Famous Bound Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Beowulf (Modern English)

...and, dear and old, had ruled them a long time. (ll. 26-31)

There in the harbor stood a ringed prow,
icy and outward-bound, a nobleman’s vessel.
Then they laid down their beloved prince,
the dispenser of rings, in the bosom of the ship,
the notorious by the mast. There were many treasures,
brought from far-ways, adornments laden there—
I’ve never heard of a ship equipped more fit
with war-weapons and battle-shirts,
with swords and with sarks. Many treasures
lay in ...Read more of this...
by Anonymous,


Charmides

...ll deserted was the fair domain,

Save when the neat-herd's lad, his empty pail
Well slung upon his back, with leap and bound
Raced on the other side, and stopped to hail,
Hoping that he some comrade new had found,
And gat no answer, and then half afraid
Passed on his simple way, or down the still and silent glade

A little girl ran laughing from the farm,
Not thinking of love's secret mysteries,
And when she saw the white and gleaming arm
And all his manlihood, with longing ...Read more of this...
by Wilde, Oscar

Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie

...r,
And the retreating sun the sign of the Scorpion enters.
Birds of passage sailed through the leaden air, from the ice-bound,
Desolate northern bays to the shores of tropical islands,
Harvests were gathered in; and wild with the winds of September
Wrestled the trees of the forest, as Jacob of old with the angel.
All the signs foretold a winter long and inclement.
Bees, with prophetic instinct of want, had hoarded their honey
Till the hives overflowed; and the Indian bunters ...Read more of this...
by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth

Hyperion

...ow like to this, and such like woe,
Too huge for mortal tongue or pen of scribe:
The Titans fierce, self-hid, or prison-bound,
Groan'd for the old allegiance once more,
And listen'd in sharp pain for Saturn's voice.
But one of the whole mammoth-brood still kept
His sov'reigny, and rule, and majesy;---
Blazing Hyperion on his orbed fire
Still sat, still snuff'd the incense, teeming up
From man to the sun's God: yet unsecure:
For as among us mortals omens drear
Fright and perpl...Read more of this...
by Keats, John

Inferno (English)

...eir doom permits them. Backward course they bend; 
 Continual crescents trace, at either end 
 Meeting again in fresh rebound, and high 
 Above their travail reproachful howlings rise 
 Incessant at those who thwart their round. 

 And I, 
 Who felt my heart stung through with anguish, said, 
 "O Master, show me who these peoples be, 
 And if those tonsured shades that left we see 
 Held priestly office ere they joined the dead." 

 He answered, "These, who with such squintin...Read more of this...
by Alighieri, Dante


Lara

...ngues all loudness, and with eyes all mirth. 

II. 

The chief of Lara is return'd again: 
And why had Lara cross'd the bounding main? 
Left by his sire, too young such loss to know, 
Lord of himself; — that heritage of woe, 
That fearful empire which the human breast 
But holds to rob the heart within of rest! — 
With none to check, and few to point in time 
The thousand paths that slope the way to crime; 
Then, when he most required commandment, then 
Had Lara's daring boyh...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)

Paradise Lost: Book 05

...els under watch; and to his state, 
And to his message high, in honour rise; 
For on some message high they guessed him bound. 
Their glittering tents he passed, and now is come 
Into the blissful field, through groves of myrrh, 
And flowering odours, cassia, nard, and balm; 
A wilderness of sweets; for Nature here 
Wantoned as in her prime, and played at will 
Her virgin fancies pouring forth more sweet, 
Wild above rule or art, enormous bliss. 
Him through the spicy forest ...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Poem of Joys

...er! to walk ankle-deep—to race naked along the shore. 

O to realize space! 
The plenteousness of all—that there are no bounds;
To emerge, and be of the sky—of the sun and moon, and the flying clouds, as one with
 them.


O the joy of a manly self-hood! 
Personality—to be servile to none—to defer to none—not to any tyrant, known
 or
 unknown, 
To walk with erect carriage, a step springy and elastic, 
To look with calm gaze, or with a flashing eye,
To speak with a full and son...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt

Ravenna

...dull world is grateful for thy song;
Our nations do thee homage, - even she,
That cruel queen of vine-clad Tuscany,
Who bound with crown of thorns thy living brow,
Hath decked thine empty tomb with laurels now,
And begs in vain the ashes of her son.

O mightiest exile! all thy grief is done:
Thy soul walks now beside thy Beatrice;
Ravenna guards thine ashes: sleep in peace.


IV.


How lone this palace is; how grey the walls!
No minstrel now wakes echoes in these halls.
The b...Read more of this...
by Wilde, Oscar

Snow

...rs on
To impress men. You’ve got us so ashamed
Of being men we can’t look at a good fight
Between two boys and not feel bound to stop it.
Let the man freeze an ear or two, I say.—
He’s here. I leave him all to you. Go in
And save his life.— All right, come in, Meserve.
Sit down, sit down. How did you find the horses?”

“Fine, fine.”

“And ready for some more? My wife here
Says it won’t do. You’ve got to give it up.”

“Won’t you to please me? Please! If I say please?
Mr. Meser...Read more of this...
by Frost, Robert

Song of Myself

...same; 
A southerner soon as a northerner—a planter nonchalant and hospitable, down
 by the Oconee I live; 
A Yankee, bound by my own way, ready for trade, my joints the limberest joints
 on earth, and the sternest joints on earth; 
A Kentuckian, walking the vale of the Elkhorn, in my deer-skin leggings—a
 Louisianian or Georgian; 
A boatman over lakes or bays, or along coasts—a Hoosier, Badger, Buckeye;
At home on Kanadian snow-shoes, or up in the bush, or with fisher...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt

The Ballad of the White Horse

...line by line,
And weapons and a skin of wine,
And an old harp unstrung.

By the yawning tree in the twilight
The King unbound his sword,
Severed the harp of all his goods,
And there in the cool and soundless woods
Sounded a single chord.

Then laughed; and watched the finches flash,
The sullen flies in swarm,
And went unarmed over the hills,
With the harp upon his arm,


Until he came to the White Horse Vale
And saw across the plains,
In the twilight high and far and fell,
Li...Read more of this...
by Chesterton, G K

The Holy Grail

...d 
And crimson in the belt a strange device, 
A crimson grail within a silver beam; 
And saw the bright boy-knight, and bound it on him, 
Saying, "My knight, my love, my knight of heaven, 
O thou, my love, whose love is one with mine, 
I, maiden, round thee, maiden, bind my belt. 
Go forth, for thou shalt see what I have seen, 
And break through all, till one will crown thee king 
Far in the spiritual city:" and as she spake 
She sent the deathless passion in her eyes 
Throug...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord

The Idiot Boy

...o he'll gallop on for aye,  The bane of all that dread the devil.   I to the muses have been bound  These fourteen years, by strong indentures:  Oh gentle muses! let me tell  But half of what to him befel,  For sure he met with strange adventures.   Oh gentle muses! is this kind  Why will ye thus my suit repel?  Why of your further aid bereave me?  And can ye thus...Read more of this...
by Wordsworth, William

The Knights Tale

...and tolde thee my woe
As to my counsel, and my brother sworn
To farther me, as I have told beforn.
For which thou art y-bounden as a knight
To helpe me, if it lie in thy might,
Or elles art thou false, I dare well sayn,"

This Arcita full proudly spake again:
"Thou shalt," quoth he, "be rather* false than I, *sooner
And thou art false, I tell thee utterly;
For par amour I lov'd her first ere thou.
What wilt thou say? *thou wist it not right now* *even now thou
Whether she be ...Read more of this...
by Chaucer, Geoffrey

The Lady of the Lake

...o the cry,
     That thickened as the chase drew nigh;
     Then, as the headmost foes appeared,
     With one brave bound the copse he cleared,
     And, stretching forward free and far,
     Sought the wild heaths of Uam-Var.
     III.

     Yelled on the view the opening pack;
     Rock, glen, and cavern paid them back;
     To many a mingled sound at once
     The awakened mountain gave response.
     A hundred dogs bayed deep and strong,
     Clattered a hun...Read more of this...
by Scott, Sir Walter

The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

...by the five Senses. the chief inlets
of Soul in this age
Energy is the only life and is from the Body and Reason is
the bound or outward circumference of Energy.
Energy is Eternal Delight
_______________________________________

PLATE 5

Those who restrain desire, do so because theirs is weak enough
to be restrained; and the restrainer or reason usurps its place &
governs the unwilling.
And being restraind it by degrees becomes passive till it is
only the shadow of desire.
Th...Read more of this...
by Blake, William

The Triumph of Life

...rial Rome poured forth her living sea
From senatehouse & prison & theatre
When Freedom left those who upon the free
Had bound a yoke which soon they stooped to bear.
Nor wanted here the true similitude
Of a triumphal pageant, for where'er
The chariot rolled a captive multitude
Was driven; althose who had grown old in power
Or misery,--all who have their age subdued,
By action or by suffering, and whose hour
Was drained to its last sand in weal or woe,
So that the trunk surviv...Read more of this...
by Shelley, Percy Bysshe

The Vision of Judgment

...roar, what wretch that nearest us? what wretch 
Is that with eyebrows white and slanting brow? 
Listen! him yonder who, bound down supine, 
Shrinks yelling from that sword there, engine-hung. 
He too amongst my ancestors! I hate 
The despot, but the dastard I despise. 
Was he our countryman?' 
'Alas, O king! 
Iberia bore him, but the breed accurst 
Inclement winds blew blighting from north-east.' 
'He was a warrior then, nor fear'd the gods?' 
'Gebir, he fear'd the demons, no...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)

The White Cliffs

...the brim. 
When the sun shines on England, shafts of light 
Fall on far towers and hills and dark old trees, 
And hedge-bound meadows of a green as bright— 
As bright as is the blue of tropic seas. 
When the sun shines, it is as if the face 
Of some proud man relaxed his haughty stare, 
And smiled upon us with a sudden grace, 
Flattering because its coming is so rare. 

VII 
The English are frosty 
When you're no kith or kin 
Of theirs, but how they alter 
When once they take...Read more of this...
by Miller, Alice Duer

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