Famous Contracted Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Contracted poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous contracted poems. These examples illustrate what a famous contracted poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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..., his wars
Dance to the tightened carcass of a drum,
While he calls courage still that native dread
Of the white peace contracted by the dead.
Again brutish necessity wipes its hands
Upon the napkin of a dirty cause, again
A waste of our compassion, as with Spain,
The gorilla wrestles with the superman.
I who am poisoned with the blood of both,
Where shall I turn, divided to the vein?
I who have cursed
The drunken officer of British rule, how choose
Between this Africa and ...Read more of this...
by
Walcott, Derek
...y throne;
"To succour man's afflicted son
"Each human heart inspire:
"To act in bounties unconfin'd
"Enlarge the close contracted mind,
"And fill it with thy fire."
IV.
Quick as the word, with swift career
He wings his course from star to star,
And leaves the bright abode.
The Virtue did his charms impart;
Their G——! then thy raptur'd heart
Perceiv'd the rushing God:
V.
For when thy pitying eye did see
The languid muse in low degree,
Then, then at thy desire
Descende...Read more of this...
by
Wheatley, Phillis
...dener
of the dry and weedy garden. . . .
I am the stone step,
the latch, and the working hinge. . . .
I am the heart contracted by joy. . .
the longest hair, white
before the rest. . . .
I am there in the basket of fruit
presented to the widow. . . .
I am the musk rose opening
unattended, the fern on the boggy summit. . . .
I am the one whose love
overcomes you, already with you
when you think to call my name. . . ....Read more of this...
by
Kenyon, Jane
...ud she then stretch'd forth her hand,
As if to bid the streaky vapour fly:
At once it seemed to yield to her command,
Contracted, and no mist then met mine eye.
My glance once more survey'd the smiling land,
Unclouded and serene appear'd the sky.
Nought but a veil of purest white she held,
And round her in a thousand folds it swell'd.
"I know thee, and I know thy wav'ring will.
I know the good that lives and glows in thee!"--
Thus spake she, and methinks I hear her still...Read more of this...
by
von Goethe, Johann Wolfgang
...hile AElus' thunders round us roar,
And sweep impetuous o'er the plain
Be still, O tyrant of the main;
Nor let thy brow contracted frowns betray,
While my Susanna skims the wat'ry way.
II.
The Pow'r propitious hears the lay,
The blue-ey'd daughters of the sea
With sweeter cadence glide along,
And Thames responsive joins the song.
Pleas'd with their notes Sol sheds benign his ray,
And double radiance decks the face of day.
III.
To court thee to Britannia's arms
Serene the cl...Read more of this...
by
Wheatley, Phillis
...Law:
Whatever does provoke our Hate,
Our Javelins strike, as sure as Fate;
We bathe in Springs, to cleanse the Soil,
Contracted by our eager Toil;
In which we shine like glittering Beams,
Or Christal in the Christal Streams;
Though Venus we transcend in Form,
No wanton Flames our Bosomes warm!
If you ask where such Wights do dwell,
In what Bless't Clime, that so excel?
The Poets onely that can tell....Read more of this...
by
Killigrew, Anne
...s their seat
Build in her loveliest, and create an awe
About her, as a guard angelick placed.
To whom the Angel with contracted brow.
Accuse not Nature, she hath done her part;
Do thou but thine; and be not diffident
Of Wisdom; she deserts thee not, if thou
Dismiss not her, when most thou needest her nigh,
By attributing overmuch to things
Less excellent, as thou thyself perceivest.
For, what admirest thou, what transports thee so,
An outside? fair, no doubt, and w...Read more of this...
by
Milton, John
...e life, not sway'd
By female usurpation, nor dismay'd.
But had we best retire, I see a storm?
Sam: Fair days have oft contracted wind and rain.
Chor: But this another kind of tempest brings.
Sam: Be less abstruse, my riddling days are past.
Chor: Look now for no inchanting voice, nor fear
The bait of honied words; a rougher tongue
Draws hitherward, I know him by his stride,
The Giant Harapha of Gath, his look
Haughty as is his pile high-built and proud.
Comes he in peace...Read more of this...
by
Milton, John
...beauty's rose might never die,
But as the riper should by time decease,
His tender heir might bear his memory;
But thou contracted to thine own bright eyes,
Feed'st thy light's flame with self-substantial fuel,
Making a famine where abundance lies,
Thyself thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel.
Thou that art now the world's fresh ornament,
And only herald to the gaudy spring,
Within thine own bud buriest thy content,
And tender churl mak'st waste in niggarding.
Pity the world,...Read more of this...
by
Shakespeare, William
...t brings?'
