Famous Venom Poems by Famous Poets

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

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The Master

by Edwin Arlington Robinson
 A flying word from here and there 
Had sown the name at which we sneered, 
To be reviled and then revered: 
A presence to be loved and feared-- 
We cannot hide it, or deny 
That we, the gentlemen who jeered, 
May be forgotten by and by. 

He came when days were perilous 
And hearts of men were sore beguiled,...Read more of this...

351. Second Epistle to Robert Graham Esq. of Fintry

by Robert Burns
 LATE crippl’d of an arm, and now a leg,
About to beg a pass for leave to beg;
Dull, listless, teas’d, dejected, and deprest
(Nature is adverse to a cripple’s rest);
Will generous Graham list to his Poet’s wail?
(It soothes poor Misery, hearkening to her tale)
And hear him curse the light he first survey’d,
And doubly curse the luckless rhyming trade?


 Thou, Nature! partial...Read more of this...

Three Odes To My Friend

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 THESE are the most singular of all the Poems 
of Goethe, and to many will appear so wild and fantastic, as to 
leave anything but a pleasing impression. Those at the beginning, 
addressed to his friend Behrisch, were written at the age of eighteen, 
and most of the remainder were composed while he was still quite 
young. Despite, however,...Read more of this...

The Song of the Garden-Toad

by Vachel Lindsay
 Down, down beneath the daisy beds, 
O hear the cries of pain! 
And moaning on the cinder-path 
They're blind amid the rain. 
Can murmurs of the worms arise 
To higher hearts than mine? 
I wonder if that gardener hears 
Who made the mold all fine 
And packed each gentle seedling down 
So carefully in line? 

I watched the red...Read more of this...

242. The Poet's Progress

by Robert Burns
 THOU, Nature, partial Nature, I arraign;
Of thy caprice maternal I complain.
 The peopled fold thy kindly care have found,
The hornèd bull, tremendous, spurns the ground;
The lordly lion has enough and more,
The forest trembles at his very roar;
Thou giv’st the ass his hide, the snail his shell,
The puny wasp, victorious, guards his cell.
Thy minions, kings defend, controul devour,
In all th’...Read more of this...

To The One Of Fictive Music

by Wallace Stevens
 Sister and mother and diviner love,
And of the sisterhood of the living dead
Most near, most clear, and of the clearest bloom,
And of the fragrant mothers the most dear
And queen, and of diviner love the day
And flame and summer and sweet fire, no thread
Of cloudy silver sprinkles in your gown
Its venom of renown, and on your head
No crown is simpler...Read more of this...

The Andante of Snakes

by Arthur Symons
 They weave a slow andante as in sleep, 
Scaled yellow, swampy black, plague-spotted white; 
With blue and lidless eyes at watch they keep 
A treachery of silence; infinite 

Ancestral angers brood in these dull eyes 
Where the long-lineaged venom of the snake 
Meditates evil; woven intricacies 
Of Oriental arabesque awake, 

Unfold, expand, contract, and raise and sway 
Swoln heart-shaped...Read more of this...

Menses

by Edna St. Vincent Millay
 (He speaks, but to himself, being aware how it is with her)
Think not I have not heard.
Well-fanged the double word
And well-directed flew.

I felt it. Down my side
Innocent as oil I see the ugly venom slide:
Poison enough to stiffen us both, and all our friends;
But I am not pierced, so there the mischief ends.

There is more to be said: I...Read more of this...

The peter-bird

by Eugene Field
 Out of the woods by the creek cometh a calling for Peter,
And from the orchard a voice echoes and echoes it over;
Down in the pasture the sheep hear that strange crying for Peter,
Over the meadows that call is aye and forever repeated.
So let me tell you the tale, when, where, and how it all happened,
And, when the story is...Read more of this...

Bucolics

by Sylvia Plath
 Mayday: two came to field in such wise :
`A daisied mead', each said to each,
So were they one; so sought they couch,
Across barbed stile, through flocked brown cows.

`No pitchforked farmer, please,' she said;
`May cockcrow guard us safe,' said he;
By blackthorn thicket, flower spray
They pitched their coats, come to green bed.

Below: a fen where water stood;
Aslant: their hill of stinging...Read more of this...

Arcades

by John Milton
 Part of an entertainment presented to the Countess Dowager of
Darby at Harefield, by som Noble persons of her Family, who
appear on the Scene in pastoral habit, moving toward the seat
of State with this Song.

I. SONG.

Look Nymphs, and Shepherds look,
What sudden blaze of majesty
Is that which we from hence descry
Too divine to be mistook:
This this is she
To whom our vows...Read more of this...

The pleasures of Lucretilis (VELOX AMOENUM)

by Horace
     The pleasures of Lucretilis
       Tempt Faunus from his Grecian seat;
     He keeps my little goats in bliss
       Apart from wind, and rain, and heat.
     In safety rambling o'er the sward
     ...Read more of this...

Modern Love: XXVI

by George Meredith
 Love ere he bleeds, an eagle in high skies,
Has earth beneath his wings: from reddened eve
He views the rosy dawn. In vain they weave
The fatal web below while far he flies.
But when the arrow strikes him, there's a change.
He moves but in the track of his spent pain,
Whose red drops are the links of a harsh chain,
Binding him to...Read more of this...

