Famous Catching Poems by Famous Poets

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

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A Lovers Complaint

...advantage still did wake and sleep:
To make the weeper laugh, the laugher weep,
He had the dialect and different skill,
Catching all passions in his craft of will:

'That he did in the general bosom reign
Of young, of old; and sexes both enchanted,
To dwell with him in thoughts, or to remain
In personal duty, following where he haunted:
Consents bewitch'd, ere he desire, have granted;
And dialogued for him what he would say,
Ask'd their own wills, and made their wills obey.

...Read more of this...
by Shakespeare, William


Beowulf (Modern English)

...the wicked fire-drake,
mindful of the feud, towards the brave man,
when it found an opening, heated
and battle-grim, catching him with bitter fangs
right through the neck. Beowulf became bloody,
with fatal dripping—battle-sweat welled out in waves. (ll. 2688-93)

 

XXXVII.

Then the noble by his side as I have heard
revealed his courage at his nation’s king’s
time of need, his boldness and skill
as was natural to him. He did not heed
the dragon’s head, even th...Read more of this...
by Anonymous,

from Venus and Adonis

...s fury was assuag'd.

His testy master goeth about to take him;
When lo! the unback'd breeder, full of fear,
Jealous of catching, swiftly doth forsake him,
With her the horse, and left Adonis there.
As they were mad, unto the wood they hie them,
Out-stripping crows that strive to over-fly them.

I prophesy they death, my living sorrow,
If thou encounter with the boar to-morrow.

"But if thou needs wilt hunt, be rul'd by me;
Uncouple at the timorous flying hare,
Or at the fox ...Read more of this...
by Shakespeare, William

Gioconda And Si-Ya-U

...surrounded them.
And in the cruel English language
 stained red with the blood
 of yellow Asia
 the crown yelled:
"He's catching up,
he's catching up,
 he caught-
 catch him!"

Just three steps away from Gioconda's arms
Chiang Kai-shek's executioner caught up.
His sword
 flashed...
Thud of cut flesh and bone.
Like a yellow sun drenched in blood
SI-YA-U's head
 rolled at her feet...
And this on a death day
Gioconda of Florence lost in Shanghai
her smile more famous than Floren...Read more of this...
by Hikmet, Nazim

Goblin Market

...the bank was steep.

And said the hour was early still,
The dew not fallen, the wind not chill:
Listening ever, but not catching
The customary cry,
"Come buy, come buy,"
With its iterated jingle
Of sugar-baited words:
Not for all her watching
Once discerning even one goblin
Racing, whisking, tumbling, hobbling;
Let alone the herds
That used to tramp along the glen,
In groups or single,
Of brisk fruit-merchant men.

Till Lizzie urged, "O Laura, come,
I hear the fruit-call, but...Read more of this...
by Rossetti, Christina


Let Me Die a Youngmans Death

...ted tommyguns burst in
and give me a short back and insides

Or when I'm 104
and banned from the Cavern
may my mistress
catching me in bed with her daughter
and fearing for her son
cut me up into little pieces
and throw away every piece but one

Let me die a youngman's death
not a free from sin tiptoe in
candle wax and waning death
not a curtains drawn by angels borne
'what a nice way to go' death...Read more of this...
by McGough, Roger

Marginalia

...bout the pains of copying,
a bird signing near their window,
or the sunlight that illuminated their page-
anonymous men catching a ride into the future
on a vessel more lasting than themselves.

And you have not read Joshua Reynolds,
they say, until you have read him
enwreathed with Blake's furious scribbling.

Yet the one I think of most often,
the one that dangles from me like a locket,
was written in the copy of Catcher in the Rye
I borrowed from the local library
one slow...Read more of this...
by Collins, Billy

May

...resh turnd soil
And if unwatchd his crops to spoil
Oft cackling from the prison yard
To peck about the houseclose sward
Catching at butterflys and things
Ere they have time to try their wings
The cattle feels the breath of may
And kick and toss their heads in play
The ass beneath his bags of sand
Oft jerks the string from leaders hand
And on the road will eager stoop
To pick the sprouting thistle up
Oft answering on his weary way
Some distant neighbours sobbing bray
Dining th...Read more of this...
by Clare, John

On the Way

...e was never a long pause 
For caution between doing and undoing.

BURR

Go on, sir; my attention is a trap 
Set for the catching of all compliments 
To Monticello, and all else abroad 
That has a name or an identity. 

HAMILTON

I leave to you the names—there are too many;
Yet one there is to sift and hold apart, 
As now I see. There comes at last a glimmer 
That is not always clouded, or too late. 
But I was near and young, and had the reins 
To play with while he manned a t...Read more of this...
by Robinson, Edwin Arlington

Part 6 of Trout Fishing in America

...I did not look like one. I

was only a kid covered with fishing tackle, but in some

strange way by going in there and catching a few trout, I

kept the telephones in service. I was an asset to society.

 It was pleasant work, but at times it made me uneasy.

It could grow dark in there instantly when there were some

clouds in the sky and they worked their way onto the sun.

