Famous Grappled Poems by Famous Poets

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

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A Grammarians Funeral

...untain-side,
Make for the city!)
He knew the signal, and stepped on with pride
Over men's pity;
Left play for work, and grappled with the world
Bent on escaping:
``What's in the scroll,'' quoth he, ``thou keepest furled?
``Show me their shaping,
``Theirs who most studied man, the bard and sage,---
``Give!''---So, he gowned him,
Straight got by heart that hook to its last page:
Learned, we found him.
Yea, but we found him bald too, eyes like lead,
Accents uncertain:
``Time to ...Read more of this...
by Browning, Robert


Beowulf (Old English)

...as Grendel, who,
war-wolf horrid, at Heorot found
a warrior watching and waiting the fray,
with whom the grisly one grappled amain.
But the man remembered his mighty power,
the glorious gift that God had sent him,
in his Maker’s mercy put his trust
for comfort and help: so he conquered the foe,
felled the fiend, who fled abject,
reft of joy, to the realms of death,
mankind’s foe. And his mother now,
gloomy and grim, would go that quest
of sorrow, the death of her...Read more of this...
by Anonymous,

Prof. vere de blaw

...sser Vere de Blaw for once eschewed his opry ways,
An' the remnants uv his mind went back to earlier, happier days,
An' grappled like an' wrassled with a' old familiar air
The wich we all uv us had heern, ez you have, everywhere!
Stock still we stopped,--some in their talk uv politics an' things,
I in my unobtrusive attempt to fill on kings,
'Nd Hoover leanin' on the bar, an' Casey at the till,--
We all stopped short an' held our breaths (ez a feller sometimes will),
An' sot ...Read more of this...
by Field, Eugene

Sir Humphrey Gilbert

...on and the evening star
Were hanging in the shrouds;
Every mast, as it passed,
Seemed to rake the passing clouds.

They grappled with their prize,
At midnight black and cold!
As of a rock was the shock;
Heavily the ground-swell rolled.

Southward through day and dark,
They drift in cold embrace,
With mist and rain, o'er the open main;
Yet there seems no change of place.

Southward, forever southward,
They drift through dark and day;
And like a dream, in the Gulf-Stream
Sinkin...Read more of this...
by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth

The Four Ages Of The World

...eared in the world
For the sins of mankind to atone.
The fugitive lusts of the sense were suppressed,
And man now first grappled with thought in his breast.

Each vain and voluptuous charm vanished now,
Wherein the young world took delight;
The monk and the nun made of penance a vow,
And the tourney was sought by the knight.
Though the aspect of life was now dreary and wild,
Yet love remained ever both lovely and mild.

An altar of holiness, free from all stain,
The Muses in ...Read more of this...
by Schiller, Friedrich von


The Lady of the Lake

...that maid,
     Thank thou for punishment delayed.'
     Eager as greyhound on his game,
     Fiercely with Roderick grappled Graeme.
     'Perish my name, if aught afford
     Its Chieftain safety save his sword!'
     Thus as they strove their desperate hand
     Griped to the dagger or the brand,
     And death had been—but Douglas rose,
     And thrust between the struggling foes
     His giant strength:—' Chieftains, forego!
     I hold the first who strikes m...Read more of this...
by Scott, Sir Walter

The Quaker Graveyard in Nantucket

...h Atlantic Fleet,
When the drowned sailor clutched the drag-net. Light
Flashed from his matted head and marble feet,
He grappled at the net
With the coiled, hurdling muscles of his thighs:
The corpse was bloodless, a botch of reds and whites,
Its open, staring eyes
Were lustreless dead-lights
Or cabin-windows on a stranded hulk
Heavy with sand. We weight the body, close
Its eyes and heave it seaward whence it came,
Where the heel-headed dogfish barks it nose
On Ahab's void an...Read more of this...
by Lowell, Robert

The Sick Stockrider

...ile we emptied our six-shooters on the bushrangers at bay, 
In the creek with stunted box-trees for a blind! 
There you grappled with the leader, man to man, and horse to horse, 
And you roll'd together when the chestnut rear'd; 
He blazed away and missed you in that shallow water-course -- 
A narrow shave -- his powder singed your beard! 

In these hours when life is ebbing, how those days when life was young 
Come back to us; how clearly I recall 
Even the yarns Jack Hall i...Read more of this...
by Gordon, Adam Lindsay

Twas Crisis -- All the length had passed --

...instant holding in its claw
The privilege to live
Or warrant to report the Soul
The other side the Grave.

The Muscles grappled as with leads
That would not let the Will --
The Spirit shook the Adamant --
But could not make it feel.

The Second poised -- debated -- shot --
Another had begun --
And simultaneously, a Soul
Escaped the House unseen --...Read more of this...
by Dickinson, Emily

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