Famous Formation Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Formation poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous formation poems. These examples illustrate what a famous formation poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Whitman, Walt
...r-beaten vessels, landings, settlements, embryo stature and muscle,
The haughty defiance of the Year 1—war, peace, the formation of the Constitution,
The separate States, the simple, elastic scheme, the immigrants,
The Union, always swarming with blatherers, and always sure and impregnable,
The unsurvey’d interior, log-houses, clearings, wild animals, hunters, trappers;
Surrounding the multiform agriculture, mines, temperature, the gestation of new States,
Congress conve...Read more of this...
by
Yeats, William Butler
...like swallows went,
And yet a woman's powerful character
Could keep a Swallow to its first intent;
And half a dozen in formation there,
That seemed to whirl upon a compass-point,
Found certainty upon the dreaming air,
The intellectual sweetness of those lines
That cut through time or cross it withershins.
Here, traveller, scholar, poet, take your stand
When all those rooms and passages are gone,
When nettles wave upon a shapeless mound
And saplings root among the broken...Read more of this...
by
Raine, Kathleen
...arble,
The horses of Apocalypse are in his stable.
The sun plays a game of darts in Spain
Three by three in flight formation.
The invincible wheels of his yellow car
Are the discs that kindle the Chinese war.
The sun shows the world to the world,
Turns its own ghost on the terrified crowd,
Then plunges all images into the ocean
Of the nightly mass emotion.
Games of chance and games of skill,
All his sports are games to kill.
I saw the murderer at evenin...Read more of this...
by
Bible, The
...“As a father shows mercy to his sons,
Jehovah has shown mercy to those fearing him.
For he himself well knows the formation of us,
Remembering that we are dust.”—Ps. 103:13, 14.
“If errors were what you watch, O Jah,
O Jehovah, who could stand?
For there is the true forgiveness with you,
In order that you may be feared.
I have hoped, O Jehovah, my soul has hoped,
And for his word I have waited.”—Ps. 130:3-5....Read more of this...
by
Neruda, Pablo
...ll, on a day,
each by the other,
the artichoke moves
to its dream
of a market place
in the big willow
hoppers:
a battle formation.
Most warlike
of defilades-
with men
in the market stalls,
white shirts
in the soup-greens,
artichoke field marshals,
close-order conclaves,
commands, detonations,
and voices,
a crashing of crate staves.
And
Maria
come
down
with her hamper
to
make trial
of an artichoke:
she reflects, she examines,
she candles them up to the light like an e...Read more of this...
by
Neruda, Pablo
...ne day
Side by side
In big wicker baskets
Walking through the market
To realize their dream
The artichoke army
In formation.
Never was it so military
Like on parade.
The men
In their white shirts
Among the vegetables
Were
The Marshals
Of the artichokes
Lines in close order
Command voices,
And the bang
Of a falling box.
But
Then
Maria
Comes
With her basket
She chooses
An artichoke,
She's not afraid of it.
She examines it, she observe...Read more of this...
by
Tzara, Tristan
...f each man says the opposite it is because he is
right
Get ready for the action of the geyser of our blood
-submarine formation of transchromatic aero-
planes, cellular metals numbered in
the flight of images
above the rules of the
and its control
BEAUTIFUL
It is not for the sawed-off imps
who still worship their navel...Read more of this...
by
Watts, Isaac
...The wonderful formation of man.
'Twas from thy hand, my God, I came,
A work of such a curious frame
In me thy fearful wonders shine,
And each proclaims thy skill divine.
Thine eyes did all my limbs survey,
Which yet in dark confusion lay;
Thou saw'st the daily growth they took,
Formed by the model of thy book.
By thee my growing parts were named,
And what t...Read more of this...
by
McGonagall, William Topaz
...d many of the Dervishes' heads by them were cleft.
General Macdonald's Brigade was on the right centre in similar formation,
And the 9th Battalion also in line in front rotation;
Then the whole force arrived about four o'clock,
And each man's courage was as firm as the rock.
At first the march was over a ridge of gravel,
But it didn't impede the noble heroes' travel;
No, they were as steady as when marching in the valley below,
And each man was eager to attack the...Read more of this...
by
McGonagall, William Topaz
...ns of horse under the Earl Marischal,
And the Angus squadron was on the left: these include them all.
During this formation, the Duke of Argyle was watching all the time,
But owing to the ground occupied by them he couldn't see their line,
Which was unfortunately obstructed by the brow of a hill,
At the thought thereof the Duke's heart with fear did fill.
The hill was occupied by a party of Earl Mar's troops looking towards Dunblane,
Which the Earl of Mar no doubt...Read more of this...
by
Bishop, Elizabeth
...shrunken,
seabirds in ones or twos.
The rackety, icy, offshore wind
numbed our faces on one side;
disrupted the formation
of a lone flight of Canada geese;
and blew back the low, inaudible rollers
in upright, steely mist.
The sky was darker than the water
--it was the color of mutton-fat jade.
Along the wet sand, in rubber boots, we followed
a track of big dog-prints (so big
they were more like lion-prints). Then we came on
lengths and lengths, e...Read more of this...
by
von Goethe, Johann Wolfgang
...welling,
Free and unending the shoot seemeth in fullness
to be;
Yet here Nature restraineth, with powerful hands, the formation,
And to a perfecter end, guideth with softness its
growth,
Less abundantly yielding the sap, contracting the vessels,
So that the figure ere long gentler effects doth
disclose.
Soon and in silence is check'd the growth of the vigorous branches,
And the rib of the stalk fuller becometh in form.
Leafless, however, and quick the tenderer ...Read more of this...
by
Gregory, Rg
...huffling past yews
thoughts finding rhythm
a lightness that bred
from a silent aceptance
a red-arrowed plane
in single formation
scissored the sky's blue
above the procession
sagittarian arrow
a sizzling of fire
an unconscious dipping
of wings in salute
to a baby whose burning
from birth to departing
took thirteen fast days
from rain into sunshine
till almost the hilltop
the hole with its mound
a circle of people
shared its raw hollow
no vicar no service
a speaking of po...Read more of this...
by
Bishop, Elizabeth
...l;
and look what happens. For Time is
nothing if not amenable.
The shooting stars in your black hair
in bright formation
are flocking where,
so straight, so soon?
--Come, let me wash it in this big tin basin,
battered and shiny like the moon....Read more of this...
by
Warton, Thomas
...yield to Grecian groups the shining space.
Lo, from the canvas Beauty shifts her throne,
Lo, Picture's powers a new formation own!
Behold, she prints upon the crystal plain,
With her own energy, th' expressive stain!
The mighty master spreads his mimic toil
More wide, nor only blends the breathing oil;
But calls the lineaments of life complete
From genial alchymy's creative heat;
Obedient forms to the bright fusion gives,
While in the warm enamel Nature lives.
Reynol...Read more of this...
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