Famous Edged Poems by Famous Poets

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

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A Childs Christmas In Wales

...ngued sea, like a cold and headlong moon bundling down the sky
that was our street; and they stop at the rim of the ice-edged fish-freezing waves, and I plunge my hands in
the snow and bring out whatever I can find. In goes my hand into that wool-white bell-tongued ball of holidays
resting at the rim of the carol-singing sea, and out come Mrs. Prothero and the firemen.

It was on the afternoon of the Christmas Eve, and I was in Mrs. Prothero's garden, waiting for cats, with h...Read more of this...
by Thomas, Dylan


Beowulf (Modern English)

...nly virtues,
a dispenser of treasure, enjoying it while I could.
And let Unferth, the widely-known man,
have my hard-edged old heirloom, the wondrous waved sword—
with Hrunting I will seek glory, or else death take me!” (ll. 1473-91)

After these words, the chief of the Weder-Geats,
didn’t wish to wait for any sort of answer,
hurrying with courage. The whelming waters received
the battle-warrior. Then it was most of the day
before he could perceive the lake-bottom.
...Read more of this...
by Anonymous,

Beowulf (Old English)

...l of high deeds, Hygelac’s kinsman;
flung away fretted sword, featly jewelled,
the angry earl; on earth it lay
steel-edged and stiff. His strength he trusted,
hand-gripe of might. So man shall do
whenever in war he weens to earn him
lasting fame, nor fears for his life!
Seized then by shoulder, shrank not from combat,
the Geatish war-prince Grendel’s mother.
Flung then the fierce one, filled with wrath,
his deadly foe, that she fell to ground.
Swift on her part she...Read more of this...
by Anonymous,

Carol of Occupations

...e pint measure and quart measure, the counter and stool, the
 writing-pen
 of quill or metal—the making of all sorts of edged tools,
The brewery, brewing, the malt, the vats, every thing that is done by brewers, also by
 wine-makers,
 also vinegar-makers, 
Leather-dressing, coach-making, boiler-making, rope-twisting, distilling, sign-painting,
 lime-burning, cotton-picking—electro-plating, electrotyping, stereotyping, 
Stave-machines, planing-machines, reaping-machines, ploug...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt

Craving for Spring

..., have done with this shuddering, delicious business
of thrilling ruin in the flesh, of pungent passion, of rare, death-edged ecstasy.
Give us our turn, give us a chance, let our hour strike,
O soon, soon!
Let the darkness turn violet with rich dawn.
Let the darkness be warmed, warmed through to a ruddy violet,
incipient purpling towards summer in the world of the heart of man.

Are the violets already here!
Show me! I tremble so much to hear it, that even now
on the threshol...Read more of this...
by Lawrence, D. H.


Daffy Duck In Hollywood

...Speedy
Gonzales, the latest from Helen Topping Miller's fertile
Escritoire, a sheaf of suggestive pix on greige, deckle-edged
Stock--to come clattering through the rainbow trellis
Where Pistachio Avenue rams the 2300 block of Highland
Fling Terrace. He promised he'd get me out of this one,
That mean old cartoonist, but just look what he's 
Done to me now! I scarce dare approach me mug's attenuated
Reflection in yon hubcap, so jaundiced, so déconfit
Are its lineaments--fun, no...Read more of this...
by Ashbery, John

Dialogue Between Ghost And Priest

...eived a ghost
Shaping itself from that mist.

'How now,' Father Shawn crisply addressed the ghost
Wavering there, gauze-edged, smelling of woodsmoke,
'What manner of business are you on?
From your blue pallor, I'd say you inhabited the frozen waste
Of hell, and not the fiery part. Yet to judge by that dazzled look,
That noble mien, perhaps you've late quitted heaven?'

In voice furred with frost,
Ghost said to priest:
'Neither of those countries do I frequent:
Earth is my hau...Read more of this...
by Plath, Sylvia

Four Quartets 1: Burnt Norton

...tern,
Along the empty alley, into the box circle,
To look down into the drained pool.
Dry the pool, dry concrete, brown edged,
And the pool was filled with water out of sunlight,
And the lotos rose, quietly, quietly,
The surface glittered out of heart of light,
And they were behind us, reflected in the pool.
Then a cloud passed, and the pool was empty.
Go, said the bird, for the leaves were full of children,
Hidden excitedly, containing laughter.
Go, go, go, said the bird: hu...Read more of this...
by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)

Mermaid Dragon Fiend

...al laws:
They have neither tail nor fin,
 But are deadlier for that cause.

Dragons have no darting tongues,
 Teeth saw-edged, nor rattling scales;
No fire issues from their lungs,
 No black poison from their tails:

For they are creatures of dark air,
 Unsubstantial tossing forms,
Thunderclaps of man's despair
 In mid-whirl of mental storms.

And there's a true and only fiend
 Worse than prophets prophesy,
Whose full powers to hurt are screened
 Lest the race of man should d...Read more of this...
by Graves, Robert

On Being Human

...he solar beam uplifts it; all the holiness 
Enacted by leaves' fall and rising sap;

But never an angel knows the knife-edged severance 
Of sun from shadow where the trees begin, 
The blessed cool at every pore caressing us 
-An angel has no skin.

They see the Form of Air; but mortals breathing it 
Drink the whole summer down into the breast. 
The lavish pinks, the field new-mown, the ravishing 
Sea-smells, the wood-fire smoke that whispers Rest. 
The tremor on the rippled p...Read more of this...
by Lewis, C S

Seascape

...eflections; 
the whole region, from the highest heron 
down to the weightless mangrove island 
with bright green leaves edged neatly with bird-droppings 
like illumination in silver, 
and down to the suggestively Gothic arches of the mangrove roots
and the beautiful pea-green back-pasture 
where occasionally a fish jumps, like a wildflower 
in an ornamental spray of spray; 
this cartoon by Raphael for a tapestry for a Pope: 
it does look like heaven. 
But a skeletal lighthous...Read more of this...
by Bishop, Elizabeth

Stepping Backward

...umblers like ourselves.
The knowledge breeds reserve. We walk on tiptoe,
Demanding more than we know how to render.
Two-edged discovery hunts us finally down;
The human act will make us real again,
And then perhaps we come to know each other.

Let us return to imperfection's school.
No longer wandering after Plato's ghost,
Seeking the garden where all fruit is flawless,
We must at last renounce that ultimate blue
And take a walk in other kinds of weather.
The sourest apple ma...Read more of this...
by Rich, Adrienne

The Cremona Violin

...nce to come, and blushes
Streamed over her. He would not care a fig,
He'd only laugh. She pushed aside a sprig
Of sharp-edged leaves and peered, then she uprose
Amid her bushes. "Sir," said she, "pray whose
Garden do you suppose you're watching? Why
Do you stand there? I really must insist
Upon your leaving. 'Tis unmannerly
To stay so long." The young man gave a twist
And turned about, and in the amethyst
Moonlight he saw her like a nymph half-risen
From the green bushes whic...Read more of this...
by Lowell, Amy

The Everlasting Mercy

...Foretelling rain and western wind, 
And while I watched I heard distinct 
The metals on the railway clinked. 
The blood-edged clouds were all in tatters, 
The sky and earth seemed mad as hatters; 
they had a death look, wild and odd, 
Of something dark foretold by God. 
And seeing it so, I felt so shaken 
I wouldn't keep the road I'd taken, 
But wandered back towards the inn 
Resolved to brace myself with gin. 
And as I walked, I said, "It's strange, 
There's Death let loose ...Read more of this...
by Masefield, John

The Fight With The Dragon

...e prey it tried;
And in its black mouth, ranged about,
Its teeth in prickly rows stood out;
Its tongue was like a sharp-edged sword,
And lightning from its small eyes poured;
A serpent's tail of many a fold
Ended its body's monstrous span,
And round itself with fierceness rolled,
So as to clasp both steed and man."

"I formed the whole to nature true,
In skin of gray and hideous hue;
Part dragon it appeared, part snake,
Engendered in the poisonous lake.
And, when the figure w...Read more of this...
by Schiller, Friedrich von

The Glove

...p at the barrier,
Walked straight to the glove,---while the lion
Neer moved, kept his far-reaching eye on
The palm-tree-edged desert-spring's sapphire,
And the musky oiled skin of the Kaffir,---
Picked it up, and as calmly retreated,
Leaped back where the lady was seated,
And full in the face of its owner
Flung the glove.

``Your heart's queen, you dethrone her?
``So should I!''---cried the King---``'twas mere vanity,
``Not love, set that task to humanity!''
Lords and ladies ...Read more of this...
by Browning, Robert

The Great Adventure of Max Breuck

...t sulphur-yellow, others made
An ivory-white with disks of copper flecked.
Sprinkled and striped, tasselled, or keenest edged.
Striated, powdered, freckled, long or short.
They bloomed, and seemed strange wonder-moths new-fledged,
Born of the spectrum wedded to a flame.
The shade within the arbour made a port
To o'ertaxed eyes, its still, green twilight rest became.

33
Her knitting-needles clicked and Christine talked,
This child matured to woman unaware,
The first time left...Read more of this...
by Lowell, Amy

The House Of Dust: Complete (Long)

...lden lights,
Of broken webs of silver, heavily falling
Between my hands and their white desire:
And dark-leaved boughs, edged with a golden radiance,
Dipping to screen a fire . . .
I dream that I walk with her beneath high trees,
But as I lean to kiss her face,
She is blown aloft on wind, I catch at leaves,
And run in a moonless place;
And I hear a crashing of terrible rocks flung down,
And shattering trees and cracking walls,
And a net of intense white flame roars over the t...Read more of this...
by Aiken, Conrad

The Shadow

...d the proud and delicate line of the nose
Melted into a brow, and there
Broke into undulant waves of hair.
The lady was edged with the stamp of race.
A singular vision in such a place.

He moved the candle to the tall
Chiffonier; the Shadow stayed on the wall.
He threw his cloak upon a chair,
And still the lady's face was there.
From every corner of the room
He saw, in the patch of light, the gloom
That was the lady. Her violet bloom
Was almost brighter than that which came
F...Read more of this...
by Lowell, Amy

The Star-Apple Kingdom

...blew 
far the decent servants and the lifelong cook, 
and shriveled to a shard that ancient pastoral 
of dusk in a gilt-edged frame now catching the evening sun 
in Jamaica, making both epochs one. 

He looked out from the Great House windows on 
clouds that still held the fragrance of fire, 
he saw the Botanical Gardens officially drown 
in a formal dusk, where governors had strolled 
and black gardeners had smiled over glinting shears 
at the lilies of parasols on the float...Read more of this...
by Walcott, Derek

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