Famous Carve Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Carve poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous carve poems. These examples illustrate what a famous carve poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Amy Lowell
Dearest, forgive that with my clumsy touch
I broke and bruised your rose.
I hardly could suppose
It were a thing so fragile that my clutch
Could kill it, thus.
It stood so proudly up upon its stem,
I knew no thought of fear,
And coming very near
Fell, overbalanced, to your garment's hem,
Tearing it down.
Now, stooping, I upgather, one by one,
The crimson petals, all
Outspread about my...Read more of this...
by
Anne Kingsmill Finch
A Fond Athenian Mother brought
A Sculptor to indulge her Thought,
And carve her Only Son;
Who to such strange perfection wrought,
That every Eye the Statue caught
Nor ought was left undone.
A youthful Smile adorn'd the Face,
The polish gave that Smile a Grace;
And through the Marble reigns
(Which well the Artist's Skill cou'd trace,
And...Read more of this...
by
Robert Browning
Vanity, saith the preacher, vanity!
Draw round my bed: is Anselm keeping back?
Nephews -- sons mine -- ah God, I know not! Well --
She, men would have to be your mother once,
Old Gandolf envied me, so fair she was!
What's done is done, and she is dead beside,
Dead long ago, and I am Bishop since,
And as she died so must we...Read more of this...
by
Thomas Edward Brown
As I was carving images from clouds,
And tinting them with soft ethereal dyes
Pressed from the pulp of dreams, one comes, and cries:--
"Forbear!" and all my heaven with gloom enshrouds.
"Forbear!" Thou hast no tools wherewith to essay
The delicate waves of that elusive grain:
Wouldst have due recompense of vulgar pain?
The potter's wheel for thee, and some coarse clay!
"So work, if work...Read more of this...
by
Thomas Carew
Can we not force from widow'd poetry,
Now thou art dead (great Donne) one elegy
To crown thy hearse? Why yet dare we not trust,
Though with unkneaded dough-bak'd prose, thy dust,
Such as th' unscissor'd churchman from the flower
Of fading rhetoric, short-liv'd as his hour,
Dry as the sand that measures it, should lay
Upon thy ashes,...Read more of this...
by
Andrew Marvell
Holland, that scarce deserves the name of Land,
As but th'Off-scouring of the Brittish Sand;
And so much Earth as was contributed
By English Pilots when they heav'd the Lead;
Or what by th' Oceans slow alluvion fell,
Of shipwrackt Cockle and the Muscle-shell;
This indigested vomit of the Sea
Fell to the Dutch by just Propriety.
Glad then, as Miners that have found the Oar,
They with...Read more of this...
by
Kahlil Gibran
Then a lawyer said, "But what of our Laws, master?"
And he answered:
You delight in laying down laws,
Yet you delight more in breaking them.
Like children playing by the ocean who build sand-towers with constancy and then destroy them with laughter.
But while you build your sand-towers the ocean brings more sand to the shore,
And when...Read more of this...
by
William Shakespeare
Devouring Time, blunt thou the lion's paws,
And make the earth devour her own sweet brood;
Pluck the keen teeth from the fierce tiger's jaws,
And burn the long-liv'd Phoenix in her blood;
Make glad and sorry seasons as thou fleets,
And do whate'er thou wilt, swift-footed Time,
To the wide world and all her fading sweets;
But I forbid thee one more heinous crime:
O, carve...Read more of this...
by
Charles Baudelaire
When, by decree of the supreme power,
The Poet appears in this annoyed world,
His mother, blasphemous out of horror
At God's pity, cries out with fists curled:
"Ah! I'd rather You'd will me a snake's skin
Than to keep feeding this monstrous slur!
I curse that night's ephemera are sins
To make my womb atone for pleasure.
"Since You have chosen me from all the brides
To...Read more of this...
by
Hilda Doolittle
From citron-bower be her bed,
cut from branch of tree a-flower,
fashioned for her maidenhead.
From Lydian apples, sweet of hue,
cut the width of board and lathe,
carve the feet from myrtle-wood.
Let the palings of her bed
be quince and box-wood overlaid
with the scented bark of yew.
That all the wood in blossoming,
may calm her heart and cool...Read more of this...
by
Laure-Anne Bosselaar
I sold her bed for a song.
A song of yearning like an orphan’s.
Or the one knives carve into bread.
But the un-broken bread
song too. For the song that rivers
sing to the ferryman’s oars. With
that dread in it.
For a threadbare tune: garroted,
chest-choked, cheap. A sparrow’s,
beggar’s, a foghorn’s call....Read more of this...
by
John Davidson
In anguish we uplift
A new unhallowed song:
The race is to the swift;
The battle to the strong.
Of old it was ordained
That we, in packs like curs,
Some thirty million trained
And licensed murderers,
In crime should live and act,
If cunning folk say sooth
Who flay the naked fact
And carve the heart of truth....Read more of this...
by
Edgar Lee Masters
Observe the clasped hands!