He beareth starry stuff about his wings
To pollen thee and sting thee fertile: nay,
If still thou narrow thy contracted way,
-- Worldflower, if thou refuse me --
-- Worldflower, if thou abuse me,
And hoist thy stamen's spear-point high
To wound my wing and mar mine eye --
Nathless I'll drive me to thy deepest sweet,
Yea, richlier shall that pain the pollen beat
From me to thee, for oft these pollens be
Fine dust from wars that poets wage for thee.
But, O beloved Ea...Read more of this...
by
Lanier, Sidney
...1. Earth was not: nor globes of attraction
The will of the Immortal expanded
Or contracted his all flexible senses.
Death was not, but eternal life sprung
2. The sound of a trumpet the heavens
Awoke & vast clouds of blood roll'd
Round the dim rocks of Urizen, so nam'd
That solitary one in Immensity
3. Shrill the trumpet: & myriads of Eternity,
Muster around the bleak desarts
Now fill'd with clouds, darkness & waters
That roll'd perpl...Read more of this...
by
Blake, William
...t his side,
Lighter of heart than these, but heavier far
Than he was wont, another victim comes,
An Abbé--who with less contracted brow
Still smiles and flatters, and still talks of Hope;
Which, sanguine as he is, he does not feel,
And so he cheats the sad and weighty pressure
Of evils present;---- Still, as Men misled
By early prejudice (so hard to break),
I mourn your sorrows; for I too have known
Involuntary exile; and while yet
England had charms for me, have felt how sad...Read more of this...
by
Turner Smith, Charlotte
...
But this for faithful Friends, and kind,
Was only meant by me;
Who fear that what too streight you find,
Must yet contracted be....Read more of this...
by
Finch, Anne Kingsmill
...red drums were heard when I went by;
Full forty agas turned their looks respectful on mine eye,
And trembled with contracted brows within their hall of state.
Instead of heavy catapults, of slow unwieldy weight,
I had bright cannons rolling on oak wheels in threatening tiers,
And calm and steady by their sides marched English cannoniers.
But yesterday, and I had towns, and castles strong and high,
And Greeks in thousands, for the base and merciless to buy...Read more of this...
by
Hugo, Victor
...of them, with gobbling mother-eye.
I have heard in the voices of the wind the voices of my dim killed
children.
I have contracted. I have eased
My dim dears at the breasts they could never suck.
I have said, Sweets, if I sinned, if I seized
Your luck
And your lives from your unfinished reach,
If I stole your births and your names,
Your straight baby tears and your games,
Your stilted or lovely loves, your tumults, your marriages, aches,
and your deaths,
If I poisoned the beg...Read more of this...
by
Brooks, Gwendolyn
...y us; compared to this,
All honour's mimic, all wealth alchemy.
Thou, sun, art half as happy as we,
In that the world's contracted thus;
Thine age asks ease, and since thy duties be
To warm the world, that's done in warming us.
Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere;
This bed thy centre is, these walls thy sphere....Read more of this...
by
Donne, John
...-drawn
Scapegoat. But so thin,
So weedy a race could not remain in dreams,
Could not remain outlandish victims
In the contracted country of the head
Any more than the old woman in her mud hut could
Keep from cutting fat meat
Out of the side of the generous moon when it
Set foot nightly in her yard
Until her knife had pared
The moon to a rind of little light.
Now the thin people do not obliterate
Themselves as the dawn
Grayness blues, reddens, and the outline
Of the wor...Read more of this...
by
Plath, Sylvia
...be sifted out.
But when the parish dustman came,
His rubbish to withdraw,
He found more dust within the heap
Than he contracted for !
A dozen men to try the fact
Were sworn that very day ;
But though they all were jurors, yet
No conjurors were they.
Said Tim unto those jurymen,
You need not waste your breath,
For I confess myself at once
The author of her death.
And, oh ! when I refect upon
The blood that I have spilt,
Just like a button is my soul,
Inscribed with...Read more of this...
by
Hood, Thomas
...ee bounty gives
Let me not cast away;
For God is paid when man receives;
T' enjoy is to obey.
Yet not to earth's contracted span
Thy goodness let me bound,
Or think thee Lord alone of man,
When thousand worlds are round.
Let not this weak, unknowing hand
Presume thy bolts to throw,
And teach damnation round the land
On each I judge thy foe.
If I am right, thy grace impart,
Still in the right to stay;
If I am wrong, O teach my heart
To find that bette...Read more of this...
by
Pope, Alexander
...ch prescribed
His destined path,
Which the happy one
Runs o'er swiftly
To his glad goal:
He whose heart cruel
Fate hath contracted,
Struggles but vainly
Against all the barriers
The brazen thread raises,
But which the harsh shears
Must one day sever.
Through gloomy thickets
Presseth the wild deer on,
And with the sparrows
Long have the wealthy
Settled themselves in the marsh.
Easy 'tis following the chariot
That by Fortune is driven,
Like the baggage that moves
Over well-me...Read more of this...
by
von Goethe, Johann Wolfgang
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