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Famous Crouched Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Cummings, Edward Estlin (E E)
...All in green went my love riding
on a great horse of gold
into the silver dawn. 

four lean hounds crouched low and smiling
the merry deer ran before. 

Fleeter be they than dappled dreams
the swift sweet deer
the red rare deer. 

Four red roebuck at a white water
the cruel bugle sang before. 

Horn at hip went my love riding
riding the echo down
into the silver dawn. 

four lean hounds crouched low and smiling
the level mea...Read more of this...



by Moody, William Vaughn
...and glory meet, 
To show all peoples that our shame is done, 
That once more we are clean and spirit-whole. 


VI 

Crouched in the sea fog on the moaning sand 
All night he lay, speaking some simple word 
From hour to hour to the slow minds that heard, 
Holding each poor life gently in his hand 
And breathing on the base rejected clay 
Till each dark face shone mystical and grand 
Against the breaking day; 
And lo, the shard the potter cast away 
Was grown a fiery chalic...Read more of this...

by Coleridge, Samuel Taylor
...snake
Coiled around its wings and neck.
Green as the herbs on which it couched,
Close by the dove's its head it crouched;
And with the dove it heaves and stirs,
Swelling its neck as she swelled hers!
I woke; it was the midnight hour,
The clock was echoing in the tower;
But though my slumber was gone by,
This dream it would not pass away-
It seems to live upon my eye!
And thence I vowed this self-same day
With music strong and saintly song
To wander through t...Read more of this...

by Angelou, Maya
....

I will give you no more hiding place down here.

You, created only a little lower than
The angels, have crouched too long in
The bruising darkness,
Have lain too long
Face down in ignorance.

Your mouths spilling words
Armed for slaughter.

The Rock cries out today, you may stand on me,
But do not hide your face.

Across the wall of the world,
A River sings a beautiful song,
Come rest here by my side.

Each of you a bordered coun...Read more of this...

by Robinson, Edwin Arlington
...as Martha’s eyes would look at hers, 
Went forward a few more, and a few more; 
And so, until she came to Lazarus,
Who crouched with his face hidden in his hands, 
Like one that had no face. Before she spoke, 
Feeling her sister’s eyes that were behind her 
As if the door where Martha stood were now 
As far from her as Egypt, Mary turned
Once more to see that she was there. Then, softly, 
Fearing him not so much as wondering 
What his first word might be, said, “Laza...Read more of this...



by Kilmer, Joyce
...wded street,
The palace and the slum,
Give welcome to my silent feet
As, bearing gifts, I come.
Last night a beggar crouched alone,
A ragged helpless thing;
I set him on a moonbeam throne --
Today he is a king.
Last night a king in orb and crown
Held court with splendid cheer;
Today he tears his purple gown
And moans and shrieks in fear.
Not iron bars, nor flashing spears,
Not land, nor sky, nor sea,
Nor love's artillery of tears
Can keep mine own from me.
Ser...Read more of this...

by Piercy, Marge
...after lunch 

yet fifteen hundred miles north 
I heard and dropped a dish. 
Your pain sunk talons in my skull 
and crouched there cawing, heavy 
as a great vessel filled with water, 

oil or blood, till suddenly next day 
the weight lifted and I knew your mind 
had guttered out like the Chanukah 
candles that burn so fast, weeping 
veils of wax down the chanukiya. 

Those candles were laid out, 
friends invited, ingredients bought 
for latkes and apple pancakes, 
tha...Read more of this...

by Angelou, Maya
...my shadow.
I will give you no hiding place down here.
You, created only a little lower than
The angels, have crouched too long in
The bruising darkness,
Have lain too long
Face down in ignorance.
Your mouths spelling words
Armed for slaughter.
The rock cries out today, you may stand on me,
But do not hide your face.
Across the wall of the world,
A river sings a beautiful song,
Come rest here by my side.
Each of you a bordered country,
De...Read more of this...

by Thomas, Dylan
...roud,

 The livelong river's robe
Of minnows wreathing around their prayer;
 And far at sea he knows,
Who slaves to his crouched, eternal end
 Under a serpent cloud,
Dolphins dive in their turnturtle dust,
 The rippled seals streak down
To kill and their own tide daubing blood
 Slides good in the sleek mouth.

 In a cavernous, swung
Wave's silence, wept white angelus knells.
 Thirty-five bells sing struck
On skull and scar where his loves lie wrecked,
 Steered by the ...Read more of this...

by Shelley, Percy Bysshe
...hem again become the same.
The prison bloodhounds, huge and grim,
From human looks the infection caught,
And fondly crouched and fawned on him;
And men have heard the prisoners say,
Who in their rotting dungeons lay,
That from that hour, throughout one day,
The fierce despair and hate which kept 
Their trampled bosoms almost slept,
Where, like twin vultures, they hung feeding
On each heart's wound, wide torn and bleeding,--
Because their jailors' rule, they thought,
Grew ...Read more of this...

by Lawrence, D. H.
...he royal burden of her: 
And gladly I'd offered my breast to the tread of her. 

'I like to see,' she said, and she crouched her down, 
She sunk into my sight like a settling bird; 
And her bosom crouched in the confines of her gown 
Like heavy birds at rest there, softly stirred 
By her measured breaths: 'I like to see,' said she, 
'The snap-dragon put out his tongue at me.' 

She laughed, she reached her hand out to the flower 
Closing its crimson throat: my own thr...Read more of this...

by Wilde, Oscar
...br>

Or else he sat with those who watched
His anguish night and day;
Who watched him when he rose to weep,
And when he crouched to pray;
Who watched him lest himself should rob
Their scaffold of its prey.

The Governor was strong upon
The Regulations Act:
The Doctor said that Death was but
A scientific fact:
And twice a day the Chaplain called,
And left a little tract.

And twice a day he smoked his pipe,
And drank his quart of beer:
His soul was resolute, and held
N...Read more of this...

by Service, Robert William
...to heed, so I swore I would not fail;
And we started on at the streak of dawn; but God! he looked ghastly pale.
He crouched on the sleigh, and he raved all day of his home in Tennessee;
And before nightfall a corpse was all that was left of Sam McGee.

There wasn't a breath in that land of death, and I hurried, horror-driven,
With a corpse half hid that I couldn't get rid, because of a promise given;
It was lashed to the sleigh, and it seemed to say:
"You may tax you...Read more of this...

by Lowell, Amy
...ndeed, but did not pass.
Instead, he leant upon the garden-gate,
Folding his arms and whistling. Lotta's state,
Crouched in the prickly currants, on wet grass,
Was far from pleasant. Still the stranger stayed,
And Lotta in her currants watched, dismayed.
He seemed a proper fellow standing there
In the bright moonshine. His cocked hat was laced
With silver, and he wore his own brown hair
Tied, but unpowdered. His whole bearing graced
A fine cloth coat, ...Read more of this...

by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...mis
Glimmered like the watery moonlight,
In the eyes of Laughing Water
Glistened like the sun in water;
And behind them crouched their shadows
In the corners of the wigwam,
And the smoke In wreaths above them
Climbed and crowded through the smoke-flue.
Then the curtain of the doorway
From without was slowly lifted;
Brighter glowed the fire a moment,
And a moment swerved the smoke-wreath,
As two women entered softly,
Passed the doorway uninvited,
Without word of salutation...Read more of this...

by Tagore, Rabindranath
...ght is
that near the bank?"
Just then there bursts out a fearful yell, and figures come
running towards us.
You sit crouched in your palanquin and repeat the names of the
gods in prayer.
The bearers, shaking in terror, hide themselves in the thorny
bush.
I shout to you, "Don't be afraid, mother. I am here."
With long sticks in their hands and hair all wild about their
heads, they come nearer and nearer.
I shout, "Have a care, you villains! One step mor...Read more of this...

by Lawson, Henry
...not for youth nor wealth untold. 

In the days of black oppression, when the best abandoned hope, 
And all Buckland crouched in terror of the prison and the rope, 
Many fair young wives in Buckland prayed beside their lonely beds 
For the absent ones who knew not where to lay their outlawed heads. 

But a whisper went through Buckland, to the rebels only known, 
That the man across the border had a chance to hold his own. 
There were men that came in darkness, qui...Read more of this...

by Angelou, Maya
...in my shadow.
I will give you no hiding place down here.
You, created only a little lower than
The angels, have crouched too long in
The bruising darkness,
Have lain too long
Face down in ignorance.
Your mouths spelling words
Armed for slaughter.
The rock cries out today, you may stand on me,
But do not hide your face.
Across the wall of the world,
A river sings a beautiful song,
Come rest here by my side.
Each of you a bordered country,
Delicate and s...Read more of this...

by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
...sunken, and the limp leaves
Waited for rain, while the black clouds
Gathered far distant, over Himavant.
The jungle crouched, humped in silence.
Then spoke the thunder 
DA
Datta: what have we given?
My friend, blood shaking my heart
The awful daring of a moment's surrender
Which an age of prudence can never retract
By this, and this only, we have existed
Which is not to be found in our obituaries
Or in memories draped by the beneficent spider
Or under seals broken by ...Read more of this...

by Benet, Stephen Vincent
...lurring outlines, obliterating colors, 
Death. 

Father, Father, I must not sleep! 
It does not hear -- that shadow crouched in the corner . . . 
Is it a shadow? 
One might think so indeed, save for the calm face, yellow as wax, that lifts like the face of a drowned man from the choking darkness. 


II.

Out of the drowsy fog my body creeps back to me. 
It is the white time before dawn. 
Moonlight, watery, pellucid, lifeless, ripples over the w...Read more of this...

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