Are they hands of farewell or greeting,
Hands that I helped or hands that helped me?
Would it not be well to carve a hand
With an inverted thumb, like Elagabalus?
And yonder is a broken chain,
The weakest-link idea perhaps --
But what was it?
And lambs, some lying down,
Others standing, as if listening to the shepherd --
Others bearing a cross, one...Read more of this...
by
John Wilmot
Vulcan, contrive me such a cup
As Nestor used of old;
Show all thy skill to trim it up,
Damask it round with gold.
Make it so large that, filled with sack
Up to the swelling brim,
Vast toasts on the delicious lake
Like ships at sea may swim.
Engrave not battle on its cheek:
With war I've nought to do;
I'm none of those that took Maastricht,
Nor Yarmouth...Read more of this...
by
Carl Sandburg
The rear axles hold the kick of twenty Missouri jackasses.
It is in the records of the patent office and the ads there is twenty horse power pull here.
The farm boy says hello to you instead of twenty mules—he sings to you instead of ten span of mules.
A bucket of oil and a can of grease is your hay and...Read more of this...
by
Thomas Hardy
The church flings forth a battled shade
Over the moon-blanched sward:
The church; my gift; whereto I paid
My all in hand and hoard;
Lavished my gains
With stintless pains
To glorify the Lord.
I squared the broad foundations in
Of ashlared masonry;
I moulded mullions thick and thin,
Hewed fillet and ogee;
I circleted
Each sculptured head
With...Read more of this...
by
William Shakespeare
Devouring Time, blunt thou the lion's paws,
And make the earth devour her own sweet brood;
Pluck the keen teeth from the fierce tiger's jaws,
And burn the long-liv'd Phoenix in her blood;
Make glad and sorry seasons as thou fleets,
And do whate'er thou wilt, swift-footed Time,
To the wide world and all her fading sweets;
But I forbid thee one more heinous crime:
O, carve...Read more of this...
by
James Henry Leigh Hunt
Robin and his merry men
: Lived just like the birds;
They had almost as many tracks as thoughts,
: And whistles and songs as words.
Up they were with the earliest sign
Of the sun's up-looking eye;
But not an archer breakfasted
Till he twinkled from the sky.
All the morning they were wont
To fly their grey-goose quills
At butts, or wands, or trees, or twigs,
Till theirs...Read more of this...
by
Rg Gregory
fog owns the town
in its palm
lawyers nibble each other's fingers
the churches take their cut
at the fat lunch
the men of business
carve themselves prayers and praises
the fog comes to my window
and lisping in says
i've drained the town of you
and you of the town
come outside
and let me smother you
to the border
no person calls
and only the headless
watch and...Read more of this...
by
Sylvia Plath
What is this, behind this veil, is it ugly, is it beautiful?
It is shimmering, has it breasts, has it edges?
I am sure it is unique, I am sure it is what I want.
When I am quiet at my cooking I feel it looking, I feel it thinking
'Is this the one I am too appear for,
Is this the elect one,...Read more of this...
by
Philip Levine
Remember how unimportant
they seemed, growing loosely
in the open fields we crossed
on the way to school. We
would carve wooden swords
and slash at the luscious trunks
until the white milk started
and then flowed. Then we'd
go on to the long day
after day of the History of History
or the tables of numbers and order...Read more of this...
by
George William Russell
I FAIN would leave the tender songs
I sang to you of old,
Thinking the oft-sung beauty wrongs
The magic never told.
And touch no more the thoughts, the moods,
That win the easy praise;
But venture in the untrodden woods
To carve the future ways.
Though far or strange or cold appear
The shadowy things I tell,
Within the heart the hidden seer
...Read more of this...
by
Conrad Aiken
See, as the carver carves a rose,
A wing, a toad, a serpent's eye,
In cruel granite, to disclose
The soft things that in hardness lie,
So this one, taking up his heart,
Which time and change had made a stone,
Carved out of it with dolorous art,
Laboring yearlong and alone,
The thing there hidden—rose, toad, wing?
A...Read more of this...
by
Anne Sexton
What can I do with this bayonet?
Make a rose bush of it?
Poke it into the moon?
Shave my legs with its silver?
Spear a goldfish?
No. No.
It was made
in my dream
for you.
My eyes were closed.
I was curled fetally
and yet I held a bayonet
that was for the earth of your stomach.
The belly button singing its puzzle.
The intestines winding like alpine roads.
It was made...Read more of this...
by
Charles Baudelaire
MADONNA, mistress, I would build for thee
An altar deep in the sad soul of me;
And in the darkest corner of my heart,
From mortal hopes and mocking eyes apart,
Carve of enamelled blue and gold a shrine
For thee to stand erect in, Image divine!
And with a mighty Crown thou shalt be crowned
Wrought of the...Read more of this...
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