Famous Arched Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Atalantas Race

...tar back a space he drew,
But from the Queen turned not his face away,
But 'gainst a pillar leaned, until the blue
That arched the sky, at ending of the day,
Was turned to ruddy gold and changing gray,
And clear, but low, the nigh-ebbed windless sea
In the still evening murmured ceaselessly.

And there he stood when all the sun was down,
Nor had he moved, when the dim golden light, 
Like the fair lustre of a godlike town, 
Had left the world to seeming hopeless night, 
Nor wo...Read more of this...
by Morris, William


Ballad Of The Long-Legged Bait

...and soaking bridles
With salty colts and gales in their limbs
All the horses of his haul of miracles
Gallop through the arched, green farms,

Trot and gallop with gulls upon them
And thunderbolts in their manes.
O Rome and Sodom To-morrow and London
The country tide is cobbled with towns

And steeples pierce the cloud on her shoulder
And the streets that the fisherman combed
When his long-legged flesh was a wind on fire
And his loin was a hunting flame

Coil from the thorough...Read more of this...
by Thomas, Dylan

By The Fire-Side

...XIV.

And yonder, at foot of the fronting ridge
That takes the turn to a range beyond,
Is the chapel reached by the one-arched bridge
Where the water is stopped in a stagnant pond
Danced over by the midge.

XV.

The chapel and bridge are of stone alike,
Blackish-grey and mostly wet;
Cut hemp-stalks steep in the narrow dyke.
See here again, how the lichens fret
And the roots of the ivy strike!

XVI.

Poor little place, where its one priest comes
On a festa-day, if he comes at ...Read more of this...
by Browning, Robert

Charmides

...d with austere
Relentless fingers string the cornel bow,
And draw the feathered notch against her breast,
And loose the arched cord; aye, even now upon the quest

I hear her hurrying feet, - awake, awake,
Thou laggard in love's battle! once at least
Let me drink deep of passion's wine, and slake
My parched being with the nectarous feast
Which even gods affect! O come, Love, come,
Still we have time to reach the cavern of thine azure home.'

Scarce had she spoken when the shud...Read more of this...
by Wilde, Oscar

Concord Hymn

...By the rude bridge that arched the flood, 
Their flag to April's breeze unfurled, 
Here once the embattled farmers stood, 
And fired the shot heard round the world. 

The foe long since in silence slept; 
Alike the conqueror silent sleeps; 
And Time the ruined bridge has swept 
Down the dark stream which seaward creeps. 

On this green bank, by this soft stream, 
We set ...Read more of this...
by Emerson, Ralph Waldo


Elegy For My Father

...tch the longest, move the farthest, besieged by your breath,
pulling into your body. You stare towards your death,
head arched on the pillow, your left fingers curled.
Your mouth sucking gently, unmoved by these hours
and their vigil of salt spray, you show us how far
you are going, and how long the long minutes are,
while spiralling night watches over the room
and takes you, until you watch us in turn.

Lions speak their own language. You are still breathing.
Here is release...Read more of this...
by Finch, Annie

Humanitad

...honeyed drugs, - alas! I must
From such sweet ruin play the runaway,
Although too constant memory never can
Forget the arched splendour of those brows Olympian

Which for a little season made my youth
So soft a swoon of exquisite indolence
That all the chiding of more prudent Truth
Seemed the thin voice of jealousy, - O hence
Thou huntress deadlier than Artemis!
Go seek some other quarry! for of thy too perilous bliss.

My lips have drunk enough, - no more, no more, 
-
Thoug...Read more of this...
by Wilde, Oscar

Meditations In Time Of Civil War

...blows;
The stilted water-hen
Crossing Stream again
Scared by the splashing of a dozen cows;

A winding stair, a chamber arched with stone,
A grey stone fireplace with an open hearth,
A candle and written page.
Il Penseroso's Platonist toiled on
In some like chamber, shadowing forth
How the daemonic rage
Imagined everything.
Benighted travellers
From markets and from fairs
Have seen his midnight candle glimmering.

Two men have founded here. A man-at-arms
Gathered a score of h...Read more of this...
by Yeats, William Butler

Paradise Lost: Book 01

...who lay entranced 
Thick as autumnal leaves that strow the brooks 
In Vallombrosa, where th' Etrurian shades 
High over-arched embower; or scattered sedge 
Afloat, when with fierce winds Orion armed 
Hath vexed the Red-Sea coast, whose waves o'erthrew 
Busiris and his Memphian chivalry, 
While with perfidious hatred they pursued 
The sojourners of Goshen, who beheld 
From the safe shore their floating carcases 
And broken chariot-wheels. So thick bestrown, 
Abject and lost, l...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Paradise Lost: Book 07

...ling, but all night tun'd her soft lays: 
Others, on silver lakes and rivers, bathed 
Their downy breast; the swan with arched neck, 
Between her white wings mantling proudly, rows 
Her state with oary feet; yet oft they quit 
The dank, and, rising on stiff pennons, tower 
The mid aereal sky: Others on ground 
Walked firm; the crested cock whose clarion sounds 
The silent hours, and the other whose gay train 
Adorns him, coloured with the florid hue 
Of rainbows and starry ey...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Paradise Lost: Book 09

...
In with the river sunk, and with it rose 
Satan, involved in rising mist; then sought 
Where to lie hid; sea he had searched, and land, 
From Eden over Pontus and the pool 
Maeotis, up beyond the river Ob; 
Downward as far antarctick; and in length, 
West from Orontes to the ocean barred 
At Darien ; thence to the land where flows 
Ganges and Indus: Thus the orb he roamed 
With narrow search; and with inspection deep 
Considered every creature, which of all 
Most opportune ...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Paradise Lost: Book 10

...eep to the roots of Hell the gathered beach 
They fastened, and the mole immense wrought on 
Over the foaming deep high-arched, a bridge 
Of length prodigious, joining to the wall 
Immoveable of this now fenceless world, 
Forfeit to Death; from hence a passage broad, 
Smooth, easy, inoffensive, down to Hell. 
So, if great things to small may be compared, 
Xerxes, the liberty of Greece to yoke, 
From Susa, his Memnonian palace high, 
Came to the sea: and, over Hellespont 
Brid...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

The Double Image

...en now, the witches said.
I wasn't exactly forgiven. They had my portrait
done instead.

3.

All that summer sprinklers arched
over the seaside grass.
We talked of drought
while the salt-parched
field grew sweet again. To help time pass
I tried to mow the lawn
and in the morning I had my portrait done,
holding my smile in place, till it grew formal.
Once I mailed you a picture of a rabbit
and a postcard of Motif number one,
as if it were normal
to be a mother and be gone.

Th...Read more of this...
by Sexton, Anne

The Eve Of St. Agnes

...ood Saints! not here, not here;
Follow me, child, or else these stones will be thy bier."

 He follow'd through a lowly arched way,
 Brushing the cobwebs with his lofty plume,
 And as she mutter'd "Well-a--well-a-day!"
 He found him in a little moonlight room,
 Pale, lattic'd, chill, and silent as a tomb.
 "Now tell me where is Madeline," said he,
 "O tell me, Angela, by the holy loom
 Which none but secret sisterhood may see,
When they St. Agnes' wool are weaving piously."

...Read more of this...
by Keats, John

The Lady of the Lake

...lower's glistening eye?
     I 'll tell thee:—he recalls the day
     When in my praise he led the lay
     O'er the arched gate of Bothwell proud,
     While many a minstrel answered loud,
     When Percy's Norman pennon, won
     In bloody field, before me shone,
     And twice ten knights, the least a name
     As mighty as yon Chief may claim,
     Gracing my pomp, behind me came.
     Yet trust me, Malcolm, not so proud
     Was I of all that marshalled crowd,...Read more of this...
by Scott, Sir Walter

The Millers Tale

...us** eye. *certainly **lascivious
Full small y-pulled were her browes two,
And they were bent*, and black as any sloe. *arched
She was well more *blissful on to see* *pleasant to look upon*
Than is the newe perjenete* tree; *young pear-tree
And softer than the wool is of a wether.
And by her girdle hung a purse of leather,
Tassel'd with silk, and *pearled with latoun*. *set with brass pearls*
In all this world to seeken up and down
There is no man so wise, that coude thenche*...Read more of this...
by Chaucer, Geoffrey

The Missionary

...ng, 
Let me, then, struggle to forget. 

But England's shores are yet in view, 
And England's skies of tender blue 
Are arched above her guardian sea. 
I cannot yet Remembrance flee; 
I must again, then, firmly face 
That task of anguish, to retrace. 
Wedded to home­I home forsake, 
Fearful of change­I changes make; 
Too fond of ease­I plunge in toil; 
Lover of calm­I seek turmoil: 
Nature and hostile Destiny 
Stir in my heart a conflict wild; 
And long and fierce the war wil...Read more of this...
by Bronte, Charlotte

The Princess (part 2)

...the Sun, 
Than our man's earth; such eyes were in her head, 
And so much grace and power, breathing down 
From over her arched brows, with every turn 
Lived through her to the tips of her long hands, 
And to her feet. She rose her height, and said: 

'We give you welcome: not without redound 
Of use and glory to yourselves ye come, 
The first-fruits of the stranger: aftertime, 
And that full voice which circles round the grave, 
Will rank you nobly, mingled up with me. 
What!...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord

The Princess (prologue)

.... 

Strange was the sight and smacking of the time; 
And long we gazed, but satiated at length 
Came to the ruins. High-arched and ivy-claspt, 
Of finest Gothic lighter than a fire, 
Through one wide chasm of time and frost they gave 
The park, the crowd, the house; but all within 
The sward was trim as any garden lawn: 
And here we lit on Aunt Elizabeth, 
And Lilia with the rest, and lady friends 
From neighbour seats: and there was Ralph himself, 
A broken statue propt agai...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord

Your Feet

...When I cannot look at your face 
I look at your feet. 
Your feet of arched bone, 
your hard little feet. 
I know that they support you, 
and that your sweet weight 
rises upon them. 
Your waist and your breasts, 
the doubled purple 
of your nipples, 
the sockets of your eyes 
that have just flown away, 
your wide fruit mouth, 
your red tresses, 
my little tower. 
But I love your feet 
only because they walked 
upon the earth...Read more of this...
by Neruda, Pablo

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