Ririro.com - Poetry

"Ipswich" by Eugene Field draws readers into a coastal New England town where cool nights carry the mournful refrain of things forever past. Witches weave spells, ghosts creep through sleeping streets, and a maiden keeps her lonely watch on Heart-Break Hill. At its heart, the poem turns deeply personal — the speaker recalls a flaxen-haired, blue-eyed "Saxon witch" named Anna, and the bittersweet m...

"The Ballad of the Fairy Thorn-Tree" is a haunting Irish poem in which a desperate young woman ventures to a fairy thorn-tree on Hallow Eve, calling upon dark forces to find her lost lover. When a shadowy figure tells her he drowned at sea, she bargains piece by piece — her jewels, her ring, her very soul — to bring him back. With each terrible price paid, she unknowingly places those closest to h...

"Haunted Houses" is a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow that explores how every home where people have lived and died remains inhabited by invisible presences. The speaker moves through rooms thick with silent phantoms — not terrifying, but familiar, drifting along stairways and gathered at tables. Longfellow meditates on how the past presses into the present, how the living and the dead share th...

Antigonish is a short poem by Hughes Mearns that lingers in the mind long after the final line. A speaker repeatedly encounters a man upon the stair — a man who, impossibly, isn't there. The phantom returns night after night, waiting in the hallway at three in the morning, vanishing the moment anyone looks. Equal parts unsettling and darkly comic, the poem builds a creeping sense of dread through...

"The Witch" by C.S. Lewis follows a solitary sorceress hunted through ancient woodland for seven months before her capture and condemnation to the stake. Lewis paints her not as a villain but as a figure of brooding spiritual depth — a woman who has communed with forgotten gods, witnessed starry mysteries, and prayed alone at ruined Druid shrines. As the crowd gathers and the flames are prepared,...

"Goblin Feet" is a short poem by J.R.R. Tolkien that pulls readers down a moonlit fairy lane alive with glowing lanterns, whirring beetles, and the padded feet of gnomes and leprechauns. The speaker is seized by an urgent, almost desperate longing to follow the enchanted procession before it vanishes around the bend. As the lights fade and the echo of dancing feet dies away, wonder curdles into so...

"Hallowe'en in a Suburb" is a poem by H. P. Lovecraft in which a moonlit village transforms into a landscape of creeping cosmic dread. Vampires drift past white steeples, ghouls wail among headstones, and the dead leap gleefully from their tombs. Lovecraft builds a vision where the familiar — chimneys, meadows, cobblestone rows — is quietly swallowed by an ancient, indifferent darkness. The poem m...

"Song of the Witches," drawn from Shakespeare's Macbeth, is a poem that pulls readers into a midnight ritual as three witches circle a cauldron, hurling poisoned entrails, serpent fillets, and stranger horrors into a bubbling hell-broth. Each grotesque ingredient — eye of newt, lizard's leg, a strangled infant's finger — is chanted with gleeful precision, building toward a charm of terrifying powe...

"As Children Bid the Guest Good-Night" by Emily Dickinson is a short poem that draws a tender parallel between the nightly closing and morning opening of flowers and the reluctant bedtime and joyful waking of children. With quiet charm, Dickinson imagines blooms pulling on their nightgowns at dusk and then peeping and prancing from their cribs at dawn — transforming the garden into a nursery full...

"The Bee" is a short poem by Emily Dickinson that transforms an ordinary bee into a jewelled, armoured warrior moving through a world of flowers. With gauze-shod feet, a golden helmet, and an onyx breast inlaid with chrysoprase, Dickinson's bee tilts victoriously from bloom to bloom in what reads as a tender act of sweet assault. The poem closes with the speaker's quiet longing — to trade places w...

"May-Flower" is a short poem by Emily Dickinson that captures the delicate arrival of the trailing arbutus, a small wildflower heralding the turn from April's secrecy to May's open bloom. With precise, jewel-like language, Dickinson traces the flower's modest beauty — aromatic, low to the ground, dear to moss and knoll — and elevates it to something held close in every human soul. The poem closes...

"Noel: Christmas Eve 1913" is a short poem by Robert Bridges in which a solitary speaker walks out on a frosty Christmas Eve and hears distant church bells ringing across the valley. The pealing sounds lift his thoughts back to that very first Christmas, when shepherds in the fields could not tell whether the music they heard came from angels or the stars themselves. Standing alone on the hillside...

"The Christmas Wreath" is a short poem by Anna de Brémont in which a speaker gazes at a holiday wreath and is swept into bittersweet remembrance. The ivy's sheen and holly's crimson glow become echoes of lost loved ones — caressed hair, pressed lips, voices now silenced. Grief and tenderness intertwine as the speaker's tears become the only offering left to those whose spirits shine down from beyo...

A Christmas Prayer by Robert Louis Stevenson is a short devotional poem that moves through the hours of Christmas Day — from the joy of morning to the quiet of evening. The speaker calls on a loving Father to open doors of love, replace hate with kindness, and lead hearts toward forgiveness. Rooted in the nativity story, the poem weaves together the angels, shepherds, and wise men into a gentle pl...

"Ceremonies For Christmas" by Robert Herrick is a short poem brimming with the sights, sounds, and smells of a traditional Christmas celebration. The household bursts into cheerful motion as the great Yule log is hauled to the fire, lit with the ember saved from last year's flame, and the table fills with strong beer, white bread, and mince pies in the making. Herrick captures the warmth of commun...

The Wassail Song is a traditional English carol you can read free online, tracing the age-old custom of wassailing — groups of neighbours and children travelling door to door at Christmas and New Year to sing, receive food, and exchange blessings. The singers distinguish themselves from beggars, asking warmly for cheese and Christmas loaf from the master and mistress of the house. Each verse build...

"It Came Upon a Midnight Clear" is a beloved Christmas poem that opens with angels descending through the night sky, their golden harps carrying a message of peace to a silent earth. Against this heavenly vision, the poem acknowledges a harder truth — two thousand years of human conflict, strife, and suffering. The verses call on those worn down by life's burdens to pause, listen, and find comfort...

"O Christmas Tree" is a classic Christmas poem that celebrates the evergreen tree as a symbol of constancy and joy. Through five lyrical verses, the poem marvels at the tree's enduring green leaves through summer and winter alike, its bright candlelight making toys sparkle, and its steadfast strength as a reminder of unwavering faith. Each refrain builds a warm sense of seasonal wonder, weaving to...

"Away in the Manger" is one of the most cherished Christmas carols ever written, depicting the birth of Jesus in a humble stable with no crib to rest in — only a bed of hay. Through three gentle verses, the carol moves from the stillness of that holy night, where cattle low and stars look down, to a tender personal prayer asking Jesus to stay close, bless children, and one day bring them to heaven...

"We Three Kings" is a classic Christmas poem that follows three wise men as they journey across fields, mountains, and moorlands, guided by a brilliant star toward the newborn king in Bethlehem. Each verse gives voice to a different Magus, presenting his gift — gold for a king, frankincense for a god, and myrrh foreshadowing suffering and death — before the final verse rises into a triumphant visi...

"O Come, All Ye Faithful" is a cherished Christmas hymn you can read online for free, drawing worshippers to kneel before the newborn Christ in Bethlehem. Across four soaring verses, the poem moves from a joyful summons to the manger, through a declaration of Christ's divine nature, to a celestial choir's exultation, and finally to a direct, tender greeting on Christmas morning. The repeated refra...

Silent Night is one of the world's most recognizable Christmas carols, capturing the stillness and wonder of Christ's birth in three gentle verses. From the calm around the virgin mother and child, to shepherds trembling at heavenly light, to the radiant grace of the Son of God, each verse deepens the sense of awe and reverence surrounding that holy night. The language is tender and luminous, carr...

"God Rest Ye, Merry Gentlemen" is a classic Christmas poem that carries a message of peace and divine hope across three tender verses. From the red dawn rising over Bethlehem to the white flocks sleeping on the hills of Galilee, each stanza paints a vivid scene of the night Christ was born. The poem addresses gentlemen, children, and all Christians alike, weaving comfort and joy into every line as...

"O Little Town of Bethlehem" is a beloved Christmas poem that opens on the hushed, starlit streets of Bethlehem on the night of Christ's birth. Verse by verse, it moves from the stillness of a sleeping town to the quiet wonder of angels keeping watch and the unseen arrival of a divine presence into human hearts. The poem captures a profound tension — the hopes and fears of all the years meeting in...

"King John's Christmas" is a narrative poem by A.A. Milne about a lonely, unloved king who has received no Christmas gifts for years and years. Shunned by his subjects and without a single true friend, King John secretly climbs to his rooftop on Christmas Eve to leave a humble, handwritten note for Father Christmas — signed not with his royal name, but simply as "Jack." His one heartfelt wish: a b...