Famous Across Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Beowulf (Modern English)

...after,
growing hale under the heavens, thriving honorably,
until all of them had to obey him,
those scattered about, across the whale-road,
must pay him tribute. That was a good king! (ll. 4-11)

To him was conceived an heir in days after,
young in the yards, whom God had sent
as a comfort to the people—he understood the dire distress
they had suffered before, bereft of a king
for a long while. Therefore the Lord of Life,
the Sovereign of Glory, gave to them worldl...Read more of this...
by Anonymous,


Dickinson Poems by Number

...ike a Drum—
Kept beating—beating—till I thought
My Mind was going numb

And then I heard them lift a Box
And creak across my Soul
With those same Boots of Lead, again,
Then Space—began to toll,

As all the Heavens were a Bell,
And Being, but an Ear,
And I, and Silence, some strange Race
Wrecked, solitary, here—

And then a Plank in Reason, broke,
And I dropped down, and down—
And hit a World, at every plunge,
And Finished knowing—then—

288

I'm Nobody! W...Read more of this...
by Dickinson, Emily

Howl

...o poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat up smoking in the supernatural darkness of cold-water flats floating across the tops of cities contemplating jazz,
who bared their brains to Heaven under the El and saw Mohammedan angels staggering on tenement roofs illuminated,
who passed through universities with radiant cool eyes hallucinating Arkansas and Blake-light tragedy among the scholars of war,
who were expelled from the academies for crazy & publishing obscene ...Read more of this...
by Ginsberg, Allen

Humanitad

...e the gaunt bittern stalks among the reeds
And flaps his wings, and stretches back his neck,
And hoots to see the moon; across the meads
Limps the poor frightened hare, a little speck;
And a stray seamew with its fretful cry
Flits like a sudden drift of snow against the dull grey sky.

Full winter: and the lusty goodman brings
His load of faggots from the chilly byre,
And stamps his feet upon the hearth, and flings
The sappy billets on the waning fire,
And laughs to see the s...Read more of this...
by Wilde, Oscar

Hyperion

...celadus's face,
And they beheld, while still Hyperion's name
Flew from his lips up to the vaulted rocks,
A pallid gleam across his features stern:
Not savage, for he saw full many a God
Wroth as himself. He look'd upon them all,
And in each face he saw a gleam of light,
But splendider in Saturn's, whose hoar locks
Shone like the bubbling foam about a keel
When the prow sweeps into a midnight cove.
In pale and silver silence they remain'd,
Till suddenly a splendor, like the mo...Read more of this...
by Keats, John


Inferno (English)

...brings him." 
 "Turn thou from their sight," my guide 
 Enjoined, nor wholly on my fear relied, 
 But placed his hands across mine eyes the while 
 He told me further "Risk no glance. The sight 
 Of Gorgon, if she cometh, would bring thee night 
 From which were no returning." 
 Ye
 that read 
 With wisdom to discern, ye well may heed 
 The hidden meaning of the truth that lies 
 Beneath the shadow-words of mysteries 
 That here I show ye. 
 While I turned away,

 Across the...Read more of this...
by Alighieri, Dante

Maple

...he parent seed.
It carne back vaguely at the glass one day,
As she stood saying her name over aloud,
Striking it gently across her lowered eyes
To make it go well with the way she looked.
What was it about her name? Its strangeness lay
In having too much meaning. Other names,
As Lesley, Carol, Irma, Marjorie,
Signified nothing. Rose could have a meaning,
But hadn't as it went. (She knew a Rose.)
This difference from other names it was
Made people notice it—and notice her.
(Th...Read more of this...
by Frost, Robert

On the Pulse of Morning

...ouths spelling words
Armed for slaughter.
The rock cries out today, you may stand on me,
But do not hide your face.
Across the wall of the world,
A river sings a beautiful song,
Come rest here by my side.
Each of you a bordered country,
Delicate and strangely made proud,
Yet thrusting perpetually under siege.
Your armed struggles for profit
Have left collars of waste upon
My shore, currents of debris upon my breast.
Yet, today I call you to my riverside,
If you ...Read more of this...
by Angelou, Maya

Oranges

...ame out pulling
At her gloves, face bright
With rouge. I smiled,
Touched her shoulder, and led
Her down the street, across
A used car lot and a line
Of newly planted trees,
Until we were breathing
Before a drugstore. We
Entered, the tiny bell
Bringing a saleslady
Down a narrow aisle of goods.
I turned to the candies
Tiered like bleachers,
And asked what she wanted -
Light in her eyes, a smile
Starting at the corners
Of her mouth. I fingered
A nickle in my po...Read more of this...
by Soto, Gary

Ravenna

...he throstle singing on the feathered larch,
The cawing rooks, the wood-doves fluttering by,
The little clouds that race across the sky;
And fair the violet's gentle drooping head,
The primrose, pale for love uncomforted,
The rose that burgeons on the climbing briar,
The crocus-bed, (that seems a moon of fire
Round-girdled with a purple marriage-ring);
And all the flowers of our English Spring,
Fond snowdrops, and the bright-starred daffodil.
Up starts the lark beside the murm...Read more of this...
by Wilde, Oscar

Snow

...ou can’t deny it makes
It not a mite worse, sitting here, we three,
Playing our fancy, to have the snowline run
So high across the pane outside. There where
There is a sort of tunnel in the frost
More like a tunnel than a hole—way down
At the far end of it you see a stir
And quiver like the frayed edge of the drift
Blown in the wind. I like that—I like that.
Well, now I leave you, people.”

“Come, Meserve,
We thought you were deciding not to go—
The ways you found to say the ...Read more of this...
by Frost, Robert

Song of Myself

...oices veil’d, and I remove the veil; 
Voices indecent, by me clarified and transfigur’d. 

I do not press my fingers across my mouth;
I keep as delicate around the bowels as around the head and heart; 
Copulation is no more rank to me than death is. 

I believe in the flesh and the appetites; 
Seeing, hearing, feeling, are miracles, and each part and tag of me is a
 miracle. 

Divine am I inside and out, and I make holy whatever I touch or am touch’d
 from;
The s...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt

The Ballad of the White Horse

...ce, 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,
Carrying the firelight on your face
Beyond the loneliest star.

Take these; in memory of the hour...Read more of this...
by Chesterton, G K

The Hunting Of The Snark

...structions which none of them had ever been able to understand--so it generally ended in its being fastened on, anyhow, across the rudder. The helmsman* used to stand by with tears in his eyes; he knew it was all wrong, but alas! Rule 42 of the Code, "No one shall speak to the Man at the Helm," had been completed by the Bellman himself with the words "and the Man at the Helm shall speak to no one." So remon{-} strance was impossible, and no steering could be done till the nex...Read more of this...
by Carroll, Lewis

The Idiot Boy

...eard of yet,  Him whom she loves, her idiot boy.   And he must post without delay  Across the bridge that's in the dale,  And by the church, and o'er the down,  To bring a doctor from the town,  Or she will die, old Susan Gale.   There is no need of boot or spur,  There is no need of whip or wand,  For Johnny has his holly-bough,  And with a hurly-burly now &...Read more of this...
by Wordsworth, William

The Lady of the Lake

...d him from the shore;
     And Allan strained his anxious eye,
     Far mid the lake his form to spy,
     Darkening across each puny wave,
     To which the moon her silver gave.
     Fast as the cormorant could skim.
     The swimmer plied each active limb;
     Then landing in the moonlight dell,
     Loud shouted of his weal to tell.
     The Minstrel heard the far halloo,
     And joyful from the shore withdrew.




CANTO THIRD.

The Gathering.

     I...Read more of this...
by Scott, Sir Walter

The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

...ast is sick silent; the American meadows faint!
Shadows of Prophecy shiver along by the lakes and the rivers
and mutter across the ocean! France rend down thy dungeon; 
Golden Spain burst the barriers of old Rome;
Cast thy keys O Rome into the deep down falling, even to
eternity down falling, 
And weep! 
In her trembling hands she took the new, born terror howling;
On those infinite mountains of light now barr'd out by the
atlantic sea, the new born fire stood before the star...Read more of this...
by Blake, William

The Three Voices

...folk
Who have no horror of a joke. 

"Such wretches live: they take their share
Of common earth and common air:
We come across them here and there: 

"We grant them - there is no escape -
A sort of semi-human shape
Suggestive of the man-like Ape." 

"In all such theories," said he,
"One fixed exception there must be.
That is, the Present Company." 

Baffled, she gave a wolfish bark:
He, aiming blindly in the dark,
With random shaft had pierced the mark. 

She felt that her de...Read more of this...
by Carroll, Lewis

The White Cliffs

...he ballroom door,
Saw something I had never seen before
Except in portraits— a stout old guest
With a broad blue ribbon across his breast—
That blue as deep as the southern sea,
Bluer than skies can ever be—
The Countess of Salisbury—Edward the Third—
No damn merit— the Duke— I heard
My own voice saying; 'Upon my word,
The garter!' and clapped my hands like a child.

Some one beside me turned and smiled,
And looking down at me said: "I fancy,
You're Bertie's Australian cousin...Read more of this...
by Miller, Alice Duer

White Flock

...' hour.



x x x

Somewhere is light and happy, in elation,
Transparent, warm and simple life there is.
A man across the fence has conversation
With girl before the evening, and the bees
Hear only the tenderest of conversation.

And we are living pompously and hard
And follow bitter rituals like sun
When, flight past us, the unreasoned wind
Interrupts speech that's barely begun.

But not for anything will we change the pompous
Granite city of glory, pain a...Read more of this...
by Akhmatova, Anna

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