Famous Grating Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Tis Eve On The Hillside

by Mihai Eminescu

'Tis eve on the hillside, the bagpipes are distantly wailing, 
Flocks going homewards, and stars o'er the firmament sailing, 
Sound of the bubbling spring sorrow's legend narrating, 
And beneath a tall willow for me, dear one, you are waiting. 

The wandering moon up the heavens her journey is wending, 
Big-eyed you watch through the boughs her gold lantern ascending, ...Read more of this...

Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey

by William Wordsworth
Five years have passed; five summers, with the length 
Of five long winters! and again I hear
These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs
With a soft inland murmur.  Once again
Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs,
That on a wild secluded scene impress
Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect
The landscape with the quiet of the sky.
The day is come when I...Read more of this...

The Discontent

by Anne Killigrew
 I.
HEre take no Care, take here no Care, my Muse,
 Nor ought of Art or Labour use:
 But let thy Lines rude and unpolisht go,
Nor Equal be their Feet, nor Num'rous let them flow.
 The ruggeder my Measures run when read,
They'l livelier paint th'unequal Paths fond Mortals tread.
 Who when th'are tempted by the smooth Ascents,
 Which flatt'ring Hope...Read more of this...

The Book of Urizen: Chapter VI

by William Blake
 1. But Los saw the Female & pitied 
He embrac'd her, she wept, she refus'd
In perverse and cruel delight
She fled from his arms, yet he followd

2. Eternity shudder'd when they saw,
Man begetting his likeness, 
On his own divided image.

3. A time passed over, the Eternals
Began to erect the tent;
When Enitharmon sick,
Felt a Worm within her womb. 

4. Yet helpless...Read more of this...

One Viceroy Resigns

by Rudyard Kipling
 So here's your Empire. No more wine, then?
Good.
We'll clear the Aides and khitmatgars away.
(You'll know that fat old fellow with the knife --
He keeps the Name Book, talks in English too,
And almost thinks himself the Government.)
O Youth, Youth, Youth! Forgive me, you're so young.
Forty from sixty -- twenty years of work
And power to back the working. Ay def mi!
You...Read more of this...

A Minor Poet

by Amy Levy
 "What should such fellows as I do,
Crawling between earth and heaven?"


Here is the phial; here I turn the key
Sharp in the lock. Click!--there's no doubt it turned.
This is the third time; there is luck in threes--
Queen Luck, that rules the world, befriend me now
And freely I'll forgive you many wrongs!
Just as the draught began to work, first time,
Tom Leigh,...Read more of this...

The Sharks Parlor

by James Dickey
 Memory: I can take my head and strike it on a wall on Cumberland Island 
Where the night tide came crawling under the stairs came up the first 
Two or three steps and the cottage stood on poles all night 
With the sea sprawled under it as we dreamed of the great fin circling 
Under the bedroom floor. In...Read more of this...

Dover Beach

by Matthew Arnold
The sea is calm to-night.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits; on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!
Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanch'd land,
Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles...Read more of this...

The Combat

by Edwin Muir
 It was not meant for human eyes,
That combat on the shabby patch
Of clods and trampled turf that lies
Somewhere beneath the sodden skies
For eye of toad or adder to catch.

And having seen it I accuse
The crested animal in his pride,
Arrayed in all the royal hues
Which hide the claws he well can use
To tear the heart out of the side.

Body of...Read more of this...

Requiescat In Pace!

by Jean Ingelow
My heart is sick awishing and awaiting:
  The lad took up his knapsack, he went, he went his way;
And I looked on for his coming, as a prisoner through the grating
  Looks and longs and longs and wishes for its opening day.
On the wild purple mountains, all alone with no other,
  The strong terrible mountains he longed,...Read more of this...

Far Within Us #3

by Vasko Popa
 Unquiet you walk
Along the rims of my eyes

On the invisible grating
Before your lips
My naked words shiver

We steal moments
From the unheeding iron saws

Your hands sadly
Flow into mine
The air is impassable...Read more of this...

Albert Down Under

by Marriott Edgar
 Albert were what you'd call “thwarted”. 
He had long had an ambition, which... 
Were to save up and go to Australia, 
The saving up that were the hitch. 

He'd a red money box on the pot shelf, 
A post office thing made of tin, 
But with him and his Dad and the bread knife, 
It never had anything in....Read more of this...

459. Sonnet on the Death of Robert Riddell

by Robert Burns
 NO more, ye warblers of the wood! no more;
 Nor pour your descant grating on my soul;
 Thou young-eyed Spring! gay in thy verdant stole,
More welcome were to me grim Winter’s wildest roar.


How can ye charm, ye flowers, with all your dyes?
 Ye blow upon the sod that wraps my friend!
 How can I to the tuneful strain attend?
That...Read more of this...

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