Famous Branching Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Alastor: or the Spirit of Solitude

...bdued by its own pathos; her fair hands
Were bare alone, sweeping from some strange harp
Strange symphony, and in their branching veins
The eloquent blood told an ineffable tale.
The beating of her heart was heard to fill
The pauses of her music, and her breath 
Tumultuously accorded with those fits
Of intermitted song. Sudden she rose,
As if her heart impatiently endured
Its bursting burden; at the sound he turned,
And saw by the warm light of their own life
Her glowing limb...Read more of this...
by Shelley, Percy Bysshe


American Feuillage

...river navigation, 
The seven millions of distinct families, and the same number of dwellings—Always
 these,
 and
 more, branching forth into numberless branches; 
Always the free range and diversity! always the continent of Democracy! 
Always the prairies, pastures, forests, vast cities, travelers, Kanada, the snows;
Always these compact lands—lands tied at the hips with the belt stringing the huge
 oval
 lakes; 
Always the West, with strong native persons—the increasing dens...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt

Arcades

...meld green
Where no print of step hath been,
Follow me as I sing,
And touch the warbled string.
Under the shady roof
Of branching Elm Star-proof,
Follow me, 
I will bring you where she sits
Clad in splendor as befits
Her deity.
Such a rural Queen
All Arcadia hath not seen.


3. SONG.

Nymphs and Shepherds dance no more
By sandy Ladons Lillied banks.
On old Lycaeus or Cyllene hoar,
Trip no more in twilight ranks,
Though Erynanth your loss deplore, 
A better soyl shall give ye ...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

As I Sat Alone by Blue Ontario's Shores

...e variety of ourselves, 
We are the most beautiful to ourselves, and in ourselves; 
We stand self-pois’d in the middle, branching thence over the world; 
From Missouri, Nebraska, or Kansas, laughing attacks to scorn. 

Nothing is sinful to us outside of ourselves,
Whatever appears, whatever does not appear, we are beautiful or sinful in ourselves only. 

(O mother! O sisters dear! 
If we are lost, no victor else has destroy’d us; 
It is by ourselves we go down to eternal nigh...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt

Chopin

.... Bright eyebeams meet, 
Gay laughter echoes from the vaulted roof. 
Warm perfumes rise; the soft unflickering glow 
Of branching lights sets off the changeful charms 
Of glancing gems, rich stuffs, the dazzling snow 
Of necks unkerchieft, and bare, clinging arms. 
Hark to the music! How beneath the strain 
Of reckless revelry, vibrates and sobs 
One fundamental chord of constant pain, 
The pulse-beat of the poet's heart that throbs. 
So yearns, though all the dancing waves r...Read more of this...
by Lazarus, Emma


Endimion and Phoebe (excerpts)

....
Upon this mount there stood a stately grove,
Whose reaching arms to clip the welkin strove,
Of tufted cedars, and the branching pine,
Whose bushy tops themselves do so entwine,
As seem'd, when Nature first this work begun,
She then conspir'd against the piercing sun;
Under whose covert (thus divinely made)
Ph{oe}bus' green laurel flourish'd in the shade,
Fair Venus' myrtle, Mars his warlike fir,
Minerva's olive, and the weeping myrrh,
The patient palm, which thrives in spit...Read more of this...
by Drayton, Michael

From Arcades

...en 
 Where no print of step hath been, 
 Follow me as I sing, 
 And touch the warbled string. 
Under the shady roof 
Of branching Elm Star-proof, 
 Follow me, 
I will bring you where she sits 
Clad in splendor as befits 
 Her deity. 
Such a rural Queen 
All Arcadia hath not seen. 

313. From 'Comus' 
i 

THE Star that bids the Shepherd fold, 
Now the top of Heav'n doth hold, 
And the gilded Car of Day, 
His glowing Axle doth allay 
In the steep Atlantick stream, 
And the slop...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

from Asphodel That Greeny Flower

...Of asphodel, that greeny flower,
 like a buttercup
 upon its branching stem-
save that it's green and wooden-
 I come, my sweet,
 to sing to you.
We lived long together
 a life filled,
 if you will,
with flowers. So that
 I was cheered
 when I came first to know
that there were flowers also
 in hell.
 Today
I'm filled with the fading memory of those flowers
 that we both loved,
 even to this poor
colorless thing-
 I s...Read more of this...
by Williams, William Carlos (WCW)

Journeys End

...finches sing.
Or there maybe 'tis cloudless night,
And swaying branches bear
The Elven-stars as jewels white
Amid their branching hair.

