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Best Famous Castled Poems

Here is a collection of the all-time best famous Castled poems. This is a select list of the best famous Castled poetry. Reading, writing, and enjoying famous Castled poetry (as well as classical and contemporary poems) is a great past time. These top poems are the best examples of castled poems.

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Written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow | Create an image from this poem

Flowers

 Spake full well, in language quaint and olden,
One who dwelleth by the castled Rhine,
When he called the flowers, so blue and golden,
Stars, that in earth's firmament do shine.

Stars they are, wherein we read our history,
As astrologers and seers of eld;
Yet not wrapped about with awful mystery,
Like the burning stars, which they beheld.

Wondrous truths, and manifold as wondrous,
God hath written in those stars above;
But not less in the bright flowerets under us
Stands the revelation of his love.

Bright and glorious is that revelation,
Written all over this great world of ours;
Making evident our own creation,
In these stars of earth, these golden flowers.

And the Poet, faithful and far-seeing,
Sees, alike in stars and flowers, a part
Of the self-same, universal being,
Which is throbbing in his brain and heart.

Gorgeous flowerets in the sunlight shining,
Blossoms flaunting in the eye of day,
Tremulous leaves, with soft and silver lining,
Buds that open only to decay;

Brilliant hopes, all woven in gorgeous tissues,
Flaunting gayly in the golden light;
Large desires, with most uncertain issues,
Tender wishes, blossoming at night!


These in flowers and men are more than seeming;
Workings are they of the self-same powers,
Which the Poet, in no idle dreaming,
Seeth in himself and in the flowers.

Everywhere about us are they glowing,
Some like stars, to tell us Spring is born;
Others, their blue eyes with tears o'er-flowing,
Stand like Ruth amid the golden corn;

Not alone in Spring's armorial bearing,
And in Summer's green-emblazoned field,
But in arms of brave old Autumn's wearing,
In the centre of his brazen shield;

Not alone in meadows and green alleys,
On the mountain-top, and by the brink
Of sequestered pools in woodland valleys,
Where the slaves of nature stoop to drink;

Not alone in her vast dome of glory,
Not on graves of bird and beast alone,
But in old cathedrals, high and hoary,
On the tombs of heroes, carved in stone;

In the cottage of the rudest peasant,
In ancestral homes, whose crumbling towers,
Speaking of the Past unto the Present,
Tell us of the ancient Games of Flowers;

In all places, then, and in all seasons,
Flowers expand their light and soul-like wings,
Teaching us, by most persuasive reasons,
How akin they are to human things.

And with childlike, credulous affection
We behold their tender buds expand;
Emblems of our own great resurrection,
Emblems of the bright and better land.


Written by Conrad Aiken | Create an image from this poem

Improvisations: Light And Snow

 I

The girl in the room beneath 
Before going to bed 
Strums on a mandolin 
The three simple tunes she knows. 
How inadequate they are to tell how her heart feels! 
When she has finished them several times 
She thrums the strings aimlessly with her finger-nails 
And smiles, and thinks happily of many things.

II

I stood for a long while before the shop window 
Looking at the blue butterflies embroidered on tawny silk. 
The building was a tower before me, 
Time was loud behind me, 
Sun went over the housetops and dusty trees; 
And there they were, glistening, brilliant, motionless, 
Stitched in a golden sky 
By yellow patient fingers long since turned to dust.

III

The first bell is silver, 
And breathing darkness I think only of the long scythe of time. 
The second bell is crimson, 
And I think of a holiday night, with rockets 
Furrowing the sky with red, and a soft shatter of stars. 
The third bell is saffron and slow, 
And I behold a long sunset over the sea 
With wall on wall of castled cloud and glittering balustrades. 
The fourth bell is color of bronze, 
I walk by a frozen lake in the dun light of dusk: 
Muffled crackings run in the ice, 
Trees creak, birds fly. 
The fifth bell is cold clear azure, 
Delicately tinged with green: 
One golden star hangs melting in it, 
And towards this, sleepily, I go. 
The sixth bell is as if a pebble 
Had been dropped into a deep sea far above me . . . 
Rings of sound ebb slowly into the silence.

IV

On the day when my uncle and I drove to the cemetery, 
Rain rattled on the roof of the carriage; 
And talkng constrainedly of this and that 
We refrained from looking at the child's coffin on the seat before us. 
When we reached the cemetery 
We found that the thin snow on the grass 
Was already transparent with rain; 
And boards had been laid upon it 
That we might walk without wetting our feet.

V

When I was a boy, and saw bright rows of icicles 
In many lengths along a wall 
I was dissappointed to find 
That I could not play music upon them: 
I ran my hand lightly across them 
And they fell, tinkling. 
I tell you this, young man, so that your expectations of life 
Will not be too great.

VI

It is now two hours since I left you, 
And the perfume of your hands is still on my hands. 
And though since then 
I have looked at the stars, walked in the cold blue streets, 
And heard the dead leaves blowing over the ground 
Under the trees, 
I still remember the sound of your laughter. 
How will it be, lady, when there is none left to remember you 
Even as long as this? 
Will the dust braid your hair?

VII

The day opens with the brown light of snowfall 
And past the window snowflakes fall and fall. 
I sit in my chair all day and work and work 
Measuring words against each other. 
I open the piano and play a tune 
But find it does not say what I feel, 
I grow tired of measuring words against each other, 
I grow tired of these four walls, 
And I think of you, who write me that you have just had a daughter 
And named her after your first sweetheart, 
And you, who break your heart, far away, 
In the confusion and savagery of a long war, 
And you who, worn by the bitterness of winter, 
Will soon go south. 
The snowflakes fall almost straight in the brown light 
Past my window, 
And a sparrow finds refuge on my window-ledge. 
This alone comes to me out of the world outside 
As I measure word with word.

VIII

Many things perplex me and leave me troubled, 
Many things are locked away in the white book of stars 
Never to be opened by me. 
The starr'd leaves are silently turned, 
And the mooned leaves; 
And as they are turned, fall the shadows of life and death. 
Perplexed and troubled, 
I light a small light in a small room, 
The lighted walls come closer to me, 
The familiar pictures are clear. 
I sit in my favourite chair and turn in my mind 
The tiny pages of my own life, whereon so little is written, 
And hear at the eastern window the pressure of a long wind, coming 
From I know not where.

How many times have I sat here, 
How many times will I sit here again, 
Thinking these same things over and over in solitude 
As a child says over and over 
The first word he has learned to say.

IX

This girl gave her heart to me, 
And this, and this. 
This one looked at me as if she loved me, 
And silently walked away. 
This one I saw once and loved, and never saw her again.

Shall I count them for you upon my fingers? 
Or like a priest solemnly sliding beads? 
Or pretend they are roses, pale pink, yellow, and white, 
And arrange them for you in a wide bowl 
To be set in sunlight? 
See how nicely it sounds as I count them for you—
'This girl gave her heart to me 
And this, and this, . . . ! 
And nevertheless, my heart breaks when I think of them, 
When I think their names, 
And how, like leaves, they have changed and blown 
And will lie, at last, forgotten, 
Under the snow. 

X

It is night time, and cold, and snow is falling, 
And no wind grieves the walls. 
In the small world of light around the arc-lamp 
A swarm of snowflakes falls and falls. 
The street grows silent. The last stranger passes. 
The sound of his feet, in the snow, is indistinct.

What forgotten sadness is it, on a night like this, 
Takes possession of my heart? 
Why do I think of a camellia tree in a southern garden, 
With pink blossoms among dark leaves, 
Standing, surprised, in the snow? 
Why do I think of spring?

The snowflakes, helplessly veering,, 
Fall silently past my window; 
They come from darkness and enter darkness. 
What is it in my heart is surprised and bewildered 
Like that camellia tree, 
Beautiful still in its glittering anguish? 
And spring so far away!

XI

As I walked through the lamplit gardens, 
On the thin white crust of snow, 
So intensely was I thinking of my misfortune, 
So clearly were my eyes fixed 
On the face of this grief which has come to me, 
That I did not notice the beautiful pale colouring 
Of lamplight on the snow; 
Nor the interlaced long blue shadows of trees;

And yet these things were there, 
And the white lamps, and the orange lamps, and the lamps of lilac were there, 
As I have seen them so often before; 
As they will be so often again 
Long after my grief is forgotten.

And still, though I know this, and say this, it cannot console me.

XII

How many times have we been interrupted 
Just as I was about to make up a story for you! 
One time it was because we suddenly saw a firefly 
Lighting his green lantern among the boughs of a fir-tree. 
Marvellous! Marvellous! He is making for himself 
A little tent of light in the darkness! 
And one time it was because we saw a lilac lightning flash 
Run wrinkling into the blue top of the mountain,—
We heard boulders of thunder rolling down upon us 
And the plat-plat of drops on the window, 
And we ran to watch the rain 
Charging in wavering clouds across the long grass of the field! 
Or at other times it was because we saw a star 
Slipping easily out of the sky and falling, far off, 
Among pine-dark hills; 
Or because we found a crimson eft 
Darting in the cold grass!

