Famous Crosses Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Crosses poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous crosses poems. These examples illustrate what a famous crosses poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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...er;
The rack of dreams my lily bones
Did twist into a living cipher,
And flesh was snipped to cross the lines
Of gallow crosses on the liver
And brambles in the wringing brains.
My throat knew thirst before the structure
Of skin and vein around the well
Where words and water make a mixture
Unfailing till the blood runs foul;
My heart knew love, my belly hunger;
I smelt the maggot in my stool.
And time cast forth my mortal creature
To drift or drown upon the seas
Acquainted ...Read more of this...
by
Thomas, Dylan
...ow,
206 This weather-beaten vessel wrackt with pain,
207 Joys not in hope of an eternal morrow.
208 Nor all his losses, crosses, and vexation,
209 In weight, in frequency and long duration
210 Can make him deeply groan for that divine Translation.
31
211 The Mariner that on smooth waves doth glide
212 Sings merrily and steers his Barque with ease
213 As if he had command of wind and tide
214 And now becomes great Master of the seas,
215 But suddenly a storm spoils all the...Read more of this...
by
Bradstreet, Anne
...your Lenten lips.
You striped in secret with breath-taking whips,
Those crooked rough-scored chequers may be pieced
To crosses meant for Jesu's; you whom the East
With draught of thin and pursuant cold so nips
Breathe Easter now; you serged fellowships,
You vigil-keepers with low flames decreased,
God shall o'er-brim the measures you have spent
With oil of gladness, for sackcloth and frieze
And the ever-fretting shirt of punishment
Give myrrhy-threaded golden folds of ea...Read more of this...
by
Hopkins, Gerard Manley
...he spirit,
She would commence again her endless search and endeavor;
Sometimes in churchyards strayed, and gazed on the crosses and tombstones,
Sat by some nameless grave, and thought that perhaps in its bosom
He was already at rest, and she longed to slumber beside him.
Sometimes a rumor, a hearsay, an inarticulate whisper,
Came with its airy hand to point and beckon her forward.
Sometimes she spake with those who had seen her beloved and known him,
But it was long ago, in s...Read more of this...
by
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...blind hare,
Mark the poor wretch, to overshoot his troubles
How he outruns with winds, and with what care
He cranks and crosses with a thousand doubles:
The many musits through the which he goes
Are like a labyrinth to amaze his foes.
"Sometime he runs among a flock of sheep,
To make the cunning hounds mistake their smell,
And sometime where earth-delving conies keep,
To stop the loud pursuers in their yell,
And sometime sorteth with a herd of deer;
Danger deviseth shifts; w...Read more of this...
by
Shakespeare, William
...Full little knowest thou, that hast not tried,
What hell it is——
To fret thy soul with crosses and with cares,
To eat thy heart through comfortless despairs;
To fawn, to crouch, to wait, to ride, to run,
To spend, to give, to want, to be undone....Read more of this...
by
Shelley, Mary
...t countryside,
And we rest, hand in hand.
Don't be downcast, the time will soon come
When we can have rest. Our small crosses will stand
On the bright edge of the road together,
And rain fall, and snow fall,
And the winds come and go....Read more of this...
by
Hesse, Hermann
...brown bird
who sings above the broken gasoline pump
in a bamboo church of Jesuit baroque:
three towers, five silver crosses.
--Yes, a pity not to have pondered,
blurr'dly and inconclusively,
on what connection can exist for centuries
between the crudest wooden footwear
and, careful and finicky,
the whittled fantasies of wooden footwear
and, careful and finicky,
the whittled fantasies of wooden cages.
--Never to have studied history in
the weak calligraphy of son...Read more of this...
by
Bishop, Elizabeth
...elo (2)
If only you could have foreseen
What life would do with you -
That you would stand, parcel in hand,
Beneath the Crosses (3), three hundredth in
line,
Burning the new year's ice
With your hot tears.
Back and forth the prison poplar sways
With not a sound - how many innocent
Blameless lives are being taken away. . .
[1938]
V
For seventeen months I have been screaming,
Calling you home.
I've thrown myself at the feet of butchers
For you, my son and my horror.
Everythin...Read more of this...
by
Akhmatova, Anna
...ft hand shrouded in soft white ash --
nails in both fists like forged lightning.
I smeared black lines on my face,
drew crosses on my chest with the nails,
raised my arms and stomped my feet,
dancing in honor of spring
and rebirth, dancing
in honor of winter and death.
I hauled the heavy bucket to the garden,
spread ashes over the ground,
asked the earth to be good.
I gave the earth everything
that pulled me through the lonely winter --
oak trees, barns, poems.
I picked up my...Read more of this...
by
Jones, Richard
...orld.
I am curious to know where my feet stand—and what this is flooding me, childhood or
manhood—and the hunger that crosses the bridge between.
8
The cloth laps a first sweet eating and drinking,
Laps life-swelling yolks—laps ear of rose-corn, milky and just ripen’d;
The white teeth stay, and the boss-tooth advances in darkness,
And liquor is spill’d on lips and bosoms by touching glasses, and the best liquor
afterward.
9
I descend my western course, my sinews are ...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...d friendly with twined arms;
The crew of the fish-smack pack repeated layers of halibut in the hold;
The Missourian crosses the plains, toting his wares and his cattle;
As the fare-collector goes through the train, he gives notice by the jingling of
loose change;
The floor-men are laying the floor—the tinners are tinning the
roof—the masons are calling for mortar;
In single file, each shouldering his hod, pass onward the laborers;
Seasons pursuing each other, t...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...rl
the challenge back—"Fascists?"—not "Faggots"—Swine!
he briefly wonders—if he were a girl . . .)
He writes a line. He crosses out a line.
I'll never be a man, but there's a boy
crossing out words: the rain, the linen-mender,
are all the homework he will do today.
The absence and the priviledge of gender
confound in him, soprano, clumsy, frail.
Not neuter—neutral human, and unmarked,
the younger brother in the fairy tale
except, boys shouted "Jew!" across the park
at him...Read more of this...
by
Hacker, Marilyn
...ir.
So he rattles the door--for the warder 'tis well
That 'tis bless'd, and so able the foe to repel,
All cover'd with crosses in metal.
The shroud he must have, and no rest will allow,
There remains for reflection no time;
On the ornaments Gothic the wight seizes now,
And from point on to point hastes to climb.
Alas for the warder! his doom is decreed!
Like a long-legged spider, with ne'er-changing speed,
Advances the dreaded pursuer.
The warder he quakes, and the ward...Read more of this...
by
von Goethe, Johann Wolfgang
...h was wide, his face was pale,
His swollen face was sweating ale;
And one of those assembled Greeks
Had corked black crosses on his cheeks.
Thomas was having words with Goss,
He "wouldn't pay, the fight was cross."
And Goss told Tom that "cross or no,
The bets go as the verdicts go,
By all I've ever heard or read of.
So pay, or else I'll knock your head off."
Jim Gurvil said his smutty say
About a girl down Bye Street way,
And how the girl from Froggatt's circus
...Read more of this...
by
Masefield, John
....50 As neither sow, nor reap, nor plant, nor build.
4.51 If to Agriculture I was ordain'd,
4.52 Great labours, sorrows, crosses I sustain'd.
4.53 The early Cock did summon, but in vain,
4.54 My wakeful thoughts up to my painful gain.
4.55 For restless day and night, I'm robb'd of sleep
4.56 By cankered care, who sentinel doth keep.
4.57 My weary breast rest from his toil can find,
4.58 But if I rest, the more distrest my mind.
4.59 If happiness my sordidness hath found,
4.60 ...Read more of this...
by
Bradstreet, Anne
...,
And sees the advancing curtain of the shower
Splashing its silver on roofs and walls:
Sees how, swift as a shadow, it crosses the city,
And murmurs beyond far walls to the sea,
Leaving a glimmer of water in the dark canyons,
And silver falling from eave and tree.
One, from his high bright window, looking down,
Peers like a dreamer over the rain-bright town,
And thinks its towers are like a dream.
The western windows flame in the sun's last flare,
Pale roofs begin to gleam....Read more of this...
by
Aiken, Conrad
...
III. THE FIRE SERMON
The river's tent is broken: the last fingers of leaf
Clutch and sink into the wet bank. The wind
Crosses the brown land, unheard. The nymphs are departed.
Sweet Thames, run softly, till I end my song.
The river bears no empty bottles, sandwich papers,
Silk handkerchiefs, cardboard boxes, cigarette ends
Or other testimony of summer nights. The nymphs are departed.
And their friends, the loitering heirs of city directors;
Departed, have left no addresses...Read more of this...
by
Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
...form’d in you,
You are henceforth secure, whatever comes or goes.
The threads that were spun are gather’d, the weft crosses the warp, the pattern is
systematic.
The preparations have every one been justified,
The orchestra have sufficiently tuned their instruments—the baton has given the
signal.
The guest that was coming—he waited long, for reasons—he is now housed,
He is one of those who are beautiful and happy—he is one of those that to look upon
and be
with is...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...he tree in 1956, before
a crowd of 40, 000 people.
There is a tall church across the street from the statue
with crosses, steeples, bells and a vast door that looks like
a huge mousehole, perhaps from a Tom and Jerry cartoon,
and written above the door is "Per L'Universo."
Around five o'clock in the afternoon of my cover for
Trout Fishing in America, people gather in the park across
the street from the church and they are hungry.
It's sandwich time for the po...Read more of this...
by
Brautigan, Richard
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