Famous Build Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Build poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous build poems. These examples illustrate what a famous build poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Amy Lowell
How long shall I tarnish the mirror of life,
A spatter of rust on its polished steel!
The seasons reel
Like a goaded wheel.
Half-numb, half-maddened, my days are strife.
The night is sliding towards the dawn,
And upturned hills crouch at autumn's knees.
A torn moon flees
Through the hemlock trees,
The hours have gnawed it to feed their spawn.
Pursuing and jeering the misshapen thing
A rabble of...Read more of this...
by
George Herbert
Oh King of grief! (a title strange, yet true,
To thee of all kings only due)
Oh King of wounds! how shall I grieve for thee,
Who in all grief preventest me?
Shall I weep blood? why thou has wept such store
That all thy body was one door.
Shall I be scourged, flouted, boxed, sold?
'Tis but to tell the...Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
These hypocrites who build on saintly show,
Treating the body as the spirit's foe,
If they will shut their mouths with lime, like jars,
My jar of grape-juice I will then forego....Read more of this...
by
John Greenleaf Whittier
"Tie stille, barn min!
Imorgen kommer Fin,
Fa'er din,
Og gi'er dich Esbern Snares öine og hjerte at lege med!"
Zealand Rhyme.
"BUILD at Kallundborg by the sea
A church as stately as church may be,
And there shalt thou wed my daughter fair,"
Said the Lord of Nesvek to Esbern Snare.
And the Baron laughed. But Esbern said,
"Though I lose my soul, I will Helva wed!"
And...Read more of this...
by
Isaac Watts
God's tender care of his church.
Isa. 49:13ff.
Now shall my inward joys arise,
And burst into a song;
Almighty love inspires my heart,
And pleasure tunes my tongue.
God on his thirsty Zion hill
Some mercy drops has thrown,
And solemn oaths have bound his love
To shower salvation down.
Why do we then indulge our fears,
Suspicions, and complaints?
Is he a God, and shall his grace
Grow weary...Read more of this...
by
Allen Ginsberg
Now mind is clear
as a cloudless sky.
Time then to make a
home in wilderness.
What have I done but
wander with my eyes
in the trees? So I
will build: wife,
family, and seek
for neighbors.
Or I
perish of lonesomeness
or want of food or
lightning or the bear
(must tame the hart
and wear the bear).
And maybe make an image
of my wandering, a little
image—shrine by the
roadside to signify
to...Read more of this...
by
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
When we met first and loved, I did not build
Upon the event with marble. Could it mean
To last, a love set pendulous between
Sorrow and sorrow? Nay, I rather thrilled,
Distrusting every light that seemed to gild
The onward path, and feared to overlean
A finger even. And, though I have grown serene
And strong since then, I think that God has willed
A still...Read more of this...
by
Edna St. Vincent Millay
Read by the poet at The Public Ceremonial of The Naional Institute
of Arts and Letters at Carnegie Hall, New York, January 18th, 1941.
Great Muse, that from this hall absent for long
Hast never been,
Great Muse of Song,
Colossal Muse of mighty Melody,
Vocal Calliope,
With thine august and contrapuntal brow
And thy vast throat builded for Harmony,
For the strict monumental pure design,
And...Read more of this...
by
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Oft have I seen at some cathedral door
.
A laborer, pausing in the dust and heat,
.
Lay down his burden, and with reverent feet
.
Enter, and cross himself, and on the floor
.
Kneel to repeat his paternoster o'er;
.
Far off the noises of the world retreat;
.
The loud vociferations of the street
.
Become an undistinguishable roar.
.
So, as I...Read more of this...
by
William Butler Yeats
'What do you make so fair and bright?'
'I make the cloak of Sorrow:
O lovely to see in all men's sight
Shall be the cloak of Sorrow,
In all men's sight.'
'What do you build with sails for flight?'
'I build a boat for Sorrow:
O swift on the seas all day and night
Saileth the rover Sorrow,
All day and night.'
What do you weave with wool...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
Myself was formed -- a Carpenter --
An unpretending time
My Plane -- and I, together wrought
Before a Builder came --
To measure our attainments --
Had we the Art of Boards
Sufficiently developed -- He'd hire us
At Halves --
My Tools took Human -- Faces --
The Bench, where we had toiled --
Against the Man -- persuaded --
We -- Temples build -- I said --...Read more of this...
by
William Wordsworth
I
There was a roaring in the wind all night;
The rain came heavily and fell in floods;
But now the sun is rising calm and bright;
The birds are singing in the distant woods;
Over his own sweet voice the Stock-dove broods;
The Jay makes answer as the Magpie chatters;
And all the air is filled with pleasant...Read more of this...
by
Victor Hugo
("Lorsque avec ses enfants Cain se fût enfui.")
