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Famous Flying Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Whitman, Walt
...> 

(Angry cloth I saw there leaping!
I stand again in leaden rain, your flapping folds saluting; 
I sing you over all, flying, beckoning through the fight—O the hard-contested fight! 
O the cannons ope their rosy-flashing muzzles! the hurtled balls scream! 

The battle-front forms amid the smoke—the volleys pour incessant from the line; 
Hark! the ringing word, Charge!—now the tussle, and the furious maddening
 yells;
Now the corpses tumble curl’d upon the ground, 
Cold, col...Read more of this...



by Wilde, Oscar
...f wrath in heaven, the wan stars were dim,
And the low lightening east was tremulous
With the faint fluttering wings of flying dawn,
Ere from the silent sombre shrine his lover had withdrawn.

Down the steep rock with hurried feet and fast
Clomb the brave lad, and reached the cave of Pan,
And heard the goat-foot snoring as he passed,
And leapt upon a grassy knoll and ran
Like a young fawn unto an olive wood
Which in a shady valley by the well-built city stood;

And sought...Read more of this...

by Tate, James
...gorized.
Its song is barely audible.
It is like a dragonfly in a dream--
here, then there, then here again,
low-flying amber-wing darting upward
then out of sight.
And the dream has a pain in its heart
the wonders of which are manifold,
or so the story is told....Read more of this...

by Sexton, Anne
...ee now, 
learning his trade. 
He'll stitch up the gren, 
he'll fasten the bones down 
lest they fly away. 
I am flying today. 
I am not tired today. 
I am a motor. 
I am cramming in the sugar. 
I am running up the hallways. 
I am squeezing out the milk. 
I am dissecting the dictionary. 
I am God, la de dah. 
Peanut butter is the American food. 
We all eat it, being patriotic. 

Ms. Dog is out fighting the dollars, 
rolling i...Read more of this...

by Wordsworth, William
...ded o'er the mountains, by the sides
Of the deep rivers, and the lonely streams,
Wherever nature led—more like a man
Flying from something that he dreads than one
Who sought the thing he loved.  For nature then
(The coarser pleasures of my boyish days
And their glad animal movements all gone by)
To me was all in all.—I cannot paint
What then I was. The sounding cataract
Haunted me like a passion; the tall rock,
The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood,...Read more of this...



by Milton, John
...re to discover wide 
That dismal world, if any clime perhaps 
Might yield them easier habitation, bend 
Four ways their flying march, along the banks 
Of four infernal rivers, that disgorge 
Into the burning lake their baleful streams-- 
Abhorred Styx, the flood of deadly hate; 
Sad Acheron of sorrow, black and deep; 
Cocytus, named of lamentation loud 
Heard on the rueful stream; fierce Phlegeton, 
Whose waves of torrent fire inflame with rage. 
Far off from these, a slo...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...re yet dim night 
Her shadowy cloud withdraws, I am to haste, 
And all who under me their banners wave, 
Homeward, with flying march, where we possess 
The quarters of the north; there to prepare 
Fit entertainment to receive our King, 
The great Messiah, and his new commands, 
Who speedily through all the hierarchies 
Intends to pass triumphant, and give laws. 
So spake the false Arch-Angel, and infused 
Bad influence into the unwary breast 
Of his associate: He together...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...ze space! 
The plenteousness of all—that there are no bounds;
To emerge, and be of the sky—of the sun and moon, and the flying clouds, as one with
 them.


O the joy of a manly self-hood! 
Personality—to be servile to none—to defer to none—not to any tyrant, known
 or
 unknown, 
To walk with erect carriage, a step springy and elastic, 
To look with calm gaze, or with a flashing eye,
To speak with a full and sonorous voice, out of a broad chest, 
To confront with your pers...Read more of this...

by Ashbery, John
...s
"Not-being-us" is all there is to look at
In the mirror, though no one can say
How it came to be this way. A ship
Flying unknown colors has entered the harbor.
You are allowing extraneous matters
To break up your day, cloud the focus
Of the crystal ball. Its scene drifts away
Like vapor scattered on the wind. The fertile
Thought-associations that until now came
So easily, appear no more, or rarely. Their
Colorings are less intense, washed out
By autumn r...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...d the shape of a mast, 
The brisk short crackle of the steel driven slantingly into the pine, 
The butter-color’d chips flying off in great flakes and slivers, 
The limber motion of brawny young arms and hips in easy costumes;
The constructor of wharves, bridges, piers, bulk-heads, floats, stays against the sea; 
—The city fireman—the fire that suddenly bursts forth in the close-pack’d square, 
The arriving engines, the hoarse shouts, the nimble stepping and daring, 
The stro...Read more of this...

by Chesterton, G K
...er be,
Past purpled forest and pearled foam,
God's winged pavilion free to roam,
Your face, that is a wandering home,
A flying home for me.

