Famous Extended Poems by Famous Poets

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

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A Poets Voice XV

...children of one religion, for the varied paths of religion are but the fingers of the loving hand of the Supreme Being, extended to all, offering completeness of spirit to all, anxious to receive all. 

I love you for your Truth, derived from your knowledge; that Truth which I cannot see because of my ignorance. But I respect it as a divine thing, for it is the deed of the spirit. Your Truth shall meet my Truth in the coming world and blend together like the fragrance of flow...Read more of this...
by Gibran, Kahlil


Absalom And Achitophel

...sky;
Thy longing country's darling and desire;
Their cloudy pillar, and their guardian fire:
Their second Moses, whose extended wand
Divides the seas, and shows the promis'd land:
Whose dawning day, in very distant age,
Has exercis'd the sacred prophet's rage:
The people's pray'r, the glad diviner's theme,
The young men's vision, and the old men's dream!
Thee, Saviour, thee, the nation's vows confess;
And, never satisfi'd with seeing, bless:
Swift, unbespoken pomps, thy step...Read more of this...
by Dryden, John

Beowulf (Old English)

...sh foe;
for those ruthless raids, unresting I suffered
heart-sorrow heavy. Heaven be thanked,
Lord Eternal, for life extended
that I on this head all hewn and bloody,
after long evil, with eyes may gaze!
-- Go to the bench now! Be glad at banquet,
warrior worthy! A wealth of treasure
at dawn of day, be dealt between us!”
Glad was the Geats’ lord, going betimes
to seek his seat, as the Sage commanded.
Afresh, as before, for the famed-in-battle,
for the band of the ...Read more of this...
by Anonymous,

Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie

...the maidens,
Solemnly down the street came the parish priest, and the children
Paused in their play to kiss the hand he extended to bless them.
Reverend walked he among them; and up rose matrons and maidens,
Hailing his slow approach with words of affectionate welcome.
Then came the laborers home from the field, and serenely the sun sank
Down to his rest, and twilight prevailed. Anon from the belfry
Softly the Angelus sounded, and over the roofs of the village
Columns of pale...Read more of this...
by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth

Four Quartets 2: East Coker

...I

In my beginning is my end. In succession
Houses rise and fall, crumble, are extended,
Are removed, destroyed, restored, or in their place
Is an open field, or a factory, or a by-pass.
Old stone to new building, old timber to new fires,
Old fires to ashes, and ashes to the earth
Which is already flesh, fur and faeces,
Bone of man and beast, cornstalk and leaf.
Houses live and die: there is a time for building
And a time for living an...Read more of this...
by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)


Four Riddles

...ay by day:
My Second's age is ended:
My Third enjoys an age, they say,
That never seems to fade away,
Through centuries extended. 

My Whole? I need a poet's pen
To paint her myriad phases:
The monarch, and the slave, of men -
A mountain-summit, and a den
Of dark and deadly mazes - 

A flashing light - a fleeting shade -
Beginning, end, and middle
Of all that human art hath made
Or wit devised! Go, seek HER aid,
If you would read my riddle!...Read more of this...
by Carroll, Lewis

New Hampshire

...e
Will serve almost as well about Vermont,
Excepting that they differ in their mountains.
The Vermont mountains stretch extended straight;
New Hampshire mountains Curl up in a coil.

I had been coming to New Hampshire mountains.
And here I am and what am I to say?
Here first my theme becomes embarrassing.
Emerson said, "The God who made New Hampshire
Taunted the lofty land with little men."
Anotner Massachusetts poet said, 
"I go no more to summer in New Hampshire.
I've given...Read more of this...
by Frost, Robert

Paradise Lost: Book 01

...t mate, 
With head uplift above the wave, and eyes 
That sparkling blazed; his other parts besides 
Prone on the flood, extended long and large, 
Lay floating many a rood, in bulk as huge 
As whom the fables name of monstrous size, 
Titanian or Earth-born, that warred on Jove, 
Briareos or Typhon, whom the den 
By ancient Tarsus held, or that sea-beast 
Leviathan, which God of all his works 
Created hugest that swim th' ocean-stream. 
Him, haply slumbering on the Norway foam,...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Paradise Lost: Book 02

...the lowest bottom shook 
Of Erebus. She opened; but to shut 
Excelled her power: the gates wide open stood, 
That with extended wings a bannered host, 
Under spread ensigns marching, mibht pass through 
With horse and chariots ranked in loose array; 
So wide they stood, and like a furnace-mouth 
Cast forth redounding smoke and ruddy flame. 
Before their eyes in sudden view appear 
The secrets of the hoary Deep--a dark 
Illimitable ocean, without bound, 
Without dimension; wh...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

So Long

...onger visible—for toward that I have been incessantly
 preparing.

What is there more, that I lag and pause, and crouch extended with unshut mouth? 
Is there a single final farewell? 

4
My songs cease—I abandon them; 
From behind the screen where I hid I advance personally, solely to you. 

Camerado! This is no book;
Who touches this, touches a man; 
(Is it night? Are we here alone?) 
It is I you hold, and who holds you; 
I spring from the pages into your arms—decease calls ...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt

Sunday Morning

...on of the sky,
At evening, casual flocks of pigeons make
Abiguous undulations as they sink,
Downward to darkness, on extended wings....Read more of this...
by Stevens, Wallace

The Artists

...-walls so drear
Elysium paints with fond deceptive hand.

While soft humanity still lay at rest,
Within her tender arms extended,
No flame was stirred by bigots' murderous zest,
No guiltless blood on high ascended.
The heart that she in gentle fetters binds,
Views duty's slavish escort scornfully;
Her path of light, though fairer far it winds,
Sinks in the sun-track of morality.
Those who in her chaste service still remain,
No grovelling thought can tempt, no fate affright;
T...Read more of this...
by Schiller, Friedrich von

The Bride of Abydos

...Denied his bones a holier grave: 
And there by night, reclined, 'tis said, 
Is seen a ghastly turban'd head: 
And hence extended by the billow, 
'Tis named the "Pirate-phantom's pillow!" 
Where first it lay that mourning flower 
Hath flourish'd; flourisheth this hour, 
Alone and dewy, coldly pure and pale; 
As weeping Beauty's cheek at Sorrow's tale. 


(1) "G?l," the rose. 

(2) "Souls made of fire, and children of the Sun, 
With whom revenge is virtue." — YOUNG'S "REVENGE."...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)

The Deserted Village

....
Not so the loss. The man of wealth and pride
Takes up a space that many poor supplied;
Space for his lake, his park's extended bounds,
Space for his horses, equipage, and hounds;
The robe that wraps his limbs in silken sloth
Has robbed the neighbouring fields of half their growth;
His seat, where solitary sports are seen,
Indignant spurns the cottage from the green;
Around the world each needful product flies,
For all the luxuries the world supplies:
While thus the land ado...Read more of this...
by Goldsmith, Oliver

The Hunting Of The Snark

...

He offered large discount--he offered a cheque
 (Drawn "to bearer") for seven-pounds-ten:
But the Bandersnatch merely extended its neck
 And grabbed at the Banker again.

Without rest or pause--while those frumious jaws
 Went savagely snapping around--
He skipped and he hopped, and he floundered and flopped,
 Till fainting he fell to the ground.

The Bandersnatch fled as the others appeared
 Led on by that fear-stricken yell:
And the Bellman remarked "It is just as I feared...Read more of this...
by Carroll, Lewis

The Lady of the Lake

...ettle tried.
     V.

     The noble stag was pausing now
     Upon the mountain's southern brow,
     Where broad extended, far beneath,
     The varied realms of fair Menteith.
     With anxious eye he wandered o'er
     Mountain and meadow, moss and moor,
     And pondered refuge from his toil,
     By far Lochard or Aberfoyle.
     But nearer was the copsewood gray
     That waved and wept on Loch Achray,
     And mingled with the pine-trees blue
     On the...Read more of this...
by Scott, Sir Walter

The Pleasures of Melancholy

...And now no more th' abstracted ear attends
The water's murmuring lapse, th' entranced eye
Pierces no longer through th' extended rows
Of thick-ranged trees; till haply from the depth
The woodman's stroke, or distant tinkling team
Or heifers rustling through the brake, alarms
Th' illuded sense, and mars the golden dream.
These are delights that absence drear has made
Familiar to my soul, e'er since the form
Of young Sapphira, beauteous as the Spring,
When from her violet-woven...Read more of this...
by Warton, Thomas

The Vision of Judgment

...s most sublime inventions. 

LIII 

This was a signal unto such damn'd souls 
As have the privilege of their damnation 
Extended far beyond the mere controls 
Of worlds past, present, or to come; no station 
Is theirs particularly in the rolls 
Of hell assign'd; but where their inclination 
Or business carries them in search of game, 
They may range freely — being damn'd the same. 

LIV 

They're proud of this — as very well they may, 
It being a sort of knighthood, or gilt k...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)

The Witch Of Atlas

...en the whirlwinds and the clouds descended
From the white pinnacles of that cold hill,
She passed at dewfall to a space extended,
Where, in a lawn of flowering asphodel
Amid a wood of pines and cedars blended,
There yawned an inextinguishable well
Of crimson fire, full even to the brim,
And overflowing all the margin trim:--

Within the which she lay when the fierce war
Of wintry winds shook that innocuous liquor,
In many a mimic moon and bearded star,
O'er woods and lawns. T...Read more of this...
by Shelley, Percy Bysshe

To Think of Time

...oward
 the last, sicken’d, was help’d by a contribution, died, aged forty-one
 years—and
 that was his funeral. 

Thumb extended, finger uplifted, apron, cape, gloves, strap, wet-weather clothes, whip
 carefully chosen, boss, spotter, starter, hostler, somebody loafing on you, you loafing
 on
 somebody, headway, man before and man behind, good day’s work, bad day’s work,
 pet
 stock, mean stock, first out, last out, turning-in at night;
To think that these are so much and so ...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt

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