Famous Alabaster Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Alabaster poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous alabaster poems. These examples illustrate what a famous alabaster poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Naidu, Sarojini
...LIKE this alabaster box whose art
Is frail as a cassia-flower, is my heart,
Carven with delicate dreams and wrought
With many a subtle and exquisite thought.
Therein I treasure the spice and scent
Of rich and passionate memories blent
Like odours of cinnamon, sandal and clove,
Of song and sorrow and life and love....Read more of this...
by
Shelley, Percy Bysshe
...salem, the fallen towers
Of Babylon, the eternal pyramids,
Memphis and Thebes, and whatsoe'er of strange,
Sculptured on alabaster obelisk
Or jasper tomb or mutilated sphinx,
Dark Æthiopia in her desert hills
Conceals. Among the ruined temples there,
Stupendous columns, and wild images
Of more than man, where marble daemons watch
The Zodiac's brazen mystery, and dead men
Hang their mute thoughts on the mute walls around,
He lingered, poring on memorials
Of the world's you...Read more of this...
by
Seeger, Alan
...es, wind-blown,
To dash upon a whiteness creamier than their own.
Carved out of candid marble without flaw,
Or alabaster blemishless and rare,
Ruggiero might have fancied what he saw,
For statue-like it seemed, and fastened there
By craft of cunningest artificer;
Save in the wistful eyes Ruggiero thought
A teardrop gleamed, and with the rippling hair
The ocean breezes played as if they sought
In its loose depths to hide that which her hand might not.
Pi...Read more of this...
by
Sidney, Sir Philip
...
Queen Virtues Court, which some call Stellaes face,
Prepar'd by Natures choicest furniture,
Hath his front built of alabaster pure;
Gold is the couering of that stately place.
The door, by which sometimes comes forth her grace,
Red porphir is, which locke of pearl makes sure,
Whose porches rich (which name of chekes indure)
Marble, mixt red and white, doe interlace.
The windowes now, through which this heau'nly guest
Looks ouer the world, and can find nothi...Read more of this...
by
Milton, John
...and goes about to
rise.
COMUS. Nay, Lady, sit. If I but wave this wand,
Your nerves are all chained up in alabaster,
And you a statue, or as Daphne was,
Root-bound, that fled Apollo.
LADY. Fool, do not boast.
Thou canst not touch the freedom of my mind
With all thy charms, although this corporal rind
Thou hast immanacled while Heaven sees good.
COMUS. Why are you vexed, Lady? why do you frown?
Here dwell no frowns, nor anger; from these gat...Read more of this...
by
Pound, Ezra
...aphrase!
The "age demanded" chiefly a mould in plaster,
Made with no loss of time,
A prose kinema, not, not assuredly, alabaster
Or the "sculpture" of rhyme.
III
The tea-rose tea-gown, etc.
Supplants the mousseline of Cos,
The pianola "replaces"
Sappho's barbitos.
Christ follows Dionysus,
Phallic and ambrosial
Made way for macerations;
Caliban casts out Ariel.
All things are a flowing
Sage Heracleitus say;
But a tawdry cheapness
Shall outlast our days....Read more of this...
by
Agustini, Delmira
...e, the dew of budding flowers, I come from a beautiful country To be your sister and muse!—.An arm of alabaster…then, in the sonorous carnationOf her mouth, softest honey; in a cloud of gold and perfumeShe surrounded me, brash horsewoman, like a deluge.Oh honey, freshness, perfumer!…The sudden dream, the shadowWhich intoxicates…and when I wake, the sun that falls on my carpetIn a false ruby very red, and a false ringlet very blond. ...Read more of this...
by
Brodsky, Joseph
...at last! That is, bleached debris
of a glacier amid the five-lettered "never."
Hence the routine of a goddess, nee
alabaster, that lets roving pupils gorge on
the heart of color and the temperature of the knee.
That's what it looks like inside a virgin...Read more of this...
by
Pound, Ezra
...aphrase!
The "age demanded" chiefly a mould in plaster,
Made with no loss of time,
A prose kinema, not, not assuredly, alabaster
Or the "sculpture" of rhyme.
III.
The tea-rose, tea-gown, etc.
Supplants the mousseline of Cos,
The pianola "replaces"
Sappho's barbitos.
Christ follows Dionysus,
Phallic and ambrosial
Made way for macerations;
Caliban casts out Ariel.
All things are a flowing,
Sage Heracleitus says;
But a tawdry cheapness
Shall reign throu...Read more of this...
by
Raine, Craig
...br>
Makololo, their Zulu guide,
puzzled out the Bible, replacing
words he didn't know with Manchester.
Spikenard, alabaster, Leviticus,
were Manchester and Manchester.
His head reminded Mrs. Price
of her old pomander stuck with cloves,
forgotten in some pungent tallboy.
The dogs drank under the wagon
with a far away clip-clopping sound,
and Roger spat into the fire,
leaned back and watched his phlegm
like a Welsh rarebit
bubbling on the brands. .Read more of this...
by
Kaufman, Bob
...ibrating
Soundseared into burnished velvet.
Silent hips deceiving fools.
Rivulets of trickling ecstacy
From the alabaster pools of Jazz
Where music cools hot souls.
Eyes more articulately silent
Than Medusa's thousand tongues.
A bridge of eyes, consenting smiles
reveal her presence singing
Of cool remembrance, happy balls
Wrapped in swinging
Jazz
Her music...
Jazz....Read more of this...
by
Hugo, Victor
...ise the sneer
Of jealous mendicants and wretches near—
The spacious parks, from which horizon blue
Arches o'er alabaster statues new;
Where Superstition still her walk will take,
Unto soft music stealing o'er the lake—
The innocent modesty by gems undone—
The qualms of judges by small brib'ry won—
The dread of children, trembling while they play—
The bliss of monarchs, potent in their sway—
The note of war struck by the culverin,
That snakes i...Read more of this...
by
Sexton, Anne
...e punch.
Hello? Mrs. Death is here!
She suffers according to the digits
of my hate. I hear the filaments
of alabaster. I would lie down
with them and lift my madness
off like a wig. I would lie
outside in a room of wool
and let the snow cover me.
Paris white or flake white
or argentine, all in the washbasin
of my mouth, calling, "Oh."
I am empty. I am witless.
Death is here. There is no
other settlement. Snow!
See the mark, the pock...Read more of this...
by
Milton, John
...ly descended, and with right aspect
Against the eastern gate of Paradise
Levelled his evening rays: It was a rock
Of alabaster, piled up to the clouds,
Conspicuous far, winding with one ascent
Accessible from earth, one entrance high;
The rest was craggy cliff, that overhung
Still as it rose, impossible to climb.
Betwixt these rocky pillars Gabriel sat,
Chief of the angelick guards, awaiting night;
About him exercised heroick games
The unarmed youth of Heaven, ...Read more of this...
by
Hill, Geoffrey
...ack of dust,
Their usage, pride, admitted within doors;
At home, under caved chantries, set in trust,
With well-dressed alabaster and proved spurs
They lie; they lie; secure in the decay
Of blood, blood-marks, crowns hacked and coveted,
Before the scouring fires of trial-day
Alight on men; before sleeked groin, gored head,
Budge through the clay and gravel, and the sea
Across daubed rock evacuates its dead....Read more of this...
by
Lazarus, Emma
...enthralled again
Within a marble minster over-seas.
I watch the solemn gold-stained gloom that creeps
To kiss an alabaster tomb, where sleeps
A lady 'twixt two knights' stone effigies,
And every day in dusky glory steeps
Their sculptured slumber of five centuries....Read more of this...
by
Chaucer, Geoffrey
...ight such another,
That coste largely of gold a fother*. *a great amount
And northward, in a turret on the wall,
Of alabaster white and red coral
An oratory riche for to see,
In worship of Diane of chastity,
Hath Theseus done work in noble wise.
But yet had I forgotten to devise* *describe
The noble carving, and the portraitures,
The shape, the countenance of the figures
That weren in there oratories three.
First in the temple of Venus may'st thou see
Wrought on ...Read more of this...
by
Marvell, Andrew
...y Tears, still dropping, wear
My breast, themselves engraving there.
There at my feet shalt thou be laid,
Of purest Alabaster made:
For I would have thine Image be
White as I can, though not as Thee....Read more of this...
by
Gordon, Adam Lindsay
...is wilful,
And who shall mend her and who shall mar?
Shall we carve success or record disaster
On her bosom of heaving alabaster?
Will her purple pulse beat fainter or faster
For fallen sparrow or fallen star?
I would that with sleepy soft embraces
The sea would fold me -- would find me rest
In luminous shades of her secret places,
In depths where her marvels are manifest,
So the earth beneath her should not discover
My hidden couch -- nor the heaven above her --
As a stron...Read more of this...
by
Akhmatova, Anna
...of the cross.
On your arms, as I lost all my power,
Like a little girl you carried me,
That on deck of a yacht alabaster
Incorruptible day's light we'd meet.
x x x
When with a strong but tired hand
In dreary capital of nation
Upon the whiteness of the page
I did record my recantations,
And wind into the window round
Poured in a wet and silent stream
The sky was burning, burning bright
With smoky dawn, it so did seem.
I did not look at...Read more of this...
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