Get Your Premium Membership

Best Famous Outlines Poems

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

Search and read the best famous Outlines poems, articles about Outlines poems, poetry blogs, or anything else Outlines poem related using the PoetrySoup search engine at the top of the page.

See Also:
Written by Edgar Bowers | Create an image from this poem

Elegy: Walking the Line

 Every month or so, Sundays, we walked the line,
The limit and the boundary.
Past the sweet gum Superb above the cabin, along the wall— Stones gathered from the level field nearby When first we cleared it.
(Angry bumblebees Stung the two mules.
They kicked.
Thirteen, I ran.
) And then the field: thread-leaf maple, deciduous Magnolia, hybrid broom, and, further down, In light shade, one Franklinia Alatamaha In solstice bloom, all white, most graciously.
On the sunnier slope, the wild plums that my mother Later would make preserves of, to give to friends Or sell, in autumn, with the foxgrape, quince, Elderberry, and muscadine.
Around The granite overhang, moist den of foxes; Gradually up a long hill, high in pine, Park-like, years of dry needles on the ground, And dogwood, slopes the settlers terraced; pine We cut at Christmas, berries, hollies, anise, And cones for sale in Mister Haymore’s yard In town, below the Courthouse Square.
James Haymore, One of the two good teachers at Boys’ High, Ironic and demanding, chemistry; Mary Lou Culver taught us English: essays, Plot summaries, outlines, meters, kinds of clauses (Noun, adjective, and adverb, five at a time), Written each day and then revised, and she Up half the night to read them once again Through her pince-nez, under a single lamp.
Across the road, on a steeper hill, the settlers Set a house, unpainted, the porch fallen in, The road a red clay strip without a bridge, A shallow stream that liked to overflow.
Oliver Brand’s mules pulled our station wagon Out of the gluey mire, earth’s rust.
Then, here And there, back from the road, the specimen Shrubs and small trees my father planted, some Taller than we were, some in bloom, some berried, And some we still brought water to.
We always Paused at the weed-filled hole beside the beech That, one year, brought forth beech nuts by the thousands, A hole still reminiscent of the man Chewing tobacco in among his whiskers My father happened on, who, discovered, told Of dreaming he should dig there for the gold And promised to give half of what he found.
During the wars with Germany and Japan, Descendents of the settlers, of Oliver Brand And of that man built Flying Fortresses For Lockheed, in Atlanta; now they build Brick mansions in the woods they left, with lawns To paved and lighted streets, azaleas, camellias Blooming among the pines and tulip trees— Mercedes Benz and Cadillac Republicans.
There was another stream further along Divided through a marsh, lined by the fence We stretched to posts with Mister Garner’s help The time he needed cash for his son’s bail And offered all his place.
A noble spring Under the oak root cooled his milk and butter.
He called me “honey,” working with us there (My father bought three acres as a gift), His wife pale, hair a country orange, voice Uncanny, like a ghost’s, through the open door Behind her, chickens scratching on the floor.
Barred Rocks, our chickens; one, a rooster, splendid Sliver and grey, red comb and long sharp spurs, Once chased Aunt Jennie as far as the daphne bed The two big king snakes were familiars of.
My father’s dog would challenge him sometimes To laughter and applause.
Once, in Stone Mountain, Travelers, stopped for gas, drove off with Smokey; Angrily, grievingly, leaving his work, my father Traced the car and found them way far south, Had them arrested and, bringing Smokey home, Was proud as Sherlock Holmes, and happier.
Above the spring, my sister’s cats, black Amy, Grey Junior, down to meet us.
The rose trees, Domestic, Asiatic, my father’s favorites.
The bridge, marauding dragonflies, the bullfrog, Camellias cracked and blackened by the freeze, Bay tree, mimosa, mountain laurel, apple, Monkey pine twenty feet high, banana shrub, The owls’ tall pine curved like a flattened S.
The pump house Mort and I built block by block, Smooth concrete floor, roof pale aluminum Half-covered by a clematis, the pump Thirty feet down the mountain’s granite foot.
Mort was the hired man sent to us by Fortune, Childlike enough to lead us.
He brought home, Although he could not even drive a tractor, Cheated, a worthless car, which we returned.
When, at the trial to garnishee his wages, Frank Guess, the judge, Grandmother’s longtime neighbor, Whose children my mother taught in Cradle Roll, Heard Mort’s examination, he broke in As if in disbelief on the bank’s attorneys: “Gentlemen, must we continue this charade?” Finally, past the compost heap, the garden, Tomatoes and sweet corn for succotash, Okra for frying, Kentucky Wonders, limas, Cucumbers, squashes, leeks heaped round with soil, Lavender, dill, parsley, and rosemary, Tithonia and zinnias between the rows; The greenhouse by the rock wall, used for cuttings In late spring, frames to grow them strong for planting Through winter into summer.
Early one morning Mort called out, lying helpless by the bridge.
His ashes we let drift where the magnolia We planted as a stem divides the path The others lie, too young, at Silver Hill, Except my mother.
Ninety-five, she lives Three thousand miles away, beside the bare Pacific, in rooms that overlook the Mission, The Riviera, and the silver range La Cumbre east.
Magnolia grandiflora And one druidic live oak guard the view.
Proudly around the walls, she shows her paintings Of twenty years ago: the great oak’s arm Extended, Zeuslike, straight and strong, wisteria Tangled among the branches, amaryllis Around the base; her cat, UC, at ease In marigolds; the weeping cherry, pink And white arms like a blessing to the blue Bird feeder Mort made; cabin, scarlet sweet gum Superb when tribes migrated north and south.
Alert, still quick of speech, a little blind, Active, ready for laughter, open to fear, Pity, and wonder that such things may be, Some Sundays, I think, she must walk the line, Aunt Jennie, too, if she were still alive, And Eleanor, whose story is untold, Their presences like muses, prompting me In my small study, all listening to the sea, All of one mind, the true posterity.


