Get Your Premium Membership

Famous Expand Poems by Famous Poets

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

See also:

by Whitman, Walt
...nd the voice of full-yielding;
The chant of joy and power for boundless fertility. 

All till’d and untill’d fields expand before me; 
I see the true arenas of my race—or first, or last, 
Man’s innocent and strong arenas. 

I see the Heroes at other toils;
I see, well-wielded in their hands, the better weapons. 

11
I see where America, Mother of All, 
Well-pleased, with full-spanning eye, gazes forth, dwells long, 
And counts the varied gathering of the products....Read more of this...



by Rossetti, Christina
...ent the air 
Of Paradise; then first the tardy sand 
Of time ran golden; and I felt my hair 
Put on a glory,and my soul expand....Read more of this...

by Robinson, Mary Darby
...
Shrink from the sun, and bow their beauteous heads 
To scatter incense o'er their native beds, 
While coarser flow'rs expand with gaudy ray, 
Brave the rude wind, and mock the burning day. 

Ah! gentle Muse, from trivial follies turn, 
Where Patriot souls with god-like passions burn; 
Again to MERRY dedicate the line, 
So shall the envied boast of taste be thine; 
So shall thy song to glorious themes aspire, 
"Warm'd with a spark" of his transcendent fire. 

Thro' a...Read more of this...

by Shelley, Percy Bysshe
...ding among the springs
Of fire and poison, inaccessible
To avarice or pride, their starry domes 
Of diamond and of gold expand above
Numberless and immeasurable halls,
Frequent with crystal column, and clear shrines
Of pearl, and thrones radiant with chrysolite.
Nor had that scene of ampler majesty
Than gems or gold, the varying roof of heaven
And the green earth, lost in his heart its claims
To love and wonder; he would linger long
In lonesome vales, making the wild his ...Read more of this...

by Melville, Herman
...I

Where the wings of a sunny Dome expand
I saw a Banner in gladsome air-
Starry, like Berenice's Hair-
Afloat in broadened bravery there;
With undulating long-drawn flow,
As rolled Brazilian billows go
Voluminously o'er the Line.
The Land reposed in peace below;
The children in their glee
Were folded to the exulting heart
Of young Maternity.

II

Later, and it streamed in fight
When ...Read more of this...



by Petrarch, Francesco
...for ayeTo seek a better strand,The western winds their ready wings expand;Which, through the dangers of that dusky way,Where all deplore the first infringed command,Will guide her safe, from primal bondage free,Reckless to stop or stay,To that true East, where she desires to be. ...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...you, be hung our divinest aromas; 
Thrive, cities! bring your freight, bring your shows, ample and sufficient rivers; 
Expand, being than which none else is perhaps more spiritual; 
Keep your places, objects than which none else is more lasting.

12
We descend upon you and all things—we arrest you all; 
We realize the soul only by you, you faithful solids and fluids; 
Through you color, form, location, sublimity, ideality; 
Through you every proof, comparison, and all th...Read more of this...

by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...f the Past unto the Present,
Tell us of the ancient Games of Flowers;

In all places, then, and in all seasons,
Flowers expand their light and soul-like wings,
Teaching us, by most persuasive reasons,
How akin they are to human things.

And with childlike, credulous affection
We behold their tender buds expand;
Emblems of our own great resurrection,
Emblems of the bright and better land....Read more of this...

by Brontë, Emily
...
Come, sit down on this sunny stone:
'Tis wintry light o'er flowerless moors -
But sit - for we are all alone
And clear expand heaven's breathless shores. 

I could think in the withered grass
Spring's budding wreaths we might discern;
The violet's eye might shyly flash
And young leaves shoot among the fern. 

It is but thought - full many a night
The snow shall clothe those hills afar
And storms shall add a drearier blight
And winds shall wage a wilder war, 

Before ...Read more of this...

by Thoreau, Henry David
...than they, farther within. 

More swift its bolt than lightning is, 
Its voice than thunder is more loud, 
It doth expand my privacies 
To all, and leave me single in the crowd. 

It speaks with such authority, 
With so serene and lofty tone, 
That idle Time runs gadding by, 
And leaves me with Eternity alone. 

Now chiefly is my natal hour, 
And only now my prime of life; 
Of manhood's strength it is the flower, 
'Tis peace's end and war's beginning strife. ...Read more of this...

by Browning, Robert
...elp-tune of our reapers, their wine-song, when hand
Grasps at hand, eye lights eye in good friendship, and great hearts expand
And grow one in the sense of this world's life.---And then, the last song
When the dead man is praised on his journey---``Bear, bear him along
``With his few faults shut up like dead flowerets! Are balm-seeds not here
``To console us? The land has none left such as he on the bier.
``Oh, would we might keep thee, my brother!''---And then, the g...Read more of this...

by Schiller, Friedrich von
...ght light
Blessed in the realms sublime of space.
Upon the cheek now bloomed the smile,
The voice's soulful harmony
Expanded into song the while,
And feeling swam in the moist eye;
And from the mouth, with spirit teeming o'er,
Jest, sweetly linked with grace, began to pour.