These things interrupted us and left us wondering; 
And the stories, whatever they might have been, 
Were never told. 
A fairy, binding a daisy down and laughing? 
A golden-haired princess caught in a cobweb? 
A love-story of long ago? 
Some day, just as we are beginning again, 
Just as we blow the first sweet note, 
Death itself will interrupt us.

XIII

My heart is an old house, and in that forlorn old house, 
In the very centre, dark and forgotten, 
Is a locked room where an enchanted princess 
Lies sleeping. 
But sometimes, in that dark house, 
As if almost from the stars, far away, 
Sounds whisper in that secret room—
Faint voices, music, a dying trill of laughter? 
And suddenly, from her long sleep, 
The beautiful princess awakes and dances.

Who is she? I do not know. 
Why does she dance? Do not ask me!—
Yet to-day, when I saw you, 
When I saw your eyes troubled with the trouble of happiness, 
And your mouth trembling into a smile, 
And your fingers pull shyly forward,—
Softly, in that room, 
The little princess arose 
And danced; 
And as she danced the old house gravely trembled 
With its vague and delicious secret.

XIV

Like an old tree uprooted by the wind 
And flung down cruelly 
With roots bared to the sun and stars 
And limp leaves brought to earth—
Torn from its house—
So do I seem to myself 
When you have left me.

XV

The music of the morning is red and warm; 
Snow lies against the walls; 
And on the sloping roof in the yellow sunlight 
Pigeons huddle against the wind. 
The music of evening is attenuated and thin—
The moon seen through a wave by a mermaid; 
The crying of a violin. 
Far down there, far down where the river turns to the west, 
The delicate lights begin to twinkle 
On the dusky arches of the bridge: 
In the green sky a long cloud, 
A smouldering wave of smoky crimson, 
Breaks in the freezing wind: and above it, unabashed, 
Remote, untouched, fierly palpitant, 
Sings the first star.
Written by Robert Southey | Create an image from this poem

Donica - A Ballad

 Author Note: In Finland there is a Castle which is called the New Rock, moated about with a river of unfounded depth, the water black and the fish therein
very distateful to the palate. In this are spectres often seen, which
foreshew either the death of the Governor, or some prime officer
belonging to the place; and most commonly it appeareth in the shape of
an harper, sweetly singing and dallying and playing under the water.

It is reported of one Donica, that after she was dead, the Devil walked
in her body for the space of two years, so that none suspected but that
she was still alive; for she did both speak and eat, though very
sparingly; only she had a deep paleness on her countenance, which was
the only sign of death. At length a Magician coming by where she was
then in the company of many other virgins, as soon as he beheld her he
said, "fair Maids, why keep you company with the dead Virgin whom you
suppose to be alive?" when taking away the magic charm which was tied
under her arm, the body fell down lifeless and without motion.

The following Ballad is founded on these stories. They are to be found
in the notes to The Hierarchies of the blessed Angels; a Poem by Thomas
Heywood, printed in folio by Adam Islip, 1635.

.................

High on a rock, whose castled shade
Darken'd the lake below,
In ancient strength majestic stood
The towers of Arlinkow.

The fisher in the lake below
Durst never cast his net,
Nor ever swallow in its waves
Her passing wings would wet.

The cattle from its ominous banks
In wild alarm would run,
Tho' parched with thirst and faint beneath
The summer's scorching sun.

For sometimes when no passing breeze
The long lank sedges waved,
All white with foam and heaving high
Its deafening billows raved;

And when the tempest from its base
The rooted pine would shake,
The powerless storm unruffling swept
Across the calm dead lake.

And ever then when Death drew near
The house of Arlinkow,
Its dark unfathom'd depths did send
Strange music from below.

The Lord of Arlinkow was old,
One only child had he,
Donica was the Maiden's name
As fair as fair might be.

A bloom as bright as opening morn
Flush'd o'er her clear white cheek,
The music of her voice was mild,
Her full dark eyes were meek.

Far was her beauty known, for none
So fair could Finland boast,
Her parents loved the Maiden much,
Young EBERHARD loved her most.

Together did they hope to tread
The pleasant path of life,
For now the day drew near to make
Donica Eberhard's wife.

The eve was fair and mild the air,
Along the lake they stray;
The eastern hill reflected bright
The fading tints of day.

