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Famous Ferry Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry
...or like a miracle. 
It was still dark. One foot of the sun 
steadied itself on a long ripple in the river. 

The first ferry of the day had just crossed the river. 
It was so cold we hoped that the coffee 
would be very hot, seeing that the sun 
was not going to warm us; and that the crumb 
would be a loaf each, buttered, by a miracle. 
At seven a man stepped out on the balcony. 

He stood for a minute alone on the balcony 
looking over our heads toward the river. 
A servant...Read more of this...
by Bishop, Elizabeth



...eat him coldly--
 'Twas a fish that circled so,
 Turning over boldly."

 Dainty foot and tender heart,
 Wait the loaded ferry-raft.
 "Wait, ah, wait!" the ripple saith;
 "Maiden, wait, for I am Death!"

 "When my lover calls I haste--
 Dame Disdain was never wedded!"
 Ripple-ripple round her waist,
 Clear the current eddied.

 Foolish heart and faithfut hand,
 Little feet that touched no land.
 Far away the ripple sped,
 Ripple-ripple runnin red!...Read more of this...
by Kipling, Rudyard
...e? 
Ah, dear father, graybeard, lonely old courage- 
teacher, what America did you have when Charon quit 
poling his ferry and you got out on a smoking bank 
and stood watching the boat disappear on the black 
waters of Lethe? ...Read more of this...
by Ginsberg, Allen
...f all things that go utterly to death
And mix no more, no more
With life's perpetually awakening breath?
Shall Time not ferry me to such a shore,
Over such sailless seas,
To walk with hope's slain importunities
In miserable marriage? Nay, shall not
All things be there forgot,
Save the sea's golden barrier and the black
Close-crouching promontories?
Dead to all shames, forgotten of all glories,
Shall I not wander there, a shadow's shade,
A spectre self-destroyed,
So purged of ...Read more of this...
by Wharton, Edith
...In the Shreve High football stadium,
I think of Polacks nursing long beers in Tiltonsville,
And gray faces of ******* in the blast furnace at Benwood,
And the ruptured night watchman of Wheeling Steel,
Dreaming of heroes.

All the proud fathers are ashamed to go home.
Their women cluck like starved pullets,
Dying for love.

Therefore,
Their sons grow suici...Read more of this...
by Wright, James



...om every sword-edge. Yet his life-leaving
must be miserable on this day in this world,
and that estranged spirit must ferry forth
into the keeping of fiends. (ll. 791-808)

Then he discovered, he who had previously
perpetrated much offense, much affliction to the hearts
of mankind—guilty against God, he discovered
that his body-home did not wish to endure,
that the mindful kinsman of Hygelac kept him
by the hand. Each was hateful to the other
while he lived. The te...Read more of this...
by Anonymous,
...see you also face to face. 

Crowds of men and women attired in the usual costumes! how curious you are to me! 
On the ferry-boats, the hundreds and hundreds that cross, returning home, are more curious
 to
 me
 than you suppose; 
And you that shall cross from shore to shore years hence, are more to me, and more in my
 meditations, than you might suppose.

2
The impalpable sustenance of me from all things, at all hours of the day; 
The simple, compact, well-join’d scheme—mys...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt
...that yielded at last to the thongs and knife of the gelder. 

Sauntering the pavement, thus, or crossing the ceaseless ferry, faces, and faces, and
 faces: 
I see them, and complain not, and am content with all.

2
Do you suppose I could be content with all, if I thought them their own finale? 

This now is too lamentable a face for a man; 
Some abject louse, asking leave to be—cringing for it; 
Some milk-nosed maggot, blessing what lets it wrig to its hole. 

This face is a...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt
...ny lives, and this one life 
Of Joe, long dead, who lives between five bells. 

Deep and dissolving verticals of light 
Ferry the falls of moonshine down. Five bells 
Coldly rung out in a machine's voice. Night and water 
Pour to one rip of darkness, the Harbour floats 
In the air, the Cross hangs upside-down in water. 

Why do I think of you, dead man, why thieve 
These profitless lodgings from the flukes of thought 
Anchored in Time? You have gone from earth, 
Gone even fro...Read more of this...
by Slessor, Kenneth
...ve
But had run away to freedom.
And the slaves knew
What Frederick Douglass said was true.

With John Brown at Harper's Ferry, ******* died.
John Brown was hung.
Before the Civil War, days were dark,
And nobody knew for sure
When freedom would triumph
"Or if it would," thought some.
But others new it had to triumph.
In those dark days of slavery,
Guarding in their hearts the seed of freedom,
The slaves made up a song:
 Keep Your Hand On The Plow! Hold On!
That song meant just...Read more of this...
by Hughes, Langston
...are weeping and undressing while the sirens of Los Alamos wailed them down, and wailed down Wall, and the Staten Island ferry also wailed,
who broke down crying in white gymnasiums naked and trembling before the machinery of other skeletons,
who bit detectives in the neck and shrieked with delight in policecars for committing no crime but their own wild cooking pederasty and intoxication,
who howled on their knees in the subway and were dragged off the roof waving genitals...Read more of this...
by Ginsberg, Allen
...et Kelita rejoice with Xiphion the Bulbous Iris. 