Written by Stephen Vincent Benet | Create an image from this poem

The White Peacock

 (France -- Ancient Regime.
) I.
Go away! Go away; I will not confess to you! His black biretta clings like a hangman's cap; under his twitching fingers the beads shiver and click, As he mumbles in his corner, the shadow deepens upon him; I will not confess! .
.
.
Is he there or is it intenser shadow? Dark huddled coilings from the obscene depths, Black, formless shadow, Shadow.
Doors creak; from secret parts of the chateau come the scuffle and worry of rats.
Orange light drips from the guttering candles, Eddying over the vast embroideries of the bed Stirring the monstrous tapestries, Retreating before the sable impending gloom of the canopy With a swift thrust and sparkle of gold, Lipping my hands, Then Rippling back abashed before the ominous silences Like the swift turns and starts of an overpowered fencer Who sees before him Horror Behind him darkness, Shadow.
The clock jars and strikes, a thin, sudden note like the sob of a child.
Clock, buhl clock that ticked out the tortuous hours of my birth, Clock, evil, wizened dwarf of a clock, how many years of agony have you relentlessly measured, Yardstick of my stifling shroud? I am Aumaury de Montreuil; once quick, soon to be eaten of worms.
You hear, Father? Hsh, he is asleep in the night's cloak.
Over me too steals sleep.
Sleep like a white mist on the rotting paintings of cupids and gods on the ceiling; Sleep on the carven shields and knots at the foot of the bed, Oozing, blurring outlines, obliterating colors, Death.
Father, Father, I must not sleep! It does not hear -- that shadow crouched in the corner .
.
.
Is it a shadow? One might think so indeed, save for the calm face, yellow as wax, that lifts like the face of a drowned man from the choking darkness.
II.
Out of the drowsy fog my body creeps back to me.
It is the white time before dawn.
Moonlight, watery, pellucid, lifeless, ripples over the world.
The grass beneath it is gray; the stars pale in the sky.
The night dew has fallen; An infinity of little drops, crystals from which all light has been taken, Glint on the sighing branches.
All is purity, without color, without stir, without passion.
Suddenly a peacock screams.
My heart shocks and stops; Sweat, cold corpse-sweat Covers my rigid body.
My hair stands on end.
I cannot stir.
I cannot speak.
It is terror, terror that is walking the pale sick gardens And the eyeless face no man may see and live! Ah-h-h-h-h! Father, Father, wake! wake and save me! In his corner all is shadow.
Dead things creep from the ground.
It is so long ago that she died, so long ago! Dust crushes her, earth holds her, mold grips her.
Fiends, do you not know that she is dead? .
.
.
"Let us dance the pavon!" she said; the waxlights glittered like swords on the polished floor.
Twinkling on jewelled snuffboxes, beaming savagely from the crass gold of candelabra, From the white shoulders of girls and the white powdered wigs of men .
.
.
All life was that dance.
The mocking, resistless current, The beauty, the passion, the perilous madness -- As she took my hand, released it and spread her dresses like petals, Turning, swaying in beauty, A lily, bowed by the rain, -- Moonlight she was, and her body of moonlight and foam, And her eyes stars.
Oh the dance has a pattern! But the clear grace of her thrilled through the notes of the viols, Tremulous, pleading, escaping, immortal, untamed, And, as we ended, She blew me a kiss from her hand like a drifting white blossom -- And the starshine was gone; and she fled like a bird up the stair.
Underneath the window a peacock screams, And claws click, scrape Like little lacquered boots on the rough stone.
Oh the long fantasy of the kiss; the ceaseless hunger, ceaselessly, divinely appeased! The aching presence of the beloved's beauty! The wisdom, the incense, the brightness! Once more on the ice-bright floor they danced the pavon But I turned to the garden and her from the lighted candles.
Softly I trod the lush grass between the black hedges of box.
Softly, for I should take her unawares and catch her arms, And embrace her, dear and startled.
By the arbor all the moonlight flowed in silver And her head was on his breast.
She did not scream or shudder When my sword was where her head had lain In the quiet moonlight; But turned to me with one pale hand uplifted, All her satins fiery with the starshine, Nacreous, shimmering, weeping, iridescent, Like the quivering plumage of a peacock .
.
.
Then her head drooped and I gripped her hair, Oh soft, scented cloud across my fingers! -- Bending her white neck back.
.
.
.
Blood writhed on my hands; I trod in blood.
.
.
.
Stupidly agaze At that crumpled heap of silk and moonlight, Where like twitching pinions, an arm twisted, Palely, and was still As the face of chalk.
The buhl clock strikes.
Thirty years.
Christ, thirty years! Agony.
Agony.
Something stirs in the window, Shattering the moonlight.
White wings fan.
Father, Father! All its plumage fiery with the starshine, Nacreous, shimmering, weeping, iridescent, It drifts across the floor and mounts the bed, To the tap of little satin shoes.
Gazing with infernal eyes.
Its quick beak thrusting, rending, devil's crimson .
.
.
Screams, great tortured screams shake the dark canopy.
The light flickers, the shadow in the corner stirs; The wax face lifts; the eyes open.
A thin trickle of blood worms darkly against the vast red coverlet and spreads to a pool on the floor.
Written by Jorie Graham | Create an image from this poem