And brightly o'er the water stream'd
The liquid radiance wide;
Donica's little dog ran on
And gambol'd at her side.

Youth, Health, and Love bloom'd on her cheek,
Her full dark eyes express
In many a glance to Eberhard
Her soul's meek tenderness.

Nor sound was heard, nor passing gale
Sigh'd thro' the long lank sedge,
The air was hushed, no little wave
Dimpled the water's edge.

Sudden the unfathom'd lake sent forth
Strange music from beneath,
And slowly o'er the waters sail'd
The solemn sounds of Death.

As the deep sounds of Death arose,
Donica's cheek grew pale,
And in the arms of Eberhard
The senseless Maiden fell.

Loudly the youth in terror shriek'd,
And loud he call'd for aid,
And with a wild and eager look
Gaz'd on the death-pale Maid.

But soon again did better thoughts
In Eberhard arise,
And he with trembling hope beheld
The Maiden raise her eyes.

And on his arm reclin'd she moved
With feeble pace and slow,
And soon with strength recover'd reach'd

Yet never to Donica's cheek
Return'd the lively hue,
Her cheeks were deathy, white, and wan,
Her lips a livid blue.

Her eyes so bright and black of yore
Were now more black and bright,
And beam'd strange lustre in her face
So deadly wan and white.

The dog that gambol'd by her side,
And lov'd with her to stray,
Now at his alter'd mistress howl'd
And fled in fear away.

Yet did the faithful Eberhard
Not love the Maid the less;
He gaz'd with sorrow, but he gaz'd
With deeper tenderness.

And when he found her health unharm'd
He would not brook delay,
But press'd the not unwilling Maid
To fix the bridal day.

And when at length it came, with joy
They hail'd the bridal day,
And onward to the house of God
They went their willing way.

And as they at the altar stood
And heard the sacred rite,
The hallowed tapers dimly stream'd
A pale sulphureous light.

And as the Youth with holy warmth
Her hand in his did hold,
Sudden he felt Donica's hand
Grow deadly damp and cold.

And loudly did he shriek, for lo!
A Spirit met his view,
And Eberhard in the angel form
His own Donica knew.

That instant from her earthly frame
Howling the Daemon fled,
And at the side of Eberhard
The livid form fell dead.
Written by Robert Lowell | Create an image from this poem

The Quaker Graveyard in Nantucket

 (For Warren Winslow, Dead At Sea)
 Let man have dominion over the fishes of the sea and
 the fowls of the air and the beasts and the whole earth,
 and every creeping creature that moveth upon the earth.

 I
A brackish reach of shoal off Madaket--
The sea was still breaking violently and night
Had steamed into our North Atlantic Fleet,
When the drowned sailor clutched the drag-net. Light
Flashed from his matted head and marble feet,
He grappled at the net
With the coiled, hurdling muscles of his thighs:
The corpse was bloodless, a botch of reds and whites,
Its open, staring eyes
Were lustreless dead-lights
Or cabin-windows on a stranded hulk
Heavy with sand. We weight the body, close
Its eyes and heave it seaward whence it came,
Where the heel-headed dogfish barks it nose
On Ahab's void and forehead; and the name
Is blocked in yellow chalk.
Sailors, who pitch this portent at the sea
Where dreadnaughts shall confess
Its heel-bent deity,
When you are powerless
To sand-bag this Atlantic bulwark, faced
By the earth-shaker, green, unwearied, chaste
In his steel scales: ask for no Orphean lute
To pluck life back. The guns of the steeled fleet
Recoil and then repeat
The hoarse salute.

 II

Whenever winds are moving and their breath
Heaves at the roped-in bulwarks of this pier,
The terns and sea-gulls tremble at your death
In these home waters. Sailor, can you hear
The Pequod's sea wings, beating landward, fall
Headlong and break on our Atlantic wall
Off 'Sconset, where the yawing S-boats splash
The bellbuoy, with ballooning spinnakers,
As the entangled, screeching mainsheet clears
The blocks: off Madaket, where lubbers lash
The heavy surf and throw their long lead squids
For blue-fish? Sea-gulls blink their heavy lids
Seaward. The winds' wings beat upon the stones,
Cousin, and scream for you and the claws rush
At the sea's throat and wring it in the slush
Of this old Quaker graveyard where the bones
Cry out in the long night for the hurt beast
Bobbing by Ahab's whaleboats in the East. 