Let Pelaiah rejoice with Cloud-Berries. God be gracious to Peele and Ferry. 

Let Azaniah rejoice with the Water Lily. 

Let Rehob rejoice with Caucalis Bastard Parsley. 

Let Sherebiah rejoice with Nigella, that bears a white flower. 

Let Beninu rejoice with Heart-Pear. God be gracious to George Bening. 

Let Bunni rejoice with Bulbine -- leaves like leek, purple flower. 

Let Zatthu rejoice with the Wild Service. 

Let Hiz...Read more of this...
by Smart, Christopher
...of the great depths.
O river, I see drifting

Deep in your flux of silver
Those great goddesses of peace.
Stone, stone, ferry me down there....Read more of this...
by Plath, Sylvia
...town -- 'twere long to tell 
The storm and riot of the rabble rout; 
The wild Walpurgis revel in and out 
That made the ferry boat a floating hell. 

What time the captive locusts fairly roared: 
And bulldog ants, made stingless with a knife, 
Climbed up the seats and scared the very life 
From timid folk, who near jumped overboard. 

The hours of lessons -- hours with feet of clay 
Each hour a day, each day more like a week: 
While hapless urchins heard with blanched cheek 
...Read more of this...
by Paterson, Andrew Barton
...For man is weak; God sleeps: and heaven is high:
One fiery-coloured moment: one great love; and lo! we die.

Ah! but no ferry-man with labouring pole
Nears his black shallop to the flowerless strand,
No little coin of bronze can bring the soul
Over Death's river to the sunless land,
Victim and wine and vow are all in vain,
The tomb is sealed; the soldiers watch; the dead rise not again.

We are resolved into the supreme air,
We are made one with what we touch and see,
With ou...Read more of this...
by Wilde, Oscar
...l warmth, and there to pine 
Immovable, infixed, and frozen round 
Periods of time,--thence hurried back to fire. 
They ferry over this Lethean sound 
Both to and fro, their sorrow to augment, 
And wish and struggle, as they pass, to reach 
The tempting stream, with one small drop to lose 
In sweet forgetfulness all pain and woe, 
All in one moment, and so near the brink; 
But Fate withstands, and, to oppose th' attempt, 
Medusa with Gorgonian terror guards 
The ford, and of ...Read more of this...
by Milton, John
...ly, 

But as a child might, with no other wish?

Yes, utterly.



Then I shall bear you down my estuary,

Carry you and ferry you to burial mysteriously,

Take you and receive you,

Consume you, engulf you,

In the huge cave, my belly, lave you

With huger waves continually.

And you shall cling and clamber there

And slumber there, in that dumb chamber,

Beat with my blood's beat, hear my heart move

Blindly in bones that ride above you,

Delve in my flesh, dissolved and bed...Read more of this...
by Fletcher, John Gould
...umner hills,
And wonder if thou haunt'st their shy retreats.

For most, I know, thou lov'st retired ground!
Thee at the ferry Oxford riders blithe,
Returning home on summer-nights, have met
Crossing the stripling Thames at Bablock-hithe,
Trailing in the cool stream thy fingers wet,
As the punt's rope chops round;
And leaning backward in a pensive dream,
And fostering in thy lap a heap of flowers
Plucked in the shy fields and distant Wychwood bowers,
And thine eyes resting on ...Read more of this...
by Arnold, Matthew
...f a courtier ere you died, 
And seem to think it would not be amiss 
To grow a whole one on the other side 
Of Charon's ferry; you forget that his 
Reign is concluded; whatso'er betide, 
He won't be sovereign more: you've lost your labor, 
For at the best he will be but your neighbour. 

LXXIII 

'However, I knew what to think of it, 
When I beheld you in your jesting way, 
Flitting and whispering round about the spit 
Where Belial, upon duty for the day, 
With Fox's lard was...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)
...f the vulgar fate, 
A frequent sample of the life and death of workmen,
Each after his kind: 
Cold dash of waves at the ferry-wharf—posh and ice in the river, half-frozen mud in
 the
 streets, a gray, discouraged sky overhead, the short, last daylight of Twelfth-month, 
A hearse and stages—other vehicles give place—the funeral of an old Broadway
 stage-driver, the cortege mostly drivers. 

Steady the trot to the cemetery, duly rattles the death-bell, the gate is pass’d, the
 ...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry