Famous Eddying Poems by Famous Poets

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

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144. A Winter Night

...t the storm the steeples rocked,
Poor Labour sweet in sleep was locked,
While burns, wi’ snawy wreaths up-choked,
 Wild-eddying swirl;
Or, thro’ the mining outlet bocked,
 Down headlong hurl:


List’ning the doors an’ winnocks rattle,
I thought me on the ourie cattle,
Or silly sheep, wha bide this brattle
 O’ winter war,
And thro’ the drift, deep-lairing, sprattle
 Beneath a scar.


Ilk happing bird,—wee, helpless thing!
That, in the merry months o’ spring,
Delighted me to he...Read more of this...
by Burns, Robert


Alastor: or the Spirit of Solitude

...y summits shone
Among the stars like sunlight, and around
Whose caverned base the whirlpools and the waves
Bursting and eddying irresistibly
Rage and resound forever.--Who shall save?--
The boat fled on,--the boiling torrent drove,--
The crags closed round with black and jagged arms,
The shattered mountain overhung the sea, 
And faster still, beyond all human speed,
Suspended on the sweep of the smooth wave,
The little boat was driven. A cavern there
Yawned, and amid its slan...Read more of this...
by Shelley, Percy Bysshe

Buried Life The

...river of our life
Pursue with indiscernible flow its way;
And that we should not see
The buried stream, and seem to be
Eddying at large in blind uncertainty,
Though driving on with it eternally.

But often, in the world's most crowded streets,
But often, in the din of strife,
There rises an unspeakable desire
After the knowledge of our buried life;
A thirst to spend our fire and restless force
In tracking out our true, original course;
A longing to inquire
Into the mystery o...Read more of this...
by Arnold, Matthew

By The Fire-Side

...nothing you mar but the year can mend:
But a last leaf---fear to touch!

XLIII.

Yet should it unfasten itself and fall
Eddying down till it find your face
At some slight wind---best chance of all!
Be your heart henceforth its dwelling-place
You trembled to forestall!

XLIV.

Worth how well, those dark grey eyes,
That hair so dark and dear, how worth
That a man should strive and agonize,
And taste a veriest hell on earth
For the hope of such a prize!

XIIV.

You might have tu...Read more of this...
by Browning, Robert

Death, In Life

...p-leaved boughs 
 Bend o'er the furrows the Great Reaper ploughs, 
 And gentle summer winds in many sweep 
 Whirl in eddying waves 
 The dead leaves o'er the graves. 
 
 And the living sigh: 
 Forgotten ones, so soon your memories die. 
 Ye never more may list the wild bird's song, 
 Or mingle in the crowded city-throng. 
 Ye must ever dwell in gloom, 
 'Mid the silence of the tomb. 
 
 And the dead reply: 
 God giveth us His life. Ye die, 
 Your barren lives a...Read more of this...
by Hugo, Victor


Endymion: Book II

...ll rue it:
For quenchless burnings come upon the heart,
Made fiercer by a fear lest any part
Should be engulphed in the eddying wind.
As much as here is penn'd doth always find
A resting place, thus much comes clear and plain;
Anon the strange voice is upon the wane--
And 'tis but echo'd from departing sound,
That the fair visitant at last unwound
Her gentle limbs, and left the youth asleep.--
Thus the tradition of the gusty deep.

 Now turn we to our former chroniclers.--
En...Read more of this...
by Keats, John

Hiawathas Wedding-Feast

...nther. 
Then more swiftly and still swifter, 
Whirling, spinning round in circles, 
Leaping o'er the guests assembled, 
Eddying round and round the wigwam, 
Till the leaves went whirling with him, 
Till the dust and wind together 
Swept in eddies round about him.
Then along the sandy margin 
Of the lake, the Big-Sea-Water, 
On he sped with frenzied gestures,
Stamped upon the sand, and tossed it 
Wildly in the air around him; 
Till the wind became a whirlwind, 
Till the sand w...Read more of this...
by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth

Strayed Reveller The

...The Youth

Faster, faster,
O Circe, Goddess,
Let the wild, thronging train
The bright procession
Of eddying forms,
Sweep through my soul!
Thou standest, smiling
Down on me! thy right arm,
Lean'd up against the column there,
Props thy soft cheek;
Thy left holds, hanging loosely,
The deep cup, ivy-cinctured,
I held but now.
Is it, then, evening
So soon? I see, the night-dews,
Cluster'd in thick beads, dim
The agate brooch-stones
On thy white shoulder;
The co...Read more of this...
by Arnold, Matthew

The Brook

...come and men may go, 
But I go on for ever. 

I chatter over stony ways, 
In little sharps and trebles, 
I bubble into eddying bays, 
I babble on the pebbles. 

With many a curve my banks I fret 
By many a field and fallow, 
And many a fairy foreland set 
With willow-weed and mallow. 

I chatter, chatter, as I flow 
To join the brimming river, 
For men may come and men may go, 
But I go on for ever. 

I wind about, and in and out, 
With here a blossom sailing, 
And here and ...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord

The Buried Life

...river of our life
Pursue with indiscernible flow its way;
And that we should not see
The buried stream, and seem to be
Eddying at large in blind uncertainty,
Though driving on with it eternally.

