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Famous Alcove Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Wilmot, John
...h their shade
Are buggeries, rapes, and incests made.
Unto this all-sin-sheltering grove
Whores of the bulk and the alcove,
Great ladies, chambermaids, and drudges,
The ragpicker, and heiress trudges.
Carmen, divines, great lords, and tailors,
Prentices, poets, pimps, and jailers,
Footmen, fine fops do here arrive,
And here promiscuously they swive.

Along these hallowed walks it was
That I beheld Corinna pass.
Whoever had been by to see
The proud disdain she ...Read more of this...



by Mueller, Lisel
...easant wife with not enough food
and not enough love, with my children
dead of the plague. I might have slept
in an alcove next to the man
with the golden nose, who poked it
into the business of stars,
or sewn a starry flag
for a general with wooden teeth.
I might have been the exemplary Pocahontas
or a woman without a name
weeping in Master's bed
for my husband, exchanged for a mule,
my daughter, lost in a drunken bet.
I might have been stretched on a totem pole
...Read more of this...

by Service, Robert William
...

Say, I ain't got no culture an' I don't know any art,
But that there statoo got me, standin' in its room apart,
In an alcove draped wi' velvet, lookin' everlastin' bright,
Like the vision o' a poet, full o' beauty, grace an' light;
An' though I know them kind o' words sound sissy in the ear,
It's jest how I was struck by that Appoller Belvydeer.

I've gazed at them depictions in the glossy magazines,
Uv modern Art an' darned if I can make out what it means:
Will any jer...Read more of this...

by Sexton, Anne
...he phone in your lap is all
that's left of your family name. Like a Romanoff prince
you stay the same in your small alcove off the hall.
Castaway, your time is a flat sea that doesn't stop,
with no new land to make for and no new stories to swap.

2. Seamstress

I'm at pains to know what else I could have done
but move him out of his parish, him being my son;

him being the only one at home since his Pa
left us to beat the Japs at Okinawa.

I put the gold ...Read more of this...

by Browning, Robert
...p.''

And on the morrow, bold with love,
He beckoned the bridegroom (close on call,
As his duty bade, by the Duke's alcove)

And smiled ``'Twas a very funeral,
``Your lady will think, this feast of ours,---
``A shame to efface, whate'er befall!

``What if we break from the Arno bowers,
``And try if Petraja, cool and green,
``Cure last night's fault with this morning's flowers?''

The bridegroom, not a thought to be seen
On his steady brow and quiet mouth,
Said, ``Too much...Read more of this...



by Bronte, Charlotte
...ughs stretched o'er her head, 
Unseen, beneath this sable bower, 
Rustled her dress and rapid tread. 

There was an alcove in that shade, 
Screening a rustic-seat and stand; 
Weary she sat her down and laid 
Her hot brow on her burning hand.

To solitude and to the night, 
Some words she now, in murmurs, said; 
And, trickling through her fingers white, 
Some tears of misery she shed.

' God help me, in my grievous need, 
God help me, in my inward pain; 
Which cann...Read more of this...

by Betjeman, John
...bertson’s marmalade,
Liberty lampshade, come shine on us all,
My! what a spread for the friends of Myfanwy,
Some in the alcove and some in the hall.

Then what sardines in half-lighted passages!
Locking of fingers in long hide-and-seek.
You will protect me, my silken Myfanwy,
Ring leader, tom-boy, and chum to the weak....Read more of this...

by Silva, Jose Asuncion
...d,
at the pale moon, 
and the chirping 
of the frogs ... 
I felt cold. It was the coldness that in your alcove
your cheeks and your temples and your adoréd hands possessed 
within the snowy whiteness 
of the mortuary sheets.
It was the coldness of the sepulcher, it was the ice of death, 
it was the coldness of oblivion.
And my shadow,
projected by the rays of the moon, 
walked alone, 
walked alone,
walked alone along the solitary plain;
and your shadow...Read more of this...

by Service, Robert William
...br>
I still have strength to pray: "God rest her soul,
Here in the awful shadow of the Pole."

There in the cabin's alcove low she lies,
Still candles gleaming at her head and feet;
All snow-drop white, ash-cold, with closed eyes,
Lips smiling, hands at rest -- O God, how sweet!
How all unutterably sweet she seems. . . .
Not dead, not dead indeed -- she dreams, she dreams.

II

"Sunshine", I called her, and she brought, I vow,
God's blessed sunshine to...Read more of this...

by Landor, Walter Savage
...'d brow, 
Where maidens blush at what the minstrel sings, 
They who have coveted may covet now. 

Bring me, in cool alcove, the grape uncrush'd, 
The peach of pulpy cheek and down mature, 
Where every voice (but bird's or child's) is hush'd, 
And every thought, like the brook nigh, runs pure....Read more of this...

by Hugo, Victor
...tured world, an infant there: 
 That framed his genius, this enshrined his love. 
 And as at eve he glanced round th' alcove, 
 Where jailers watched his very thoughts to spy, 
 What mused he then—what dream of years gone by 
 Stirred 'neath that discrowned brow, and fired that glistening eye? 
 
 'Twas not the steps of that heroic tale 
 That from Arcola marched to Montmirail 
 On Glory's red degrees; 
 Nor Cairo-pashas' steel-devouring steeds, 
 Nor the ta...Read more of this...

by Hugo, Victor
...munch at last 
 The princely morsel!—Ah! what sight astounds 
 That grisly lounger? 
 
 In the palace grounds 
 An alcove on a garden gives, and there 
 A tiny thing—forgot in the general fear, 
 Lulled in the flower-sweet dreams of infancy, 
 Bathed with soft sunlight falling brokenly 
 Through leaf and lattice—was at that moment waking; 
 A little lovely maid, most dear and taking, 
 The prince's sister—all alone, undressed— 
 She sat up singing: children sing s...Read more of this...

by Baudelaire, Charles
...SOFTLY as brown-eyed Angels rove 
I will return to thy alcove, 
And glide upon the night to thee, 
Treading the shadows silently. 

And I will give to thee, my own, 
Kisses as icy as the moon, 
And the caresses of a snake 
Cold gliding in the thorny brake. 

And when returns the livid morn 
Thou shalt find all my place forlorn 
And chilly, till the falling night. 

Others would rule by tenderness 
Ov...Read more of this...

by Nwakanma, Obi
...for Christopher Okigbo 
Emrnanuel Ifeajuna & 
Chukwuma Nzeogwu

I

It was a room above the alcove
in a city renewed by junipers

And by desires... 

Stripped of words, 
the moments recalled; 
where the tower, 
lo, was in sight: 

memories undaunted by sound 
or flames of the amethyst, 

spoke to me; 
spoke to me like the preacher from…

I recall this moment staggering through the wind, 
when its breath hissed at the ea...Read more of this...

by Browning, Robert
..." 

And on the morrow, bold with love, 
He beckoned the bridegroom (close on call, 
As his duty bade, by the Duke's alcove) 

And smiled "'Twas a very funeral, 
Your lady will think, this feast of ours, -- 
A shame to efface, whate'er befall! 

"What if we break from the Arno bowers, 
And try if Petraja, cool and green, 
Cure last night's fault with this morning's flowers?"

The bridegroom, not a thought to be seen 
On his steady brow and quiet mouth, 
Said, "Too much fav...Read more of this...

by Field, Eugene
...atic English when I once get fairly r'iled,
And Stoddard's wrath's an Ossa upon a Pelion piled.

Out yonder, in the alcove, a lady sits and darns,
And interjects remarks that always serve to spice our yarns;
She's Mrs. Stoddard; there's a dame that's truly to my heart:
A tiny little woman, but so quaint, and good, and smart
That, if you asked me to suggest which one I should prefer
Of all the Stoddard treasures, I should promptly mention her.

O dear old man, how ...Read more of this...

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