Famous Distilled Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Distilled poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous distilled poems. These examples illustrate what a famous distilled poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Dickinson, Emily
...As imperceptibly as Grief
The Summer lapsed away --
Too imperceptible at last
To seem like Perfidy --
A Quietness distilled
As Twilight long begun,
Or Nature spending with herself
Sequestered Afternoon --
The Dusk drew earlier in --
The Morning foreign shone --
A courteous, yet harrowing Grace,
As Guest, that would be gone --
And thus, without a Wing
Or service of a Keel
Our Summer made her light escape
Into the Beautiful....Read more of this...
by
Abani, Chris
...glue
of family, melts to the run of a child’s licorice stick.
Wet decks crack, testing the wood’s mettle.
Distilled from evaporating brine, salt
dusts the floor, tickling with the measure
into time and the thirst trapped below.
II
The captain’s new cargo of Igbos disturbs him.
They stand, computing the swim back to land.
Haitians still say: Igbo pend’c or’ a ya!
But we do not hang ourselves in cowardice....Read more of this...
by
Milton, John
...
That draw the litter of close-curtained Sleep.
At last a soft and solemn-breathing sound
Rose like a steam of rich distilled perfumes,
And stole upon the air, that even Silence
Was took ere she was ware, and wished she might
Deny her nature, and be never more,
Still to be so displaced. I was all ear,
And took in strains that might create a soul
Under the ribs of Death. But, oh! ere long
Too well I did perceive it was the voice
Of my most honoured Lady, your dear ...Read more of this...
by
Gregory, Rg
...ee)
i'm taken by your touching
there's no skin between us now
as tree i am death's avenue
you are its fruits attaching
distilled ripeness to the bough
i possess the step i came for
my senses burst into still speech
your potent ashes give dispatch
to life's tensions - i travel far
rooted at this two-worlds' breach
october 6th 1990
(seventh anniversary of my mother's cremation)...Read more of this...
by
Melville, Herman
..., I laud the inhuman Sea--
Yea, bless the Angels Four that there convene;
For healed I am even by the pitiless breath
Distilled in wholesome dew named rosmarine....Read more of this...
by
Belloc, Hilaire
...ain.
Bootless for such as these the mighty task
Of bottling God the Father in a flask
And leading all Creation down distilled
To one small ardent sphere immensely filled.
With memories empty, with experience null,
With vapid eye-balls meaningless and dull
They pass unblest through the unfruitful light;
And when we open the bronze doors of Night,
When we in high carousal, we reclined,
Spur up to Heaven the still ascending mind,
Pass with the all inspiring, to and fro,
...Read more of this...
by
St Vincent Millay, Edna
...ve destroyed
Each other room's dear personality.
The heavy scent of damp, funereal flowers,—
The very essence, hush-distilled, of Death—
Has strangled that habitual breath of home
Whose expiration leaves all houses dead;
And wheresoe'er I look is hideous change.
Save here. Here 'twas as if a weed-choked gate
Had opened at my touch, and I had stepped
Into some long-forgot, enchanted, strange,
Sweet garden of a thousand years ago
And suddenly thought, "I have been h...Read more of this...
by
Rich, Susan
...br> C'est formidable! he gestures --- staring ahead
over a pyramid of foreign orange juice.
In the desert life is distilled to an angle of wind, camel droppings,
salted food. How long has this man been here, how long
can I stay contemplating a route home?
It's so easy to get lost and disappear, die of thirst and longing
as the Sultan's three wives did last year. Found in their Mercedes,
the chauffeur at the wheel, how did they fail to return home
to Ágadez...Read more of this...
by
Dryden, John
...And then if ever, mortal ears
Had heard the music of the spheres!
And if no clust'ring swarm of bees
On thy sweet mouth distilled their golden dew,
'Twas that such vulgar miracles
Heav'n had not leisure to renew:
For all the blest fraternity of love
Solemnized there thy birth, and kept thy holyday above.
O gracious God! how far have we
Profaned thy Heav'nly gift of poesy!
Made prostitute and profligate the Muse,
Debased to each obscene and impious use,
Whose harmony was ...Read more of this...
by
Campbell, Thomas
...words unsought, unwilled,—
Love, the surviving gift of Heaven
The choicest sweet of Paradise,
In life's else bitter cup distilled.
Who that has melted o'er his lay
To Mary's soul, in Heaven above ,
But pictured sees, in fancy strong,
The landscape and the livelong day
That smiled upon their mutual love ?
Who that has felt forgets the song ?
Nor skilled one flame alone to fan:
His country's high-souled peasantry
What patriot-pride he taught !—how much
To weigh the inborn...Read more of this...
by
Milton, John
...wondering looked, beside it stood
One shaped and winged like one of those from Heaven
By us oft seen; his dewy locks distilled
Ambrosia; on that tree he also gazed;
And 'O fair plant,' said he, 'with fruit surcharged,
'Deigns none to ease thy load, and taste thy sweet,
'Nor God, nor Man? Is knowledge so despised?
