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Famous Distended Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...herds to the homestead.
Pawing the ground they came, and resting their necks on each other,
And with their nostrils distended inhaling the freshness of evening.
Foremost, bearing the bell, Evangeline's beautiful heifer,
Proud of her snow-white hide, and the ribbon that waved from her collar,
Quietly paced and slow, as if conscious of human affection.
Then came the shepherd back with his bleating flocks from the seaside,
Where was their favorite pasture. Behind...Read more of this...



by Whitman, Walt
...or hog’s-lard.

This face is an epilepsy, its wordless tongue gives out the unearthly cry, 
Its veins down the neck distended, its eyes roll till they show nothing but their whites, 
Its teeth grit, the palms of the hands are cut by the turn’d-in nails, 
The man falls struggling and foaming to the ground while he speculates well. 

This face is bitten by vermin and worms,
And this is some murderer’s knife, with a half-pull’d scabbard. 

This face owes to the sexto...Read more of this...

by Alighieri, Dante
...II 



 HAH, strange! ho, Satan!" such the sounds half-heard 
 The thick voice gobbled, the while the foul, inflamed, 
 Distended visage toward us turned, and cast 
 Invective from its bestial throat, that slurred 
 Articulate speech. But here the gentle sage, 
 Who knew beforehand that we faced, to me 
 Spake first, "Regard not; for a threat misaimed 
 Falls idle. Fear not to continue past. 
 His power to us, however else it be, 
 Is not to hinder." Then, tha...Read more of this...

by Patchen, Kenneth
...have we died that we hasten to God?

±

And all the animals are asleep again
In their separate caves.
Hairy bellies distended with their kill.
Culture blubbering in and out
Like the breath of a stranded fish.
Crucifixion in wax. The test-tube messiahs.
Immaculate fornication under the smoking walls
Of a dead world.
I dig for my death
in this thousand-watt dungheap.
There isn’t even enough clean air.
To die in.
O blood-bearded destroyer!

In...Read more of this...

by Butler, Ellis Parker
...th apologies to Frederic Taber Cooper)

I well recall (and who does not)
The circus bill-board hippopotamus,
whose wide distended jaws
For fear and terror were good cause.

That month, that vasty carmine cave,
Could munch with ease a Nubian slave;
In fact, the bill-board hippopot-
amus could bolt a house and lot!

Wide opened, that tremendous mouth
Obscured three-quarters of the south
Side of Schmidt’s barn, and promised me
Thrills, shocks, delights and ecstasy.

And ...Read more of this...



by Austen, Jane
...inced, that when complete
It will all other Houses beat
The ever have been made or mended,
With rooms concise, or rooms distended.
You'll find us very snug next year,
Perhaps with Charles and Fanny near,
For now it often does delight us
To fancy them just over-right us.--...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...o raise another world 
From him, and all his anger to forget. 
But say, what mean those coloured streaks in Heaven 
Distended, as the brow of God appeased? 
Or serve they, as a flowery verge, to bind 
The fluid skirts of that same watery cloud, 
Lest it again dissolve, and shower the earth? 
To whom the Arch-Angel. Dextrously thou aimest; 
So willingly doth God remit his ire, 
Though late repenting him of Man depraved; 
Grieved at his heart, when looking down he saw 
...Read more of this...

by Lawrence, D. H.
...despoiled of my pride, and my soul turns fond:

Overhead the nightly heavens like an open, immense eye,
Like a cat's distended pupil sparkles with sudden stars,
As with thoughts that flash and crackle in uncouth malignancy
They glitter at me, and I fear the fierce snapping of night's
thought-stars.

Beyond me, up the darkness, goes the gush of the lights of two towns,
As the breath which rushes upwards from the nostrils of an immense
Life crouched across the globe, ...Read more of this...

by Service, Robert William
...ast approaching train.

Did Shamus faint and falter? No, he stood there stark and splendid.
True, his tummy was distended, but he gave his horns a toss.
By them his goathood's honour would be gallantly defended,
And if their valour failed him - he would perish with his boss
So dauntlessly he lowered his head, and ever clearer, clearer,
He heard the throb and thunder of the Continental Mail.
He would face the mighty monster. It was coming nearer, nearer;
He...Read more of this...

by Kizer, Carolyn
...My mother-- preferring the strange to the tame:
Dove-note, bone marrow, deer dung,
Frog's belly distended with finny young,
Leaf-mould wilderness, hare-bell, toadstool,
Odd, small snakes loving through the leaves,
Metallic beetles rambling over stones: all
Wild and natural -flashed out her instinctive love,
and quick, she
Picked up the fluttering. bleeding bat the cat laid at her feet,
And held the little horror to the mirror, where
He gazed on him...Read more of this...

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