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Famous Beating Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Poe, Edgar Allan
...not the stirring summons of that hymn?
But two: they fell: for Heaven no grace imparts
To those who hear not for their beating hearts.
A maiden-angel and her seraph-lover-
O! where (and ye may seek the wide skies over)
Was Love, the blind, near sober Duty known?
Unguided Love hath fallen- 'mid "tears of perfect moan."
He was a goodly spirit- he who fell:
A wanderer by moss-y-mantled well-
A gazer on the lights that shine above-
A dreamer in the moonbeam by his love:
...Read more of this...



by Wilde, Oscar
...d limbs, and kissed
Her pale and argent body undisturbed,
And paddled with the polished throat, and pressed
His hot and beating heart upon her chill and icy breast.

It was as if Numidian javelins
Pierced through and through his wild and whirling brain,
And his nerves thrilled like throbbing violins
In exquisite pulsation, and the pain
Was such sweet anguish that he never drew
His lips from hers till overhead the lark of warning flew.

They who have never seen the day...Read more of this...

by Aldington, Richard
...I'll never have a child, 
Never shut up a chrysalis in a match-box 
For the moth to spoil and crush its brght colours, 
Beating its wings against the dingy prison-wall....Read more of this...

by Dickinson, Emily
...ading—till it seemed
That Sense was breaking through—

And when they all were seated,
A Service, like a Drum—
Kept beatingbeating—till I thought
My Mind was going numb

And then I heard them lift a Box
And creak across my Soul
With those same Boots of Lead, again,
Then Space—began to toll,

As all the Heavens were a Bell,
And Being, but an Ear,
And I, and Silence, some strange Race
Wrecked, solitary, here—

And then a Plank in Reason, broke,
And I dropped ...Read more of this...

by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...nd the door swung back on its hinges.
Benedict knew by the hob-nailed shoes it was Basil the blacksmith,
And by her beating heart Evangeline knew who was with him.
"Welcome!" the farmer exclaimed, as their footsteps paused of the threshold.
"Welcome, Basil, my friend! Come, take thy place on the settle
Close by the chimney-side, which is always empty without thee;
Take from the shelf overhead thy pipe and the box of tobacco;
Never so much thyself art thou as when ...Read more of this...



by Sassoon, Siegfried
...around with peering, frantic eyes. 

An evil creature in the twilight looping, 
Flapped blindly in his face. Beating it off, 35 
He screeched in terror, and straightway something clambered 
Heavily from an oak, and dropped, bent double, 
To shamble at him zigzag, squat and bestial. 

Headlong he charges down the wood, and falls 
With roaring brain¡ªagony¡ªthe snap¡¯t spark¡ª 40 
And blots of green and purple in his eyes. 
Then the slow fingers gropi...Read more of this...

by Wilde, Oscar
...ach unlovely street.

What even Cromwell spared is desecrated
By weed and worm, left to the stormy play
Of wind and beating snow, or renovated
By more destructful hands: Time's worst decay
Will wreathe its ruins with some loveliness,
But these new Vandals can but make a rain-proof barrenness.

Where is that Art which bade the Angels sing
Through Lincoln's lofty choir, till the air
Seems from such marble harmonies to ring
With sweeter song than common lips can dare
To ...Read more of this...

by Sexton, Anne
...through the door 
and pull eyes from the fire. 
They rock upon the daybreak 
and amputate the waters. 
They are beating the sea, 
they are hurting it, 
delving down into the inscrutable salt. 

* 

When mother left the room 
and left me in the big black 
and sent away my kitty 
to be fried in the camps 
and took away my blanket 
to wash the me out of it 
I lay in the soiled cold and prayed. 
It was a little jail in which 
I was never slapped with kisses. 
...Read more of this...

by Kendall, Henry
...thing, and I linger all alone, 
Gazing through the moony vapours where the lovely Dream has flown; 

And my heart is beating sadly, and the music waxeth faint, 
Sailing up to holy Heaven, like the anthems of a Saint.
...Read more of this...

by Dyke, Henry Van
...s longing, stirred
By spirit winds that come we know not whence
And go we know not where,
And every inarticulate prayer
Beating about the depths of pain or bliss,
Like some bewildered bird
That seeks its nest but knows not where it is,
And every dream that haunts, with dim delight,
The drowsy hour between the day and night,
The wakeful hour between the night and day,--
Imprisoned, waits for thee,
Impatient, yearns for thee,
The queen who comes to set the captive free
Thou len...Read more of this...