'Or envy, or what reserve forbids to taste?
'Forbid who will, none shall from me withhold
'Longer thy offered good; why else set here?
This said, he pause...Read more of this...
by
Montgomery, Lucy Maud
...drop-laden stirs;
From the ancient firs
Aroma of balsam drifts,
And the silent places are filled
With elusive odors distilled
By the rain from asters empearled and frilled,
And a wild wet savor that dwells
Far adown in tawny fallows and bracken dells.
Then with a rush,
Breaking the beautiful hush
Where the only sound was the lisping, low
Converse of raindrops, or the dear sound
Close to the ground,
That grasses make when they grow,
Comes the wind in a gay, ...Read more of this...
by
Shakespeare, William
...What potions have I drunk of Siren tears,
Distilled from limbecks foul as hell within,
Applying fears to hopes, and hopes to fears,
Still losing when I saw my self to win!
What wretched errors hath my heart committed,
Whilst it hath thought it self so blessèd never!
How have mine eyes out of their spheres been fitted
In the distraction of this madding fever!
O, benefit of ill, now I find true
That b...Read more of this...
by
Owen, Wilfred
...d of my weeping something has been left,
Which must die now. I mean the truth untold,
The pity of war, the pity war distilled.
Now men will go content with what we spoiled.
Or, discontent, boil bloody, and be spilled.
They will be swift with swiftness of the tigress,
None will break ranks, though nations trek from progress.
Courage was mine, and I had mystery;
Wisdom was mine, and I had mastery;
To miss the march of this retreating world
Into vain citadels...Read more of this...
by
Lowell, Amy
...rent kind
Of poppy seed. From farthest Ind
Come the purple flowers, opium filled,
From which the weirdest myths are distilled;
My orient porcelains contain them all.
Those Lowestoft pitchers against the wall
Hold a lighter kind of bright conceit;
And those old Saxe vases, out of the heat
On that lowest shelf beside the door,
Have a sort of Ideal, "couleur d'or".
Every castle of the air
Sleeps in the fine black grains, and there
Are seeds for every romance, or ligh...Read more of this...
by
Stevens, Wallace
...On what strange froth does the gross Indian dote,
318 What Eden sapling gum, what honeyed gore,
319 What pulpy dram distilled of innocence,
320 That streaking gold should speak in him
321 Or bask within his images and words?
322 If these rude instances impeach themselves
323 By force of rudeness, let the principle
324 Be plain. For application Crispin strove,
325 Abhorring Turk as Esquimau, the lute
326 As the marimba, the magnolia as rose.
327 U...Read more of this...
by
Service, Robert William
...e
'Twould save a million dead.
Nay, no consumptive needs to die,
--A cure have I.
"From blood of turtle I've distilled
An elixir of worth;
Let every sufferer be thrilled
And sing for joy of earth;
Yet every doctor turns his back
And calls me quack.
"Alas! They do not want to cure,
For sickness is their meat;
So persecution I endure,
And die in dark defeat:
Ye lungers, listen to my call!
--I'll save you all."
The old Professor now is dead,
And turtl...Read more of this...
by
Swift, Jonathan
...streams;
There night-gloves made of Tripsy's hide,
Bequeath'd by Tripsy when she died,
With puppy water, beauty's help,
Distilled from Tripsy's darling whelp;
Here gallypots and vials placed,
Some filled with washes, some with paste,
Some with pomatum, paints and slops,
And ointments good for scabby chops.
Hard by a filthy basin stands,
Fouled with the scouring of her hands;
The basin takes whatever comes,
The scrapings of her teeth and gums,
A nasty compound of all hues,...Read more of this...
by
Francis, Robert
...he would)
he found the Italy he wanted to remember.
Why had he sailed if not for the savour of returning?
An Italy distilled of all extreme, conflict,
Collusion-an Italy without the Italians-
in whose green context he could con again his Virgil.
In cedar he read cypress, in the wild apple, olive.
His hills would stand up favorably to the hills of Rome.
His arrowheads could hold their own with are Etruscan.
And Walden clearly was his Mediterranean
whose...Read more of this...
by
Matthew, John
...to the work,
Of smart slave-drivers in cubicles,
Instead explore the works of men,
Who have experienced the truths,
And distilled in their words, wisdoms,
Which may grate your ears now.
Like me, don’t be prey to sudden,
Rushes of anger that comes over cables,
And with emails and posts demolish,
Without thinking of consequences -
I have done that and am living to regret.
Don’t drink bottled and sealed lifestyles,
Its sugar, water and carbon dioxide,
Will dither you, ...Read more of this...
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