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Famous Barges Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Burns, Robert
...),
That he intends to pay your debt,
 An’ lessen a’ your charges;
But, God-sake! let nae saving fit
 Abridge your bonie barges
 An’boats this day.


Adieu, my Liege; may freedom geck
 Beneath your high protection;
An’ may ye rax Corruption’s neck,
 And gie her for dissection!
But since I’m here, I’ll no neglect,
 In loyal, true affection,
To pay your Queen, wi’ due respect,
 May fealty an’ subjection
 This great birth-day.


Hail, Majesty most Excellent!
 While nobles...Read more of this...



by Tebb, Barry
...y scooter I flew over the holy stones of

Jerusalem the Golden.



My wide eyes wandered over the Aire at the

Coal barges as they snaked beneath the bridge

In black tarpaulin shrouds and clouds of steam

Hissed from Easy Road Laundry, the breaths of a

Monster, half man, half machine, the terrifying

Figures in a dream and on the Empire’s stage

I saw Doctor Wonder’s Mechanical Robot raise

An axe and chop in half his master and the two

Halves haunted me always, their ...Read more of this...

by Tebb, Barry
...n rain

And molten like a river

Running; hold!

If the sources of Aire

Are veiled in mystery

She is hardly to blame

Barges brimful of coal

And iron-ore look

Just the same.





30



‘Leeds for dirt and vulgarity’ -

The canal banks wor like a carpet

O’breet colours - an th’river ran below

Shaded wi’ trees under which th’ground

Seemed covered wi’ a claad ov hyacinths -

May soa thick on thorn trees wol they

Lukt as if they’d been in a snow storm.



Or to se...Read more of this...

by Tebb, Barry
...in the curious

Copper-plate of the Hunslet Board School and

Beneath the bridge sailed dhows and catamarans

And coal barges with captains who smoked short

Stubby pipes in shirt-sleeves and Van Gogh was

There to capture them on canvas after canvas.

Vermeer had exactly the touch and his palette

Was right for the chiaroscuro of the back-to-backs;

He got the particular yellow of the donkey-stoned

Steps and the waxed scarlet rinds of the Edam our

Mothers bought up at...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...k-packing; 
Flour-works, grinding of wheat, rye, maize, rice—the barrels and the half and quarter
 barrels,
 the loaded barges, the high piles on wharves and levees; 
The men, and the work of the men, on railroads, coasters, fish-boats, canals; 
The daily routine of your own or any man’s life—the shop, yard, store, or
 factory;
These shows all near you by day and night—workman! whoever you are, your daily life! 
In that and them the heft of the heaviest—in them far more than ...Read more of this...



by Whitman, Walt
...te store-houses by
 the
 docks,

On the river the shadowy group, the big steam-tug closely flank’d on each side by the
 barges—the
 hay-boat, the belated lighter, 
On the neighboring shore, the fires from the foundry chimneys burning high and glaringly
 into
 the
 night, 
Casting their flicker of black, contrasted with wild red and yellow light, over the tops
 of
 houses,
 and down into the clefts of streets. 

4
These, and all else, were to me the same as they are to you...Read more of this...

by Stevenson, Robert Louis
...wheels; and tho'
The Mulvian Bridge, above the Tiber's flow,
Hangs all in sight, and down the sacred stream
The sliding barges vanish like a dream,
The seaman's shrilling pipe not enters here,
Nor the rude cries of porters on the pier.
And if so rare the house, how rarer far
The welcome and the weal that therein are!
So free the access, the doors so widely thrown,
You half imagine all to be your own....Read more of this...

by Scott, Sir Walter
...thout shelter; 
Leave the corpse uninterr’d, 
The bride at the altar; 
Leave the deer, leave the steer, 
Leave nets and barges: 
Come with your fighting gear, 
Broadswords and targes. 

Come as the winds come, when 
Forests are rended, 
Come as the waves come, when 
Navies are stranded: 
Faster come, faster come, 
Faster and faster, 
Chief, vassal, page and groom, 
Tenant and master! 

Fast they come, fast they come; 
See how they gather! 
Wide waves the eagle plume 
Blen...Read more of this...

by Graves, Robert
...Look at my knees, 
That island rising from the steamy seas! 
The candles a tall lightship; my two hands 
Are boats and barges anchored to the sands, 
With mighty cliffs all round;
They’re full of wine and riches from far lands…. 
I wonder what it feels like to be drowned?

I can make caves, 
By lifting up the island and huge waves 
And storms, and then with head and ears well under
Blow bubbles with a monstrous roar like thunder, 
A bull-of-Bashan sound. 
The seas ru...Read more of this...

by Tebb, Barry
...did I mingle with your crowds

Crossing the Pont Mirabeau in their Sunday best,

Regretting my lost loves, watching the barges

Snail along the Seine, hearing the bells

Of the Angelus dawn?



