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Famous Compassing Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry
...bless
Her youth with age's glory, Barrenness.
If we love things long sought, Age is a thing
Which we are fifty years in compassing;
If transitory things, which soon decay,
Age must be loveliest at the latest day.
But name not winter-faces, whose skin's slack;
Lank, as an unthrift's purse; but a soul's sack;
Whose eyes seek light within, for all here's shade;
Whose mouths are holes, rather worn out than made;
Whose every tooth to a several place is gone,
To vex their souls at ...Read more of this...
by Donne, John



...is men grow,
Whether to weeds or flowers; but for me,
There is no depth to strike in: I can see
Nought earthly worth my compassing; so stand
Upon a misty, jutting head of land--
Alone? No, no; and by the Orphean lute,
When mad Eurydice is listening to 't;
I'd rather stand upon this misty peak,
With not a thing to sigh for, or to seek,
But the soft shadow of my thrice-seen love,
Than be--I care not what. O meekest dove
Of heaven! O Cynthia, ten-times bright and fair!
From thy ...Read more of this...
by Keats, John
...ted fraud and malice, bent 
On Man's destruction, maugre what might hap 
Of heavier on himself, fearless returned 
From compassing the earth; cautious of day, 
Since Uriel, regent of the sun, descried 
His entrance, and foreworned the Cherubim 
That kept their watch; thence full of anguish driven, 
The space of seven continued nights he rode 
With darkness; thrice the equinoctial line 
He circled; four times crossed the car of night 
From pole to pole, traversing each colure;...Read more of this...
by Milton, John
...plain, 
God is, as here; and will be found alike 
Present; and of his presence many a sign 
Still following thee, still compassing thee round 
With goodness and paternal love, his face 
Express, and of his steps the track divine. 
Which that thou mayest believe, and be confirmed 
Ere thou from hence depart; know, I am sent 
To show thee what shall come in future days 
To thee, and to thy offspring: good with bad 
Expect to hear; supernal grace contending 
With sinfulness of m...Read more of this...
by Milton, John
...ey-green gloom, 
Perspectiveless and shadowy. 
A bulging world that had no walls, 
A flowing world, most like the sea, 
Compassing all infinity 
Within a shapeless, ebbing room, 
An endless tide that swells and falls . . . 
He slept and woke and slept again. 
As a veil drops Time dropped away; 
Space grew a toy for children's play, 
Sleep bolted fast the gates of Sense -- 
He lay in naked impotence; 
Like a drenched moth that creeps and crawls 
Heavily up brown, light-baked w...Read more of this...
by Benet, Stephen Vincent



...t on Thetis, th' other on the Morning, 
One hand on Scythia, th' other on the Moor, 
Both heaven and earth in roundness compassing, 
Jove fearing, lest if she should greater grow, 
The old Giants should once again uprise, 
Her whelm'd with hills, these seven hills, which be now 
Tombs of her greatness, which did threat the skies: 
Upon her head he heaped Mount Saturnal, 
Upon her belly th' antique Palatine, 
Upon her stomach laid Mount Quirinal, 
On her left hand the noisome ...Read more of this...
by Spenser, Edmund
...o nervous shock;
While the True Church can never fail
For it is based upon a rock.

The hippo’s feeble steps may err
In compassing material ends,
While the True Church need never stir
To gather in its dividends.

The ’potamus can never reach
The mango on the mango-tree;
But fruits of pomegranate and peach
Refresh the Church from over sea.

At mating time the hippo’s voice
Betrays inflexions hoarse and odd,
But every week we hear rejoice
The Church, at being one with God.

The...Read more of this...
by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
...-great*, of iron bright and sheen. *thick as a tun (barrel)
There saw I first the dark imagining
Of felony, and all the compassing;
The cruel ire, as red as any glede*, *live coal
The picke-purse, and eke the pale dread;
The smiler with the knife under the cloak,
The shepen* burning with the blacke smoke *stable 
The treason of the murd'ring in the bed,
The open war, with woundes all be-bled;
Conteke* with bloody knife, and sharp menace. *contention, discord
All full ...Read more of this...
by Chaucer, Geoffrey

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Book: Reflection on the Important Things