Ride through the silent earthquake lands,
Wide as a waste is wide,
Across these days like deserts, when
Pride and a little scratching pen
Have dried and split the hearts of men,
Heart of the heroes, ride.

Up through an empty house of stars,
Being what heart you are,
Up the inhuman steeps of space
As on a staircase go in grace,
C...Read more of this...

by Masefield, John
...open gate, 
O Christ who drives the furrow straight, 
O Christ, the plough, O Christ, the laughter 
Of holy white birds flying after, 
Lo, all my heart's field red and torn, 
And Thou wilt bring the young green corn, 
The young green corn divinely springing, 
The young green corn forever singing; 
And when the field is fresh and fair 
Thy bless?d feet shall glitter there, 
And we will walk the weeded field, 
And tell the holden harvests's yield, 
The corn that makes the holy ...Read more of this...

by Bridges, Robert Seymour
...till heaven were open to enter in." 

67
Dreary was winter, wet with changeful sting
Of clinging snowfall and fast-flying frost;
And bitterer northwinds then withheld the spring,
That dallied with her promise till 'twas lost.
A sunless and half-hearted summer drown'd
The flowers in needful and unwelcom'd rain;
And Autumn with a sad smile fled uncrown'd
From fruitless orchards and unripen'd grain. 
But could the skies of this most desolate year
In its last month l...Read more of this...

by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...
And all her form shone forth with sudden light 
So that the angels were amazed, and she 
Followed Him down, and like a flying star 
Led on the gray-haired wisdom of the east; 
But her thou hast not known: for what is this 
Thou thoughtest of thy prowess and thy sins? 
Thou hast not lost thyself to save thyself 
As Galahad." When the hermit made an end, 
In silver armour suddenly Galahad shone 
Before us, and against the chapel door 
Laid lance, and entered, and we knelt ...Read more of this...

by Scott, Sir Walter
...led with the pine-trees blue
     On the bold cliffs of Benvenue.
     Fresh vigor with the hope returned,
     With flying foot the heath he spurned,
     Held westward with unwearied race,
     And left behind the panting chase.
     VI.

     'T were long to tell what steeds gave o'er,
     As swept the hunt through Cambusmore;
     What reins were tightened in despair,
     When rose Benledi's ridge in air;
     Who flagged upon Bochastle's heath,
     Who sh...Read more of this...

by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...ir weeks; they vext the souls of deans; 
They rode; they betted; made a hundred friends, 
And caught the blossom of the flying terms, 
But missed the mignonette of Vivian-place, 
The little hearth-flower Lilia. Thus he spoke, 
Part banter, part affection. 
'True,' she said, 
'We doubt not that. O yes, you missed us much. 
I'll stake my ruby ring upon it you did.' 

She held it out; and as a parrot turns 
Up through gilt wires a crafty loving eye, 
And take...Read more of this...

by Shelley, Percy Bysshe
...million leaves of summer's bier.--
Old age & youth, manhood & infancy,
Mixed in one mighty torrent did appear,
Some flying from the thing 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 breat...Read more of this...

by Schiller, Friedrich von
...e infinite height and the infinite hollow
Safely the wanderer moves over a well-guarded path.
Smilingly past me are flying the banks all teeming with riches,
And the valley so bright boasts of its industry glad.
See how yonder hedgerows that sever the farmer's possessions
Have by Demeter been worked into the tapestried plain!
Kindly decree of the law, of the Deity mortal-sustaining,
Since from the brazen world love vanished forever away.
But in freer windings the ...Read more of this...

by Hikmet, Nazim
...ns in prison

I just remembered the stars 
I love them too
whether I'm floored watching them from below 
or whether I'm flying at their side

I have some questions for the cosmonauts 
were the stars much bigger
did they look like huge jewels on black velvet
 or apricots on orange
did you feel proud to get closer to the stars
I saw color photos of the cosmos in Ogonek magazine now don't 
 be upset comrades but nonfigurative shall we say or abstract 
 well some of them looked j...Read more of this...

by Akhmatova, Anna
...of love
Is to me simply unbearable.



x x x

They're on the way, the words of love and freedom,
They're flying faster than the moment flies
And I am in stage fright before singing -
My lips have grown colder than ice.

But soon that place, where, leaning to the windows
The tender birches make dry rustling sound,
The voices will be ringing of the shadows
And roses will in blackened wreaths be wound.

And further onward still -- the light is gen...Read more of this...

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