Though here at journey's end I lie
In darkness buried deep,
Beyond all towers strong and high,
Beyond all mountains steep,
Above all shadows rides the Sun
And Stars for ever dwell:
I will not say the Day is done,
Nor bid the Stars farewell....Read more of this...
by Tolkien, J R R

Paradise Lost: Book 04

...hairy sides 
Access denied; and overhead upgrew 
 Insuperable height of loftiest shade, 
 Cedar, and pine, and fir, and branching palm, 
 A sylvan scene, and, as the ranks ascend, 
 Shade above shade, a woody theatre 
 Of stateliest view. Yet higher than their tops 
 The verdurous wall of Paradise upsprung; 

Which to our general sire gave prospect large 
Into his nether empire neighbouring round. 
And higher than that wall a circling row 
Of goodliest trees, loaden with fair...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Paradise Lost: Book 06

...s Saints, who silent stood 
Eye-witnesses of his almighty acts, 
With jubilee advanced; and, as they went, 
Shaded with branching palm, each Order bright, 
Sung triumph, and him sung victorious King, 
Son, Heir, and Lord, to him dominion given, 
Worthiest to reign: He, celebrated, rode 
Triumphant through mid Heaven, into the courts 
And temple of his Mighty Father throned 
On high; who into glory him received, 
Where now he sits at the right hand of bliss. 
Thus, measuring t...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Paradise Lost: Book 07

...r, as the mole 
Rising, the crumbled earth above them threw 
In hillocks: The swift stag from under ground 
Bore up his branching head: Scarce from his mould 
Behemoth biggest born of earth upheaved 
His vastness: Fleeced the flocks and bleating rose, 
As plants: Ambiguous between sea and land 
The river-horse, and scaly crocodile. 
At once came forth whatever creeps the ground, 
Insect or worm: those waved their limber fans 
For wings, and smallest lineaments exact 
In all t...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Paradise Lost: Book 09

...e; not that kind for fruit renowned, 
But such as at this day, to Indians known, 
In Malabar or Decan spreads her arms 
Branching so broad and long, that in the ground 
The bended twigs take root, and daughters grow 
About the mother tree, a pillared shade 
High over-arched, and echoing walks between: 
There oft the Indian herdsman, shunning heat, 
Shelters in cool, and tends his pasturing herds 
At loop-holes cut through thickest shade: Those leaves 
They gathered, broad as ...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Paradise Regained: The Fourth Book

...ie jaunt, though hurried sore,
Hungry and cold, betook him to his rest,
Wherever, under some concourse of shades,
Whose branching arms thick intertwined might shield
From dews and damps of night his sheltered head;
But, sheltered, slept in vain; for at his head
The Tempter watched, and soon with ugly dreams
Disturbed his sleep. And either tropic now
'Gan thunder, and both ends of heaven; the clouds 
From many a horrid rift abortive poured
Fierce rain with lightning mixed, wat...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Rosalind and Helen: a Modern Eclogue

...ble floor beneath her feet, 
And she brought crowns of sea-buds white
Whose odor is so sweet and faint,
And weeds, like branching chrysolite,
Woven in devices fine and quaint;
And tears from her brown eyes did stain
The altar; need but look upon
That dying statue, fair and wan,
If tears should cease, to weep again;
And rare Arabian odors came,
Through the myrtle copses, steaming thence 
From the hissing frankincense,
Whose smoke, wool-white as ocean foam,
Hung in dense flocks...Read more of this...
by Shelley, Percy Bysshe

South of my Days

...e- 
clean, lean, hungry country. The creek's leaf-silenced, 
willow choked, the slope a tangle of medlar and crabapple 
branching over and under, blotched with a green lichen; 
and the old cottage lurches in for shelter. 

O cold the black-frost night. the walls draw in to the warmth 
and the old roof cracks its joints; the slung kettle 
hisses a leak on the fire. Hardly to be believed that summer 
will turn up again some day in a wave of rambler-roses, 
thrust it's hot face ...Read more of this...
by Wright, Judith

Starting from Paumanok

...h, 
Elements, breeds, adjustments, turbulent, quick, and audacious;
A world primal again—Vistas of glory, incessant and branching; 
A new race, dominating previous ones, and grander far—with new contests, 
New politics, new literatures and religions, new inventions and arts. 

These! my voice announcing—I will sleep no more, but arise; 
You oceans that have been calm within me! how I feel you, fathomless, stirring,
 preparing unprecedented waves and storms.

19See! steamers s...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt

The Mermaid

...n the purple twilights under the sea;
But the king of them all would carry me,
Woo me, and win me, and marry me,
In the branching jaspers under the sea.
Then all the dry-pied things that be
In the hueless mosses under the sea
Would curl round my silver feet silently,
All looking up for the love of me.
And if I should carol aloud, from aloft
All things that are forked, and horned, and soft
Would lean out from the hollow sphere of the sea,
All looking down for the love of me....Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord

The Pangolin

...indly manner, time in which to pay a debt,
 the cure for sins, a graceful use
 of what are yet
 approved stone mullions branching out across
 the perpendiculars? A sailboat

was the first machine. Pangolins, made
 for moving quietly also, are models of exactness,
on four legs; on hind feet plantigrade,
 with certain postures of a man. Beneath sun and moon, man slaving
 to make his life more sweet, leaves half the flowers worth having,
 needing to choose wisely how to use his ...Read more of this...
by Moore, Marianne

The Witch Of Atlas

...gan
To turn the light and dew by inward power
To its own substance: woven tracery ran
Of light firm texture, ribbed and branching, o'er
The solid rind, like a leaf's veined fan,--
Of which Love scooped this boat, and with soft motion
Piloted it round the circumfluous ocean.

This boat she moored upon her fount, and lit
A living spirit within all its frame,
Breathing the soul of swiftness into it.
Couched on the fountain--like a panther tame
(One of the twain at Evan's feet th...Read more of this...
by Shelley, Percy Bysshe

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