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Famous Worms Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Finch, Anne Kingsmill
...d grows;
Whilst now a paler hue the foxglove takes,
Yet checkers still with red the dusky brakes
When scattered glow-worms, but in twilight fine,
Shew trivial beauties watch their hour to shine;
Whilst Salisb'ry stands the test of every light,
In perfect charms, and perfect virtue bright:
When odors, which declined repelling day,
Through temp'rate air uninterrupted stray;
When darkened groves their softest shadows wear,
And falling waters we distinctly hear;
When t...Read more of this...



by Shelley, Percy Bysshe
..., prowling around the world; 
Glutted with which thou mayst repose, and men
Go to their graves like flowers or creeping worms,
Nor ever more offer at thy dark shrine
The unheeded tribute of a broken heart.

When on the threshold of the green recess
The wanderer's footsteps fell, he knew that death
Was on him. Yet a little, ere it fled,
Did he resign his high and holy soul
To images of the majestic past,
That paused within his passive being now, 
Like winds that bear s...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...;
Northward, on the sands, on some shallow bay of Paumanok, I, with parties of snowy herons
 wading in
 the wet to seek worms and aquatic plants; 
Retreating, triumphantly twittering, the king-bird, from piercing the crow with its bill,
 for
 amusement—And I triumphantly twittering; 
The migrating flock of wild geese alighting in autumn to refresh themselves—the body
 of
 the
 flock feed—the sentinels outside move around with erect heads watching, and are from
 time
 to
 time...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...ing the seas with spawn innumerable,
But all to please and sate the curious taste?
And set to work millions of spinning worms,
That in their green shops weave the smooth-haired silk,
To deck her sons; and, that no corner might
Be vacant of her plenty, in her own loins
She hutched the all-worshipped ore and precious gems,
To store her children with. If all the world
Should, in a pet of temperance, feed on pulse,
Drink the clear stream, and nothing wear but frieze,
The All-...Read more of this...

by Keats, John
...ead, to keep off the burr
Of smothering fancies, patiently sat down;
And, while beneath the evening's sleepy frown
Glow-worms began to trim their starry lamps,
Thus breath'd he to himself: "Whoso encamps
To take a fancied city of delight,
O what a wretch is he! and when 'tis his,
After long toil and travelling, to miss
The kernel of his hopes, how more than vile:
Yet, for him there's refreshment even in toil;
Another city doth he set about,
Free from the smallest pebble-bead ...Read more of this...



by Hugo, Victor
...have not their joints more strong 
 Than are the joinings of these legs; the long 
 Scaled gauntlet fingers look like worms that shine, 
 And battle robes to shroud-like folds incline. 
 The heads are skull-like, and the stony feet 
 Seem for the charnel house but only meet. 
 The pikes have death's-heads carved, and seem to be 
 Too heavy; but the shapes defiantly 
 Sit proudly in the saddle—and perforce 
 The rider looks united to the horse! 
 The network of their...Read more of this...

by Ginsberg, Allen
...dog chews a bone-
Screech of taxicabs.

A hardon in New York,
a boy
in San Fransisco.

The moon over the roof,
worms in the garden.
I rent this house.


[Haiku composed in the backyard cottage at 1624
Milvia Street, Berkeley 1955, while reading R.H. 
Blyth's 4 volumes, "Haiku."]...Read more of this...

by Ginsberg, Allen
...rious and 
 is reported on the radio 
I'm with you in Rockland 
 where the faculties of the skull no longer admit 
 the worms of the senses 
I'm with you in Rockland 
 where you drink the tea of the breasts of the 
 spinsters of Utica 
I'm with you in Rockland 
 where you pun on the bodies of your nurses the 
 harpies of the Bronx 
I'm with you in Rockland 
 where you scream in a straightjacket that you're 
 losing the game of the actual pingpong of the 
 abyss 
I'm with you ...Read more of this...

by Angelou, Maya
...s of freedom

The free bird thinks of another breeze
and the trade winds soft through the sighing trees
and the fat worms waiting on a dawn-bright lawn
and he names the sky his own.

But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams
his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream
his wings are clipped and his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing

The caged bird sings
with a fearful trill
of things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the dis...Read more of this...

by Alighieri, Dante
...
 And all the ground beneath with tears and blood 
 Was drenched, and crawling in that loathsome mud 
 There were great worms that drank it. 
 Gladly
 thence 
 I gazed far forward. Dark and wide the flood 
 That flowed before us. On the nearer shore 
 Were people waiting. "Master, show me whence 
 These came, and who they be, and passing hence 
 Where go they? Wherefore wait they there content, 
 - The faint light shows it, - for their transit o'er 
 The unbri...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...ugh to raise mankind to kill; 
Some factious phrase by cunning caught and spread, 
That guilt may reign, and wolves and worms be fed! 

