Famous Compasses Poems by Famous Poets

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

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A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning

...ure not yet
A breach, but an expansion,
Like gold to aery thinness beat.

If they be two, they are two so
As stiff twin compasses are two;
Thy soul, the fixed foot, makes no show
To move, but doth, if th' other do.

And though it in the centre sit,
Yet when the other far doth roam,
It leans and hearkens after it,
And grows erect, as that comes home.

Such wilt thou be to me, who must
Like th' other foot, obliquely run;
Thy firmness makes my circle just,
And makes me end where...Read more of this...
by Donne, John


An Invitation to Dafnis

...th your Ardelia stray. 

Reading the softest Poetry, refuse,
To veiw the subjects of each rural muse;
Nor lett the busy compasses go round,
When faery Cercles better mark the ground.
Rich Colours on the Vellum cease to lay,
When ev'ry lawne much nobler can display,
When on the daz'ling poppy may be seen
A glowing red, exceeding your carmine;
And for the blew that o're the Sea is borne,
A brighter rises in our standing corn. 
Come then, my Dafnis, and the feilds survey,
And th...Read more of this...
by Finch, Anne Kingsmill

In these twin compasses, O Love, you see

...In these twin compasses, O Love, you see
One body with two heads, like you and me,
Which wander round one centre, circlewise.
But at the last in one same point agree....Read more of this...
by Khayyam, Omar

Paradise Lost: Book 07

..., to behold 
Creation, and the wonders of his might. 
Then staid the fervid wheels, and in his hand 
He took the golden compasses, prepared 
In God's eternal store, to circumscribe 
This universe, and all created things: 
One foot he centered, and the other turned 
Round through the vast profundity obscure; 
And said, Thus far extend, thus far thy bounds, 
This be thy just circumference, O World! 
Thus God the Heaven created, thus the Earth, 
Matter unformed and void: Darknes...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Percival Sharp

...few shambles?
And fallen columns! Carve the pedestal, please,
Or the foundations; let us see the cause of the fall.
And compasses and mathematical instruments,
In irony of the under tenants' ignorance
Of determinants and the calculus of variations.
And anchors, for those who never sailed.
And gates ajar -- yes, so they were;
You left them open and stray goats entered your garden.
And an eye watching like one of the Arimaspi --
So did you -- with one eye.
And angels blowing tr...Read more of this...
by Masters, Edgar Lee


The Book of Urizen: Chapter VII

...a dividing rule: 

8. He formed scales to weigh;
He formed massy weights;
He formed a brazen quadrant;
He formed golden compasses
And began to explore the Abyss 
And he planted a garden of fruits

9. But Los encircled Enitharmon
With fires of Prophecy
From the sight of Urizen & Orc.

10. And she bore an enormous race...Read more of this...
by Blake, William

The Ships Are Made Ready In Silence

...Moored to the same ring:
The hour, the darkness and I,
Our compasses hooded like falcons.

Now the memory of you comes aching in
With a wash of broken bits which never left port
In which once we planned voyages,
They come knocking like hearts asking:
What departures on this tide?

Breath of land, warm breath,
You tighten the cold around the navel,
Though all shores but the first have been foreign,
And the first was ...Read more of this...
by Merwin, W S

To Some Birds Flown Away

...ds praying—oh, come back, 
 Make peace, and you shall nothing lack. 
 See now my pencils—paper—here, 
 And pointless compasses, and dear 
 Old lacquer-work; and stoneware clear 
 Through glass protecting; all man's toys 
 So coveted by girls and boys. 
 Great China monsters—bodies much 
 Like cucumbers—you all shall touch. 
 I yield up all! my picture rare 
 Found beneath antique rubbish heap, 
 My great and tapestried oak chair 
 I will from you no longer keep. 
...Read more of this...
by Hugo, Victor

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