Le Manteau De Pascal

 I have put on my great coat it is cold.
It is an outer garment.
Coarse, woolen.
Of unknown origin.
* It has a fine inner lining but it is as an exterior that you see it — a grace.
* I have a coat I am wearing.
It is a fine admixture.
The woman who threw the threads in the two directions has made, skillfully, something dark-true, as the evening calls the bird up into the branches of the shaven hedgerows, to twitter bodily a makeshift coat — the boxelder cut back stringently by the owner that more might grow next year, and thicker, you know — the birds tucked gestures on the inner branches — and space in the heart, not shade-giving, not chronological.
.
.
Oh transformer, logic, where are you here in this fold, my name being called-out now but back, behind, in the upper world.
.
.
.
* I have a coat I am wearing I was told to wear it.
Someone knelt down each morning to button it up.
I looked at their face, down low, near me.
What is longing? what is a star? Watched each button a peapod getting tucked back in.
Watched harm with its planeloads folded up in the sleeves.
Watched grappling hooks trawl through the late-night waters.
Watched bands of stations scan unable to ascertain.
There are fingers, friend, that never grow sluggish.
They crawl up the coat and don't miss an eyehole.
Glinting in kitchenlight.
Supervised by the traffic god.
Hissed at by grassblades that wire-up outside their stirring rhetoric — this is your land, this is my my — * You do understanding, don't you, by looking? The coat, which is itself a ramification, a city, floats vulnerably above another city, ours, the city on the hill (only with hill gone), floats in illustration of what once was believed, and thus was visible — (all things believed are visible) — floats a Jacob's ladder with hovering empty arms, an open throat, a place where a heart might beat if it wishes, pockets that hang awaiting the sandy whirr of a small secret, folds where the legs could be, with their kneeling mechanism, the floating fatigue of an after-dinner herald, not guilty of any treason towards life except fatigue, a skillfully cut coat, without chronology, filled with the sensation of being suddenly completed — as then it is, abruptly, the last stitch laid in, the knot bit off — hung there in Gravity, as if its innermost desire, numberless the awaitings flickering around it, the other created things also floating but not of the same order, no, not like this form, built so perfectly to mantle the body, the neck like a vase awaiting its cut flower, a skirting barely visible where the tucks indicate the mild loss of bearing in the small of the back, the grammar, so strict, of the two exact shoulders — and the law of the shouldering — and the chill allowed to skitter up through, and those crucial spots where the fit cannot be perfect — oh skirted loosening aswarm with lessenings, with the mild pallors of unaccomplishment, flaps night-air collects in, folds.
.
.
But the night does not annul its belief in, the night preserves its love for, this one narrowing of infinity, that floats up into the royal starpocked blue its ripped, distracted supervisor — this coat awaiting recollection, this coat awaiting the fleeting moment, the true moment, the hill,the vision of the hill, and then the moment when the prize is lost, and the erotic tinglings of the dream of reason are left to linger mildly in the weave of the fabric according to the rules, the wool gabardine mix, with its grammatical weave, never never destined to lose its elasticity, its openness to abandonment, its willingness to be disturbed.
* July 11 .
.
.
Oaks: the organization of this tree is difficult.
Speaking generally no doubt the determining planes are concentric, a system of brief contiguous and continuous tangents, whereas those of the cedar wd.
roughly be called horizontals and those of the beech radiating but modified by droop and by a screw-set towards jutting points.
But beyond this since the normal growth of the boughs is radiating there is a system of spoke-wise clubs of green — sleeve-pieces.
And since the end shoots curl and carry young scanty leaf-stars these clubs are tapered, and I have seen also pieces in profile with chiseled outlines, the blocks thus made detached and lessening towards the end.
However the knot-star is the chief thing: it is whorled, worked round, and this is what keeps up the illusion of the tree.
