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Famous Crowds Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Wilmot, John
...ssed.
This busy, pushing stirrer-up of doubt,
That frames deep mysteries, then finds them out;
Filling with frantic crowds of thinking fools
The reverend bedlam's, colleges and schools;
Borne on whose wings each heavy sot can pierce
The limits of the boundless universe;
So charming ointments make an old witch fly,
And bear a crippled carcass through the sky.
'Tis the exalted power whose business lies
In nonsense and impossibilities.
This made a whimsical philosoph...Read more of this...



by Whitman, Walt
...wift shadows
 in
 specks
 on the opposite wall, where the shine is; 
The athletic American matron speaking in public to crowds of listeners; 
Males, females, immigrants, combinations—the copiousness—the individuality of
 The
 States,
 each for itself—the money-makers; 
Factories, machinery, the mechanical forces—the windlass, lever, pulley—All
 certainties,
The certainty of space, increase, freedom, futurity, 
In space, the sporades, the scatter’d islands, the stars—on the fi...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...rticulars, 
Here are the roughs, beards, friendliness, combativeness, the Soul loves, 
Here the flowing trains—here the crowds, equality, diversity, the Soul loves. 

6
Land of lands, and bards to corroborate!
Of them, standing among them, one lifts to the light his west-bred face, 
To him the hereditary countenance bequeath’d, both mother’s and father’s, 
His first parts substances, earth, water, animals, trees, 
Built of the common stock, having room for far and near, 
...Read more of this...

by Auden, Wystan Hugh (W H)
...As I walked out one evening,Walking down Bristol Street,The crowds upon the pavementWere fields of harvest wheat. And down by the brimming riverI heard a lover singUnder an arch of the railway:'Love has no ending. 'I'll love you, dear, I'll love youTill China and Africa meet,And the river jumps over the mountainAnd the salmon sing in the street, 'I'll love you till the oceanRead more of this...

by Ginsberg, Allen
...tant, lovers over half-century
Dozens, a hundred, more, older fellows bald & rich
young boys met naked recently in bed, crowds surprised to see each 
 other, innumerable, intimate, exchanging memories
"He taught me to meditate, now I'm an old veteran of the thousand
 day retreat --"
"I played music on subway platforms, I'm straight but loved him he 
 loved me"
"I felt more love from him at 19 than ever from anyone"
"We'd lie under covers gossip, read my poetry, hug & kiss bel...Read more of this...



by Hugo, Victor
...The shades of kings from Bela all arise. 
 None dare the tower to enter on this night, 
 But when the morning dawns, crowds are in sight 
 The dreamer to deliver,—whom half dazed, 
 And with the visions of the night amazed, 
 They to the old church take, where rests the dust 
 Of Borivorus; then the bishop must, 
 With fervent blessings on his eyes and mouth, 
 Put in his hands the stony hatchets both, 
 With which—even like death impartially— 
 Struck Attila, with...Read more of this...

by Bryant, William Cullen
...green moss
O'ercreeps their altars; the fallen images
Cumber the weedy courts, and for loud hymns,
Chanted by kneeling crowds, the chiding winds
Shriek in the solitary aisles. When he
Who gives his life to guilt, and laughs at all
The laws that God or man has made, and round
Hedges his seat with power, and shines in wealth,--
Lifts up his atheist front to scoff at Heaven,
And celebrates his shame in open day,
Thou, in the pride of all his crimes, cutt'st off
The horrible...Read more of this...

by Kipling, Rudyard
...
And so hold on when there is nothing in you 
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!" 

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, 
Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch, 
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you, 
If all men count with you, but none too much: 
If you can fill the unforgiving minute 
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run, 
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it, 
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my so...Read more of this...

by Sandburg, Carl
..., the threshing crews eating beefsteak, the farmboys driving steers to the railroad cattle pens.
They are mine, the crowds of people at a Fourth of July basket picnic, listening to a lawyer read the Declaration of Independence, watching the pinwheels and Roman candles at night, the young men and women two by two hunting the bypaths and kissing bridges.
They are mine, the horses looking over a fence in the frost of late October saying good-morning to the horses hauling...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...his hut, and the Dahoman and Ashanteeman in their huts; 
I see the Turk smoking opium in Aleppo; 
I see the picturesque crowds at the fairs of Khiva, and those of Herat; 
I see Teheran—I see Muscat and Medina, and the intervening sands—I see the caravans
 toiling
 onward; 
I see Egypt and the Egyptians—I see the pyramids and obelisks;
I look on chisel’d histories, songs, philosophies, cut in slabs of sand-stone, or on
 granite-blocks; 
I see at Memphis mummy-pits, containing ...Read more of this...

by Schiller, Friedrich von
...s forth its tuneful strains.