What Semiramis Said

by Vachel Lindsay
 THE moon's a steaming chalice, 
Of honey and venom-wine. 
A little of it sipped by night 
Makes the long hours divine. 
But oh, my reckless lovers, 
They drain the cup and wail, 
Die at my feet with shaking limbs 
And tender lips all pale. 
Above them in the sky it bends 
Empty and gray and dead. 
To-morrow night 'tis...Read more of this...

The Soldier Of Fortune

by Robert William Service
 "Deny your God!" they ringed me with their spears;
Blood-crazed were they, and reeking from the strife;
Hell-hot their hate, and venom-fanged their sneers,
And one man spat on me and nursed a knife.
And there was I, sore wounded and alone,
I, the last living of my slaughtered band.
Oh sinister the sky, and cold as stone!
In one red laugh of horror reeled the...Read more of this...

La Solitude de St. Amant

by Katherine Philips
 1

O! Solitude, my sweetest choice
Places devoted to the night,
Remote from tumult, and from noise,
How you my restless thoughts delight!
O Heavens! what content is mine,
To see those trees which have appear'd
From the nativity of Time,
And which hall ages have rever'd,
To look to-day as fresh and green,
As when their beauties first were seen!


2

A cheerful wind does court them so,
And with such...Read more of this...

The Jingo and the Minstrel

by Vachel Lindsay
 AN ARGUMENT FOR THE MAINTENANCE OF PEACE AND GOODWILL WITH THE JAPANESE PEOPLE

Glossary for the uninstructed and the hasty: Jimmu Tenno, ancestor of all the Japanese Emperors; Nikko, Japan's loveliest shrine; Iyeyasu, her greatest statesman; Bushido, her code of knighthood; The Forty-seven Ronins, her classic heroes; Nogi, her latest hero; Fuji, her most beautiful mountain.


"Now do you know of...Read more of this...

To the Muse of Poetry

by Mary Darby Robinson
 EXULT MY MUSE! exult to see 
Each envious, waspish, jealous thing, 
Around its harmless venom fling, 
And dart its powerless fangs at THEE! 
Ne'er shalt THOU bend thy radiant wing, 
To sweep the dark revengeful string; 
Or meanly stoop, to steal a ray, 
E'en from RINALDO'S glorious lay, 
Tho' his transcendent Verse should twine 
About thy heart, each bliss...Read more of this...

The Happiest Day The Happiest Hour

by Edgar Allan Poe
 The happiest day- the happiest hour
My sear'd and blighted heart hath known,
The highest hope of pride and power,
I feel hath flown.

Of power! said I? yes! such I ween;
But they have vanish'd long, alas!
The visions of my youth have been-
But let them pass.

And, pride, what have I now with thee?
Another brow may even inherit
The venom thou hast pour'd on me
Be...Read more of this...

The Explanation

by Rudyard Kipling
 Love and Death once ceased their strife
At the Tavern of Man's Life.
Called for wine, and threw -- alas! --
Each his quiver on the grass.
When the bout was o'er they found
Mingled arrows strewed the ground.
Hastily they gathered then
Each the loves and lives of men.
Ah, the fateful dawn deceived!
Mingled arrows each one sheaved;
Death's dread armoury was stored
With the shafts he most...Read more of this...

Darling Daughter of Babylon

by Vachel Lindsay
 Too soon you wearied of our tears.
And then you danced with spangled feet,
Leading Belshazzar's chattering court
A-tinkling through the shadowy street.
With mead they came, with chants of shame.
DESIRE'S red flag before them flew.
And Istar's music moved your mouth
And Baal's deep shames rewoke in you.

Now you could drive the royal car;
Forget our Nation's breaking load:
Now you could sleep on silver beds.—
(Bitter...Read more of this...

Nature

by George Herbert
 Full of rebellion, I would die, 
Or fight, or travel, or deny
That thou has aught to do with me.
O tame my heart; 
It is thy highest art
To captivate strong holds to thee.

If thou shalt let this venom lurk, 
And in suggestions fume and work, 
My soul will turn to bubbles straight, 
And thence by kind
Vanish into a wind, 
Making...Read more of this...

Dream Song 23: The Lay of Ike

by John Berryman
 This is the lay of Ike.
Here's to the glory of the Grewt White-”awk-”
who has been running-”er-”er-”things in recent-”ech-”
in the United-”If your screen is black,
ladies & gentlemen, we-”I like-”
at the Point he was already terrific-”sick

to a second term, having done no wrong-”
no right-”no · right-”having let the Army-”bang-”
defend itself from Joe, let venom' Strauss
bile Oppenheimer out of use-”use Robb,
who'll later...Read more of this...

A Sincere Man Am I

by José Martí
A sincere man am I
From the land where palm trees grow,
And I want before I die
My soul's verses to bestow.

I'm a traveler to all parts,
And a newcomer to none:
I am art among the arts,
With the mountains I am one.

I know how to name and class
All the strange flowers that grow;
I know every blade of grass,
Fatal lie and sublime woe.

I have...Read more of this...

An Island

by Edwin Arlington Robinson
 Take it away, and swallow it yourself. 
Ha! Look you, there’s a rat. 
Last night there were a dozen on that shelf, 
And two of them were living in my hat. 
Look! Now he goes, but he’ll come back—
Ha? But he will, I say … 
Il reviendra-z-à Pâques, 
Ou à la Trinité …
Be very sure that he’ll return again;...Read more of this...

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