IX. 

Throughout that clime the feudal chiefs had gain'd 
Such sway, their infant monarch hardly reign'd; 
Now was the hour for faction's rebel growth, 
The serfs contemn'd the one, and hated both: 
They waited but a leader, and they found 
One to their cause inseparably bound; 
By circumstance compell'd to plunge again, 
In self-defence,...Read more of this...

by Shakespeare, William
...
Then you shall hear the surly sullen bell
Give warning to the world that I am fled
From this vile world, with vilest worms to dwell:
Nay, if you read this line, remember not
The hand that writ it; for I love you so
That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot
If thinking on me then should make you woe.
O, if, I say, you look upon this verse
When I perhaps compounded am with clay,
Do not so much as my poor name rehearse.
But let your love even with my life ...Read more of this...

by Lanier, Sidney
...s,
I charge you by your life, go back to death.
This glebe is sick, this wind is foul of breath.
Stay: feed the worms.

"Oh! every clod
Is faint, and falters from the war of growth
And crumbles in a dreary dust of sloth,
Unploughed, untrod.

"What need, what need,
To hide with flowers the curse upon the hills,
Or sanctify the banks of sluggish rills
Where vapors breed?

"And -- if needs must --
Advance, O Summer-heats! upon the land,
And bake the bloody mould ...Read more of this...

by Sexton, Anne
...time let me somehow bequeath all the leftovers 
to my daughters and their daughters" - Anonymous

Better, 
despite the worms talking to 
the mare's hoof in the field; 
better, 
despite the season of young girls 
dropping their blood; 
better somehow 
to drop myself quickly 
into an old room. 
Better (someone said) 
not to be born 
and far better 
not to be born twice 
at thirteen 
where the boardinghouse, 
each year a bedroom, 
caught fire. 

Dear friend, 
I will hav...Read more of this...

by Bradstreet, Anne
...What tortures I, in breeding teeth sustain?
2.73 What crudities my cold stomach hath bred?
2.74 Whence vomits, worms, and flux have issued?
2.75 What breaches, knocks, and falls I daily have?
2.76 And some perhaps, I carry to my grave.
2.77 Sometimes in fire, sometimes in water fall:
2.78 Strangely preserv'd, yet mind it not at all.
2.79 At home, abroad, my danger's manifold
2.80 That wonder 'tis, my glass till now doth hold.
2.Read more of this...

by Angelou, Maya
...
Veins collapse, opening like the
Small fists of sleeping
Children.
Memory of old tombs,
Rotting flesh and worms do
Not convince me against
The challenge. The years
And cold defeat live deep in
Lines along my face.
They dull my eyes, yet
I keep on dying,
Because I love to live....Read more of this...

by Walcott, Derek
...a storm,"
but for that dream, the book had no answer.
A next night I dreamed of three old women
featureless as silkworms, stitching my fate,
and I scream at them to come out of my house,
and I try beating them away with a broom,
but as they go out, so they crawl back again,
until I start screaming and crying, my flesh
raining with sweat, and she ravage the book
for the dream meaning, and there was nothing;
my nerves melt like a jellyfish - that was when I broke -
they fo...Read more of this...

by Shelley, Percy Bysshe
...they feared & some
Seeking the object of another's fear,
And others as with steps towards the tomb
Pored on the trodden worms that crawled beneath,
And others mournfully within the gloom
Of their own shadow walked, and called it death ...
And some fled from it as it were a ghost,
Half fainting in the affliction of vain breath.
But more with motions which each other crost
Pursued or shunned the shadows the clouds threw
Or birds within the noonday ether lost,
Up...Read more of this...

by Shelley, Percy Bysshe
...red like golden evening, feebly fell;
A green and glowing light, like that which drops
From folded lilies in which glow-worms dwell
When Earth over her face Night's mantle wraps;
Between the severed mountains lay on high,
Over the stream, a narrow rift of sky.

And, ever as she went, the Image lay
With folded wings and unawakened eyes;
And o'er its gentle countenance did play
The busy dreams, as thick as summer flies,
Chasing the rapid smiles that would not stay,
And drin...Read more of this...

by Marvell, Andrew
...of vast eternity.
Thy beauty shall no more be found;
Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound
My echoing song; then worms shall try
That long-preserved virginity,
And your quaint honor turn to dust,
And into ashes all my lust:
The grave's a fine and private place,
But none, I think, do there embrace.
  Now therefore, while the youthful hue
Sits on thy skin like morning dew,
And while thy willing soul transpires
At every pore with instant fires,
Now let us sp...Read more of this...

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