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Famous Carcase Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...rethren,
King and Atheling,
Each in his glory,
Went to his own in his own West-Saxonland,
Glad of the war. 

Many a carcase they left to be carrion,
Many a livid one, many a sallow-skin--
Left for the white-tail'd eagle to tear it, and
Left for the horny-nibb'd raven to rend it, and
Gave to the garbaging war-hawk to gorge it, and
That gray beast, the wolf of the weald. 

Never had huger
Slaughter of heroes
Slain by the sword-edge--
Such as old writers
Have writ of in ...Read more of this...



by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...ily quivering?
Bark an answer, Britain's raven! bark and blacken innumerable,
Blacken round the Roman carrion, make the carcase a skeleton,
Kite and kestrel, wolf and wolfkin, from the wilderness, wallow in it,
Till the face of Bel be brighten'd, Taranis be propitiated.
Lo their colony half-defended! lo their colony, Camulodune!
There the horde of Roman robbers mock at a barbarous adversary.
There the hive of Roman liars worship a gluttonous emperor-idiot.
Such is...Read more of this...

by Keats, John
...r thou hast brought their promise to an end.

 "In the wide sea there lives a forlorn wretch,
Doom'd with enfeebled carcase to outstretch
His loath'd existence through ten centuries,
And then to die alone. Who can devise
A total opposition? No one. So
One million times ocean must ebb and flow,
And he oppressed. Yet he shall not die,
These things accomplish'd:--If he utterly
Scans all the depths of magic, and expounds
The meanings of all motions, shapes, and so...Read more of this...

by Graves, Robert
...to grapple
With the all-powerful poppy … then a snore, 
A crash; the beast blocks up the corridor 
With monstrous hairy carcase, red and dun— 
Too late! for I’ve sped through. 
O Life! O Sun!...Read more of this...

by Chatterton, Thomas
...ace 
Defies the fury of the howling storm; 
And whilst the tempest whistles round his face, 
Exults to find his mantled carcase warm. 

Now rumbling coaches furious drive along, 
Full of the majesty of city dames, 
Whose jewels sparkling in the gaudy throng, 
Raise strange emotions and invidious flames. 

Now Merit, happy in the calm of place, 
To mortals as a highlander appears, 
And conscious of the excellence of lace, 
With spreading frogs and gleaming spangles gla...Read more of this...



by Bronte, Charlotte
...fering's deep-worn furrow. 

All moved; a strong returning blast,
The mass of waters raising,
Bore wave and passive carcase past,
While Gilbert yet was gazing.
Deep in her isle-conceiving womb,
It seemed the Ocean thundered,
And soon, by realms of rushing gloom,
Were seer and phantom sundered. 

Then swept some timbers from a wreck,
On following surges riding;
Then sea-weed, in the turbid rack
Uptorn, went slowly gliding. 
The horrid shade, by slow degrees,
A ...Read more of this...

by Chatterton, Thomas
...istant waste, 
I urg'd the furious flight with fatal haste; 
He fell, he died-- spent in the fiery toil, 
I strip'd his carcase of the furry spoil, 
And as the varied spangles met my eye, 
On this, I cried, shall my loved Cawna lie. 
The dusky midnight hung the skies in grey; 
Impell'd by love, I wing'd the airy way; 
In the deep valley and mossy plain, 
I sought my Cawna, but I sought in vain, 
The pallid shadows of the azure waves 
Had made my Cawna, and my children sla...Read more of this...

by Browning, Robert
...>

Higgledy piggledy, packed we lie,
Rats in a hamper, swine in a stye,
Wasps in a bottle, frogs in a sieve,
Worms in a carcase, fleas in a sleeve.
Hist! square shoulders, settle your thumbs
And buzz for the bishop---here he comes.

IV.

Bow, wow, wow---a bone for the dog!
I liken his Grace to an acorned hog.
What, a boy at his side, with the bloom of a lass,
To help and handle my lord's hour-glass!
Didst ever behold so lithe a chine?
His cheek hath laps like ...Read more of this...

by Philips, Katherine
...y of Fate,
Those ghastly goblins ratifies,
Which in these gloomy places wait.
On a curs'd tree the wind does move
A carcase which did once belong
To one that hang'd himself for love
Of a fair Nymph that did him wrong,
Who thought she saw his love and truth,
With one look would not save the youth.


10

But Heaven which judges equally,
And its own laws will still maintain,
Rewarded soon her cruelty
With a deserv'd and mighty pain:
About this squalid heap of bones,
Her ...Read more of this...

by Trumbull, John
...ackdoor of the old.
As when Æneas risk'd his life,
Like Orpheus vent'ring for his wife,
And bore in show his mortal carcase
Through realms of Erebus and Orcus,
Then in the happy fields Elysian,
Saw all his embryon sons in vision;
As shown by great Archangel, Michael,
Old Adam saw the world's whole sequel,
And from the mount's extended space,
The rising fortunes of his race:
So from this stage shalt thou behold
The war its coming scenes unfold,
Raised by my arm to meet thi...Read more of this...

by Holmes, Oliver Wendell
...st glistens-- down he goes!