But often, in the world's most crowded streets,
But often, in the din of strife,
There rises an unspeakable desire
After the knowledge of our buried life;
A thirst to spend our fire and restless force
In tracking out our true, original course;
A longing to inquire
Into the mystery o...Read more of this...
by Arnold, Matthew

The Death of the Flowers

...woods and meadows brown and sere; 
Heaped in the hollows of the grove the autumn leaves lie dead; 
They rustle to the eddying gust and to the rabbit's tread; 
The robin and the wren are flown and from the shrubs the jay 5 
And from the wood-top calls the crow through all the gloomy day. 

Where are the flowers the fair young flowers that lately sprang and stood 
In brighter light and softer airs a beauteous sisterhood? 
Alas! they all are in their graves the gentle ra...Read more of this...
by Bryant, William Cullen

The Driver

...While gladly exclaim to each other the throng:
"He lives! he is here! he is not the sea's prey!
From the tomb, from the eddying waters' control,
The brave one has rescued his living soul!"

And he comes, and they joyously round him stand;
At the feet of the monarch he falls,--
The goblet he, kneeling, puts in his hand,
And the king to his beauteous daughter calls,
Who fills it with sparkling wine to the brim;
The youth turns to the monarch, and speaks thus to him:

"Long life...Read more of this...
by Schiller, Friedrich von

The Giaour

...motion,
In azure column Proudly gleaming
Beats back the current many a rood,
In curling foam and mingling flood,
While eddying whirl, and breaking wave,
Roused by the blast of winter, rave;
Through sparkling spray, in thundering clash,
The lightnings of the waters flash
In awful whiteness o'er the shore,
That shines and shakes beneath the roar;
Thus - as the stream, and Ocean greet,
With waves that madden as they meet -
Thus join the bands, whom mutual wrong, 
And fate, and ...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)

The Harvest

...nshine,
Rounding the hill-top,
Crested with plenty,
Filling the valley,
Brimmed with abundance,
Wind in the wheat-field
Eddying and settling,
Swaying it, sweeping it,
Lifting the rich heads,
Tossing them soothingly
Twinkle and shimmer
The lights and the shadowings,
Nimble as moonlight
Astir in the mere.
Laden with odors
Of peace and of plenty,
Soft comes the wind
From the ranks of the wheat-field,
Bearing a promise 
Of harvest and sickle-time,
Opulent threshing-floors
Dusty a...Read more of this...
by Scott, Duncan Campbell

The Lady of the Lake

...A little skiff shot to the bay,
     That round the promontory steep
     Led its deep line in graceful sweep,
     Eddying, in almost viewless wave,
     The weeping willow twig to rave,
     And kiss, with whispering sound and slow,
     The beach of pebbles bright as snow.
      The boat had touched this silver strand
     Just as the Hunter left his stand,
     And stood concealed amid the brake,
     To view this Lady of the Lake.
      The maiden paused, as ...Read more of this...
by Scott, Sir Walter

The Story of Mongrel Grey

...th our horses was Mongrel Grey. 

All of a sudden a flood came down, 
At first a freshet of mountain rain, 
Roaring and eddying, rank and brown, 
Over the flats and across the plain. 
Rising and rising -- at fall of night 
Nothing but water appeared in sight! 

'Tis a nasty place when the floods are out, 
Even in daylight; for all around 
Channels and billabongs twist about, 
Stretching for miles in the flooded ground. 
And to move seemed a hopeless thing to try 
In the dark ...Read more of this...
by Paterson, Andrew Barton

The Strayed Reveller

...1 Faster, faster, 
2 O Circe, Goddess,
3 Let the wild, thronging train 
4 The bright procession 
5 Of eddying forms, 
6 Sweep through my soul! 

7 Thou standest, smiling
8 Down on me! thy right arm,
9 Lean'd up against the column there,
10 Props thy soft cheek;
11 Thy left holds, hanging loosely,
12 The deep cup, ivy-cinctured,
13 I held but now. 

14 Is it, then, evening 
15 So soon? I see, the night-dews, 
16 Cluster'd in thick beads, dim 
17 The agate bro...Read more of this...
by Arnold, Matthew

The Triumph of Life

...of air,
And more did follow, with exulting hymn,
"The chariot & the captives fettered there,
But all like bubbles on an eddying flood
Fell into the same track at last & were
"Borne onward.--I among the multitude
Was swept; me sweetest flowers delayed not long,
Me not the shadow nor the solitude,
"Me not the falling stream's Lethean song,
Me, not the phantom of that early form
Which moved upon its motion,--but among
"The thickest billows of the living storm
I plunged, and bare...Read more of this...
by Shelley, Percy Bysshe

The White Peacock

...from secret parts of the chateau come the scuffle and worry of rats. 

Orange light drips from the guttering candles, 
Eddying over the vast embroideries of the bed 
Stirring the monstrous tapestries, 
Retreating before the sable impending gloom of the canopy 
With a swift thrust and sparkle of gold, 
Lipping my hands, 
Then 
Rippling back abashed before the ominous silences 
Like the swift turns and starts of an overpowered fencer 
Who sees before him Horror 
Behind him dar...Read more of this...
by Benet, Stephen Vincent

Translations: Dante - Inferno Canto XXVI

...pringing from our scarce-discovered goal, 
A whirlwind struck the ship; in circles three 
It whirled us helpless in the eddying sea; 
High on the fourth the fragile stern uprose, 
The bow drove down, and, as Another chose, 
Over our heads we heard the surging billows close."...Read more of this...
by Seeger, Alan

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