Famous Disarray Poems by Famous Poets

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

See also:

Spinster

by Sylvia Plath
 Now this particular girl
During a ceremonious april walk
With her latest suitor
Found herself, of a sudden, intolerably struck
By the birds' irregular babel
And the leaves' litter.

By this tumult afflicted, she
Observed her lover's gestures unbalance the air,
His gait stray uneven
Through a rank wilderness of fern and flower;
She judged petals in disarray,
The whole season, sloven.

How she longed for winter then! --
Scrupulously austere in...Read more of this...

The Furl of Fresh-Leaved Dogrose Down

by Gerard Manley Hopkins
 The furl of fresh-leaved dogrose down 
His cheeks the forth-and-flaunting sun 
Had swarthed about with lion-brown 
Before the Spring was done. 

His locks like all a ravel-rope’s-end,
With hempen strands in spray— 
Fallow, foam-fallow, hanks—fall’n off their ranks, 
Swung down at a disarray. 

Or like a juicy and jostling shock 
Of bluebells sheaved in May
Or wind-long fleeces on the flock...Read more of this...

The Art Of Drowning

by Billy Collins
 I wonder how it all got started, this business
about seeing your life flash before your eyes
while you drown, as if panic, or the act of submergence,
could startle time into such compression, crushing
decades in the vice of your desperate, final seconds.

After falling off a steamship or being swept away
in a rush of floodwaters, wouldn't you hope
for a more leisurely review,...Read more of this...

From Town

by Badger Clark
  We're the children of the open and we hate the haunts o' men,
    But we had to come to town to get the mail.
  And we're ridin' home at daybreak--'cause the air is cooler then--
    All 'cept one of us that stopped behind in jail.
  Shorty's nose won't bear paradin',...Read more of this...

The Wizard in the Street

by Vachel Lindsay
 [Concerning Edgar Allan Poe]


Who now will praise the Wizard in the street 
With loyal songs, with humors grave and sweet — 
This Jingle-man, of strolling players born, 
Whom holy folk have hurried by in scorn, 
This threadbare jester, neither wise nor good, 
With melancholy bells upon his hood? 

The hurrying great ones scorn his Raven's croak, 
And well may...Read more of this...

The Rebel Surprise Near Tamai

by William Topaz McGonagall
 'Twas on the 22nd of March, in the year 1885,
That the Arabs rushed like a mountain torrent in full drive,
And quickly attacked General M'Neill's transport-zereba,
But in a short time they were forced to withdraw. 

And in the suddenness of surprise the men were carried away,
Also camels, mules, and horses were thrown into wild disarray,
By thousands of the Arabs that...Read more of this...

The Embrace

by Mark Doty
 You weren't well or really ill yet either;
just a little tired, your handsomeness
tinged by grief or anticipation, which brought
to your face a thoughtful, deepening grace.

I didn't for a moment doubt you were dead.
I knew that to be true still, even in the dream.
You'd been out—at work maybe?—
having a good day, almost energetic.

We seemed to be moving from some old...Read more of this...

The Disputants

by William Carlos (WCW) Williams
 Upon the table in their bowl 
in violent disarray 
of yellow sprays, green spikes 
of leaves, red pointed petals 
and curled heads of blue 
and white among the litter 
of the forks and crumbs and plates 
the flowers remain composed. 
Coolly their colloquy continues 
above the coffee and loud talk 
grown frail as vaudeville....Read more of this...

Modern Love XXXIII: In Paris at the Louvre

by George Meredith
 'In Paris, at the Louvre, there have I seen 
The sumptuously-feathered angel pierce 
Prone Lucifer, descending. Looked he fierce, 
Showing the fight a fair one? Too serene! 
The young Pharsalians did not disarray 
Less willingly their locks of floating silk: 
That suckling mouth of his, upon the milk 
Of heaven might still be feasting through the fray. 
Oh, Raphael!...Read more of this...

Submergence

by D. H. Lawrence
 When along the pavement,
Palpitating flames of life, 
People flicker round me, 
I forget my bereavement, 
The gap in the great constellation,
The place where a star used to be.

Nay, though the pole-star 
Is blown out like a candle, 
And all the heavens are wandering in disarray,
Yet when pleiads of people are
Deployed around me, and I see 
The street’s long outstretched...Read more of this...

Babyhood

by Algernon Charles Swinburne
 A baby shines as bright
If winter or if May be
On eyes that keep in sight
A baby.

Though dark the skies or grey be,
It fills our eyes with light,
If midnight or midday be.

Love hails it, day and night,
The sweetest thing that may be
Yet cannot praise aright
A baby.

II.

All heaven, in every baby born,
All absolute of earthly leaven,
Reveals itself, though man may scorn
All...Read more of this...

Dont forget to view our wonderful member Disarray poems.

Get a Premium Membership
Turn off ads, get more exposure for your poetry, and get more features with a Premium Membership.
Book: Diverse Voices: The Poetry of Human Rights and the Pursuit of Peace