Famous Embroidered Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Aedh Wishes For The Cloths Of Heaven

...Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams....Read more of this...
by Yeats, William Butler


Charity

...passers push aside. 
 
 If, with raised head and step alert, 
 She sees the rich man stalking by, 
 She touches his embroidered skirt, 
 And gently shows them where they lie. 
 
 She begs for them of careless crowd, 
 Of earnest brows and narrow hearts, 
 That when it hears her cry aloud, 
 Turns like the ebb-tide and departs. 
 
 O miserable he who sings 
 Some strain impure, whose numbers fall 
 Along the cruel wind that brings 
 Death to some child beneath h...Read more of this...
by Hugo, Victor

Comus

...eet Echo, sweetest nymph, that liv'st unseen
 Within thy airy shell
 By slow Meander's margent green,
And in the violet-embroidered vale
 Where the love-lorn nightingale
Nightly to thee her sad song mourneth well:
Canst thou not tell me of a gentle pair
 That likest thy Narcissus are?
 O, if thou have
 Hid them in some flowery cave,
 Tell me but where,
 Sweet Queen of Parley, Daughter of the Sphere!
 So may'st thou be translated to the skies,
And give resounding grace to all ...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Confessional

...as poor,
how beautifully she could sing!
Together we dined and drank
until she settled in my arms.

Behind her curtains
embroidered with lotuses,
how could I refuse
the temptation of her advances?...Read more of this...
by Po, Li

Filling Station

...t
(part of the set), beside
a big hirsute begonia.

Why the extraneous plant?
Why the taboret?
Why, oh why, the doily?
(Embroidered in daisy stitch
with marguerites, I think,
and heavy with gray crochet.)

Somebody embroidered the doily.
Somebody waters the plant,
or oils it, maybe. Somebody
arranges the rows of cans
so that they softly say:
ESSO--SO--SO--SO
to high-strung automobiles.
Somebody loves us all....Read more of this...
by Bishop, Elizabeth


Gioconda And Si-Ya-U

...d wrapped his fingers around the neck of a gilded fish.
I tried to reach him,
my boat a Chinese teacup
and my sail
 the embroidered silk
 of a Japanese
 bamboo umbrella...


NEWS FROM THE PARIS WIRELESS


 HALLO
 HALLO
 HALLO

 PARIS
 PARIS
 PARIS

The radio station signs off.
Once more
 blue-shirted Parisians
 fill Paris with red voices
 and red colors...


FROM GIOCONDA'S DIARY


2 May

Today my Chinese failed to show up.


5 May

Still no sign of him...


8 May

My days
 a...Read more of this...
by Hikmet, Nazim

Hiawathas Wedding-Feast

...er-skin leggings,
Fringed with hedgehog quills and ermine, 
And in moccasins of buck-skin, 
Thick with quills and beads embroidered. 
On his head were plumes of swan's down, 
On his heels were tails of foxes, 
In one hand a fan of feathers, 
And a pipe was in the other.
Barred with streaks of red and yellow, 
Streaks of blue and bright vermilion, 
Shone the face of Pau-Puk-Keewis. 
From his forehead fell his tresses, 
Smooth, and parted like a woman's, 
Shining bright with oi...Read more of this...
by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth

Improvisations: Light And Snow

...nd thinks happily of many things.

II

I stood for a long while before the shop window 
Looking at the blue butterflies embroidered on tawny silk. 
The building was a tower before me, 
Time was loud behind me, 
Sun went over the housetops and dusty trees; 
And there they were, glistening, brilliant, motionless, 
Stitched in a golden sky 
By yellow patient fingers long since turned to dust.

III

The first bell is silver, 
And breathing darkness I think only of the long scythe...Read more of this...
by Aiken, Conrad

Lines To Be Embroidered On A Bib

...OR
The Child Is Father Of The Man, But Not For Quite A While

So Thomas Edison
Never drank his medicine;
So Blackstone and Hoyle
Refused cod-liver oil;
So Sir Thomas Malory
Never heard of a calory;
So the Earl of Lennox
Murdered Rizzio without the aid of vitamins or calisthenox;
So Socrates and Plato
Ate dessert without finishing their potato;
So spinach w...Read more of this...
by Nash, Ogden

Malmaison

...ahead of it as though it were a hoop. Laughter,
and spur janglings in tessellated vestibules. Tripping 
of clocked
and embroidered stockings in little low-heeled shoes over smooth 
grass-plots.
India muslins spangled with silver patterns slide through trees 
--
mingle -- separate -- white day fireflies flashing moon-brilliance
in the shade of foliage.
"The kangaroos! I vow, Captain, I must 
see the kangaroos."
"As you please, dear Lady, but I recommend the 
shady linden alle...Read more of this...
by Lowell, Amy

Meditations In Time Of Civil War

...o's gift, a changeless sword,
By pen and paper lies,
That it may moralise
My days out of their aimlessness.
A bit of an embroidered dress
Covers its wooden sheath.
Chaucer had not drawn breath
When it was forged. In Sato's house,
Curved like new moon, moon-luminous
It lay five hundred years.
Yet if no change appears
No moon; only an aching heart
Conceives a changeless work of art.
Our learned men have urged
That when and where 'twas forged
A marvellous accomplishment,
In pain...Read more of this...
by Yeats, William Butler

Nothing Stays Put

...h a grid,
unsealed, furrowed, harrowed and sown with immigrant grasses,
their massive corduroy, their wavering feltings embroidered
here and there by the scarlet shoulder patch of cannas
on a courthouse lawn, by a love knot, a cross stitch
of living matter, sown and tended by women,
nurturers everywhere of the strange and wonderful,
beneath whose hands what had been alien begins,
as it alters, to grow as though it were indigenous.

But at this remove what I think of as
strang...Read more of this...
by Clampitt, Amy

Run to Death

...shaded groves,
Wafting delicate aromas from their scented finger tips,
And the gallants wave in answer, with their gold-embroidered gloves.
On they rode, past bush and bramble, on they rode, past elm and oak;
And the hounds, with anxious nostril, sniffed the heather-scented air,
Till at last, within his stirrups, up Lord Gaston rose, and spoke--
He, the boldest and the bravest of the wealthy nobles there :
'Friends,' quoth he, 'the time hangs heavy, for it is not as we though...Read more of this...
by Levy, Amy

The Deserted Garden

...ys of fading afternoon,
Showing each utmost peak and watershed
All clarified, each tassel and festoon
Of floating cloud embroidered overhead,
Like lotus-leaves on bluest waters strewn,
Flushing with rose, while all breathes fresh and free
In peace and amplitude and bland tranquillity.

Dear were such evenings to this gentle pair;
Love's tide that launched on with a blast too strong
Sweeps toward the foaming reef, the hidden snare,
Baffling with fond illusion's siren-song,
Too...Read more of this...
by Seeger, Alan

The Haunted House

...e lonely ray that glanced upon a bed,
As if with awful aim direct and certain,
To show the Bloody Hand, in burning red,
Embroidered on the curtain....Read more of this...
by Hood, Thomas

The House Of Dust: Complete (Long)

...way;
And I was born in a cold eclipse of the moon,
With the future in my eyes as clear as day.'

I sit before the gold-embroidered curtain
And think her face is like a wrinkled desert.
The crystal burns in lamplight beneath my eyes.
A dragon slowly coils on the scaly curtain.
Upon a scarlet cloth a white skull lies.

'Your hand is on the hand that holds three lilies.
You will live long, love many times.
I see a dark girl here who once betrayed you.
I see a shadow of secret c...Read more of this...
by Aiken, Conrad

The Journey

...gave myself up for lost 
in the depth of a glad humiliation 
---in the shadow of a dim delight. 

The repose of the sun-embroidered green gloom 
slowly spread over my heart. 
I forgot for what I had traveled, 
and I surrendered my mind without struggle 
to the maze of shadows and songs. 

At last, when I woke from my slumber and opened my eyes, 
I saw thee standing by me, flooding my sleep with thy smile. 
How I had feared that the path was long and wearisome, 
and the strugg...Read more of this...
by Tagore, Rabindranath

The Wounded Bird

...In the wide bed
Under the freen embroidered quilt
With flowers and leaves always in soft motion
She is like a wounded bird resting on a pool.

The hunter threw his dart
And hit her breast,--
Hit her but did not kill.
"O my wings, lift me--lift me!
I am not dreadfully hurt!"
Down she dropped and was still.

Kind people come to the edge of the pool with baskets.
"Of course what the poor bird...Read more of this...
by Mansfield, Katherine

Things I Didnt Know I Loved

...me The Knife. . .
 lover like a young tree. . .
I blow stately mansions sky-high"
in the Ilgaz woods in 1920 I tied an embroidered linen handkerchief 
 to a pine bough for luck

I never knew I loved roads 
even the asphalt kind
Vera's behind the wheel we're driving from Moscow to the Crimea 
 Koktebele
 formerly "Goktepé ili" in Turkish 
the two of us inside a closed box
the world flows past on both sides distant and mute 
I was never so close to anyone in my life
bandits st...Read more of this...
by Hikmet, Nazim

Victory

...t a lifeboat

Suddenly instead of art we're eyeing
organisms traced and stained on cathedral transparencies
cruel blues embroidered purples succinct yellows
a beautiful tumor

•

I guess you're not alone I fear you're alone
There's, of course, poetry:
awful bridge rising over naked air: I first
took it as just a continuation of the road: 
"a masterpiece of engineering
praised, etc." then on the radio: 
"incline too steep for ease of, etc."
Drove it nonetheless because I had t...Read more of this...
by Rich, Adrienne

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