Famous Freight Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Freight poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous freight poems. These examples illustrate what a famous freight poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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...offin, unwrap him quick from the grave-clothes, box up his
bones
for a
journey;
Find a swift Yankee clipper—here is freight for you, black-bellied clipper,
Up with your anchor! shake out your sails! steer straight toward Boston bay.
Now call for the President’s marshal again, bring out the government cannon,
Fetch home the roarers from Congress, make another procession, guard it with foot and
dragoons.
This centre-piece for them:
Look! all orderly citizens—look fro...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...rd no noise
The Ruin was within
Oh cunning wreck that told no tale
And let no Witness in
The mind was built for mighty Freight
For dread occasion planned
How often foundering at Sea
Ostensibly, on Land
A not admitting of the wound
Until it grew so wide
That all my Life had entered it
And there were troughs beside
A closing of the simple lid
That opened to the sun
Until the tender Carpenter
Perpetual nail it down --...Read more of this...
by
Dickinson, Emily
...o thee,
The fruit of all the Old, ripening to-day in thee.)
3
Sail—sail thy best, ship of Democracy!
Of value is thy freight—’tis not the Present only,
The Past is also stored in thee!
Thou holdest not the venture of thyself alone—not of thy western continent alone;
Earth’s résumé entire floats on thy keel, O ship—is
steadied by
thy spars;
With thee Time voyages in trust—the antecedent nations sink or swim with thee;
With all their ancient struggles, martyrs, heroes,...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...n the breast of the boat, the breaker-of-rings, {0b}
by the mast the mighty one. Many a treasure
fetched from far was freighted with him.
No ship have I known so nobly dight
with weapons of war and weeds of battle,
with breastplate and blade: on his bosom lay
a heaped hoard that hence should go
far o’er the flood with him floating away.
No less these loaded the lordly gifts,
thanes’ huge treasure, than those had done
who in former time forth had sent him
sole on th...Read more of this...
by
Anonymous,
...eight, or depth, or width, or any chance
Precipitous: I have beneath my glance
Those towering horses and their mournful freight.
Could I thus sail, and see, and thus await
Fearless for power of thought, without thine aid?--
There is a sleepy dusk, an odorous shade
From some approaching wonder, and behold
Those winged steeds, with snorting nostrils bold
Snuff at its faint extreme, and seem to tire,
Dying to embers from their native fire!
There curl'd a purple mist around the...Read more of this...
by
Keats, John
...lasts like this oak with a few brazen leaves.
As the train passed the forest's tortured icons,
ths floes clanging like freight yards, then the spires
of frozen tears, the stations screeching steam,
he drew them in a single winters' breath
whose freezing consonants turned into stone.
He saw the poetry in forlorn stations
under clouds vast as Asia, through districts
that could gulp Oklahoma like a grape,
not these tree-shaded prairie halts but space
so desolate it mocked dest...Read more of this...
by
Walcott, Derek
...nd he turns pale:
'Tis even so, this treacherous kite,
Farm-furrowed, town-incrusted sphere,
Thoughtless of its anxious freight,
Plunges eyeless on for ever,
And he, poor parasite,—
Cooped in a ship he cannot steer,
Who is the captain he knows not,
Port or pilot trows not,—
Risk or ruin he must share.
I scowl on him with my cloud,
With my north wind chill his blood,
I lame him clattering down the rocks,
And to live he is in fear.
Then, at last, I let him down
Once more into h...Read more of this...
by
Emerson, Ralph Waldo
...ave behind
The all I have to give
To crippled children and the blind
Who lamentably live;
Hoping my withered hand may freight
To happiness a few
Poor innocents whom cruel fate
Has cheated of their due.
A am no grey philanthropist,
Too humble is my lot
Yet how I'm glad to give the grist
My singing mill has brought.
For I have had such lyric days,
So rich, so full, so sweet,
That I with gratitude and praise
Would make my life complete.
I'VE MADE MY WILL: now near the ...Read more of this...
by
Service, Robert William
...nent the Pacific Railroad, surmounting every barrier;
I see continual trains of cars winding along the Platte, carrying freight and passengers;
I hear the locomotives rushing and roaring, and the shrill steam-whistle,
I hear the echoes reverberate through the grandest scenery in the world;
I cross the Laramie plains—I note the rocks in grotesque shapes—the buttes;
I see the plentiful larkspur and wild onions—the barren, colorless, sage-deserts;
I see in glimpses afar, or ...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...Texas, and the rest;
Thy limitless crops—grass, wheat, sugar, corn, rice, hemp, hops,
Thy barns all fill’d—thy endless freight-trains, and thy bulging store-houses,
The grapes that ripen on thy vines—the apples in thy orchards,
Thy incalculable lumber, beef, pork, potatoes—thy coal—thy gold and silver,
The inexhaustible iron in thy mines.
12
All thine, O sacred Union!
Ship, farm, shop, barns, factories, mines,
City and State—North, South, item and aggregate,
We dedica...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...said with a smile, "Our ship, I wis,
Shall be of another form than this!"
