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Famous Collecting Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry
...iscover'd, till his brighter mind
Untwisted all the shining robe of day;
And, from the whitening undistinguish'd blaze,
Collecting every ray into his kind,
To the charm'd eye educ'd the gorgeous train
Of parent colours. First the flaming red
Sprung vivid forth; the tawny orange next;
And next delicious yellow; by whose side
Fell the kind beams of all-refreshing green.
Then the pure blue, that swells autumnal skies
Ethereal played; and then, of sadder hue,
Emerg'd the deepen'd...Read more of this...
by Thomson, James



...c waves, who knows whence?
Raging over the vast, with many a broken spar and tatter’d sail.) 

Or from the sea of Time, collecting vasting all, I bring, 
A windrow-drift of weeds and shells. 

O little shells, so curious-convolute, so limpid-cold and voiceless, 
Will you not little shells to the tympans of temples held,
Murmurs and echoes still call up, eternity’s music faint and far, 
Wafted inland, sent from Atlantica’s rim, strains for the soul of the prairies, 
Whisper’d ...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt
...e two Danes, escaping home, had told the story of the attack on Hnaef, the slaying of Hengest, and all the Danish woes. Collecting a force, they return to Frisia and kill Finn in his home.

{17b} Nephew to Hrothgar, with whom he subsequently quarrels, and elder cousin to the two young sons of Hrothgar and Wealhtheow, -- their natural guardian in the event of the king’s death. There is something finely feminine in this speech of Wealhtheow’s, apart from its somewhat irregula...Read more of this...
by Anonymous,
...I keep collecting books I know
I'll never, never read;
My wife and daughter tell me so,
And yet I never head.
"Please make me," says some wistful tome,
"A wee bit of yourself."
And so I take my treasure home,
And tuck it in a shelf.

And now my very shelves complain;
They jam and over-spill.
They say: "Why don't you ease our strain?"
"some day," I say, "I will."
So...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William
...irst they stole from the Meo Tribes
Up in the hills they started taking bribes
Then they sent their soldiers up to Shan
Collecting opium to send to The Man

Pushing junk in Bangkok yesterday
Supported by the CIA

Brought their jam on mule trains down
To Chiang Rai that's a railroad town
Sold it next to the police chief brain
He took it to town on the choochoo train

Trafficking dope to Bangkok all day
Supported by the CIA

The policeman's name was Mr. Phao
He peddled dope gra...Read more of this...
by Ginsberg, Allen



...ey shot down the starlings. 
The falling starlings turned to a cloudburst. 

Crow turned the words into a reservoir, collecting the water. 
The water turned into an earthquake, swallowing the reservoir. 

The earthquake turned into a hare and leaped for the hill
Having eaten Crow's words. 

Crow gazed after the bounding hare
Speechless with admiration. ...Read more of this...
by Hughes, Ted
...tra skill in the ranks of the A.M.C." 

So Driver Smith he went to war a-cracking his driver's whip, 
From ambulance to collecting base they showed him his regular trip. 
And he said to the boys that were marching past, as he gave his whip a crack, 
"You'll walk yourselves to the fight," says he -- "Lord spare me, I'll drive you back." 

Now the fight went on in the Transvaal hills for the half of a day or more, 
And Driver Smith he worked his trip -- all aboard for the seat ...Read more of this...
by Paterson, Andrew Barton
...ocks, swans, and naiads fair.
Swifter than lightning went these wonders rare;
And then the water, into stubborn streams
Collecting, mimick'd the wrought oaken beams,
Pillars, and frieze, and high fantastic roof,
Of those dusk places in times far aloof
Cathedrals call'd. He bade a loth farewel
To these founts Protean, passing gulph, and dell,
And torrent, and ten thousand jutting shapes,
Half seen through deepest gloom, and griesly gapes,
Blackening on every side, and overhead...Read more of this...
by Keats, John
...er of us.
She may be a saint, and I may be ugly and hairy,
But she'll soon find out that that doesn't matter a bit.
I'm collecting my strength; one day I shall manage without her,
And she'll perish with emptiness then, and begin to miss me....Read more of this...
by Plath, Sylvia
...achine, 
nor this trembling old lady with a cane taking the last 
 trip of her life, 
nor the red-capped cynical porter collecting his quar- 
 ters and smiling over the smashed baggage, 
nor me looking around at the horrible dream, 
nor mustached ***** Operating Clerk named Spade, 
 dealing out with his marvelous long hand the 
 fate of thousands of express packages, 
nor fairy Sam in the basement limping from leaden 
 trunk to trunk, 
nor Joe at the counter with his nervous ...Read more of this...
by Ginsberg, Allen
...And carried a big umbrella.

One stood in the middle
Of the road hailing cars.

One drove an old cart
All over the town collecting junk.

They were not weird sisters,
No relation to one another.

A duly accredited witch I
Never heard Amherst ever had

But as I say there
Were these three old women.

One was prone to appear
At the door (not mine!):

"I've got my nightgown on,
I can stay all night."

One went to a party
At the president's house once

Locked herself in the bathro...Read more of this...
by Francis, Robert
...an doubting stands, 
Left on the threshing floor his hopeless sheaves 
Prove chaff. On the other side, Satan, alarmed, 
Collecting all his might, dilated stood, 
Like Teneriff or Atlas, unremoved: 
His stature reached the sky, and on his crest 
Sat Horrour plumed; nor wanted in his grasp 
What seemed both spear and shield: Now dreadful deeds 
Might have ensued, nor only Paradise 
In this commotion, but the starry cope 
Of Heaven perhaps, or all the elements 
At least had gone...Read more of this...
by Milton, John
...sewhere seek?)
Uncertain and unsettled still remains,
Deep-versed in books and shallow in himself,
Crude or intoxicate, collecting toys
And trifles for choice matters, worth a sponge,
As children gathering pebbles on the shore. 
Or, if I would delight my private hours
With music or with poem, where so soon
As in our native language can I find
That solace? All our Law and Story strewed
With hymns, our Psalms with artful terms inscribed,
Our Hebrew songs and harps, in Babylon
T...Read more of this...
by Milton, John
...ute, confounded what to say,
What to reply, confuted and convinced
Of his weak arguing and fallacious drift;
At length, collecting all his serpent wiles,
With soothing words renewed, him thus accosts:—
 "I see thou know'st what is of use to know,
What best to say canst say, to do canst do;
Thy actions to thy words accord; thy words
To thy large heart give utterance due; thy heart 
Contains of good, wise, just, the perfet shape.
Should kings and nations from thy mouth consult,...Read more of this...
by Milton, John
...ight be likened to a reckless drinking-song, 
For it can't go on for ever, and it never lasted long. 

. . . . . 

Debt-collecting ruined Peter -- people talked him round too oft, 
For his heart was soft as butter (and the Co.'s was just as soft); 
He would cheer the haggard missus, and he'd tell her not to fret, 
And he'd ask the worried debtor round with him to have a wet; 
He would ask him round the corner, and it seemed to him and her, 
After each of Peter's visits, thing...Read more of this...
by Lawson, Henry
...s, artists, Popes--
 Would fail if Remus throve,

He sent his brother to the Gods,
 And, when the fit was o'er,
Went on collecting turves and clods
 To build the Wall once more!...Read more of this...
by Kipling, Rudyard
...ld spy,
I think - God help me! I should faint and die. . . .

Poor Monsieur Pns, he's cold and dead,
One of those stamp-collecting cranks.
His garret held no crust of bread,
But albums worth a million francs.
on them his income he would spend,
By philatelic frenzy driven:
What did it profit in the end. . . 
You can't take stamps to Heaven....Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William
...mad labour fish'd the Land to Shoar;
And div'd as desperately for each piece
Of Earth, as if't had been of Ambergreece;
Collecting anxiously small Loads of Clay,
Less then what building Swallows bear away;
Transfursing into them their Dunghil Soul.
How did they rivet, with Gigantick Piles,
Thorough the Center their new-catched Miles;
And to the stake a strugling Country bound,
Where barking Waves still bait the forced Ground;
Building their watry Babel far more high
To reach ...Read more of this...
by Marvell, Andrew
...ay sand, pebbles, 
bubbles rising.

Plasma-bearer
and slow-
motion benthos!

The fishery vessel Ion 
drops anchor here
 collecting 
plankton smears and fauna.

Plasma-bearer, visible
sea purge,
 sponge and kelpleaf.
Halicystus the Sea Bottle

resembles emeralds 
and is the largest 
cell in the world.

Young sea horse
Hippocampus twenty
minutes old,

nobody has ever 
seen this marine 
freak blink.

It radiates on
terminal vertebra 
a comb of twenty

upright spines 
and curls 
...Read more of this...
by Rakosi, Carl
...r Tuesday last. The sun was shining.
The Harlech Silver Band played Marchog Jesu
On thrity-seven shimmering instruments
Collecting for Caernarvon's (Fever) Hospital Fund.
The populations of Pwllheli, Criccieth,
Portmadoc, Borth, Tremadoc, Penrhyndeudraeth,
Were all assembled. Criccieth's mayor addressed them
First in good Welsh and then in fluent English,
Twisting his fingers in his chain of office,
Welcoming the things. They came out on the sand,
Not keeping time to the band...Read more of this...
by Graves, Robert

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry