Famous Absorbed Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Men of Verdun

by Laurence Binyon
 There are five men in the moonlight
That by their shadows stand;
Three hobble humped on crutches,
And two lack each a hand.


Frogs somewhere near the roadside 
Chorus their chant absorbed: 
But a hush breathes out of the dream-light 
That far in heaven is orbed. 


It is gentle as sleep falling
And wide as thought can span,
The ancient peace and wonder 
That brims...Read more of this...

Glory and Shadow

by George William Russell
 SHADOWWHO art thou, O Glory,
In flame from the deep
Where stars chant their story;
Why trouble my sleep?
I hardly had rested;
My dreams wither now.
Why comest thou crested
And gemmed on thy brow?


GLORYUp, Shadow, and follow
The way I will show:
The blue gleaming hollow
To-night we shall know:
And rise through the vast to
The fountain of days
From whence we had passed to
The parting of ways.


SHADOWI know...Read more of this...

Lines to a Don

by Hilaire Belloc
 Remote and ineffectual Don
That dared attack my Chesterton,
With that poor weapon, half-impelled,
Unlearnt, unsteady, hardly held,
Unworthy for a tilt with men--
Your quavering and corroded pen;
Don poor at Bed and worse at Table,
Don pinched, Don starved, Don miserable;
Don stuttering, Don with roving eyes,
Don nervous, Don of crudities;
Don clerical, Don ordinary,
Don self-absorbed and solitary;
Don here-and-there, Don epileptic;
Don puffed and empty, Don dyspeptic;
Don...Read more of this...

Going Blind

by Rainer Maria Rilke
She sat just like the others as the table.
But on second glance she seemed to hold her cup
a little differently as she picked it up.
She smiled once. It was almost painful.

And when they finished and it was time to stand
and slowly as chance selected them they left
and moved through many rooms (they talked and laughed)
I saw her. She was moving...Read more of this...

Would that the lover (the true believer) were intoxicated

by Omar Khayyam
Would that the lover [the true believer] were intoxicated
the whole year, mad, absorbed with wine, covered
with dishonor! For, when we have sound reason, chagrin
assails us on all sides; but when we are in wine, well,
let come what will!...Read more of this...

Sierra Kid

by Philip Levine
 "I've been where it hurts." the Kid 

He becomes Sierra Kid

 I passed Slimgullion, Morgan Mine, 
 Camp Seco, and the rotting Lode. 
 Dark walls of sugar pine --, 
 And where I left the road 

 I left myself behind; 
 Talked to no one, thought 
 Of nothing. When my luck ran out 
 Lived on...Read more of this...

No Crowd that has occurred

by Emily Dickinson
 No Crowd that has occurred
Exhibit -- I suppose
That General Attendance
That Resurrection -- does --

Circumference be full --
The long restricted Grave
Assert her Vital Privilege --
The Dust -- connect -- and live --

On Atoms -- features place --
All Multitudes that were
Efface in the Comparison --
As Suns -- dissolve a star --

Solemnity -- prevail --
Its Individual Doom
Possess each separate Consciousness --
August --...Read more of this...

Child In Red

by Rainer Maria Rilke
 Sometimes she walks through the village in her
 little red dress
all absorbed in restraining herself,
and yet, despite herself, she seems to move
according to the rhythm of her life to come.

She runs a bit, hesitates, stops,
half-turns around...
and, all while dreaming, shakes her head
for or against.

Then she dances a few steps
that she invents and forgets,
no doubt finding out that life
moves on...Read more of this...

Schoolroom On A Wet Afternoon

by Vernon Scannell
 The unrelated paragraphs of morning
Are forgotten now; the severed heads of kings
Rot by the misty Thames; the roses of York
And Lancaster are pressed between the leaves
Of history; ******* sleep in Africa.
The complexities of simple interest lurk
In inkwells and the brittle sticks of chalk:
Afternoon is come and English Grammar.

Rain falls as though the sky has been bereaved,
Stutters its inarticulate grief...Read more of this...

Portrait of a Baby

by Stephen Vincent Benet
 He lay within a warm, soft world 
Of motion. Colors bloomed and fled, 
Maroon and turquoise, saffron, red, 
Wave upon wave that broke and whirled 
To vanish in the grey-green gloom, 
Perspectiveless and shadowy. 
A bulging world that had no walls, 
A flowing world, most like the sea, 
Compassing all infinity 
Within a shapeless, ebbing room, 
An endless tide...Read more of this...

Poland

by Victor Hugo
 ("Seule au pied de la tour.") 
 
 {IX., September, 1833.} 


 Alone, beneath the tower whence thunder forth 
 The mandates of the Tyrant of the North, 
 Poland's sad genius kneels, absorbed in tears, 
 Bound, vanquished, pallid with her fears— 
 Alas! the crucifix is all that's left 
 To her, of freedom and her sons...Read more of this...

The Mares Nest

by Rudyard Kipling
 Jane Austen Beecher Stowe de Rouse
 Was good beyond all earthly need;
But, on the other hand, her spouse
 Was very, very bad indeed.
He smoked cigars, called churches slow,
And raced -- but this she did not know.

For Belial Machiavelli kept
 The little fact a secret, and,
Though o'er his minor sins she wept,
 Jane Austen did not understand
That Lilly -- thirteen-two...Read more of this...

Cleopatra

by Algernon Charles Swinburne
 HER mouth is fragrant as a vine,
A vine with birds in all its boughs;
Serpent and scarab for a sign
Between the beauty of her brows
And the amorous deep lids divine.

Her great curled hair makes luminous
Her cheeks, her lifted throat and chin.
Shall she not have the hearts of us
To shatter, and the loves therein
To shred between her fingers thus?

Small ruined broken...Read more of this...

Mementos

by Charlotte Bronte
 ARRANGING long-locked drawers and shelves 
Of cabinets, shut up for years, 
What a strange task we've set ourselves ! 
How still the lonely room appears ! 
How strange this mass of ancient treasures, 
Mementos of past pains and pleasures; 
These volumes, clasped with costly stone, 
With print all faded, gilding gone; 

These fans of leaves, from Indian trees­ 
These...Read more of this...

Highland Hospitality

by Robert William Service
 Unto his housemaid spoke the Laird:
"Tonight the Bishop is our guest;
The spare room must be warmed and aired:
To please him we will do our best.
A worthy haggis you must make,
And serve a bowl of barley bree;
We must be hearty for the sake
Of Highland Hospitality.

The feast was set, the candles lit,
The Bishop came with modest mien,
And (one surmised) was glad...Read more of this...

The Wreck of the Columbine

by William Topaz McGonagall
 Kind Christians, all pay attention to me,
And Miss Mouat's sufferings I'll relate to ye;
While on board the Columbine, on the merciless sea,
Tossing about in the darkness of night in the storm helplessly. 

She left her home (Scatness), on Saturday morning, bound for Lerwick,
Thinking to get cured by a man she knew, as she was very sick;
But for eight days...Read more of this...

The Paper Windmill

by Amy Lowell
 The little boy pressed his face against the window-pane 
and looked out
at the bright sunshiny morning. The cobble-stones of 
the square
glistened like mica. In the trees, a breeze danced and 
pranced,
and shook drops of sunlight like falling golden coins into the brown 
water
of the canal. Down stream slowly drifted a long string 
of galliots
piled with crimson cheeses. The little...Read more of this...

Mornings Like This

by Barry Tebb
 Mornings like this I awaken and wonder

How I have moved so far, how I have moved so little

And yet in essence stayed the same

Always passionate for the unattainable

For Joan Baez to make me her analyst,

To tour Ireland with Eddie and Finbar Furey

To be made a Chevalier des Palmes for translating Milosz.

I remember one road, many roads I did not...Read more of this...

Good Friday 2001 Riding North

by Jennifer Reeser
 Yellow makes a play for green among
the rows of some poor farmer's field outside
the Memphis city limits' northern edge.
A D. J. plays The Day He Wore My Crown,
not knowing it entices into tears
this woman never once disposed to travel
the holiday before. My children squander
unleavened bread brought forth from Taco Bell.
What sacrifice of mine could be worth mention?
Enshroud it. Christ's...Read more of this...

Playthings

by Rabindranath Tagore
 Child, how happy you are sitting in the dust, playing with a broken twig all the morning. 
I smile at your play with that little bit of a broken twig. 
I am busy with my accounts, adding up figures by the hour. 
Perhaps you glance at me and think, "What a stupid game to spoil your morning with!" 
Child,...Read more of this...

Symphonic Studies (After Schumann)

by Emma Lazarus
 Prelude 

Blue storm-clouds in hot heavens of mid-July 
Hung heavy, brooding over land and sea: 
Our hearts, a-tremble, throbbed in harmony 
With the wild, restless tone of air and sky. 
Shall we not call im Prospero who held 
In his enchanted hands the fateful key 
Of that tempestuous hour's mystery, 
And with controlling wand our spirits spelled, 
With him...Read more of this...

The Veiled Statue At Sais

by Friedrich von Schiller
 A youth, impelled by a burning thirst for knowledge
To roam to Sais, in fair Egypt's land,
The priesthood's secret learning to explore,
Had passed through many a grade with eager haste,
And still was hurrying on with fond impatience.
Scarce could the Hierophant impose a rein
Upon his headlong efforts. "What avails
A part without the whole?" the youth exclaimed;
"Can there be here a lesser...Read more of this...

This Dust and its Feature --

by Emily Dickinson
 This Dust, and its Feature --
Accredited -- Today --
Will in a second Future --
Cease to identify --

This Mind, and its measure --
A too minute Area
For its enlarged inspection's
Comparison -- appear --

This World, and its species
A too concluded show
For its absorbed Attention's
Remotest scrutiny --...Read more of this...

The Bight

by Elizabeth Bishop
 [On my birthday]


At low tide like this how sheer the water is.
White, crumbling ribs of marl protrude and glare
and the boats are dry, the pilings dry as matches.
Absorbing, rather than being absorbed,
the water in the bight doesn't wet anything,
the color of the gas flame turned as low as possible.
One can smell it turning to gas; if one were Baudelaire
one...Read more of this...

From LES HEURES CLAIRES

by Emile Verhaeren
I


Oh, splendour of our joy and our delight,
Woven of gold amid the silken air!
See the dear house among its gables light,
And the green garden, and the orchard there!


Here is the bench with apple-trees o'er head
Whence the light spring is shed.
With touch of petals falling slow and soft;
Here branches luminous take flight aloft,
Hovering, like some bounteous presage, high
Against this landscape's clear...Read more of this...

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