Famous Girdles Poems by Famous Poets

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

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The Law of the Jungle

by Rudyard Kipling
 (From The Jungle Book)




Now this is the Law of the Jungle -- as old and as true as the sky;
And the Wolf that shall keep it may prosper, but the Wolf that shall break it must die.
As the creeper that girdles the tree-trunk the Law runneth forward and back --
For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and...Read more of this...

The Prinkin Leddie

by Elinor Wylie
 The Hielan' lassies are a' for spinnin', 
The Lowlan' lassies for prinkin' and pinnin'; 
My daddie w'u'd chide me, an' so w'u'd my minnie 
If I s'u'd bring hame sic a prinkin' leddie.

Now haud your tongue, ye haverin' coward, 
For whilst I'm young I'll go flounced an' flowered, 
In lutestring striped like the strings o' a fiddle, 
Wi' gowden...Read more of this...

Tenebrae

by Algernon Charles Swinburne
 At the chill high tide of the night,
At the turn of the fluctuant hours,
When the waters of time are at height,
In a vision arose on my sight
The kingdoms of earth and the powers.

In a dream without lightening of eyes
I saw them, children of earth,
Nations and races arise,
Each one after his wise,
Signed with the sign of his birth.

Sound was none...Read more of this...

A Song Of Despair

by Pablo Neruda
 The memory of you emerges from the night around me.
The river mingles its stubborn lament with the sea.

Deserted like the dwarves at dawn.
It is the hour of departure, oh deserted one!

Cold flower heads are raining over my heart.
Oh pit of debris, fierce cave of the shipwrecked.

In you the wars and the flights accumulated.
From you the wings of the song...Read more of this...

The Blessed Virgin Compared To The Air We Breathe

by Gerard Manley Hopkins
 Wild air, world-mothering air,
Nestling me everywhere,
That each eyelash or hair
Girdles; goes home betwixt
The fleeciest, frailest-flixed
Snowflake; that 's fairly mixed
With, riddles, and is rife
In every least thing's life;
This needful, never spent,
And nursing element;
My more than meat and drink,
My meal at every wink;
This air, which, by life's law,
My lung must draw and draw
Now but to breathe its praise,
Minds me in many...Read more of this...

A Day Off

by Lucy Maud Montgomery
 Let us put awhile away 
All the cares of work-a-day, 
For a golden time forget, 
Task and worry, toil and fret, 
Let us take a day to dream 
In the meadow by the stream. 

We may lie in grasses cool 
Fringing a pellucid pool, 
We may learn the gay brook-runes 
Sung on amber afternoons, 
And the keen wind-rhyme that...Read more of this...

The Pardah Nashin

by Sarojini Naidu
 HER life is a revolving dream 
Of languid and sequestered ease; 
Her girdles and her fillets gleam 
Like changing fires on sunset seas; 
Her raiment is like morning mist, 
Shot opal, gold and amethyst. 


From thieving light of eyes impure, 
From coveting sun or wind's caress, 
Her days are guarded and secure 
Behind her carven lattices, 
Like jewels in...Read more of this...

Smoke-Rings

by Robert Graves
 BOY 

Most venerable and learned sir, 
Tall and true Philosopher, 
These rings of smoke you blow all day 
With such deep thought, what sense have they? 

PHILOSOPHER 

Small friend, with prayer and meditation 
I make an image of Creation. 
And if your mind is working nimble 
Straightway you’ll recognize a symbol 
Of the endless and eternal ring 
Of God,...Read more of this...

A Rajput Love Song

by Sarojini Naidu
 (Parvati at her lattice)
O Love! were you a basil-wreath to twine 
among my tresses,
A jewelled clasp of shining gold to bind around my sleeve,
O Love! were you the keora's soul that haunts 
my silken raiment,
A bright, vermilion tassel in the girdles that I weave;

O Love! were you the scented fan 
that lies upon my pillow,
A sandal lute, or silver...Read more of this...

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