And while he's under-- just about a minute--
I take advantage of the fact to say
His fishy carcase has no virtue in it
The gunning idiot's wortless hire to pay.

He knows you! "sportsmen" from suburban alleys,
Stretched under seaweed in the treacherous punt;
Knows every lazy, shiftless lout that sallies
Forth to waste powder-- as he says, to "hunt."

I watch you with a patient satisfaction,
Well pleased to discount your predestined luck;
T...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...eased, out of Heaven shalt look down and smile, 
 While, by thee raised, I ruin all my foes; 
 Death last, and with his carcase glut the grave; 
 Then, with the multitude of my redeemed, 
 Shall enter Heaven, long absent, and return, 
 Father, to see thy face, wherein no cloud 
 Of anger shall remain, but peace assured 
 And reconcilement: wrath shall be no more 
 Thenceforth, but in thy presence joy entire. 
 His words here ended; but his meek aspect 
 Silent yet spake, ...Read more of this...

by Service, Robert William
....
And wok myself from troubled sleep -
My home was safe, war was not near.

Oh, I am old, my step is frail,
My carcase bears a score of scars,
And as I climbed my homeward trail
Sadly I thought of other wars.
And when that agave leaf I saw
With vicious knife I made a blear
Of words clean-cut into the raw:
"Courage, my comrades, war is near!"

Who put hem there I do not know -
One of these rabid reds, no doubt;
But I for freedom struck my blow,
With bitter blade I...Read more of this...

by Gregory, Rg
...ns like a pear
in syrup (yearning to be consumed)

elsewhere at other times it broods
a sleeping lion its paw upon

the carcase of its prey - but look
at portland if you can by night

its outline traced by street lights
its harshnesses seduced to

shadows - then the island hangs
beneath the sky in still festivity

its truths intact its wounds of stone
find blessing in the herbal dark

nothing of this of course is meaningful
unless inside us all there rests

a portland ravaged...Read more of this...

by Schiller, Friedrich von
...ation,"
And brave--nay, court it as a flattery--
Each spectacled Philistine's battery.
Just as it suits some scurvy carcase
In which she hails an Aristarchus,
Ready to fly with kindred souls,
O'er blooming flowers or burning coals,
To fame or shame, to shrine or gallows,
Let him but lead--sublimely callous!
A Leipsic man--(confound the wretch!)
Has made her topographic sketch,
A kind of map, as of a town,
Each point minutely dotted down;
Scarce to myself I dare to hint
Wh...Read more of this...

by Verhaeren, Emile
...art;
Chewing with teeth that grind and crush, each part
Of that his future's body, limb by limb,
Till there is but a carcase left to him;
And shewing him, in coffins prisoned,
Or ever they be born, his longings dead.


The grave-digger yonder doth hear the knell,
More heavy yet, of the passing bell.
That up through the mourning horizons doth swell
What if the bells, with their haunting swing,
Would stop on a day that heart-breaking ring!
And the endless processio...Read more of this...

by Finch, Anne Kingsmill
...indeed, we to the Shambles go, 
Whilst I, whom none but Belzebub wou'd shear, 
Nor but his Dam wou'd milk, must for my Carcase fear. 

But tell me then, will it prevent thy Fate? 
The rude unpitying Farmer cries; 
If not, the Wretch who tastes his Suff'rings late, 
Not He, who thro' th'unhappy Future prys, 
Must of the Two be held most Fortunate and Wise....Read more of this...

by Robinson, Edwin Arlington
...(ROOSEVELT)

He turned aside to see the carcase of the lion: and behold, there was a swarm of bees and honey in the carcase of the lion … And the men of the city said unto him, What is sweeter than honey? and what is stronger than a lion?—Judges, 14.


The palms of Mammon have disowned 
The gift of our complacency; 
The bells of ages have intoned 
Again their rhythmic irony; 
And from the shad...Read more of this...

by Abercrombie, Lascelles
...ath wonderful fierce breeding. Common earth 
With us quickens to buzzing flights of wings 
As readily as a week-old carcase here 
Thrown in a sunny marsh. Why, we have wasps 
That make your hornets seem like pretty midges; 
And there be flies in India will drink 
Not only blood of bulls, tigers, and bears, 
But pierce the river-horses' creasy leather, 
Ay, worry crocodiles through their cuirasses 
And prick the metal fishes when they bask. 
You'll feel them soon, ...Read more of this...

by Thomas, R S
...and castles
With sham ghosts;
Mouldering quarries and mines;
And an impotent people,
Sick with inbreeding,
Worrying the carcase of an old song. To live in Wales is to be conscious
At dusk of the spilled blood
That went into the making of the wild sky,
Dyeing the immaculate rivers
In all their courses.
It is to be aware,
Above the noisy tractor
And hum of the machine
Of strife in the strung woods,
Vibrant with sped arrows.
You cannot live in the present,
At least n...Read more of this...

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