 III

All you recovered from Poseidon died
With you, my cousin, and the harrowed brine
Is fruitless on the blue beard of the god,
Stretching beyond us to the castles in Spain,
Nantucket's westward haven. To Cape Cod
Guns, cradled on the tide,
Blast the eelgrass about a waterclock
Of bilge and backwash, roil the salt and sand
Lashing earth's scaffold, rock
Our warships in the hand
Of the great God, where time's contrition blues
Whatever it was these Quaker sailors lost
In the mad scramble of their lives. They died
When time was open-eyed,
Wooden and childish; only bones abide
There, in the nowhere, where their boats were tossed
Sky-high, where mariners had fabled news
Of IS, the whited monster. What it cost
Them is their secret. In the sperm-whale's slick
I see the Quakers drown and hear their cry:
"If God himself had not been on our side,
If God himself had not been on our side,
When the Atlantic rose against us, why,
Then it had swallowed us up quick." 

 IV

This is the end of the whaleroad and the whale
Who spewed Nantucket bones on the thrashed swell
And stirred the troubled waters to whirlpools
To send the Pequod packing off to hell:
This is the end of them, three-quarters fools,
Snatching at straws to sail
Seaward and seaward on the turntail whale,
Spouting out blood and water as it rolls,
Sick as a dog to these Atlantic shoals:
Clamavimus, O depths. Let the sea-gulls wail

For water, for the deep where the high tide
Mutters to its hurt self, mutters and ebbs.
Waves wallow in their wash, go out and out,
Leave only the death-rattle of the crabs,
The beach increasing, its enormous snout
Sucking the ocean's side.
This is the end of running on the waves;
We are poured out like water. Who will dance
The mast-lashed master of Leviathans
Up from this field of Quakers in their unstoned graves? 

 V

When the whale's viscera go and the roll
Of its corruption overruns this world
Beyond tree-swept Nantucket and Wood's Hole
And Martha's Vineyard, Sailor, will your sword
Whistle and fall and sink into the fat?
In the great ash-pit of Jehoshaphat
The bones cry for the blood of the white whale,
The fat flukes arch and whack about its ears,
The death-lance churns into the sanctuary, tears
The gun-blue swingle, heaving like a flail,
And hacks the coiling life out: it works and drags
And rips the sperm-whale's midriff into rags,
Gobbets of blubber spill to wind and weather,
Sailor, and gulls go round the stoven timbers
Where the morning stars sing out together
And thunder shakes the white surf and dismembers
The red flag hammered in the mast-head. Hide,
Our steel, Jonas Messias, in Thy side. 

 VI

 OUR LADY OF WALSINGHAM

There once the penitents took off their shoes
And then walked barefoot the remaining mile;
And the small trees, a stream and hedgerows file
Slowly along the munching English lane,
Like cows to the old shrine, until you lose
Track of your dragging pain.
The stream flows down under the druid tree,
Shiloah's whirlpools gurgle and make glad
The castle of God. Sailor, you were glad
And whistled Sion by that stream. But see:

Our Lady, too small for her canopy,
Sits near the altar. There's no comeliness
at all or charm in that expressionless
Face with its heavy eyelids. As before,
This face, for centuries a memory,
Non est species, neque decor,
Expressionless, expresses God: it goes
Past castled Sion. She knows what God knows,
Not Calvary's Cross nor crib at Bethlehem
Now, and the world shall come to Walsingham. 

 VII

The empty winds are creaking and the oak
splatters and splatters on the cenotaph,
The boughs are trembling and a gaff
Bobs on the untimely stroke
Of the greased wash exploding on a shoal-bell
In the old mouth of the Atlantic. It's well;
Atlantic, you are fouled with the blue sailors,
sea-monsters, upward angel, downward fish:
Unmarried and corroding, spare of flesh
Mart once of supercilious, wing'd clippers,
Atlantic, where your bell-trap guts its spoil
You could cut the brackish winds with a knife
Here in Nantucket, and cast up the time
When the Lord God formed man from the sea's slime
And breathed into his face the breath of life,
And blue-lung'd combers lumbered to the kill.
The Lord survives the rainbow of His will.
Written by Sir Walter Scott | Create an image from this poem

Rosabelle

 O listen, listen, ladies gay! 
No haughty feat of arms I tell; 
Soft is the note, and sad the lay 
That mourns the lovely Rosabelle. 

‘Moor, moor the barge, ye gallant crew! 
And, gentle lady, deign to stay! 
Rest thee in Castle Ravensheuch, 
Nor tempt the stormy firth to-day. 

