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Famous Etched Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry
...heir darling lord
on the breast of the boat, the breaker-of-rings, {0b}
by the mast the mighty one. Many a treasure
fetched from far was freighted with him.
No ship have I known so nobly dight
with weapons of war and weeds of battle,
with breastplate and blade: on his bosom lay
a heaped hoard that hence should go
far o’er the flood with him floating away.
No less these loaded the lordly gifts,
thanes’ huge treasure, than those had done
who in former time forth had ...Read more of this...
by Anonymous,



...
Hung with the yellow-belled laburnum, stands
Smooth is the beach, save where some ebbing wave
Leaves its faint outline etched upon the sands,
As though it feared to be too soon forgot
By the green rush, its playfellow, - and yet, it is a spot

So small, that the inconstant butterfly
Could steal the hoarded money from each flower
Ere it was noon, and still not satisfy
Its over-greedy love, - within an hour
A sailor boy, were he but rude enow
To land and pluck a garland for hi...Read more of this...
by Wilde, Oscar
...When Christmas bells are swinging above the fields of snow, 
We hear sweet voices ringing from lands of long ago.
And etched on vacant places, 
Are half forgotten faces
Of friends we used to cherish, and loves we used to know –
When Christmas bells are swinging above the fields of snow.

Uprising from the ocean of the present surging near, 
We see, with strange emotion that is not free from fear, 
That continent Elysian
Long vanished from our vision, 
Youth’s lovely lost At...Read more of this...
by Wilcox, Ella Wheeler
...vage joy express.
The Indian captives, blanketed in red, 
On ponies mounted, by the scouts are led.
Like sumach bushes, etched on evening skies, 
Against the blue-clad troops, this patch of color lies.



LX.
High o'er the scene vast music billows bound, 
And all the air is liquid with the sound
Of those invisible compelling waves.
Perchance they reach the low and lonely graves
Where sleep brave Elliott and Hamilton, 
And whisper there the tale of victory won; 
Or do the soul...Read more of this...
by Wilcox, Ella Wheeler
...les and channels
Of their collaborative linking-poem
Scored in their teacher's heart: live, rigid, fluid

Like passages etched in a microscopic cicuit.
Elliot had in his memory so many jokes
They seemed to breed like microbes in a culture

Inside his brain, one so much making another
It was impossible to tell them all:
In the court-culture of jokes, a top banana.

Imagine a court of one: the queen a young mother,
Unhappy, alone all day with her firstborn child
And her new bab...Read more of this...
by Pinsky, Robert



...ith bars of grey,
The dull dead wind is out of tune,
And like a withered leaf the moon
Is blown across the stormy bay.

Etched clear upon the pallid sand
Lies the black boat: a sailor boy
Clambers aboard in careless joy
With laughing face and gleaming hand.

And overhead the curlews cry,
Where through the dusky upland grass
The young brown-throated reapers pass,
Like silhouettes against the sky....Read more of this...
by Wilde, Oscar
...The summer hums. The afternoon fatigues;
she breathed her crisp white dress distractedly
and put into it that sharply etched etude
her impatience for a reality

that could come: tomorrow, this evening--,
that perhaps was there, was just kept hidden;
and at the window, tall and having everything,
she suddenly could feel the pampered park.

With that she broke off; gazed outside, locked
her hands together; wished for a long book--
and in a burst of anger shoved back
the jasmi...Read more of this...
by Rilke, Rainer Maria
...that bite on the flanks of night, the horizon sings of a new kill and a big kill.
The horizon behind is a wall of dark etched with a memory, fixed with a woman’s face—they fight on and on, boots in the mud and heads in the gray rain—for the women they hate and the women they love—for the women they left behind, they fight on....Read more of this...
by Sandburg, Carl
...gesture,
Hearsay. It is another life to the city,
The backing of the looking glass of the
Unidentified but precisely sketched studio. It wants
To siphon off the life of the studio, deflate
Its mapped space to enactments, island it.
That operation has been temporarily stalled
But something new is on the way, a new preciosity
In the wind. Can you stand it,
Francesco? Are you strong enough for it?
This wind brings what it knows not, is
Self--propelled, blind, has no notion
Of i...Read more of this...
by Ashbery, John
...they brought,
Tripods and urns in rare and curious taste,
Polychrome chests and cabinets inwrought
With pearl and ivory etched and interlaced;
Pendant brocades with massive braid were caught,
And chain-slung, oriental lamps so placed
To light the lounger on some low divan,
Sunken in swelling down and silks from Hindustan.

And there was spread, upon the ample floors,
Work of the Levantine's laborious loom,
Such as by Euxine or Ionian shores
Carpets the dim seraglio's scented ...Read more of this...
by Seeger, Alan
...ins dancing, 
And unforgotten hands. (Ah, God, 
I trod them down where I have trod, 
And they remain, and they remain, 
Etched in unutterable pain, 
Loved lips and faces now apart, 
That once were closer than my heart -- 
In agony, in agony, 
And horribly a part of me. . . . 
For Lethe is for no man set, 
And in Hell may no man forget.) 

And there were flowers, and jugs, bright-glancing, 
And old Italian swords -- and looks, 
A moment's glance of fire, of fire, 
Spiring, lea...Read more of this...
by Benet, Stephen Vincent
...He lit his candle, and almost in shame
At his eagerness, lifted his eyes.
The Shadow was there, and its precise
Outline etched the cold, white wall.
The young man swore, "By God! You, Paul,
There's something the matter with your brain.
Go home now and sleep off the strain."

The next day was a storm, the rain
Whispered and scratched at the window-pane.
A grey and shadowless morning filled
The little shop. The watches, chilled,
Were dead and sparkless as burnt-out coals.
The g...Read more of this...
by Lowell, Amy
...ke this, with eight stranded whales
to look at; with the sweet sea air coming into your house
on a fine day, from water etched
 with waves as formal as the scales
on a fish.

One by one in two's and three's, the seagulls keep
 flying back and forth over the town clock,
or sailing around the lighthouse without moving their wings --
rising steadily with a slight
 quiver of the body -- or flock
mewing where

a sea the purple of the peacock's neck is
 paled to greenish azure as D...Read more of this...
by Moore, Marianne
...John, flicking them over to find a score,
Spoke for the first time a certain name—
The name of a town in a distant land
Etched on our hearts by a murderer's hand.

Mother and son exchanged a glance, 
A curious glance of strength and dread. 
I thought: what matter to them if Franz 
Ferdinand dies? One of them said: 
This might be serious.' 'Yes, you're right.' 
The other answered, 'It really might.' 

XIX 
Dear John: I'm going home. I write to say 
Goodbye. My boat-train leave...Read more of this...
by Miller, Alice Duer
...ed, rip the little door from its jamb,

a day when the cool brick paths
and the garden bursting with peonies

seemed so etched in sunlight
that you felt like taking

a hammer to the glass paperweight
on the living room end table,

releasing the inhabitants
from their snow-covered cottage

so they could walk out,
holding hands and squinting

into this larger dome of blue and white,
well, today is just that kind of day....Read more of this...
by Collins, Billy

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry