Famous Arching Poems by Famous Poets

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

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133. The Brigs of Ayr

...we’ve tint the gate o’t!
Gaunt, ghastly, ghaist-alluring edifices,
Hanging with threat’ning jut, like precipices;
O’er-arching, mouldy, gloom-inspiring coves,
Supporting roofs, fantastic, stony groves;
Windows and doors in nameless sculptures drest
With order, symmetry, or taste unblest;
Forms like some bedlam Statuary’s dream,
The craz’d creations of misguided whim;
Forms might be worshipp’d on the bended knee,
And still the second dread command be free;
Their likeness is n...Read more of this...
by Burns, Robert


Birches

...ey seem not to break; though once they are bowed
So low for long, they never right themselves:
You may see their trunks arching in the woods
Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground,
Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair
Before them over their heads to dry in the sun.
But I was going to say when Truth broke in
With all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm,
I should prefer to have some boy bend them
As he went out and in to fetch the cows--
Some bo...Read more of this...
by Frost, Robert

Christmass

...sents that thy coming found
The welcome sight of little toys
The christmass gifts of comers round

'The wooden horse wi arching head
Drawn upon wheels around the room
The gilded coach of ginger bread
And many colord sugar plumb
Gilt coverd books for pictures sought
Or storys childhood loves to tell
Wi many a urgent promise bought
To get tomorrows lesson well

And many a thing a minutes sport
Left broken on the sanded floor
When we woud leave our play and court
Our parents pro...Read more of this...
by Clare, John

Endymion: Book III

...ranger--seeming not to see,
His features were so lifeless. Suddenly
He woke as from a trance; his snow-white brows
Went arching up, and like two magic ploughs
Furrow'd deep wrinkles in his forehead large,
Which kept as fixedly as rocky marge,
Till round his wither'd lips had gone a smile.
Then up he rose, like one whose tedious toil
Had watch'd for years in forlorn hermitage,
Who had not from mid-life to utmost age
Eas'd in one accent his o'er-burden'd soul,
Even to the trees...Read more of this...
by Keats, John

Gareth And Lynette

...e front, 
Some blazoned, some but carven, and some blank, 
There ran a treble range of stony shields,-- 
Rose, and high-arching overbrowed the hearth. 
And under every shield a knight was named: 
For this was Arthur's custom in his hall; 
When some good knight had done one noble deed, 
His arms were carven only; but if twain 
His arms were blazoned also; but if none, 
The shield was blank and bare without a sign 
Saving the name beneath; and Gareth saw 
The shield of Gawain b...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord


Gertrude of Wyoming

...remembrance warms,
While thou shalt be my own, with all thy truth and charms!"

At morn, as if beneath a galaxy
Of over-arching groves in blossoms white,
Where all was odorous scent and harmony,
And gladness to the heart, nerve, ear, and sight:
There, if, O gentle Love! I read aright
The utterance that seal'd thy sacred bond,
'Twas listening to these accents of delight,
She hid upon his breast those eyes, beyond
Expression's power to paint, all languishingly fond--

"Flower o...Read more of this...
by Campbell, Thomas

Idylls of the King: The Last Tournament (excerpt)

...orse
To strike him, overbalancing his bulk,
Down from the causeway heavily to the swamp
Fall, as the crest of some slow-arching wave,
Heard in dead night along that table-shore,
Drops flat, and after the great waters break
Whitening for half a league, and thin themselves,
Far over sands marbled with moon and cloud,
From less and less to nothing; thus he fell
Head-heavy; then the knights, who watch'd him, roar'd
And shouted and leapt down upon the fall'n;
There trampled out hi...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord

Next Please

...lks
Each big approach, leaning 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 ...Read more of this...
by Larkin, Philip

Our Mother Pocahontas

...through her blood the lightning ran.
Love-cries with the birds she sung,
Birdlike
In the grape-vine swung.
The Forest, arching low and wide
Gloried in its Indian bride.
Rolfe, that dim adventurer
Had not come a courtier.
John Rolfe is not our ancestor.
We rise from out the soul of her
Held in native wonderland,
While the sun's rays kissed her hand,
In the springtime,
In Virginia,
Our Mother, Pocahontas.


II

She heard the forest talking,
Across the sea came walking,
And tra...Read more of this...
by Lindsay, Vachel

Rudiger - A Ballad

...mer to the gentle breeze
Long floating fluttered light,
Beneath whose crimson canopy
There lay reclin'd a knight.

With arching crest and swelling breast
On sail'd the stately swan
And lightly up the parting tide
The little boat came on.

And onward to the shore they drew
And leapt to land the knight,
And down the stream the swan-drawn boat
Fell soon beyond the sight.

Was never a Maid in Waldhurst's walls
Might match with Margaret,
Her cheek was fair, her eyes were dark,
Her...Read more of this...
by Southey, Robert

Sappho - A Monodrama

...ow many a day,
O pleasant Lesbos! in thy secret streams
Delighted have I plung'd, from the hot sun
Screen'd by the o'er-arching groves delightful shade,
And pillowed on the waters: now the waves
Shall chill me to repose.

