Famous Gaped Poems by Famous Poets

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

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27. The Death and Dying Words of Poor Mailie

...’s
Poor Hughoc like a statue stan’s;
He saw her days were near-hand ended,
But, wae’s my heart! he could na mend it!
He gaped wide, but naething spak,
At langth poor Mailie silence brak.


 “O thou, whase lamentable face
Appears to mourn my woefu’ case!
My dying words attentive hear,
An’ bear them to my Master dear.


 “Tell him, if e’er again he keep
As muckle gear as buy a sheep—
O, bid him never tie them mair,
Wi’ wicked strings o’ hemp or hair!
But ca’ them out to park or...Read more of this...
by Burns, Robert


A Case Of Murder

...
But he had to do something with the dead thing there. 
His eyes squeezed beads of salty prayer 
But the wound of fear gaped wide and raw; 
He dared not touch the thing with his hands 
So he fetched a spade and shovelled it 
And dumped the load of heavy fur 
In the spidery cupboard under the stair 
Where it's been for years, and though it died 
It's grown in that cupboard and its hot low purr 
Grows slowly louder year by year: 
There'll not be a corner for the boy to hide 
W...Read more of this...
by Scannell, Vernon

Alastor: or the Spirit of Solitude

...shallop floating near the shore
Caught the impatient wandering of his gaze. 
It had been long abandoned, for its sides
Gaped wide with many a rift, and its frail joints
Swayed with the undulations of the tide.
A restless impulse urged him to embark
And meet lone Death on the drear ocean's waste;
For well he knew that mighty Shadow loves
The slimy caverns of the populous deep.

The day was fair and sunny; sea and sky
Drank its inspiring radiance, and the wind
Swept strongly f...Read more of this...
by Shelley, Percy Bysshe

Caliban upon Setebos or Natural Theology in the Island

...stake to stop she-tortoises 
Crawling to lay their eggs here: well, one wave, 
Feeling the foot of Him upon its neck, 
Gaped as a snake does, lolled out its large tongue, 
And licked the whole labour flat: so much for spite. 
'Saw a ball flame down late (yonder it lies) 
Where, half an hour before, I slept i' the shade: 
Often they scatter sparkles: there is force! 
'Dug up a newt He may have envied once 
And turned to stone, shut up Inside a stone. 
Please Him and hinder th...Read more of this...
by Browning, Robert

Charmides

..., stony and steeled
The Gorgon's head its leaden eyeballs rolled,
And writhed its snaky horrors through the shield,
And gaped aghast with bloodless lips and cold
In passion impotent, while with blind gaze
The blinking owl between the feet hooted in shrill amaze.

The lonely fisher as he trimmed his lamp
Far out at sea off Sunium, or cast
The net for tunnies, heard a brazen tramp
Of horses smite the waves, and a wild blast
Divide the folded curtains of the night,
And knelt upo...Read more of this...
by Wilde, Oscar


Elegy On The Death Of A Young Man

...lden eye
Did life's paradise his moments greet!
While the tear his mother's eye escaped,
Under him the realm of shadows gaped
And the fates his thread began to sever,--
Earth and Heaven then vanished from his sight.
From the grave-thought shrank he in affright--
Sweet the world is to the dying ever!

Dumb and deaf 'tis in that narrow place,
Deep the slumbers of the buried one!
Brother! Ah, in ever-slackening race
All thy hopes their circuit cease to run!
Sunbeams oft thy nati...Read more of this...
by Schiller, Friedrich von

Euthansia

...hinking its fracture I might bind,
But fiercely in its fear it fought;
Till guessing that I meant no ill,
It glared and gaped, but lay quite still.

I took it home and gave it food,
And nursed its wing day after day.
Alas for my solicitude,
It would not eat, but pined away.
And so at last with tender hands
I took it to its native sands.
"I'll leave it where its kindred are,"
I thought, "And maybe they will cheer
And comfort it": I watched afar,
I saw them wheeling swiftly nea...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William

Eviradnus

...ngs of dread 
 That once on barons' helms the battle led 
 Beneath the giant banners, now are still, 
 
 As if they gaped and found the time but ill, 
 Wearied the ages passed so slowly by, 
 And that the gory dead no more did lie 
 Beneath their feet—pined for the battle-cry, 
 The trumpet's clash, the carnage and the strife, 
 Yawning to taste again their dreadful life. 
 Like tears upon the palfreys' muzzles were 
 The hard reflections of the metal there; 
 Fro...Read more of this...
by Hugo, Victor

In The Days When The World Was Wide

...that filled their hearts with awe; 
They came to many a strange countree and marvellous sights they saw. 
The villagers gaped at the tales they told, 
and old eyes glistened with pride -- 
When barbarous cities were paved with gold 
in the days when the world was wide. 

'Twas honest metal and honest wood, in the days of the Outward Bound, 
When men were gallant and ships were good -- roaming the wide world round. 
The gods could envy a leader then when `Follow me, lads!' he ...Read more of this...
by Lawson, Henry

malvern abbey

...norman stonework near the choir
their age and halfworn coats-of-arms
touched a nerve i was not prepared for

a longing gaped in me (my eyes sensed tears)
a rush of inner silence urged me to give
my body to a void (my life's denial)
i was stunned beyond self into alertness

a hand not my own (but seemed at home)
sent signals out and had no need of answers
it could have been i came to be a tree
that with its tucked up roots went slowly out...Read more of this...
by Gregory, Rg

Paradise Lost: Book 06

...
With branches lopt, in wood or mountain felled,) 
Brass, iron, stony mould, had not their mouths 
With hideous orifice gaped on us wide, 
Portending hollow truce: At each behind 
A Seraph stood, and in his hand a reed 
Stood waving tipt with fire; while we, suspense, 
Collected stood within our thoughts amused, 
Not long; for sudden all at once their reeds 
Put forth, and to a narrow vent applied 
With nicest touch. Immediate in a flame, 
But soon obscured with smoke, all He...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

The Ballad Of Reading Gaol

...for fool and knave,
Till once, as we tramped in from work,
We passed an open grave.

With yawning mouth the yellow hole
Gaped for a living thing;
The very mud cried out for blood
To the thirsty asphalte ring:
And we knew that ere one dawn grew fair
Some prisoner had to swing.

Right in we went, with soul intent
On Death and Dread and Doom:
The hangman, with his little bag,
Went shuffling through the gloom:
And each man trembled as he crept
Into his numbered tomb.


That night...Read more of this...
by Wilde, Oscar

The Ballad Of The Black Fox Skin

...n hundred feet; she bounded like a ball;
From crag to crag she carromed down through snow and timber fall; . . .
A hole gaped in the river ice; the spray flashed--that was all.

A bird sang for the joy of spring, so piercing sweet and frail;
And blinding bright the land was dight in gay and glittering mail;
And with a wondrous black fox skin a man slid down the trail.

IV

A wedge-faced man there was who ran along the river bank,
Who stumbled through each drift and slough, an...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William

The Haunted House

...s plain as whisper in the ear,
The place is haunted.

Howbeit, the door I pushed—or so I dreamed--
Which slowly, slowly gaped, the hinges creaking
With such a rusty eloquence, it seemed
That Time himself was speaking.

But Time was dumb within that mansion old,
Or left his tale to the heraldic banners
That hung from the corroded walls, and told
Of former men and manners.

Those tattered flags, that with the opened door,
Seemed the old wave of battle to remember,
While fallen ...Read more of this...
by Hood, Thomas

The Last Meeting

...ance and called her men to fight. 
Lightly along the terraces I trod, 
Crunching the rubble till I found the door 
That gaped in twilight, framing inward gloom. 
An owl flew out from under the high eaves 
To vanish secretly among the firs,
Where lofty boughs netted the gleam of stars. 
I stumbled in; the dusty floors were strewn 
With cumbering piles of planks and props and beams; 
Tall windows gapped the walls; the place was free 
To every searching gust and jousting gale;
B...Read more of this...
by Sassoon, Siegfried

The Mole

...t
With smoke of humble hearths ablaze;
When War was rampant in the land,
And poor folk cowered in the night,
While ruin gaped on every hand -
of ravishing and wrath I'll write."

Ten years he toiled to write his book,
Yet he was happy all the while;
The world he willingly forsook
T live alone in hermit style.
In garden sanctuaried sweet,
Full favoured by the steadfast sun,
plunged in the Past, a life complete
He lived. . . . At last his work was done.

A worthy book that few ...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William

The Red Lacquer Music-Stand

...ffering. The lacquer stand had stains
Ugly and charred all over, and where the golden pear
Had been, a deep, black hole gaped miserably. His dear
Treasures were puffs of ashes; only the stones were there,
Winking in the brightness.

The clock upon the stair
Struck five, and in the kitchen someone shook a grate.
The Boy began to dress, for it was getting late....Read more of this...
by Lowell, Amy

Vita Nuova

...e is full of pain,
And who can garner fruit or golden grain
From these waste fields which travail ceaselessly!'
My nets gaped wide with many a break and flaw,
Nathless I threw them as my final cast
Into the sea, and waited for the end.
When lo! a sudden glory! and I saw
From the black waters of my tortured past
The argent splendour of white limbs ascend!...Read more of this...
by Wilde, Oscar

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