Then you almost needed candles to fish by, and foxfire in

your reflexes.

 Once I was in there when...Read more of this...
by Brautigan, Richard

Pickthorn Manor

...me evil
Spirit were seeing. "What means this uncivil
Greeting, Dear Heart?" He saw her 
senses blur.

XLVII
Swaying and catching at the seat, she tried To 
speak, but only gurgled in her throat.
At last, straining to hold herself, she cried To him for pity, 
and her strange words smote
A coldness through him, for she begged Gervase To leave her, 
'twas too much a second time.
Gervase must go, always Gervase, her mind Repeated 
like a rhyme
This name he did not know. In sad am...Read more of this...
by Lowell, Amy

Proud Music of The Storm

...ntian dance, the performers wounding each other;
I see the Roman youth, to the shrill sound of flageolets, throwing and catching their
 weapons, 
As they fall on their knees, and rise again. 

I hear from the Mussulman mosque the muezzin calling; 
I see the worshippers within, (nor form, nor sermon, argument, nor word, 
But silent, strange, devout—rais’d, glowing heads—extatic faces.)

11
I hear the Egyptian harp of many strings, 
The primitive chants of the Nile boatmen; 
Th...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt

Pussy-cat

...Pussy-cat
What are vices?
Catching rats
And eating mices!...Read more of this...
by Milligan, Spike

The Alien Boy

...din of mingling sounds that rose
From the wild scene of clamour.
Down the steep
Saint HUBRET hurried, boldly venturous,
Catching the slimy weeds, from point to point,
And unappall'd by peril. At the foot
Of the rude rock, the fainting mariner
Seiz'd on his outstretch'd arm; impatient, wild,
With transport exquisite ! But ere they heard
The blest exchange of sounds articulate,
A furious billow, rolling on the steep,
Engulph'd them in Oblivion!
On the rock
Young HENRY stood; wi...Read more of this...
by Robinson, Mary Darby

The Double Image

...it in the chill
north light, matching
me to keep me well.
Only my mother grew ill.
She turned from me, as if death were catching,
as if death transferred,
as if my dying had eaten inside of her.
That August you were two, by I timed my days with doubt.
On the first of September she looked at me
and said I gave her cancer.
They carved her sweet hills out
and still I couldn't answer.

4.

That winter she came
part way back
from her sterile suite
of doctors, the seasick
cruise of...Read more of this...
by Sexton, Anne

The House Of Dust: Complete (Long)

...rows quiet and slow,
She dreams of an evening, long ago:
Of colored lanterns balancing under trees,
Some of them softly catching afire;
And beneath the lanterns a motionless face she sees,
Golden with lamplight, smiling, serene . . .
The leaves are a pale and glittering green,
The sound of horns blows over the trampled grass,
Shadows of dancers pass . . .
The face smiles closer to hers, she tries to lean
Backward, away, the eyes burn close and strange,
The face is beginning t...Read more of this...
by Aiken, Conrad

The Jacquerie A Fragment

...lice both ears to hair-breadth of his head,
To be his bloody token of regret
That he hath put them to so foul employ
As catching villainous breath of strolling priests
That mouth at knighthood and defile the Church."
The knife . . . . . [Rest of line lost.]
To place the edge . . . [Rest of line lost.]
Mary! the blood! it oozes sluggishly,
Scorning to come at call of blade so base.
Sathanas! He that cuts the ear has left
The blade sticking at midway, for to turn
And ask the Du...Read more of this...
by Lanier, Sidney

The Revelation

...me old din and smut;
Chained all day to the same old desk, down in the same old rut;
Posting the same old greasy books, catching the same old train:
Oh, how will I manage to stick it all, if I ever get back again?

We've bidden good-bye to life in a cage, we're finished with pushing a pen;
They're pumping us full of bellicose rage, they're showing us how to be men.
We're only beginning to find ourselves; we're wonders of brawn and thew;
But when we go back to our Sissy jobs, ...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William

The Star-Apple Kingdom

...cent servants and the lifelong cook, 
and shriveled to a shard that ancient pastoral 
of dusk in a gilt-edged frame now catching the evening sun 
in Jamaica, making both epochs one. 

He looked out from the Great House windows on 
clouds that still held the fragrance of fire, 
he saw the Botanical Gardens officially drown 
in a formal dusk, where governors had strolled 
and black gardeners had smiled over glinting shears 
at the lilies of parasols on the floating lawns, 
the ...Read more of this...
by Walcott, Derek

White Flock

...own
Like purple fire lay.

Let him not want my eyes fair
Prophetic and never-changing
All life long verse he'll be catching -
My conceited lips' empty prayer.



x x x

This way I prayed: "Slake the dumb thirst
Of singing with a sweet libation!"
But to the earthling of the earth
There can be no liberation.
Like smoke from sacrifice, that it could not
Fly Strength- and Glory-ward -- alas -
But only clouded at the feet
And, as if praying, kissed the grass.
...Read more of this...
by Akhmatova, Anna

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