by Emerson, Ralph Waldo
...hing hour, 
Glows with pure tints of varying hue, 
Beneath an aged oak's wide spreading shade, 
Where no rude winds, or beating storms invade. 
Transplanted from its lonely bed, 
No more it scatters perfumes round, 
No more it rears its gentle head, 
Or brightly paints the mossy ground; 
For ah! the beauteous bud, too soon, 
Scorch'd by the burning eye of day; 
Shrinks from the sultry glare of noon, 
Droops its enamell'd brow, and blushing, dies away....Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...ath; 
Echoes, ripples, buzz’d whispers, love-root, silk-thread, crotch and vine; 
My respiration and inspiration, the beating of my heart, the passing of blood
 and air through my lungs;
The sniff of green leaves and dry leaves, and of the shore, and
 dark-color’d sea-rocks, and of hay in the barn; 
The sound of the belch’d words of my voice, words loos’d to the eddies
 of the wind; 
A few light kisses, a few embraces, a reaching around of arms; 
The play of shine an...Read more of this...

by von Goethe, Johann Wolfgang
...w wriggles the thigh,

As the troop with strange gestures advance,
And a rattle and clatter anon rises high,

As of one beating time to the dance.
The sight to the warder seems wondrously *****,
When the villainous Tempter speaks thus in his ear:

"Seize one of the shrouds that lie yonder!"

Quick as thought it was done! and for safety he fled

Behind the church-door with all speed;
The moon still continues her clear light to shed

On the dance that they fearfully lead.Read more of this...

by Blake, William
...he sinking sun
into the western sea.
Wak'd from his eternal sleep, the hoary, element roaring
fled away:
Down rushd beating his wings in vain the jealous king: his
grey brow'd councellors, thunderous warriors, curl'd veterans,
among helms, and shields, and chariots horses, elephants:
banners, castles, slings and rocks,
Falling, rushing, ruining! buried in the ruins, on Urthona's
dens.
All night beneath the ruins, then their sullen flames faded
emerge round the gloomy ...Read more of this...

by Poe, Edgar Allan
...g of each purple curtain 
Thrilled me¡ªfilled me with fantastic terrors never felt before; 
So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating 15 
"'T is some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door, 
Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door: 
This it is and nothing more." 

Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer, 
"Sir," said I, "or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore; 20 
But the fact is I was napping...Read more of this...

by Thomson, James
...ngs,
With quivering Pinions, in the genial Blaze;
Flys off, in airy Circles: then returns, 
And hums, and dances to the beating Ray.
Nor shall the Man, that, musing, walks alone,
And, heedless, strays within his radiant Lists,
Go unchastis'd away. -- Sometimes, a Fleece
Of Clouds, wide-scattering, with a lucid Veil, 
Soft, shadow o'er th'unruffled Face of Heaven;
And, thro' their dewy Sluices, shed the Sun,
With temper'd Influence down. Then is the Time,
For those...Read more of this...

by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
...fting 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
 Carried down stream
 The peal of bells
 White towers
 Weialala leia 
 Wallala leialala
"Trams and dusty trees.
Highbury bore me. Richmond and Kew
Undid me. By Richmond I raised my knees
Supine on the floor of a narrow canoe.Read more of this...

by Shelley, Percy Bysshe
...l gaunt
And sanguine beasts her gentle looks made tame,--
They drank before her at her sacred fount;
And every beast of beating heart grew bold,
Such gentleness and power even to behold.

The brinded lioness led forth her young,
That she might teach them how they should forego
Their inborn thirst of death; the pard unstrung
His sinews at her feet, and sought to know,
With looks whose motions spoke without a tongue,
How he might be as gentle as the doe.
The magic circl...Read more of this...

by Hikmet, Nazim
...ted both volumes of War and Peace into Turkish 
I hear voices
not from the blue vault but from the yard 
the guards are beating someone again
I didn't know I loved trees
bare beeches near Moscow in Peredelkino
they come upon me in winter noble and modest 
beeches are Russian the way poplars are Turkish 
"the poplars of Izmir
losing their leaves. . .
they call me The Knife. . .
 lover like a young tree. . .
I blow stately mansions sky-high"
...Read more of this...

by Akhmatova, Anna
...
Fate of the friend of my heart:
To the freedom under gospel
I allowed him to depart.
And the pigeon came back, beating
On the window with all might
Like from shine of divine restments,
In the room it became light.



Sleep

I know that you dreamed of me,
That's why I could not sleep.
The muddy light had turned blue
And showed me the path to keep.

You saw the queen's garden,
White palace, luxurious one,
And the black patterned fence
Bef...Read more of this...

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Book: Reflection on the Important Things