues.
She is stuck in the time machine,
suddenly two years old sucking her thumb,
as inward as a snail,
learning to talk again.
She's on a voyage.
She is swimming further and further back,
up like a salmon,
struggling into her mother's pocketbook.
Little doll child,
come here...Read more of this...
by
Dejan Stojanovic
You are from California
I am from the Midwest
But we met in Arizona
And went to the desert
To measure thorns
Of the lonely, dispersed cactuses
Measure the light rays,
Measure the distance,
Between us and the world
Measure the love and kisses and screams
In the solemn silence of the desert.
We kissed the dusty ground
And asked...Read more of this...
by
Andrew Marvell
When for the Thorns with which I long, too long,
With many a piercing wound,
My Saviours head have crown'd,
I seek with Garlands to redress that Wrong:
Through every Garden, every Mead,
I gather flow'rs (my fruits are only flow'rs)
Dismantling all the fragrant Towers
That once adorn'd my Shepherdesses head.
And now when I have summ'd up all my store,
Thinking (so I my self deceive)
So...Read more of this...
by
Algernon Charles Swinburne
Here, down between the dusty trees,
At this lank edge of haggard wood,
Women with labour-loosened knees,
With gaunt backs bowed by servitude,
Stop, shift their loads, and pray, and fare
Forth with souls easier for the prayer.
The suns have branded black, the rains
Striped grey this piteous God of theirs;
The face is full of prayers and pains,
To which they bring their pains and prayers;
Lean...Read more of this...
by
Alec Derwent (A D) Hope
Year after year the princess lies asleep
Until the hundred years foretold are done,
Easily drawing her enchanted breath.
Caught on the monstrous thorns around the keep,
Bones of the youths who sought her, one by one
Rot loose and rattle to the ground beneath.
But when the Destined Lover at last shall come,
For whom alone Fortune reserves the...Read more of this...
by
Sylvia Plath
Dans le fond des forêts votre image me suit.
RACINE
There is a panther stalks me down:
One day I'll have my death of him;
His greed has set the woods aflame,
He prowls more lordly than the sun.
Most soft, most suavely glides that step,
Advancing always at my back;
From gaunt hemlock, rooks croak havoc:
The hunt is on, and sprung...Read more of this...
by
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
I MIND me in the days departed,
How often underneath the sun
With childish bounds I used to run
To a garden long deserted.
The beds and walks were vanish'd quite; 5
And wheresoe'er had struck the spade,
The greenest grasses Nature laid,
To sanctify her right.
I call'd the place my wilderness,
For no one enter'd there but I....Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
If the rose is not our portion, do not the thorns remain?
If light divine does not reach us, is there not the fire [of
hell]? If we have not the clerical mantle, or that of
the temple, or the pontifical, do not the bells, the church,
and the ephod remain to us?...Read more of this...
by
Kahlil Gibran
He is a link between this and the coming world.
He is
A pure spring from which all thirsty souls may drink.
He is a tree watered by the River of Beauty, bearing
Fruit which the hungry heart craves;
He is a nightingale, soothing the depressed
Spirit with his beautiful melodies;
He is a white cloud appearing over the...Read more of this...
by
Les Murray
I am lived. I am died.
I was two-leafed three times, and grazed,
but then I was stemmed and multiplied,
sharp-thorned and caned, nested and raised,
earth-salt by sun-sugar. I was innerly sung
by thrushes who need fear no eyed skin thing.
Finched, ant-run, flowered, I am given the years
in now fewer berries, now more of sling
out over directions of luscious dung.
Of water crankshaft,...Read more of this...
by
Elizabeth Jennings
We nailed the hands long ago,
Wove the thorns, took up the scourge and shouted
For excitement's sake, we stood at the dusty edge
Of the pebbled path and watched the extreme of pain.
But one or two prayed, one or two
Were silent, shocked, stood back
And remembered remnants of words, a new vision,
The cross is up with its crying victim, the clouds
Cover the...Read more of this...
by
William Cowper
(Isaiah, ix. 15-20)
Hear what God the Lord hath spoken,
"O my people, faint and few,
Comfortless, afflicted, broken,
Fair abodes I build for you.
Thorns of heartfelt tribulation
Shall no more perplex your ways;
You shall name your walls, Salvation,
And your gates shall all be Praise.
"There, like streams that feed the garden,
Pleasures without end shall flow,
For the Lord, your faith rewarding,
All His bounty shall bestow;
Still...Read more of this...
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