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Famous Contracts Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Brackenridge, Hugh Henry
...e. Rome pagan next, 
The raging furnace where the saints were tried, 
No more enslaves mankind. Rome papal too 
Contracts her reign and speaks proud things no more. 
The throne of Ottoman is made to shake, 
The Russian thund'ring to his firmest seat; 
Another age shall see his empire fall. 
Yet in the east the light of truth shall shine, 
And like the sun returning after storms 
Which long had raged through a sunless sky, 
Shall beam beningly on forsaken lands...Read more of this...



by Dryden, John
...
Or sleep-dissembling, while he waits his prey,
His fearless foes within his distance draws;
Constrains his roaring and contracts his paws:
Till at the last, his time for fury found,
He shoots with sudden vengeance from the ground:
The prostrate vulgar, passes o'er, and spares;
But with a lordly rage, his hunters tears.
Your case no tame expedients will afford;
Resolve on death, or conquest by the sword,
Which for no less a stake than life, you draw;
And self-defence is N...Read more of this...

by Kipling, Rudyard
...hear the Hottentot herders
 As the sheep click past to the fold --
And the click of the restless girders
 As the steel contracts in the cold --

Voices of jackals calling
 And, loud in the hush between
A morsel of dry earth falling
 From the flanks of the scarred ravine.

And the solemn firmament marches,
 And the hosts of heaven rise
Framed through the iron arches --
 Banded and barred by the ties,

Till we feel the far track humming,
 And we see her headlight plain,
An...Read more of this...

by Piutti, Anna
...core:

swooshing of curtains, temples
like drums.

Hypnotic pulsations mark lines
between dreams

and life, as
time contracts in us.

And with the last loud blink
of a light bulb,

the shadows withdraw,
and kaleidoscopes convulse.


Copyright © 2005 Anna Piutti...Read more of this...

by Hugo, Victor
...ved approach, 
 Is now become the traveller's way 
 To avoid the track of the thundering coach. 
 
 Here the forest contracts, there the mead extends, 
 Of all that was ours, there is little left— 
 Like the ashes that wildly are whisked by winds, 
 Of all souvenirs is the place bereft. 
 Do we live no more—is our hour then gone? 
 Will it give back naught to our hungry cry? 
 The breeze answers my call with a mocking tone, 
 The house that was mine makes no reply....Read more of this...



by Marvell, Andrew
...alone doth with new lustre spring, 
And shines the jewel of the yearly ring. 

'Tis he the force of scattered time contracts, 
And in one year the work of ages acts: 
While heavy monarchs make a wide return, 
Longer, and more malignant than Saturn: 
And though they all Platonic years should reign, 
In the same posture would be found again. 
Their earthy projects under ground they lay, 
More slow and brittle than the China clay: 
Well may they strive to leave them to ...Read more of this...

by Dickinson, Emily
...Pain -- expands the Time --
Ages coil within
The minute Circumference
Of a single Brain --

Pain contracts -- the Time --
Occupied with Shot
Gamuts of Eternities
Are as they were not --...Read more of this...

by Crashaw, Richard
...that true schooles use to tell,
Ten thousand Angels in one point can dwell.
It is love’s great artillery
Which here contracts itself, and comes to ly
Close couch’t in their white bosom: and from thence
As from a snowy fortresse of defence,
Against their ghostly foes to take their part,
And fortify the hold of their chast heart.
It is an armory of light
Let constant use but keep it bright,
You’l find it yeilds
To holy hands and humble hearts
More swords and sheilds
The...Read more of this...

by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
...e window-sill and gapes;
The waiter brings in oranges
Bananas figs and hothouse grapes;

The silent vertebrate in brown
Contracts and concentrates, withdraws;
Rachel née Rabinovitch
Tears at the grapes with murderous paws;

She and the lady in the cape
Are suspect, thought to be in league;
Therefore the man with heavy eyes
Declines the gambit, shows fatigue,

Leaves the room and reappears
Outside the window, leaning in,
Branches of wistaria
Circumscribe a golden grin;

The ho...Read more of this...

by Marvell, Andrew
...ell alone doth with new Lustre spring,
And shines the Jewel of the yearly Ring.
'Tis he the force of scatter'd Time contracts,
And in one Year the Work of Ages acts:
While heavy Monarchs make a wide Return,
Longer, and more Malignant then Saturn:
And though they all Platonique years should raign,
In the same Posture would be found again.
Their earthly Projects under ground they lay,
More slow and brittle then the China clay:
Well may they strive to leave them to their...Read more of this...

by Chaucer, Geoffrey
...witchecraft, and eke of bawdery,
Of defamation, and adultery,
Of churche-reeves,* and of testaments, *churchwardens
Of contracts, and of lack of sacraments,
And eke of many another manner* crime, *sort of
Which needeth not rehearsen at this time,
Of usury, and simony also;
But, certes, lechours did he greatest woe;
They shoulde singen, if that they were hent;* *caught
And smale tithers were foul y-shent,* *troubled, put to shame
If any person would on them complain;
There...Read more of this...

by Jeffers, Robinson
...The universe expands and contracts like a great heart.
It is expanding, the farthest nebulae
Rush with the speed of light into empty space.
It will contract, the immense navies of stars and galaxies,
 dust clouds and nebulae
Are recalled home, they crush against each other in one
 harbor, they stick in one lump
And then explode it, nothing can hold them down; there is no
 wa...Read more of this...

by Kipling, Rudyard
...but they couldn't copy my mind,
And I left 'em sweating and stealing a year and a half behind.
Then came the armour-contracts, but that was M'Cullough's side;
He was always best in the Foundry, but better, perhaps, he died.
I went through his private papers; the notes was plainer than print;
And I'm no fool to finish if a man'll give me a hint.
(I remember his widow was angry.) So I saw what his drawings meant;
And I started the six-inch rollers, and it paid m...Read more of this...

by Service, Robert William
...had -- sneaked his girl!

Time passed. John tried his grief to drown;
To-day James owns one-half the town;
His army contracts riches yield;
And John? Well, search the Potter's Field....Read more of this...

by Donne, John
...made in reverential fear
Of Love, and his wrath, any may forswear?
Or, as true deaths, true marriages untie,
So lovers' contracts, images of those,
Bind but till sleep, death's image, them unloose?
 Or, your own end to justify,
For having purposed change, and falsehood, you
Can have no way but falsehood to be true?
Vain lunatic, against these 'scapes I could
 Dispute, and conquer, if I would,
 Which I abstain to do,
For by tomorrow, I may think so too....Read more of this...

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