Get Your Premium Membership

Famous Anchors Poems by Famous Poets

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

See also:

Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry
...he hollow vast, that foam'd
Above, around, and at his feet; save things
More dead than Morpheus' imaginings:
Old rusted anchors, helmets, breast-plates large
Of gone sea-warriors; brazen beaks and targe;
Rudders that for a hundred years had lost
The sway of human hand; gold vase emboss'd
With long-forgotten story, and wherein
No reveller had ever dipp'd a chin
But those of Saturn's vintage; mouldering scrolls,
Writ in the tongue of heaven, by those souls
Who first were on the...Read more of this...
by Keats, John



...han by a winter shipwreck, play'd
Among the waste and lumber of the shore,
Hard coils of cordage, swarthy fishing-nets,
Anchors of rusty fluke, and boats updrawn,
And built their castles of dissolving sand
To watch them overflow'd, or following up
And flying the white breaker, daily left
The little footprint daily wash'd away. 

A narrow cave ran in beneath the cliff:
In this the children play'd at keeping house.
Enoch was host one day, Philip the next,
While Annie st...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...h a coal from the embers had lighted, he slowly continued:--
"Four days now are passed since the English ships at their anchors
Ride in the Gaspereau's mouth, with their cannon pointed against us.
What their design may be is unknown; but all are commanded
On the morrow to meet in the church, where his Majesty's mandate
Will be proclaimed as law in the land. Alas! in the mean time
Many surmises of evil alarm the hearts of the people."
Then made answer the farmer:--...Read more of this...
by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...
keep putting on the yachtsmen's caps
with exhibitionistic screech,

the visors hanging o'er the ear
so that the golden anchors drag,
--the tides of fashion never lag.
Such caps may not be worn next year.

Or you who don the paper plate
itself, and put some grapes upon it,
or sport the Indian's feather bonnet,
--perversities may aggravate

the natural madness of the hatter.
And if the opera hats collapse
and crowns grow draughty, then, perhaps,
he thinks what migh...Read more of this...
by Bishop, Elizabeth
...de,—

I should be happy,—that was happy
All day long on the coast of Maine!
I have a need to hold and handle
Shells and anchors and ships again!

I should be happy, that am happy
Never at all since I came here.
I am too long away from water.
I have a need of water near....Read more of this...
by St Vincent Millay, Edna



...vers, on descending to explore 
A legend that had lived its way around 
The world of ships, in the dark hulk had found 
Anchors, which had been seized and seen no more.

Improving a dry leiure to invest 
Their misadventure with a manifest 
Analogy that he may read who runs, 
The sailor made it old as ocean grass-- 
Telling of much that once had come to pass 
With him, whose mother should have had no sons....Read more of this...
by Robinson, Edwin Arlington
...ning with brasswork prinked,
Each rope distinct,

Flagged, and the figurehead wit golden ****
Arching our way, it never anchors; it's
No sooner present than it turns to past.
Right to the last

We think each one will heave to and unload
All good into our lives, all we are owed
For waiting so devoutly and so long.
But we are wrong:

Only one ship is seeking us, a black-
Sailed unfamiliar, towing at her back
A huge and birdless silence. In her wake
No waters breed o...Read more of this...
by Larkin, Philip
...ht long 
Had roused the sea, now with hoarse cadence lull 
Seafaring men o'erwatched, whose bark by chance 
Or pinnace, anchors in a craggy bay 
After the tempest. Such applause was heard 
As Mammon ended, and his sentence pleased, 
Advising peace: for such another field 
They dreaded worse than Hell; so much the fear 
Of thunder and the sword of Michael 
Wrought still within them; and no less desire 
To found this nether empire, which might rise, 
By policy and long proc...Read more of this...
by Milton, John
...>

 "I'11 open the door. " A simple declarative sentence. He

undid about a hundred locks, bolts and chains and anchors

and steel spikes and canes filled with acid, and then the

door opened like the classroom of a great university and

everything was in its proper place: the gun beside the bed

and a small bottle of brandy beside an attractive ***** woman,

 There were many flowers and plants growing in the room,

some of them were on the dresser, surrounded by old ...Read more of this...
by Brautigan, Richard
...hematical instruments,
In irony of the under tenants' ignorance
Of determinants and the calculus of variations.
And anchors, for those who never sailed.
And gates ajar -- yes, so they were;
You left them open and stray goats entered your garden.
And an eye watching like one of the Arimaspi --
So did you -- with one eye.
And angels blowing trumpets -- you are heralded --
It is your horn and your angel and your family's estimate.
It is all very well, but for...Read more of this...
by Masters, Edgar Lee
...r>
Nor is it the one in the admiral's cap, bending
forward, resting her hands on a wharf piling,
glancing over the tiny anchors on her shoulders.
No, this is March, the month of great winds,
so appropriately it is the one walking her dog
along a city sidewalk on a very blustery day.
One hand is busy keeping her hat down on her head
and the other is grasping the little dog's leash,
so of course there is no hand left to push down
her dress which is billowing up around h...Read more of this...
by Collins, Billy
...al-guarded bay, 
Riding lightly at their ease, 
In the calm of tropic seas, 
The three great nations' warships at their anchors proudly lay. 
Riding lightly, head to wind, 
With the coral reefs behind, 
Three German and three Yankee ships were mirrored in the blue; 
And on one ship unfurled 
Was the flag that rules the world -- 
For on the old Calliope the flag of England flew. 

When the gentle off-shore breeze, 
That had scarcely stirred the trees, 
Dropped down to ...Read more of this...
by Paterson, Andrew Barton
...each mast, and sail, and rope, 
What anvils rang, what hammers beat, 
In what a forge and what a heat 
Were shaped the anchors of thy hope! 
Fear not each sudden sound and shock, 
'T is of the wave and not the rock; 
'T is but the flapping of the sail, 
And not a rent made by the gale! 
In spite of rock and tempest's roar, 
In spite of false lights on the shore, 
Sail on, nor fear to breast the sea! 
Our hearts, our hopes, are all with thee, 
Our hearts, our hopes, our praye...Read more of this...
by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...te 
As dead men struck by lightning under trees 
And pictured with fine twigs and curlèd ferns; 
Chains on his neck and anchors on his arms; 
Rings on his fingers, bracelets on his wrist; 
And on his breast the Jane of Appledore 
Was schooner rigged, and in full sail at sea. 
He could not whisper with his strong hoarse voice, 
No more than could a horse creep quietly; 
He laughed to scorn the men that muffled close 
For fear of wind, till all their neck was hid, 
Like Ind...Read more of this...
by Davies, William Henry
...ard
 With trade to lose or make --
 Good Lord, they slipped behind us
 In the tailing of our wake!

 Let go, let go the anchors;
 Now shamed at heart are we
 To bring so poor a cargo home
 That had for gift the sea!
 Let go the great bow-anchor --
 Ah, fools were we and blind --
 The worst we stored with utter toil,
 The best we left behind!

Coastwise -- cross-seas -- round the world and back again,
 Whither flaw shall fail us or the Trades drive down:
Plain-sail -- storm-sa...Read more of this...
by Kipling, Rudyard
...aul Jones, the American pirate. It is founded on fact.


 . . . At the close of a winter day,
Their anchors down, by London town, the Three Great Captains lay;
And one was Admiral of the North from Solway Firth to Skye,
And one was Lord of the Wessex coast and all the lands thereby,
And one was Master of the Thames from Limehouse to Blackwall,
And he was Captain of the Fleet -- the bravest of them all.
Their good guns guarded their great gray sides tha...Read more of this...
by Kipling, Rudyard
...c trees, and we,
if we live like the names our masters please,
by careful mimicry might become men."


7 The Flight Anchors in
 Castries Harbor

When the stars self were young over Castries,
I loved you alone and I loved the whole world.
What does it matter that our lives are different?
Burdened with the loves of our different children?
When I think of your young face washed by the wind
and your voice that chuckles in the slap of the sea?
The lights are out on La Toc ...Read more of this...
by Walcott, Derek
...ay, freedom! The wild raging passions
Eagerly cast off the bonds Nature divine had imposed.

Ah! in the tempest the anchors break loose, that warningly held him
On to the shore, and the stream tears him along in its flood,--
Into infinity whirls him,--the coasts soon vanish before him,
High on the mountainous waves rocks all-dismasted the bark;
Under the clouds are hid the steadfast stars of the chariot,
Naught now remains,--in the breast even the god goes astray.
Tru...Read more of this...
by Schiller, Friedrich von
...y man likes 'n' as my man eats.'
So home they goes by the windy streets,
Thinking their men are homeward bound
With anchors hungry for English ground,
And the bloody fun of it is, they're drowned!
Hear the yarn of a sailor,
An old yarn learned at sea....Read more of this...
by Masefield, John
...rds than you can ever learn.
The word hand floats above your hand
like a small cloud over a lake.
The word hand anchors
your hand to this table
your hand is a warm stone
I hold between two words.

This is your hand, these are my hands, this is the world,
which is round but not flat and has more colors
than we can see.
It begins, it has an end,
this is what you will
come back to, this is your hand....Read more of this...
by Atwood, Margaret

Dont forget to view our wonderful member Anchors poems.


Book: Reflection on the Important Things