Famous Throe Poems by Famous Poets

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

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The Haunted Oak

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
 Pray why are you so bare, so bare, 
Oh, bough of the old oak-tree;
And why, when I go through the shade you throw,
Runs a shudder over me?
My leaves were green as the best, I trow,
And sap ran free in my veins,
But I say in the moonlight dim and weird
A guiltless victim's pains.

They'd charged him with the old, old crime,
And...Read more of this...

To His Muse

by Victor Hugo
 ("Puisqu'ici-bas tout âme.") 
 
 {XL, May 19, 1836.} 
 
 Since everything below, 
 Doth, in this mortal state, 
 Its tone, its fragrance, or its glow 
 Communicate; 
 
 Since all that lives and moves 
 Upon the earth, bestows 
 On what it seeks and what it loves 
 Its thorn or rose; 
 
...Read more of this...

104. The Lament

by Robert Burns
 O THOU pale orb that silent shines
 While care-untroubled mortals sleep!
Thou seest a wretch who inly pines.
 And wanders here to wail and weep!
 With woe I nightly vigils keep,
Beneath thy wan, unwarming beam;
 And mourn, in lamentation deep,
How life and love are all a dream!


I joyless view thy rays adorn
 The faintly-marked, distant hill;
I joyless view thy trembling...Read more of this...

At the Long Sault

by Lucy Maud Montgomery
 A prisoner under the stars I lie, 
With no friend near; 
To-morrow they lead me forth to die, 
The stake is ready, the torments set, 
They will pay in full their deadly debt; 
But I fear them not! Oh, none could fear 
Of those who stood by Daulac's side­
While he prayed and laughed and sang and fought 
In the...Read more of this...

Nightingales

by Robert Seymour Bridges
 Beautiful must be the mountains whence ye come, 
And bright in the fruitful valleys the streams, wherefrom 
Ye learn your song: 
Where are those starry woods? O might I wander there, 
Among the flowers, which in that heavenly air 
Bloom the year long! 

Nay, barren are those mountains and spent the streams: 
Our song is the voice of desire,...Read more of this...

144. A Winter Night

by Robert Burns
 WHEN biting Boreas, fell and dour,
Sharp shivers thro’ the leafless bow’r;
When Phoebus gies a short-liv’d glow’r,
 Far south the lift,
Dim-dark’ning thro’ the flaky show’r,
 Or whirling drift:


Ae night the storm the steeples rocked,
Poor Labour sweet in sleep was locked,
While burns, wi’ snawy wreaths up-choked,
 Wild-eddying swirl;
Or, thro’ the mining outlet bocked,
 Down headlong hurl:


List’ning the doors an’ winnocks rattle,
I...Read more of this...

Sweet Skepticism of the Heart --

by Emily Dickinson
 Sweet Skepticism of the Heart --
That knows -- and does not know --
And tosses like a Fleet of Balm --
Affronted by the snow --
Invites and then retards the Truth
Lest Certainty be sere
Compared with the delicious throe
Of transport thrilled with Fear --...Read more of this...

I like a look of Agony

by Emily Dickinson
 I like a look of Agony,
Because I know it's true --
Men do not sham Convulsion,
Nor simulate, a Throe --

The Eyes glaze once -- and that is Death --
Impossible to feign
The Beads upon the Forehead
By homely Anguish strung....Read more of this...

The Marble Faun

by Victor Hugo
 ("Il semblait grelotter.") 
 
 {XXXVI., December, 1837.} 


 He seemed to shiver, for the wind was keen. 
 'Twas a poor statue underneath a mass 
 Of leafless branches, with a blackened back 
 And a green foot—an isolated Faun 
 In old deserted park, who, bending forward, 
 Half-merged himself in the entangled boughs, 
 Half in...Read more of this...

The Rope-maker

by Emile Verhaeren
In his village grey
At foot of the dykes, that encompass him
With weary weaving of curves and lines
Toward the sea outstretching dim,
The rope-maker, visionary white.
Stepping backwards along the way,
Prudently 'twixt his hands combines
The distant threads, in their twisting play.
That come to him from the infinite.


When day is gone.
Through ardent, weary evenings, yon
The whirr of a wheel can yet be heard;
Something by...Read more of this...

Weathers

by Thomas Hardy
 This is the weather the cuckoo likes, 
And so do I; 
When showers betumble the chestnut spikes, 
And nestlings fly; 
And the little brown nightingale bills his best, 
And they sit outside at 'The Traveller's Rest,' 
And maids come forth sprig-muslin drest, 
And citizens dream of the south and west, 
And so do I. 

This is the weather the...Read more of this...

The Ballad Of The Black Fox Skin

by Robert William Service
 I

There was Claw-fingered Kitty and Windy Ike living the life of shame,
When unto them in the Long, Long Night came the man-who-had-no-name;
Bearing his prize of a black fox pelt, out of the Wild he came.

His cheeks were blanched as the flume-head foam when the brown spring freshets flow;
Deep in their dark, sin-calcined pits were his sombre eyes aglow;
They knew...Read more of this...

Without a smile -- Without a Throe

by Emily Dickinson
 Without a smile -- Without a Throe
A Summer's soft Assemblies go
To their entrancing end
Unknown -- for all the times we met --
Estranged, however intimate --
What a dissembling Friend --...Read more of this...

128. The Farewell

by Robert Burns
 FAREWELL, old Scotia’s bleak domains,
Far dearer than the torrid plains,
 Where rich ananas blow!
Farewell, a mother’s blessing dear!
A borther’s sigh! a sister’s tear!
 My Jean’s heart-rending throe!
Farewell, my Bess! tho’ thou’rt bereft
 Of my paternal care.
A faithful brother I have left,
 My part in him thou’lt share!
 Adieu, too, to you too,
 My Smith, my bosom frien’;
 When kindly...Read more of this...

The Dame of Athelhall

by Thomas Hardy
 I 

"Soul! Shall I see thy face," she said, 
 "In one brief hour? 
And away with thee from a loveless bed 
To a far-off sun, to a vine-wrapt bower, 
And be thine own unseparated, 
 And challenge the world's white glower? 

II 

She quickened her feet, and met him where 
 They had predesigned: 
And they clasped, and...Read more of this...

The Ballad Of The Brand

by Robert William Service
 'Twas up in a land long famed for gold, where women were far and rare,
Tellus, the smith, had taken to wife a maiden amazingly fair;
Tellus, the brawny worker in iron, hairy and heavy of hand,
Saw her and loved her and bore her away from the tribe of a Southern land;
Deeming her worthy to queen his home and mother him...Read more of this...

Rabbi Ben Ezra

by Robert Browning
 Grow old along with me!
The best is yet to be,
The last of life, for which the first was made:
Our times are in His hand
Who saith 'A whole I planned,
Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid!'

Not that, amassing flowers,
Youth sighed 'Which rose make ours,
Which lily leave and then as best recall?'
Not that, admiring stars,
It yearned 'Nor...Read more of this...

4. Song—In the Character of a Ruined Farmer

by Robert Burns
 THE SUN he is sunk in the west,
All creatures retir?d to rest,
While here I sit, all sore beset,
 With sorrow, grief, and woe:
And it’s O, fickle Fortune, O!


The prosperous man is asleep,
Nor hears how the whirlwinds sweep;
But Misery and I must watch
 The surly tempest blow:
And it’s O, fickle Fortune, O!


There lies the dear partner of my breast;
Her cares...Read more of this...

157. Prologue spoken by Mr. Woods at Edinburgh

by Robert Burns
 WHEN, by a generous Public’s kind acclaim,
That dearest meed is granted—honest fame;
Waen here your favour is the actor’s lot,
Nor even the man in private life forgot;
What breast so dead to heavenly Virtue’s glow,
But heaves impassion’d with the grateful throe?


Poor is the task to please a barb’rous throng,
It needs no Siddons’ powers in Southern’s song;
But here an ancient nation, fam’d...Read more of this...

A throe upon the features

by Emily Dickinson
 A throe upon the features --
A hurry in the breath --
An ecstasy of parting
Denominated "Death" --

An anguish at the mention
Which when to patience grown,
I've known permission given
To rejoin its own....Read more of this...

Water is taught by thirst

by Emily Dickinson
 Water, is taught by thirst.
Land -- by the Oceans passed.
Transport -- by throe --
Peace -- by its battles told --
Love, by Memorial Mold --
Birds, by the Snow....Read more of this...

Gone

by Adam Lindsay Gordon
 IN Collins Street standeth a statute tall, 
A statue tall, on a pillar of stone, 
Telling its story, to great and small, 
Of the dust reclaimed from the sand waste lone; 
Weary and wasted, and worn and wan, 
Feeble and faint, and languid and low, 
He lay on the desert a dying man; 
Who has gone, my friends, where...Read more of this...

340. Song—Thou Fair Eliza

by Robert Burns
 TURN again, thou fair Eliza!
 Ae kind blink before we part;
Rue on thy despairing lover,
 Can’st thou break his faithfu’ heart?
Turn again, thou fair Eliza!
 If to love thy heart denies,
Oh, in pity hide the sentence
 Under friendship’s kind disguise!


Thee, sweet maid, hae I offended?
 My offence is loving thee;
Can’st thou wreck his peace for ever,
 Wha for thine...Read more of this...

Sonnet XI

by Francesco Petrarch
SONNET XI. Se la mia vita dall' aspro tormento. HE HOPES THAT TIME WILL RENDER HER MORE MERCIFUL.  If o'er each bitter pang, each hidden throeSadly triumphant I my years drag on,Till even the radiance of those eyes is gone,Lady, which star-like now illume thy brow;And silver'd are those locks of...Read more of this...

On An Old Roundel

by Algernon Charles Swinburne
 Death, from thy rigour a voice appealed,
And men still hear what the sweet cry saith,
Crying aloud in thine ears fast sealed,
Death.

As a voice in a vision that vanisheth,
Through the grave's gate barred and the portal steeled
The sound of the wail of it travelleth.

Wailing aloud from a heart unhealed,
It woke response of melodious breath
From lips now too by thy kiss...Read more of this...

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