It was of another form, indeed;
Built for freight, and yet for speed,
A beautiful and gallant craft;
Broad in the beam, that the stress of the blast,
Pressing down upon sail and mast,
Might not the sharp bows overwhelm;
Broad in the beam, but sloping aft
With graceful curve and slow degrees,
That she might be docile to the helm,
And that the currents of parted seas,
Closing behind, with mig...Read more of this...
by
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...faith I am.’
‘The burden ye so gently bear,
Seems one that claims your utmost care,
And, doubtless, holds some precious freight,
My humble bark would gladly wait.’
‘Thou speakest sooth; they skiff unmoor,
And waft us from the silent shore;
Nay, leave the sail still furled, and ply
The nearest oar that’s scattered by,
And midway to those rocks where sleep
The channeled waters dark and deep.
Rest from your task - so - bravely done,
Of course had been right swiftly run;
Yet ‘t...Read more of this...
by
Byron, George (Lord)
...s like a ship, that with the weight
Of her rich burden sleeps on the infinite seas
Becalm'd, and cannot stir her golden freight.
6
While yet we wait for spring, and from the dry
And blackening east that so embitters March,
Well-housed must watch grey fields and meadows parch,
And driven dust and withering snowflake fly;
Already in glimpses of the tarnish'd sky
The sun is warm and beckons to the larch,
And where the covert hazels interarch
Their tassell'd twigs, fair beds of...Read more of this...
by
Bridges, Robert Seymour
...e as 1 grandfather, 3 cousins, 3 nephews,
and 1 uncle. The uncle disappeared when he was 15, just took
off and caught a freight (they say).He's discussed each year
when the family has a reunion, he causes uneasiness in
the clan, he is an empty space.My father's mother, who is 93
and who keeps the Family Bible with everbody's birth dates
(and death dates) in it, always mentions him.There is no
place in her Bible for "whereabouts unknown."...Read more of this...
by
Knight, Etheridge
...
And bind the wounds of yonder knight;
Let the gray palfrey bear his weight,
We destined for a fairer freight,
And bring him on to Stirling straight;
I will before at better speed,
To seek fresh horse and fitting weed.
The sun rides high;—I must be boune
To see the archer-game at noon;
But lightly Bayard clears the lea.—
De Vaux and Herries, follow me.
XVIII.
'Stand, Bayard, stand!'—the steed obeyed,
...Read more of this...
by
Scott, Sir Walter
...ll this voice was sooth, as God is true;
But now to purpose* let us turn again. *our tale
These merchants have done freight their shippes new,
And when they have this blissful maiden seen,
Home to Syria then they went full fain,
And did their needes*, as they have done yore,* *business **formerly
And liv'd in weal*; I can you say no more. *prosperity
Now fell it, that these merchants stood in grace* *favour
Of him that was the Soudan* of Syrie: *Sultan
For when they came...Read more of this...
by
Chaucer, Geoffrey
...ned if I made you.
Master at two-and-twenty, and married at twenty-three --
Ten thousand men on the pay-roll, and forty freighters at seal
Fifty years between'em, and every year of it fight,
And now I'm Sir Anthony Gloster, dying, a baronite:
For I lunched with his Royal 'Ighness -- what was it the papers had?
"Not the least of our merchant-princes." Dickie, that's me, your dad!
I didn't begin with askings. I took my job and I stuck;
I took the chances they wouldn't, an' now ...Read more of this...
by
Kipling, Rudyard
...nge country
for which no man would die.
THOMAS DELAIN:
from a journal found on his person
At night wakened by the freight
trains boring through the suburbs
of Lyon, I watched first light
corrode the darkness, disturb
what little wildlife was left
in the alleys: birds moved from
branch to branch, and the dogs leapt
at the garbage. Winter numbed
even the hearts of the young
who had only their hearts. We
heard the war coming; the long
wait was over, a...Read more of this...
by
Levine, Philip
...e grateful armistice of sleep.
For what tremendous errand's sake
Are we so blatantly awake?
What precious secret is our freight?
What king must be abroad so late?
Perhaps Death roams the hills to-night
And we rush forth to give him fight.
Or else, perhaps, we speed his way
To some remote unthinking prey.
Perhaps a woman writhes in pain
And listens -- listens for the train!
The train, that like an angel sings,
The train, with healing on its wings.
Now "Hawthorne!" the conducto...Read more of this...
by
Kilmer, Joyce
...s and the Hogarth Press edition,
but have been corrected here.
210. "Carriage and insurance free"] "cost,
insurance and freight"-Editor.
218. Tiresias, although a mere spectator and not indeed a
"character,"
is yet the most important personage in the poem, uniting all the rest.
Just as the one-eyed merchant, seller of currants, melts into
the Phoenician Sailor, and the latter is not wholly distinct
from Ferdinand Prince of Naples, so all the women are one woman,
and the two s...Read more of this...
by
Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
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