Famous Contracting Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Couplets on the Death of His Father

...united.

And ask you how his course was guided
When once his gallant deeds were famed
And war was ended?
His high contracting so provided
That broader, as his honors claimed,
His lands extended.

And these, the proud exploits narrated
In chronicles to show his youth
And martial force,
With triumphs equal he was fated
To re-affirm in very sooth
As years did course.

Then for the prudence of his ways,
For merit and in high award
Of service knightly,
His dign...Read more of this...
by Manrique, Jorge


Enoch Arden

...hter prest upon her
To wed the man so dear to all of them
And lift the household out of poverty;
And Philip's rosy face contracting grew
Careworn and wan; and all these things fell on her
Sharp as reproach. 

At last one night it chanced
That Annie could not sleep, but earnestly
Pray'd for a sign `my Enoch is he gone?'
Then compass'd round by the blind wall of night
Brook'd not the expectant terror of her heart,
Started from bed, and struck herself a light,
Then desperately s...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord

From Cocoon forth a Butterfly

...could trace
Except to stray abroad
On Miscellaneous Enterprise
The Clovers -- understood --

Her pretty Parasol be seen
Contracting in a Field
Where Men made Hay --
Then struggling hard
With an opposing Cloud --

Where Parties -- Phantom as Herself --
To Nowhere -- seemed to go
In purposeless Circumference --
As 'twere a Tropic Show --

And notwithstanding Bee -- that worked --
And Flower -- that zealous blew --
This Audience of Idleness
Disdained them, from the Sky --

Till ...Read more of this...
by Dickinson, Emily

Leipzig

...ext day morn at nine;
Such mad and mangling cannon-play
Had never torn human line.

"Around the town three battle beat,
Contracting like a gin;
As nearer marched the million feet
Of columns closing in.

"The first battle nighed on the low Southern side;
The second by the Western way;
The nearing of the third on the North was heard;
--The French held all at bay.

"Against the first band did the Emperor stand;
Against the second stood Ney;
Marmont against the third gave the ord...Read more of this...
by Hardy, Thomas

Said Death to Passion

...Said Death to Passion
"Give of thine an Acre unto me."
Said Passion, through contracting Breaths
"A Thousand Times Thee Nay."

Bore Death from Passion
All His East
He -- sovereign as the Sun
Resituated in the West
And the Debate was done....Read more of this...
by Dickinson, Emily


Sonnet XLVII

...h attemper'd sighsMy bosom heaved—ere yet the days ariseWhen life declines, contracting its brief span.Already my loved enemy beganTo lull suspicion, and in sportive guise,With timid confidence, though playful, wise,In gentle mockery my long pains to scan:The hour was near when Love, at length, may mate...Read more of this...
by Petrarch, Francesco

Souvenirs of Democracy

...g
 on it a moment with my own hands; 
—Here! feel how the pulse beats in my wrists!—how my heart’s-blood is
 swelling,
 contracting!) 
I will You, in all, Myself, with promise to never desert you, 
To which I sign my name....Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt

The Metamorphosis Of Plants

...ful hands, the formation,

And to a perfecter end, guideth with softness its 
growth,
Less abundantly yielding the sap, contracting the vessels,

So that the figure ere long gentler effects doth 
disclose.
Soon and in silence is check'd the growth of the vigorous branches,

And the rib of the stalk fuller becometh in form.
Leafless, however, and quick the tenderer stem then up-springeth,

And a miraculous sight doth the observer enchant.
Ranged in a circle, in numbers that no...Read more of this...
by von Goethe, Johann Wolfgang

The Pangolin

...r seems extra. But for him,
 the closing ear-ridge--
 or bare ear lacking even this small
 eminence and similarly safe

contracting nose and eye apertures
 impenetrably closable, are not; a true ant-eater,
not cockroach eater, who endures
 exhausting solitary trips through unfamiliar ground at night,
 returning before sunrise, stepping in the moonlight,
 on the moonlight peculiarly, that the outside
 edges of his hands may bear the weight and save the claws
 for digging. Serp...Read more of this...
by Moore, Marianne

The Rape of the Lock

...e:
Gums and Pomatums shall his Flight restrain,
While clog'd he beats his silken Wings in vain; 
Or Alom-Stypticks with contracting Power
Shrink his thin Essence like a rivell'd Flower.
Or as Ixion fix'd, the Wretch shall feel
The giddy Motion of the whirling Mill,
In Fumes of burning Chocolate shall glow,
And tremble at the Sea that froaths below!

He spoke; the Spirits from the Sails descend;
Some, Orb in Orb, around the Nymph extend,
Some thrid the mazy Ringlets of her Hai...Read more of this...
by Pope, Alexander

The Rape of the Lock: Canto 2

...
Gums and pomatums shall his flight restrain,
While clogg'd he beats his silken wings in vain;
Or alum styptics with contracting pow'r
Shrink his thin essence like a rivell'd flow'r.
Or, as Ixion fix'd, the wretch shall feel
The giddy motion of the whirling mill,
In fumes of burning chocolate shall glow,
And tremble at the sea that froths below!"
He spoke; the spirits from the sails descend;
Some, orb in orb, around the nymph extend,
Some thrid the mazy ringlets of...Read more of this...
by Pope, Alexander

The Room

...and turned, dived downward. Then I saw
How order might—if chaos wished—become:
And saw the darkness crush upon itself,
Contracting powerfully; it was as if
It killed itself, slowly: and with much pain.
Pain. The scene was pain, and nothing but pain.
What else, when chaos draws all forces inward
To shape a single leaf? . . .
 For the leaf came
Alone and shining in the empty room;
After a while the twig shot downward from it;
And from the twig a bough; and then the trunk,
Mass...Read more of this...
by Aiken, Conrad

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