{Bk. II}
Then, with his children, clothed in skins of brutes,
Dishevelled, livid, rushing through the storm,
Cain fled before Jehovah. As night fell
The dark man reached a mount in a great plain,
And his tired wife and his sons, out of breath,...Read more of this...
by
Kenn Nesbitt
Our teacher likes Minecraft.
She plays it all day.
She tells us to study
so she can go play.
She’ll dig in her mine,
going deeper and deeper,
then fight off a skeleton,
zombie, or creeper.
She’ll engineer buildings
from dirt, wood, and stone,
then go out exploring
the landscape alone.
She’ll build and collect and
she’ll run, jump, and swing.
There’s only one problem…
we don’t learn a thing.
--Kenn Nesbitt
Copyright © Kenn Nesbitt...Read more of this...
by
John Masefield
Out of the earth to rest or range
Perpetual in perpetual change,
The unknown passing through the strange.
Water and saltness held together
To tread the dust and stand the weather,
And plough the field and stretch the tether,
To pass the wine-cup and be witty,
Water the sands and build the city,
Slaughter like devils and have pity,
Be red with rage and pale with lust,
Make beauty...Read more of this...
by
James Wright
The night's drifts
Pile up below me and behind my back,
Slide down the hill, rise again, and build
Eerie little dunes on the roof of the house.
In the valley below me,
Miles between me and the town of St.-Jeannet,
The road lamps glow.
They are so cold, they might as well be dark.
Trucks and cars
Cough and drone down there between the golden
Coffins of greenhouses,...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
The Judge is like the Owl --
I've heard my Father tell --
And Owls do build in Oaks --
So here's an Amber Sill --
That slanted in my Path --
When going to the Barn --
And if it serve You for a House --
Itself is not in vain --
About the price -- 'tis small --
I only ask a Tune
At Midnight -- Let...Read more of this...
by
Claude McKay
O lonely heart so timid of approach,
Like the shy tropic flower that shuts its lips
To the faint touch of tender finger tips:
What is your word? What question would you broach?
Your lustrous-warm eyes are too sadly kind
To mask the meaning of your dreamy tale,
Your guarded life too exquisitely frail
Against the daggers of my...Read more of this...
by
Pam Ayres
Don’t lay me in some gloomy churchyard shaded by a wall
Where the dust of ancient bones has spread a dryness over all,
Lay me in some leafy loam where, sheltered from the cold
Little seeds investigate and tender leaves unfold.
There kindly and affectionately, plant a native tree
To grow resplendent before God and hold some part of me.
The roots will not disturb me...Read more of this...
by
Helen Hunt Jackson
O Winter! frozen pulse and heart of fire,
What loss is theirs who from thy kingdom turn
Dismayed, and think thy snow a sculptured urn
Of death! Far sooner in midsummer tire
The streams than under ice. June could not hire
Her roses to forego the strength they learn
In sleeping on thy breast. No fires can burn
The...Read more of this...
by
Richard Hugo
for Sydney Pettit
The lines are keen against today's bad sky
about to rain. We're white and understand
why Indians sold butter for the funds
to build this church. Four hens and a rooster
huddle on the porch. We are dark
and know why no one climbed to pray. The priest
who did his best to imitate a bell
watched the river, full of spirits, coil
below the...Read more of this...
by
Walt Whitman
I MET a Seer,
Passing the hues and objects of the world,
The fields of art and learning, pleasure, sense, To glean Eidólons.
Put in thy chants, said he,
No more the puzzling hour, nor day—nor segments, parts, put in,
Put first before the rest, as light for all, and entrance-song of all, That of
Eidólons.
Ever the...Read more of this...
by
Rabindranath Tagore
Ah me, why did they build my
house by the road to the market
town?
They moor their laden boats near
my trees.
They come and go and wander at
their will.
I sit and watch them; my time
wears on.
Turn them away I cannot. And
thus my days pass by.
Night and day their steps sound
by my door.
Vainly I cry, "I do not know
you."
Some of them are known...Read more of this...
by
Rudyard Kipling
Men make them fires on the hearth
Each under his roof-tree,
And the Four Winds that rule the earth
They blow the smoke to me.
Across the high hills and the sea
And all the changeful skies,
The Four Winds blow the smoke to me
Till the tears are in my eyes.
Until the tears are in my eyes.
And my heart is...Read more of this...
by
Anne Killigrew
AS those who pass the Alps do say,
The Rocks which first oppose their way,
And so amazing-High do show,
By fresh Accents appear but low,
And when they come unto the last,
They scorn the dwarfish Hills th'ave past.
So though my Muse at her first flight,
Thought she had chose the greatest height,
And (imp'd with...Read more of this...
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