‘The blackening wave is edged with white; 
To inch and rock the sea-mews fly; 
The fishers have heard the Water-Sprite, 
Whose screams forebode that wreck is nigh. 

‘Last night the gifted Seer did view 
A wet shroud swathed round lady gay; 
Then stay thee, Fair, in Ravensheuch; 
Why cross the gloomy firth to-day?’ 

’Tis not because Lord Lindesay’s heir 
Tonight at Roslin leads the ball, 
But that my lady-mother there 
Sits lonely in her castle-hall.

’Tis not because the ring they ride, 
And Lindesay at the ring rides well, 
But that my sire the wine will chide 
If ’tis not fill’d by Rosabelle.’ 

—O’er Roslin all that dreary night 
A wondrous blaze was seen to gleam; 
’Twas broader than the watch-fire’s light, 
And redder than the bright moonbeam. 

It glared on Roslin’s castled rock, 
It ruddied all the copse-wood glen; 
’Twas seen from Dryden’s groves of oak, 
And seen from cavern’d Hawthornden. 

Seem’d all on fire that chapel proud 
Where Roslin’s chiefs uncoffin’d lie, 
Each Baron, for a sable shroud, 
Sheathed in his iron panoply. 

Seem’d all on fire within, around, 
Deep sacristy and altar’s pale; 
Shone every pillar foliage-bound, 
And glimmer’d all the dead men’s mail. 

Blazed battlement and pinnet high, 
Blazed every rose-carved buttress fair— 
So still they blaze, when fate is nigh 
The lordly line of high Saint Clair. 

There are twenty of Roslin’s barons bold 
Lie buried within that proud chapelle; 
Each one the holy vault doth hold 
But the sea holds lovely Rosabelle! 

And each Saint Clair was buried there 
With candle, with book, and with knell; 
But the sea-caves rung, and the wild winds sung 
The dirge of lovely Rosabelle.


Written by Sylvia Plath | Create an image from this poem

Sow

 God knows how our neighbor managed to breed
His great sow:
Whatever his shrewd secret, he kept it hid

In the same way
He kept the sow--impounded from public stare,
Prize ribbon and pig show.

But one dusk our questions commended us to a tour
Through his lantern-lit
Maze of barns to the lintel of the sunk sty door

To gape at it:
This was no rose-and-larkspurred china suckling
With a penny slot

For thrift children, nor dolt pig ripe for heckling,
About to be
Glorified for prime flesh and golden crackling

In a parsley halo;
Nor even one of the common barnyard sows,
Mire-smirched, blowzy,

Maunching thistle and knotweed on her snout-
cruise--
Bloat tun of milk
On the move, hedged by a litter of feat-foot ninnies

Shrilling her hulk
To halt for a swig at the pink teats. No. This vast
Brobdingnag bulk

Of a sow lounged belly-bedded on that black
compost,
Fat-rutted eyes
Dream-filmed. What a vision of ancient hoghood
must

Thus wholly engross
The great grandam!--our marvel blazoned a knight,
Helmed, in cuirass,

Unhorsed and shredded in the grove of combat
By a grisly-bristled
Boar, fabulous enough to straddle that sow's heat.

But our farmer whistled,
Then, with a jocular fist thwacked the barrel nape,
And the green-copse-castled

Pig hove, letting legend like dried mud drop,
Slowly, grunt
On grunt, up in the flickering light to shape

A monument
Prodigious in gluttonies as that hog whose want
Made lean Lent

Of kitchen slops and, stomaching no constraint,
Proceeded to swill
The seven troughed seas and every earthquaking
continent.
Written by Edgar Lee Masters | Create an image from this poem

Isaiah Beethoven

 They told me I had three months to live,
So I crept to Bernadotte,
And sat by the mill for hours and hours
Where the gathered waters deeply moving
Seemed not to move:
O world, that's you!
You are but a widened place in the river
Where Life looks down and we rejoice for her
Mirrored in us, and so we dream
And turn away, but when again
We look for the face, behold the low-lands
And blasted cotton-wood trees where we empty
Into the larger stream!
But here by the mill the castled clouds
Mocked themselves in the dizzy water;
And over its agate floor at night
The flame of the moon ran under my eyes
Amid a forest stillness broken
By a flute in a hut on the hill.
At last when I came to lie in bed
Weak and in pain, with the dreams about me,
The soul of the river had entered my soul,
And the gathered power of my soul was moving
So swiftly it seemed to be at rest
Under cities of cloud and under
Spheres of silver and changing worlds --
Until I saw a flash of trumpets
Above the battlements over Time!

Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry