Famous Clench Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Clench poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous clench poems. These examples illustrate what a famous clench poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Swinburne, Algernon Charles
...l from heaven's own bowers,
Soft, small, and sweet.
A velvet vice with springs of steel
That fasten in a trice
And clench the fingers fast that feel
A velvet viceÑ
What man would risk the danger twice,
Nor quake from head to heel?
Whom would not one such test suffice?
Well may we tremble as we kneel
In sight of Paradise,
If both a babe's closed fists conceal
A velvet vice.
Two flower-soft fists of conquering clutch,
Two creased and dimpled wrists,
That match, if m...Read more of this...
by
Verhaeren, Emile
...the moment that was is blessed for having been, and of which the coming hour is always the best.
Indeed, how they also clench the old happiness, made up of pain and joy, within their trembling hands; they know each other's bodies that have grown old together, and each other's looks worn out by the same sorrows.
The roses of their life, they love them faded, with their dead glory and their last perfume and the heavy memory of their dead brightness falling away, leaf by leaf,...Read more of this...
by
Bosselaar, Laure-Anne
...over each head of sorrel — tilting the necks
toward the rain. His back is drenched, so am I,
his careful gestures clench my throat,
wrench a hunger out of me I don't understand,
can't turn away from. The last plant
sheltered, the man straightens his back,
swings the sack over his shouler, looks
at the sky, then at me and — as if to end
a conversation — says: I know they'd survive
without the bottles, I know. He leaves the garden,
plods downhill, b...Read more of this...
by
Browning, Robert
...ess us, they must know!
Don't you think they're the likeliest to know,
They with their Latin? So, I swallow my rage,
Clench my teeth, suck my lips in tight, and paint
To please them--sometimes do and sometimes don't;
For, doing most, there's pretty sure to come
A turn, some warm eve finds me at my saints--
A laugh, a cry, the business of the world--
(Flower o' the peach
Death for us all, and his own life for each!)
And my whole soul revolves, the cup runs over,
The...Read more of this...
by
Hardy, Thomas
...ing thing,
Know that thy sorrow is my ecstasy,
That thy love's loss is my hate's profiting!"
Then would I bear it, clench myself, and die,
Steeled by the sense of ire unmerited;
Half-eased in that a Powerfuller than I
Had willed and meted me the tears I shed.
But not so. How arrives it joy lies slain,
And why unblooms the best hope ever sown?
—Crass Casualty obstructs the sun and rain,
And dicing Time for gladness casts a moan. . . .
Th...Read more of this...
by
Morris, William
...uwaine and Launcelot, and Dinadan
Are helm'd and waiting; let the trumpets go!
Bend over, ladies, to see all you can!
"Clench teeth, dames, yea, clasp hands, for Gareth's spear
Throws Kay from out his saddle, like a stone
From a castle-window when the foe draws near:
'Iseult!' Sir Dinadan rolleth overthrown.
"'Iseult!' again: the pieces of each spear
Fly fathoms up, and both the great steeds reel;
'Tristram for Iseult!' 'Iseult!' and 'Guenevere!'
The ladies' names bite ...Read more of this...
by
Gregory, Rg
...r>.darkness
clutches at my startled hair
spiders walk my skin
would i dare
to go for it with my fists - my fists
clench doped with sweat
would i scream
faint or lie there staring
my eyes pushing out in jets of fear
waiting for what - what would it do
a short nipped sound from the earwig night
drops in my ear
i sit up
pinching my breath - was it by the door
or the window - i can't be sure
i wait for the next sound for the
blade of the knife
i become aware
of the...Read more of this...
by
Slessor, Kenneth
...,
As if they've secret ways of dying here
And secret places for their anguish
When boughs at last relinquish
Their clench of blowing air
But this gaunt country, filled with mills and saws,
With butter-works and railway-stations
And public institutions,
And scornful rumps of cows,
North Country, filled with gesturing wood–
Timber's the end it gives to branches,
Cut off in cubic inches,
Dripping red with blood....Read more of this...
by
Benet, Stephen Vincent
...olden-glowing,
Lovely with laughter and suffused with light,
O Lord, in such a time appoint my going,
When the hands clench, and the cold face grows white,
And the spark dies within the feeble brain,
Spilling its star-dust back to dust again....Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...ome crevice door, by chance, or open’d window,
Pausing, inclining, baring my head, You specially I greet,
To draw and clench your Soul, for once, inseparably with mine,
Then travel, travel on....Read more of this...
by
Geyer, Bernadette
...And so I look back
still thinking of her
with painful heart,
this clench of inner flesh.
—Kakinomoto Hitomaro
from Manyoshu
*
Praise the irritant, that genesis,
implanted within the soft
and malleable animal that bore you.
*
Your brethren strung around my neck,
dangling from my earlobes.
The imperfections the jeweler slights, I praise.
*
Artifact of a biological process,
why do we expect
symmetry...Read more of this...
by
Brontë, Emily
...ains on the damp flag-stones rung:
"Confined in triple walls, art thou so much to fear,
That we must bind thee down and clench thy fetters here?"
The captive raised her face, it was as soft and mild
As sculpted marble saint, or slumbering unwean'd child;
It was so soft and mild, it was so sweet and fair,
Pain could not trace a line, nor grief a shadow there!
The captive raised her hand and pressed it to her brow;
"I have been struck," she said, "and I am suffering now;
Y...Read more of this...
by
Lawrence, D. H.
...
In my flesh and bone and forages into me,
How it stirs like a subtle stoat, whatever she thinks!
And often I see her clench her fingers tight
And thrust her fists suppressed in the folds of her skirt;
And sometimes, how she grasps her arms with her bright
Big hands, as if surely her arms did hurt.
And I have seen her stand all unaware
Pressing her spread hands over her breasts, as she
Would crush their mounds on her heart, to kill in there
The pain that is her sim...Read more of this...
by
Aiken, Conrad
...magic,
And to and fro we move and lean and change . . .
You, in a world grown strange,
Laugh at a darkness, clench your hands despairing,
Smash your glass on a floor, no longer caring,
Sink suddenly down and cry . . .
You hear the applause that greets your latest rival,
You are forgotten: your rival—who knows?—is I . . .
I laugh in the warm bright light of answering laughter,
I am inspired and young . . . and though I see
You si...Read more of this...
by
Walcott, Derek
...ams."
I remembered those ghost ships, I saw me corkscrewing
to the sea bed of sae worms, fathom past fathom,
my jaw clench like a fist, and only one thing
hold me, trembling, how my family safe home.
Then a strength like it seize me and the strength said:
"I from backward people who still fear God."
Let Him, in His might, heave Leviathan upward
by the winch of His will, the beast pouring lace
from his sea-bottom bed; and that was the faith
that had fade from a chi...Read more of this...
by
Hope, Alec Derwent (A D)
...They roar in chorus, not in tune,
Their plaintive, savage hunting cry.
O, when you hear them, stop your ears
And clench your lids and bite your tongue.
The harmless paper tiger bears
Strong fascination for the young.
His forest is the busy street;
His dens the forum and the mart;
He drinks no blood, he tastes no meat:
He riddles and corrupts the heart.
But when the dusk begins to creep
From tree to tree, from door to door,
The jungle tiger wakes fr...Read more of this...
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