Oaks differ much, and much turns on the broadness of the leaves, the narrower giving the crisped and starry and catharine-wheel forms, the broader the flat-pieced mailed or chard-covered ones, in wh.
it is possible to see composition in dips, etc.
But I shall study them further.
It was this night I believe but possibly the next that I saw clearly the impossibility of staying in the Church of England.
* How many coats do you think it will take? The coat was a great-coat.
The Emperor's coat was.
How many coats do you think it will take? The undercoat is dry.
What we now want is? The sky can analyse the coat because of the rips in it.
The sky shivers through the coat because of the rips in it.
The rips in the sky ripen through the rips in the coat.
There is no quarrel.
* I take off my coat and carry it.
* There is no emergency.
* I only made that up.
* Behind everything the sound of something dripping The sound of something: I will vanish, others will come here, what is that? The canvas flapping in the wind like the first notes of our absence An origin is not an action though it occurs at the very start Desire goes travelling into the total dark of another's soul looking for where it breaks off I was a hard thing to undo * The life of a customer What came on the paper plate overheard nearby an impermanence of structure watching the lip-reading had loved but couldn't now recognize * What are the objects, then, that man should consider most important? What sort of a question is that he asks them.
The eye only discovers the visible slowly.
It floats before us asking to be worn, offering "we must think about objects at the very moment when all their meaning is abandoning them" and "the title provides a protection from significance" and "we are responsible for the universe.
" * I have put on my doubting, my wager, it is cold.
It is an outer garment, or, conversely a natural covering, so coarse and woolen, also of unknown origin, a barely apprehensible dilution of evening into an outer garment, or, conversely a natural covering, to twitter bodily a makeshift coat, that more might grow next year, and thicker, you know, not shade-giving, not chronological, my name being called out now but from out back, behind, an outer garment, so coarse and woolen, also of unknown origin, not shade-giving, not chronological, each harm with its planeloads folded up in the sleeves, you do understand, don't you, by looking? the jacob's ladder with its floating arms its open throat, that more might grow next year, and thicker, you know, filled with the sensation of being suddenly completed, the other created things also floating but not of the same order, not shade-giving, not chronological, you do understand, don't you, by looking? a neck like a vase awaiting its cut flower, filled with the sensation of being suddenly completed, the moment the prize is lost, the erotic tingling, the wool-gabardine mix, its grammatical weave — you do understand, don't you, by looking? — never never destined to lose its elasticity, it was this night I believe but possibly the next I saw clearly the impossibility of staying filled with the sensation of being suddenly completed, also of unknown origin, not shade-giving, not chronological since the normal growth of boughs is radiating a system of spoke-wise clubs of green — sleeve pieces — never never destined to lose its elasticity my name being called out now but back, behind, hissing how many coats do you think it will take "or try with eyesight to divide" (there is no quarrel) behind everything the sound of something dripping a system of spoke-wise clubs of green — sleeve pieces filled with the sensation of suddenly being completed the wool gabardine mix, the grammatical weave, the never-never-to-lose-its-elasticity: my name flapping in the wind like the first note of my absence hissing how many coats do you think it will take are you a test case is it an emergency flapping in the wind the first note of something overheard nearby an impermanence of structure watching the lip-reading, there is no quarrel, I will vanish, others will come here, what is that, never never to lose the sensation of suddenly being completed in the wind — the first note of our quarrel — it was this night I believe or possibly the next filled with the sensation of being suddenly completed, I will vanish, others will come here, what is that now floating in the air before us with stars a test case that I saw clearly the impossibility of staying
Written by A R Ammons | Create an image from this poem

Called Into Play

 Fall fell: so that's it for the leaf poetry:
some flurries have whitened the edges of roads

and lawns: time for that, the snow stuff: &
turkeys and old St.
Nick: where am I going to find something to write about I haven't already written away: I will have to stop short, look down, look up, look close, think, think, think: but in what range should I think: should I figure colors and outlines, given forms, say mailboxes, or should I try to plumb what is behind what and what behind that, deep down where the surface has lost its semblance: or should I think personally, such as, this week seems to have been crafted in hell: what: is something going on: something besides this diddledeediddle everyday matter-of-fact: I could draw up an ancient memory which would wipe this whole presence away: or I could fill out my dreams with high syntheses turned into concrete visionary forms: Lucre could lust for Luster: bad angels could roar out of perdition and kill the AIDS vaccine not quite perfected yet: the gods could get down on each other; the big gods could fly in from nebulae unknown: but I'm only me: I have 4 interests--money, poetry, sex, death: I guess I can jostle those.
.
.
.
Written by Andrew Barton Paterson | Create an image from this poem

The Army Mules

 Oh the airman's game is a showman's game, for we all of us watch him go 
With his roaring soaring aeroplane and his bombs for the blokes below, 
Over the railways and over the dumps, over the Hun and the Turk, 
You'll hear him mutter, "What ho, she bumps," when the Archies get to work.
But not of him is the song I sing, though he follow the eagle's flight, And with shrapnel holes in his splintered wing comes home to his roost at night.
He may silver his wings on the shining stars, he may look from the throne on high, He may follow the flight of the wheeling kite in the blue Egyptian sky, But he's only a hero built to plan, turned out by the Army schools, And I sing of the rankless, thankless man who hustles the Army mules.
Now where he comes from and where he lives is a mystery dark and dim, And it's rarely indeed that the General gives a D.
S.
O.
to him.
The stolid infantry digs its way like a mole in a ruined wall; The cavalry lends a tone, they say, to what were else but a brawl; The Brigadier of the Mounted Fut like a cavalry Colonel swanks When he goeth abroad like a gilded nut to receive the General's thanks; The Ordnance man is a son of a gun and his lists are a standing joke; You order, "Choke arti Jerusalem one" for Jerusalem artichoke.
The Medicals shine with a number nine, and the men of the great R.
E.
, Their Colonels are Methodist, married or mad, and some of them all the three; In all these units the road to fame is taught by the Army schools, But a man has got to be born to the game when he tackles the Army mules.
For if you go where the depots are as the dawn is breaking grey, By the waning light of the morning star as the dust cloud clears away, You'll see a vision among the dust like a man and a mule combined -- It's the kind of thing you must take on trust for its outlines aren't defined, A thing that whirls like a spinning top and props like a three legged stool, And you find its a long-legged Queensland boy convincing an Army mule.
And the rider sticks to the hybrid's hide like paper sticks to a wall, For a "magnoon" Waler is next to ride with every chance of a fall, It's a rough-house game and a thankless game, and it isn't a game for a fool, For an army's fate and a nation's fame may turn on an Army mule.
And if you go to the front-line camp where the sleepless outposts lie, At the dead of night you can hear the tramp of the mule train toiling by.