Tremendous height!
Scarce to the brink will these rebellious limbs
Support me. Hark! how the rude deep below
Roars round the rugged base, as if it called
Its long-reluctant victim! I will come.
One leap, and all is over! The deep rest
Of Death, or tranquil A...Read more of this...
by Southey, Robert

Spring Quiet

...e in the whitethorn
Singeth a thrush,
And a robin sings
In the holly-bush.

Full of fresh scents
Are the budding boughs
Arching high over
A cool green house:

Full of sweet scents,
And whispering air
Which sayeth softly:
"We spread no snare;

"Here dwell in safety,
Here dwell alone,
With a clear stream
And a mossy stone.

"Here the sun shineth
Most shadily;
Here is heard an echo
Of the far sea,
Though far off it be."...Read more of this...
by Rossetti, Christina

Suicide Note

...iding (if I'd only known) 
to this. 

Dear friend, 
please do not think 
that I visualize guitars playing 
or my father arching his bone. 
I do not even expect my mother's mouth. 
I know that I have died before— 
once in November, once in June. 
How strange to choose June again, 
so concrete with its green breasts and bellies. 
Of course guitars will not play! 
The snakes will certainly not notice. 
New York City will not mind. 
At night the bats will beat on the trees, 
know...Read more of this...
by Sexton, Anne

The Cremona Violin

...s strength.
They pulled it, and tore it,
And the stuff waned thinner, but still it bore 
it.
Then a wide rent
Split the arching tent,
And balls of fire spurted through,
Spitting yellow, and mauve, and blue.
One by one they were quenched as they fell,
Only the blue burned steadily.
Paler and paler it grew, and -- faded -- away.
Herr Altgelt 
stopped.
"Well, Lottachen, my Dear, what do you say?
I think I'm in good trim. Now let's have dinner.
What's this, my Love, you're very s...Read more of this...
by Lowell, Amy

The Lady of the Lake

...wer
     Which boasts the name of virgin-bower,
     And every hardy plant could bear
     Loch Katrine's keen and searching air.
     An instant in this porch she stayed,
     And gayly to the stranger said:
     'On heaven and on thy lady call,
     And enter the enchanted hall!'
     XXVII.

     'My hope, my heaven, my trust must be,
     My gentle guide, in following thee!'—
      He crossed the threshold,—and a clang
     Of angry steel that instant rang.
...Read more of this...
by Scott, Sir Walter

The Last Tournament

...e 
To strike him, overbalancing his bulk, 
Down from the causeway heavily to the swamp 
Fall, as the crest of some slow-arching wave, 
Heard in dead night along that table-shore, 
Drops flat, and after the great waters break 
Whitening for half a league, and thin themselves, 
Far over sands marbled with moon and cloud, 
From less and less to nothing; thus he fell 
Head-heavy; then the knights, who watched him, roared 
And shouted and leapt down upon the fallen; 
There trample...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord

The Progress of Spring

...ets run; 
The frost-bead melts upon her golden hair; 
Her mantle, slowly greening in the Sun, 
Now wraps her close, now arching leaves her bar 
To breaths of balmier air; 

Up leaps the lark, gone wild to welcome her, 
About her glance the ****, and shriek the jays, 
Before her skims the jubilant woodpecker, 
The linnet's bosom blushes at her gaze, 
While round her brows a woodland culver flits, 
Watching her large light eyes and gracious looks, 
And in her open palm a halcyo...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord

To The Sound Of Violins

...are where 

Pugin’s church, the Black Prince and the Central Post Office

In its Edwardian grandeur are startled by the arching spumes

Or white water fountains and the steel barricades of Novotel

Rise from the ruins of a sixties office block.

I hurry past and join Boar Lane’s Friday crew

From Keighley and Dewsbury’s mills, hesitating

At the thought of being told I’m past my 

Sell-by-date and turned away by the West Indian

Bouncers, black-suited and city-council badged
...Read more of this...
by Tebb, Barry

Upon Appleton House to My Lord Fairfax

...l without it knits; within
It opens passable and thin;
And in as loose an order grows,
As the Corinthean Porticoes.
The Arching Boughs unite between
The Columnes of the Temple green;
And underneath the winged Quires
Echo about their tuned Fires.

The Nightingale does here make choice
To sing the Tryals of her Voice.
Low Shrubs she sits in, and adorns
With Musick high the squatted Thorns.
But highest Oakes stoop down to hear,
And listning Elders prick the Ear.
The Thorn, lest ...Read more of this...
by Marvell, Andrew

When Lilacs Last in the Door-yard Bloom'd

..., with its lakes and forests, 
In the heavenly aerial beauty, (after the perturb’d winds, and the storms;) 
Under the arching heavens of the afternoon swift passing, and the voices of children and
 women,

The many-moving sea-tides,—and I saw the ships how they sail’d, 
And the summer approaching with richness, and the fields all busy with labor,
And the infinite separate houses, how they all went on, each with its meals and minutia of
 daily usages; 
And the streets...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt

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