Sunk in the instincts of the worm,
By naught but sensual lust possessed,
Ye recognized within his breast
Love-spiritual's noble germ;
And that this germ of love so blest
Escaped the senses' abject...Read more of this...

by St Vincent Millay, Edna
...the harp-strings
Rapidly,

And gold threads whistling
Through my mother's hand.
I saw the web grow,
And the pattern expand.

She wove a child's jacket,
And when it was done
She laid it on the floor
And wove another one.

She wove a red cloak
So regal to see,
"She's made it for a king's son,"
I said, "and not for me."
But I knew it was for me.

She wove a pair of breeches
Quicker than that!
She wove a pair of boots
And a little cocked hat.

She wove a p...Read more of this...

by Seeger, Alan
...e.
Backward dense branches intercept the glare
Of afternoon with eucalyptus shade;
Eastward the level valley-plains expand,
Sweet as a queen's survey of her own Fairyland.

For through that frame the ivied arches make,
Wide tracts of sunny midland charm the eye,
Frequent with hamlet grove, and lucent lake
Where the blue hills' inverted contours lie;
Far to the east where billowy mountains break
In surf of snow against a sapphire sky,
Huge thunderheads loom up behind t...Read more of this...

by Schiller, Friedrich von
...e, by crags around it piled,
Chafed while confined, foams fierce and wild,
Glides soft and smooth when once its streams expand,
When its waves, glassing in their silver play,
Aurora blent with Hesper's milder ray,
Gain the still beautiful--that shadow-land!
Here, contest grows but interchange of love,
All curb is but the bondage of the grace;
Gone is each foe,--peace folds her wings above
Her native dwelling-place.

When, through dead stone to breathe a soul of light,
Wit...Read more of this...

by Scott, Sir Walter
...e have here?
     Alas, this wild marauding
     Chief Alone might hazard our relief,
     And now thy maiden charms expand,
     Looks for his guerdon in thy hand;
     Full soon may dispensation sought,
     To back his suit, from Rome be brought.
     Then, though an exile on the hill,
     Thy father, as the Douglas, still
     Be held in reverence and fear;
     And though to Roderick thou'rt so dear
     That thou mightst guide with silken thread.
     Slave...Read more of this...

by Whittier, John Greenleaf
...ally rising where they stood, 
I see the old, primeval wood; 
Dark, shadow-like, on either hand 
I see its solemn waste expand; 
It climbs the green and cultured hill, 
It arches o'er the valley's rill, 
And leans from cliff and crag to throw 
Its wild arms o'er the stream below. 
Unchanged, alone, the same bright river 
Flows on, as it will flow forever! 
I listen, and I hear the low 
Soft ripple where its water go; 
I hear behind the panther's cry, 
The wild-bird's scre...Read more of this...

by Warton, Thomas
...ading olive lifts; here vine-clad hills
Lay forth their purple store, and sunny vales
In prospect vast their level laps expand,
Amid whose beauties glistering Athens towers.
Though through the blissful scenes Ilissus roll
His sage-inspiring flood, whose winding marge
The thick-wove laurel shades; though roseate Morn
Pour all her splendors on th' empurpled scene;
Yet fells the hoary hermit truer joys,
As from the cliff that o'er his cavern hangs
He views the piles of falle...Read more of this...

by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...nd,
And with thy little hand
Thou openest the mysterious gate
Into the future's undiscovered land.
I see its valves expand,
As at the touch of Fate!
Into those realms of love and hate,
Into that darkness blank and drear,
By some prophetic feeling taught,
I launch the bold, adventurous thought,
Freighted with hope and fear;
As upon subterranean streams,
In caverns unexplored and dark,
Men sometimes launch a fragile bark,
Laden with flickering fire,
And watch its swift-rece...Read more of this...

by Bukowski, Charles
...ing yellow sunlight,
Van Gogh yellow-
crazy, blinding!
and then
the roof drains
relieved of the rush of 
water
began to expand in the warmth:
PANG!PANG!PANG!
and everybody got up and looked outside
and there were all the lawns
still soaked
greener than green will ever
be
and there were birds
on the lawn
CHIRPING like mad,
they hadn't eaten decently 
for 7 days and 7 nights
and they were weary of 
berries
and
they waited as the worms
rose to the top,
half drowned worms.
th...Read more of this...

Dont forget to view our wonderful member Expand poems.


Book: Shattered Sighs