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Famous Enclosing Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry
...NAE heathen name shall I prefix,
 Frae Pindus or Parnassus;
Auld Reekie dings them a’ to sticks,
 For rhyme-inspiring lasses.


Jove’s tunefu’ dochters three times three
 Made Homer deep their debtor;
But, gien the body half an e’e,
 Nine Ferriers wad done better!


Last day my mind was in a bog,
 Down George’s Street I stoited;
A creeping cauld prosaic fo...Read more of this...
by Burns, Robert



...ey drop the
 join’d seine-ends in the water, 
The boats separate and row off, each on its rounding course to the beach, enclosing the
 mossbonkers, 
The net is drawn in by a windlass by those who stop ashore, 
Some of the fishermen lounge in their boats, others stand ankle-deep in the water,
 pois’d
 on strong legs,
The boats partly drawn up, the water slapping against them, 
Strew’d on the sand in heaps and windrows, well out from the water, the
 green-back’d
 spotted mossbo...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt
...ation (until which thy proudest material wealth and
 civilization must remain in vain;) 
Thee in thy all-supplying, all-enclosing Worship—thee in no single bible, saviour,
 merely,

Thy saviours countless, latent within thyself—thy bibles incessant, within thyself,
 equal
 to any, divine as any; 
Thee in an education grown of thee—in teachers, studies, students, born of thee;
Thee in thy democratic fetes, en masse—thy high original festivals, operas,
 lecturers,
 preachers; 
...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt
...of them is something grand! 
I do not know what it is, except that it is grand, and that it is happiness, 
And that the enclosing purport of us here is not a speculation, or bon-mot, or
 reconnoissance,
And that it is not something which by luck may turn out well for us, and without luck must
 be a
 failure for us, 
And not something which may yet be retracted in a certain contingency. 

The light and shade, the curious sense of body and identity, the greed that with perfect
...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt
...es of men, rich or poor, with the kiss of affection;
For I am affection—I am the cheer-bringing God, with hope, and all-enclosing Charity;

(Conqueror yet—for before me all the armies and soldiers of the earth shall yet
 bow—and all the weapons of war become impotent:) 
With indulgent words, as to children—with fresh and sane words, mine only; 
Young and strong I pass, knowing well I am destin’d myself to an early death: 
But my Charity has no death—my Wisdom dies not, neithe...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt



...s and forgets,
no doubt finding out that life
moves on too fast.

It's not so much that she steps out
of the small body enclosing her,
but that all she carries in herself
frolics and ferments.

It's this dress that she'll remember
later in a sweet surrender;
when her whole life is full of risks,
the little red dress will always seem right....Read more of this...
by Rilke, Rainer Maria
...s at the clang of sea-birds sailing by
Whose notes are tuned to days when seas are high.

From today's calm, the lane's enclosing green
Leads inland to a usual Cornish scene-
Slate cottages with sycamore between,

Small fields and tellymasts and wires and poles
With, as the everlasting ocean rolls,
Two chapels built for half a hundred souls....Read more of this...
by Betjeman, John
...s—
turning to him, coming back
to feel the swelling plums,
one held in each soft hand, breast-high,
above them her eyes enclosing him
in quietness brushed up to colors,
urgings green, thrustings yellow.

A vine-like touch, her promise seemed all profit,
surplus to lay aside and store,
quick harvest if he collapsed his stand,
pulled down his crates, rolled away his canvas:
full bounty if he washed his hands and followed,
trailing her fragrances
of melons in their prime, of ber...Read more of this...
by Emanuel, James A
...where the monks walk in advance, bearing the cross on high! 

5
Blow again, trumpeter! and for thy theme,
Take now the enclosing theme of all—the solvent and the setting; 
Love, that is pulse of all—the sustenace and the pang; 
The heart of man and woman all for love; 
No other theme but love—knitting, enclosing, all-diffusing love. 

O, how the immortal phantoms crowd around me!
I see the vast alembic ever working—I see and know the flames that heat the world; 
The glow, th...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt
...sent of all, none opposite,
Samaritan or Jew; how couldst thou hope
Long to enjoy it quiet and secure 
Between two such enclosing enemies,
Roman and Parthian? Therefore one of these
Thou must make sure thy own: the Parthian first,
By my advice, as nearer, and of late
Found able by invasion to annoy
Thy country, and captive lead away her kings,
Antigonus and old Hyrcanus, bound,
Maugre the Roman. It shall be my task
To render thee the Parthian at dispose,
Choose which thou wil...Read more of this...
by Milton, John
...ed of none;
Until the clear blue sky was seen,
And the grassy meadows bright and green. 
And then I sunk in his embrace
Enclosing there a mighty space
Of love; and so we travelled on
By woods, and fields of yellow flowers,
And towns, and villages, and towers,
Day after day of happy hours.
It was the azure time of June,
When the skies are deep in the stainless noon,
And the warm and fitful breezes shake
The fresh green leaves of the hedge-row briar; 
And there were odors then ...Read more of this...
by Shelley, Percy Bysshe
...w their dusty relics do bewray; 
Tell me ye spirits (sith the darksome river 
Of Styx not passable to souls returning, 
Enclosing you in thrice three wards forever, 
Do not restrain your images still mourning) 
Tell me then (for perhaps some one of you 
Yet here above him secretly doth hide) 
Do ye not feel your torments to accrue, 
When ye sometimes behold the ruin'd pride 
Of these old Roman works built with your hands, 
Now to become nought else, but heaped sands? 


16 

...Read more of this...
by Spenser, Edmund
...oin’d seine-ends in the water, 
The boats separate—they diverge and row off, each on its rounding course to the beach,
 enclosing
 the mossbonkers;
The net is drawn in by a windlass by those who stop ashore, 
Some of the fishermen lounge in their boats—others stand negligently ankle-deep in the
 water,
 pois’d on strong legs; 
The boats are partly drawn up—the water slaps against them; 
On the sand, in heaps and winrows, well out from the water, lie the green-back’d spotted
 ...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt
...
See endless billows
Heaving before them;
Us doth the billow
Lift up and swallow,
So that we perish.

Small is the ring
Enclosing our life,
And whole generations
Link themselves firmly
On to existence's
Chain never-ending.

 1789....Read more of this...
by von Goethe, Johann Wolfgang
...rtain shapes; and unawares
On white-eyed phantasms weeping tears of blood,
And horrible nightmares,


And hollow shades enclosing hearts of flame,
And, with dim fretted foreheads all,
On corpses three-months-old at noon she came,
That stood against the wall.


A spot of dull stagnation, without light
Or power of movement, seem'd my soul,
'Mid onward-sloping motions infinite
Making for one sure goal.


A still salt pool, lock'd in with bars of sand,
Left on the shore, that hea...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...skies,
Where chilling winds return the winter past,
And nature shudders at the furious blast.

O thou stupendous, earth-enclosing main
Exert thy wonders to the world again!
If ere thy pow'r prolong'd the fleeting breath,
Turn'd back the shafts, and mock'd the gates of death,
If ere thine air dispens'd an healing pow'r,
Or snatch'd the victim from the fatal hour,
This equal case demands thine equal care,
And equal wonders may this patient share.
But unavailing, frantic is the ...Read more of this...
by Wheatley, Phillis
...s
Fewness of this precious only
Endless world in which you say
You live, you think of things like this:
Blocks of slate enclosing dappled
Red and green, enclosing tawny
Yellow nets, enclosing white
And black acres of dominoes,
Where a neat brown paper parcel
Tempts you to untie the string.
In the parcel a small island,
On the island a large tree,
On the tree a husky fruit.
Strip the husk and pare the rind off:
In the kernel you will see
Blocks of slate enclosed by dappled
Red...Read more of this...
by Graves, Robert
...glacial land, 
Ionian water, 
chill, snow-ribbed sand, 
drift of rare flowers, 
clear, with delicate shell- 
like leaf enclosing 
frozen lily-leaf, 
camellia texture, 
colder than a rose; 

wind-flower 
that keeps the breath 
of the north-wind -- 
these and none other; 

intimate thoughts and kind 
reach out to share 
the treasure of my mind, 
intimate hands and dear 
drawn garden-ward and sea-ward 
all the sheer rapture 
that I would take 
to mould a clear 
and frigid statu...Read more of this...
by Doolittle, Hilda

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Book: Reflection on the Important Things