The rattle and clink of a leading-chain, the creak of the lurching load, As the patient, plodding creatures strain at their task in the shell-torn road, Through the dark and the dust you may watch them go till the dawn is grey in the sky, And only the watchful pickets know when the "All-night Corps" goes by.
And far away as the silence falls when the last of the train has gone, A weary voice through the darkness: "Get on there, men, get on!" It isn't a hero, built to plan, turned out by the modern schools, It's only the Army Service man a-driving his Army mules.


Written by Amy Lowell | Create an image from this poem

The Way

 At first a mere thread of a footpath half blotted 
out by the grasses
Sweeping triumphant across it, it wound between hedges of roses
Whose blossoms were poised above leaves as pond lilies float on 
the water,
While hidden by bloom in a hawthorn a bird filled the morning with 
singing.
It widened a highway, majestic, stretching ever to distant horizons, Where shadows of tree-branches wavered, vague outlines invaded by sunshine; No sound but the wind as it whispered the secrets of earth to the flowers, And the hum of the yellow bees, honey-laden and dusty with pollen.
And Summer said, "Come, follow onward, with no thought save the longing to wander, The wind, and the bees, and the flowers, all singing the great song of Nature, Are minstrels of change and of promise, they herald the joy of the Future.
" Later the solitude vanished, confused and distracted the road Where many were seeking and jostling.
Left behind were the trees and the flowers, The half-realized beauty of quiet, the sacred unconscious communing.
And now he is come to a river, a line of gray, sullen water, Not blue and splashing, but dark, rolling somberly on to the ocean.
But on the far side is a city whose windows flame gold in the sunset.
It lies fair and shining before him, a gem set betwixt sky and water, And spanning the river a bridge, frail promise to longing desire, Flung by man in his infinite courage, across the stern force of the water; And he looks at the river and fears, the bridge is so slight, yet he ventures His life to its fragile keeping, if it fails the waves will engulf him.
O Arches! be strong to uphold him, and bear him across to the city, The beautiful city whose spires still glow with the fires of sunset!
Written by Rg Gregory | Create an image from this poem

night-piece

 what's that
  i'm awake
a bang like a door or a foot
knocking a chair 
  who's there

tense i lie in my bed my face
stretching out on the black air
my ears strain.
.
.
.
.
.
a creak this time like a cat on the stair - but we have no cat if the door-handle turned and a.
.
.
.
shape came in.
.
.
.
.
darkness clutches at my startled hair spiders walk my skin would i dare to go for it with my fists - my fists clench doped with sweat would i scream faint or lie there staring my eyes pushing out in jets of fear waiting for what - what would it do a short nipped sound from the earwig night drops in my ear i sit up pinching my breath - was it by the door or the window - i can't be sure i wait for the next sound for the blade of the knife i become aware of the ticking clock.
.
.
and my father's heavy breathing in the next room the curtain moves and a faint light like a living thing creeps on the bed something - a twig - scratches on the pane a car changes gear on a nearby hill there is a creak in the house again a door rattles in a hidden wind - an owl's cry dogs barking - even a distant train - all friendly and easy to explain i relax and yawn get out and stand by the window looking out on the soft outlines of houses silent lawns making my own peace with night when i return to bed at last (all tension gone) birds are standing on the treetops bringing in the dawn

Book: Reflection on the Important Things