Famous Torment Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Torment poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous torment poems. These examples illustrate what a famous torment poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Adela Florence Cory Nicolson
How I loved you in your sleep,
With the starlight on your hair!
The touch of your lips was sweet,
Aziza whom I adore,
I lay at your slender feet,
And against their soft palms pressed,
I fitted my face to...Read more of this...
by
Siegfried Sassoon
I keep such music in my brain
No din this side of death can quell;
Glory exulting over pain,
And beauty, garlanded in hell.
My dreaming spirit will not heed
The roar of guns that would destroy
My life that on the gloom can read
Proud-surging melodies of joy.
To the world’s end I went, and found
Death in his...Read more of this...
by
Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz
(Español)
Hombres necios que acusáis
a la mujer sin razón,
sin ver que sois la ocasión
de lo mismo que culpáis:
si con ansia sin igual
solicitáis su desdén,
¿por qué quereis que obren bien
si las incitáis al mal?
Combatís su resistencia
y luego, con gravedad,
decís que fue liviandad
lo que hizo la diligencia.
Parecer quiere el denuedo
de vuestro parecer loco,
al niño que pone el coco
y luego le tiene miedo.
Queréis, con...Read more of this...
by
Aleksandr Blok
In your hidden memories
There are fatal tidings of doom...
A curse on sacred traditions,
A desecration of happiness;
And a power so alluring
That I am ready to repeat the rumour
That you have brought angels down from heaven,
Enticing them with your beauty...
And when you mock at faith,
That pale, greyish-purple halo
Which I once saw before
Suddenly begins...Read more of this...
by
Hafez
Our toil is He, & eke our journey’s end;
Our life-long ailment & our remedy,
Our foeman & our ever-pitying friend;
Who is more vanquishing than victory,
Fairer than beauty, more belov’d than life;
This is he who our peace is & our strife.
Our strenuous earth is He & eke our Heaven,
The crown of conquest & the armour riven,
The strength, the struggle, yea, the failing...Read more of this...
by
Louise Gluck
I regret bitterly
The years of loving you in both
Your presence and absence, regret
The law, the vocation
That forbid me to keep you, the sea
A sheet of glass, the sun-bleached
Beauty of the Greek ships: how
Could I have power if
I had no wish
To transform you: as
You loved my body,
As you found there
Passion we held above
All other gifts, in that single moment
Over honor...Read more of this...
by
William Blake
Of the primeval Priests assum'd power,
When Eternals spurn'd back his religion;
And gave him a place in the north,
Obscure, shadowy, void, solitary.
Eternals I hear your call gladly,
Dictate swift winged words, & fear not
To unfold your dark visions of torment....Read more of this...
by
John Burnside
Behind faces and gestures
We remain mute
And spoken words heavy
With what we ignore or keep silent
Betray us
I dare not speak for mankind
I know so little of myself
But the Landscape
I see as a reflection
Is also a lie stealing into
My words I speak without remorse
Of this image of myself
And mankind...Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
For him who makes account of human ills, joy, sorrow,
pain are all identical. The good and the bad of
this world must one day end. What matters it whether
all be torment or pleasure for us?...Read more of this...
by
Robert Browning
I. THE FLOWER'S NAME
Here's the garden she walked across,
Arm in my arm, such a short while since:
Hark, now I push its wicket, the moss
Hinders the hinges and makes them wince!
She must have reached this shrub ere she turned,
As back with that murmur the wicket swung;
For she laid the poor snail, my chance foot spurned,
To feed and forget it the...Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
As for us, let us not try to torment men in their
sleep; let us refrain from making them utter at midnight
the lamentable cry O my God! O my God! [as others
do]. Rest not upon riches or beauty, for the one will
take wings in the night, and the other, in the night also,
will be ravished....Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
Since you only possess what God has given you, torment
not yourself to obtain the object of your covetousness.
Keep from burdening the heart too much, for the
final drama consists in leaving all and passing beyond....Read more of this...
by
Francesco Petrarch
SONNET LXVI. Sì tosto come avvien che l' arco scocchi. HE CALLS THE EYES OF LAURA FOES, BECAUSE THEY KEEP HIM IN LIFE ONLY TO TORMENT HIM. Instantly a good archer draws his bowSmall skill it needs, e'en from afar, to seeWhich shaft, less fortunate, despised may be,Which to its destined sign...Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
A heart which does not contain in itself complete abstinence
[from things here below] is to be pitied, for it is
at all times the prey of regret. It is only the heart free
from care that can be joyous; all that exists beyond this
is but a subject of torment....Read more of this...
by
Victor Hugo
("Quand longtemps a grondé la bouche du Vésuve.")
{I. vii.}
When huge Vesuvius in its torment long,
Threatening has growled its cavernous jaws among,
When its hot lava, like the bubbling wine,
Foaming doth all its monstrous edge incarnadine,
Then is alarm in Naples.
With dismay,
Wanton and wild...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
I would not paint -- a picture --
I'd rather be the One
Its bright impossibility
To dwell -- delicious -- on --
And wonder how the fingers feel
Whose rare -- celestial -- stir --
Evokes so sweet a Torment --
Such sumptuous -- Despair --
I would not talk, like Cornets --
I'd rather be the One
Raised softly to the Ceilings --
And out, and easy on...Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
It is not necessary to soften and disgrace a joyous heart
by sorrow, to break under the stones of torment our
moments of delight. As no one is able to tell what is
to be, what is necessary is some wine, a beloved mistress
[the Divinity], and repose according to our desires.
365...Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
O my poor heart! Since thy lot is to be bruised to
death by chagrin, since nature wills that thou be wounded
each day with some new torment, tell me, O my soul,
why stay you in my body, since you must finally leave
it some day?...Read more of this...
by
Thomas Chatterton
On Tiber's banks, Tiber, whose waters glide
In slow meanders down to Gaigra's side;
And circling all the horrid mountain round,
Rushes impetuous to the deep profound;
Rolls o'er the ragged rocks with hideous yell;
Collects its waves beneath the earth's vast shell;
There for a while in loud confusion hurl'd,
It crumbles mountains down and shakes the world....Read more of this...
by
Robert Burns
SWEET closes the ev’ning on Craigieburn Wood,
And blythely awaukens the morrow;
But the pride o’ the spring in the Craigieburn Wood
Can yield to me nothing but sorrow.
Chorus.—Beyond thee, dearie, beyond thee, dearie,
And O to be lying beyond thee!
O sweetly, soundly, weel may he sleep
That’s laid in the bed beyond thee!
I see the spreading leaves and flowers,
...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
Day after day behold me plying
My pen within an office drear;
The dullest dog, till homeward hieing,
Then lo! I reign a king of cheer.
A throne have I of padded leather,
A little court of kiddies three,
A wife who smiles whate'er the weather,
A feast of muffins, jam and tea.
The table cleared, a romping battle,
A fairy tale, a "Children, bed,"
A kiss, a hug,...Read more of this...
by
Francesco Petrarch
SONNET LXXIX. L' aura mia sacra al mio stanco riposo. HE TELLS HER IN SLEEP OF HIS SUFFERINGS, AND, OVERCOME BY HER SYMPATHY, AWAKES. On my oft-troubled sleep my sacred airSo softly breathes, at last I courage take,To tell her of my past and present ache,Which never in her life my heart...Read more of this...
by
William Blake
But in the Wine-presses the human grapes sing not nor dance:
They howl and writhe in shoals of torment, in fierce flames consuming,
In chains of iron and in dungeons circled with ceaseless fires,
In pits and dens and shades of death, in shapes of torment and woe:
The plates and screws and racks and saws and cords and fires and cisterns
The...Read more of this...
by
Walt Whitman
SPONTANEOUS me, Nature,
The loving day, the mounting sun, the friend I am happy with,
The arm of my friend hanging idly over my shoulder,
The hill-side whiten’d with blossoms of the mountain ash,
The same, late in autumn—the hues of red, yellow, drab, purple, and light and dark
green,
The rich coverlid of the grass—animals and birds—the private untrimm’d
...Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
We should tell no secrets to the vilely indiscreet; from
the nightingale, even, should we conceal them. Consider,
then, the torment you inflict on human souls by forcing
them to disrobe thus before the gaze of all....Read more of this...
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