Famous Flagging Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Carol of Occupations

...ass-blowing, nail-making, coopering, tin-roofing, shingle-dressing,
Ship-joining, dock-building, fish-curing, ferrying, flagging of side-walks by flaggers, 
The pump, the pile-driver, the great derrick, the coal-kiln and brick-kiln, 
Coal-mines, and all that is down there,—the lamps in the darkness, echoes, songs,
 what
 meditations, what vast native thoughts looking through smutch’d faces, 
Iron-works, forge-fires in the mountains, or by the river-banks—men around feeling
 t...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt


General Confession

...te thy will,

Ceaseless will endeavour,
From half-measures strive to wean us,

Wholly, fairly, well demean us,
Resting, flagging never.

At all blockheads we'll at once

Let our laugh ring clearly,
And the pearly-foaming wine

Never sip at merely.
Ne'er with eye alone give kisses,

But with boldness suck in blisses
From those lips loved dearly.

1803.*...Read more of this...
by von Goethe, Johann Wolfgang

Goblin Market

...nguish past,
Is it death or is it life ?

Life out of death.
That night long Lizzie watched by her,
Counted her pulse's flagging stir,
Felt for her breath,
Held water to her lips, and cooled her face
With tears and fanning leaves:
But when the first birds chirped about their eaves,
And early reapers plodded to the place
Of golden sheaves,
And dew-wet grass
Bowed in the morning winds so brisk to pass,
And new buds with new day
Opened of cup-like lilies on the stream,
Laura awo...Read more of this...
by Rossetti, Christina

Lara

...d fast they speed away 
To those that wander as to those that stay; 
But lack of tidings from another clime 
Had lent a flagging wing to weary Time. 
They see, they recognise, yet almost deem 
The present dubious, or the past a dream. 

He lives, nor yet is past his manhood's prime, 
Though sear'd by toil, and something touch'd by time; 
His faults, whate'er they were, if scarce forgot, 
Might be untaught him by his varied lot; 
Nor good nor ill of late were known, his name 
...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)

Sleep

...night of weariness 
let me give myself up to sleep without struggle, 
resting my trust upon thee. 

Let me not force my flagging spirit into a poor preparation for thy worship. 

It is thou who drawest the veil of night upon the tired eyes of the day 
to renew its sight in a fresher gladness of awakening....Read more of this...
by Fletcher, John Gould


Snapshots of a Daughter-In-Law

...ll that we were--fire, tears,
wit, taste, martyred ambition--
stirs like the memory of refused adultery
the drained and flagging bosom of our middle years.

 9

Not that it is done well, but
that it is done at all? Yes, think
of the odds! or shrug them off forever.
This luxury of the precocious child,
Time's precious chronic invalid,--
would we, darlings, resign it if we could?
Our blight has been our sinecure:
mere talent was enough for us--
glitter in fragments and rough dr...Read more of this...
by Rich, Adrienne

Sparkles from The Wheel

...ong day, 
Withdrawn, I join a group of children watching—I pause aside with them. 

By the curb, toward the edge of the flagging, 
A knife-grinder works at his wheel, sharpening a great knife; 
Bending over, he carefully holds it to the stone—by foot and knee,
With measur’d tread, he turns rapidly—As he presses with light but firm hand, 
Forth issue, then, in copious golden jets, 
Sparkles from the wheel. 

2
The scene, and all its belongings—how they seize and affect me! 
Th...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt

The Growth of Love

...e world comes not to an end: her city-hives
Swarm with the tokens of a changeless trade,
With rolling wheel, driver and flagging jade,
Rich men and beggars, children, priests and wives.
New homes on old are set, as lives on lives;
Invention with invention overlaid:
But still or tool or toy or book or blade
Shaped for the hand, that holds and toils and strives. 
The men to-day toil as their fathers taught,
With little better'd means; for works depend
On works and overlap, and ...Read more of this...
by Bridges, Robert Seymour

The Lady of the Lake

...
     Can naught but blood our feud atone?
     Are there no means?'—' No, stranger, none!
     And hear,—to fire thy flagging zeal,—
     The Saxon cause rests on thy steel;
     For thus spoke Fate by prophet bred
     Between the living and the dead:"
     Who spills the foremost foeman's life,
     His party conquers in the strife."'
     'Then, by my word,' the Saxon said,
     "The riddle is already read.
     Seek yonder brake beneath the cliff,—
     There ...Read more of this...
by Scott, Sir Walter

The Progress of Poesy

...lance at thy command.
Perching on the sceptred hand
Of Jove, thy magic lulls the feathered king
With ruffled plumes and flagging wing:
Quenched in dark clouds of slumber lie
The terror of his beak, and lightnings of his eye.

Thee the voice, the dance, obey,
Tempered to thy warbled lay.
O'er Idalia's velvet-green
The rosy-crowned Loves are seen
On Cytherea's day,
With antic Sport, and blue-eyed Pleasures,
Frisking light in frolic measures;
Now pursuing, now retreating,
Now in...Read more of this...
by Gray, Thomas

The Vanity of Human Wishes (excerpts)

...there is, and who could wish its end?

297 Yet ev'n on this her load Misfortune flings,
298 To press the weary minutes' flagging wings:
299 New sorrow rises as the day returns,
300 A sister sickens, or a daughter mourns.
301 Now kindred Merit fills the sable bier,
302 Now lacerated Friendship claims a tear.
303 Year chases year, decay pursues decay,
304 Still drops some joy from with'ring life away;
305 New forms arise, and diff'rent views engage,
306 Superfluous lags the vet...Read more of this...
by Johnson, Samuel

The Witch Of Atlas

...the wind's scourge foamed like a wounded thing
And the incessant hail with stony clash
Ploughed up the waters, and the flagging wing
Of the roused cormorant in the lightningflash
Looked like the wreck of some wind-wandering
Fragment of inky thunder-smoke--this haven
Was as a gem to copy heaven engraven.

On which that Lady played her many pranks,
Circling the image of a shooting star
(Even as a tiger on Hydaspes' banks
Outspeeds the antelopes which speediest are)
In her ligh...Read more of this...
by Shelley, Percy Bysshe

Tim

...re may be dim,
 They laugh a lot.
Am I tearful for Brother Tim?
 Oh no, I'm not.

I know he goes to work each day
 With flagging feet.
'Tis hard, even with decent pay,
 To make ends meet.
But when my sterile home I see,
 So smugly prim,
Although my banker bows to me,
 I envy Tim....Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William

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