The wondering savages soon came
To view the new creation's plan
"Behold!"--the joyous crowds exclaim,--
"Behold, all this is done by man!"
With jocund and more social aim
The minstrel's lyre their awe awoke,
Telling of Titans, and of giant's frays
And lion-slayers, turning, as he spoke,
Even into heroes those who heard his lays.
For the first time the soul feels joy,
By raptures blessed that calmer are,
That only greet it from afar,
That ...Read more of this...

by Seeger, Alan
...d daisy-crowned,
The deep horizons of a summer's day,
Fair cities, and the pleasures that abound
Where music calls, and crowds in bright array
Gather by night to find and to be found;
What were these worth or all delightful things
Without thine eyes to read their true interpretings!

For thee the mountains open glorious gates,
To thee white arms put out from orient skies,
Earth, like a jewelled bride for one she waits,
Decks but to be delicious in thine eyes,
Thou guest of ho...Read more of this...

by Goldsmith, Oliver
...r>
The dome where Pleasure holds her midnight reign
Here, richly decked, admits the gorgeous train;
Tumultuous grandeur crowds the blazing square,
The rattling chariots clash, the torches glare.
Sure scenes like these no troubles e'er annoy!
Sure these denote one universal joy!
Are these thy serious thoughts?—Ah, turn thine eyes
Where the poor houseless shivering female lies.
She once, perhaps, in a village plenty blessed,
Has wept at tales of innocence distressed;
He...Read more of this...

by Wordsworth, William
...re's sweet voices always full of love  And joyance! Tis the merry Nightingale   That crowds, and hurries, and precipitates  With fast thick warble his delicious notes,  As he were fearful, that an April night  Would be too short for him to utter forth  Hi? love-chant, and disburthen his full soul  Of all its music! And I know a grove  Of large extent, hard by...Read more of this...

by Masefield, John
...found him, 
And mother's whip would curl right round him, 
And mother'd say h'ed done to crost her, 
Though there being crowds about he'd lost her.

Lord, give to men who are old and rougher 
The things that little children suffer, 
And let keep bright and undefiled 
The young years of the little child. 
I pat his head at edge of street 
And gi'm my second pear to eat. 
Right under lamp I pat his head, 
"I'll stay till mother come," I said, 
And stay I did, and jo...Read more of this...

by Dryden, John
...Of all our antic sights and pageantry 
Which English idiots run in crowds to see, 
The Polish Medal bears the prize alone; 
A monster, more the favourite of the town 
Than either fairs or theatres have shown. 
Never did art so well with nature strive, 
Nor ever idol seemed so much alive; 
So like the man, so golden to the sight, 
So base within, so counterfeit and light. 
One side is filled with title and with face;...Read more of this...

by Tebb, Barry
...ing the families pass,

Still reeling from the news of our son’s loss,

His life-in-death and death-in-life.



The crowds gone, the shops closed

I browsed over rock and lichen,

O sleeper in the earth

Would that you might listen.



3

Would that you waken and tell me

Why young girls’ beauty no longer moves me?

Their innocent glances as they leap-frog or hand-stand

With such jouissance takes hold of me no more.



I watched a troupe of Keighley girls

Pass t...Read more of this...

by Petrarch, Francesco
...d.Then stretching far my sight amid the trainThat hid, in countless crowds, the shaded plain,Good Hezekiah met my raptured sight,And Manoah's son, a prey to female sleight;And he, whose eye foresaw the coming flood,With mighty Nimrod nigh, a man of blood;Whose pride the heaven-defying tower design...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...fig-leaf down to the petticoat, 
Almost as scanty, of days less remote. 

LXVII 

The spirit look'd around upon the crowds 
Assembled, and exclaim'd, 'My friends of all 
The spheres, we shall catch cold amongst these clouds; 
So let's to business: why this general call? 
If those are freeholders I see in shrouds, 
And 'tis for an election that they bawl, 
Behold a candidate with unturn'd coat! 
Saint Peter, may I count upon your vote?' 

LXVIII 

'Sir,' replied Michael, '...Read more of this...

by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
...carries on his back,
Which I am forbidden to see. I do not find
The Hanged Man. Fear death by water.
I see crowds of people, walking round in a ring.
Thank you. If you see dear Mrs. Equitone,
Tell her I bring the horoscope myself:
One must be so careful these days.
 Unreal City, 
Under the brown fog of a winter dawn,
A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many,
I had not thought death had undone so many.
Sighs, short and infrequent, were exhale...Read more of this...

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