II



Exiled in the south and in a new century,

I recall leisurely Sundays on the Grande Jatte;

The children in sun hats knelt by their boats

Unfurling handkerchiefs for sails and for supreme farewells

(Shall I return? Steamer with your poised masts

Raising anchor for exotic clime...Read more of this...

by Tebb, Barry
...ies of trade, the empty road,

Sad as telegraph poles, my Sacr? Coeur silent and boarded up.

My Seine empty of the barges of D?rain

My Sorbonne absorbed, its students gone

Mornings like this, I awaken and wonder....Read more of this...

by Scott, Sir Walter
...k without shelter;
Leave the corpse uninterr'd,
The bride at the altar;
Leave the deer, leave the steer,
Leave nets and barges:
Come with your fighting gear,
Broadswords and targes.

Come as the winds come, when
Forests are rended;
Come as the waves come, when
Navies are stranded:
Faster come, faster come,
Faster and faster,
Chief, vassal, page and groom,
Tenant and master.

Fast they come, fast they come;
See how they gather!
Wide waves the eagle plume,
Blended with ...Read more of this...

by Sandburg, Carl
...eel safes stand in corners. Money
is stacked in them.
A young watchman leans at a window and sees the lights
of barges butting their way across a harbor, nets of
red and white lanterns in a railroad yard, and a span
of glooms splashed with lines of white and blurs of
crosses and clusters over the sleeping city.
By night the skyscraper looms in the smoke and the stars
and has a soul....Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...aded tracks of railroads; 
Shapes of the sleepers of bridges, vast frameworks, girders, arches;
Shapes of the fleets of barges, towns, lake and canal craft, river craft. 

The shapes arise! 
Ship-yards and dry-docks along the Eastern and Western Seas, and in many a bay and
 by-place, 
The live-oak kelsons, the pine planks, the spars, the hackmatack-roots for knees, 
The ships themselves on their ways, the tiers of scaffolds, the workmen busy outside and
 inside,
The tools...Read more of this...

by Wilde, Oscar
...the bridge
Crawls like a yellow butterfly
And, here and there, a passer-by
Shows like a little restless midge.

Big barges full of yellow hay
Are moored against the shadowy wharf,
And, like a yellow silken scarf,
The thick fog hangs along the quay.

The yellow leaves begin to fade
And flutter from the Temple elms,
And at my feet the pale green Thames
Lies like a rod of rippled jade....Read more of this...

by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
...hold
  Inexplicable splendour of Ionian white and gold.

       The river sweats
       Oil and tar
       The barges drift
       With the turning tide
       Red sails                                                          270
       Wide
       To leeward, swing on the heavy spar.
       The barges wash
       Drifting logs
       Down Greenwich reach
       Past the Isle of Dogs.
            Weialala leia
            Wallala leialala

      ...Read more of this...

by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...flowers, 
And the silent isle imbowers 
The Lady of Shalott. 

By the margin, willow-veil'd, 
Slide the heavy barges trail'd 20 
By slow horses; and unhail'd 
The shallop flitteth silken-sail'd 
Skimming down to Camelot: 
But who hath seen her wave her hand? 
Or at the casement seen her stand? 25 
Or is she known in all the land, 
The Lady of Shalott? 

Only reapers, reaping early 
In among the bearded barley, 
Hear a song that echoes cheerly 30 
From th...Read more of this...

by Scott, Sir Walter
...e spied
     Four darkening specks upon the tide,
     That, slow enlarging on the view,
     Four manned and massed barges grew,
     And, bearing downwards from Glengyle,
     Steered full upon the lonely isle;
     The point of Brianchoil they passed,
     And, to the windward as they cast,
     Against the sun they gave to shine
     The bold Sir Roderick's bannered Pine.
     Nearer and nearer as they bear,
     Spears, pikes, and axes flash in air.
     Now ...Read more of this...

by Bukowski, Charles
...e,quietly stuffing rice
into their hunger, a hunger
a thousand years old,
their muddy rivers moving with fire
and song, barges, houseboats
pushed by drifting poles
of waiting without wanting;
in Turkey they face the East
on their carpets
praying to a purple god
who smokes and laughs
and sticks fingers in their eyes
blinding them, as gods will do;
but the rockets are ready: peace is no longer,
for some reason,precious;
madness drifts like lily pads
on a pond circling senseless...Read more of this...

by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
...he walls
Of Magnus Martyr hold
Inexplicable splendour of Ionian white and gold.
 The river sweats
 Oil and tar
 The barges drift
 With the turning tide
 Red sails 
 Wide
 To leeward, swing on the heavy spar.
 The barges wash
 Drifting logs
 Down Greenwich reach
 Past the Isle of Dogs.
 Weialala leia
 Wallala leialala
 Elizabeth and Leicester
 Beating oars 
 The stern was formed
 A gilded shell
 Red and gold
 The brisk swell
 Rippled both shores
 Southwest wind
 Ca...Read more of this...

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