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Famous Heavy Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Cisneros, Sandra
...A skein of blue wool. A tea saucer
wrapped in newspaper. An empty cracker tin. A bowl of blueber-
ries in heavy cream. White wine in a green-stemmed glass.


And when you opened your wings to wind, across the punched-
tin sky above a prison courtyard, those condemned to death and
those condemned to life watched how smooth and sweet a white
cloud glides. ...Read more of this...



by Hughes, Langston
...nd then run?

Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?...Read more of this...

by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...rous saddles,
Painted with brilliant dyes, and adorned with tassels of crimson,
Nodded in bright array, like hollyhocks heavy with blossoms.
Patiently stood the cows meanwhile, and yielded their udders
Unto the milkmaid's hand; whilst loud and in regular cadence
Into the sounding pails the foaming streamlets descended.
Lowing of cattle and peals of laughter were heard in the farm-yard, 
Echoed back by the barns. Anon they sank into stillness;
Heavily closed, with ...Read more of this...

by Ginsberg, Allen
...olling in the midnight solitude-bench 
 dolmen-realms of love, dream of life a night- 
 mare, bodies turned to stone as heavy as the 
 moon, 
with mother finally ******, and the last fantastic book 
 flung out of the tenement window, and the last 
 door closed at 4. A.M. and the last telephone 
 slammed at the wall in reply and the last fur- 
 nished room emptied down to the last piece of 
 mental furniture, a yellow paper rose twisted 
 on a wire hanger in the cl...Read more of this...

by Keats, John
...hours
Before the dawn in season due should blush,
He breath'd fierce breath against the sleepy portals,
Clear'd them of heavy vapours, burst them wide
Suddenly on the ocean's chilly streams.
The planet orb of fire, whereon he rode
Each day from east to west the heavens through,
Spun round in sable curtaining of clouds;
Not therefore veiled quite, blindfold, and hid,
But ever and anon the glancing spheres,
Circles, and arcs, and broad-belting colure,
Glow'd through, and wr...Read more of this...



by Alighieri, Dante
...d 
 Whom love led deathward through disastrous things 
 He pointed as they passed, until my mind 
 Was wildered in this heavy pass to find 
 Ladies so many, and cavaliers and kings 
 Fallen, and pitying past restraint, I said, 
 "Poet, those next that on the wind appear 
 So light, and constant as they drive or veer 
 Are parted never, I fain would speak." 

 And he, - 
 "Conjure them by their love, and thou shalt see 
 Their flight come hither." 
 And when the swervi...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...brow the dampening heart-drops threw 
The sickening iciness of that cold dew 
That rises as the busy bosom sinks 
With heavy thoughts from which reflection shrinks. 
Yes — there be things which we must dream and dare 
And execute ere thought be half aware: 
Whate'er might Kaled's be, it was enow 
To seal his lip, but agonise his brow. 
He gazed on Ezzelin till Lara cast 
That sidelong smile upon on the knight he pass'd; 
When Kaled saw that smile his visage fell, 
As...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...ep with me.

Or, another time, in warm weather, out in a boat, to lift the lobster-pots, where they are
 sunk
 with heavy stones, (I know the buoys;) 
O the sweetness of the Fifth-month morning upon the water, as I row, just before sunrise,
 toward the buoys; 
I pull the wicker pots up slantingly—the dark-green lobsters are desperate with their
 claws, as I take them out—I insert wooden pegs in the joints of their pincers, 
I go to all the places, one after another, and t...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...ol has
 fallen.

The blab of the pave, the tires of carts, sluff of boot-soles, talk of the
 promenaders; 
The heavy omnibus, the driver with his interrogating thumb, the clank of the
 shod horses on the granite floor; 
The snow-sleighs, the clinking, shouted jokes, pelts of snowballs; 
The hurrahs for popular favorites, the fury of rous’d mobs; 
The flap of the curtain’d litter, a sick man inside, borne to the hospital;
The meeting of enemies, the sudden oath, ...Read more of this...

by Chesterton, G K
...God
And cut it up for wood.

Their souls were drifting as the sea,
And all good towns and lands
They only saw with heavy eyes,
And broke with heavy hands,

Their gods were sadder than the sea,
Gods of a wandering will,
Who cried for blood like beasts at night,
Sadly, from hill to hill.

They seemed as trees walking the earth,
As witless and as tall,
Yet they took hold upon the heavens
And no help came at all.

They bred like birds in English woods,
They rooted li...Read more of this...

by Bradstreet, Anne
...third of fire and choler is compos'd,
1.8 Vindicative, and quarrelsome dispos'd.
1.9 The last, of earth and heavy melancholy,
1.10 Solid, hating all lightness, and all folly.
1.11 Childhood was cloth'd in white, and given to show,
1.12 His spring was intermixed with some snow.
1.13 Upon his head a Garland Nature set:
1.14 Of Daisy, Primrose, and the Violet.
1.15 Such cold mean flowers (as these) blossom betime,
1.16 Before t...Read more of this...

by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...darkness through innumerable hours 
He heard the hollow-ringing heavens sweep 
Over him till by miracle--what else?-- 
Heavy as it was, a great stone slipt and fell, 
Such as no wind could move: and through the gap 
Glimmered the streaming scud: then came a night 
Still as the day was loud; and through the gap 
The seven clear stars of Arthur's Table Round-- 
For, brother, so one night, because they roll 
Through such a round in heaven, we named the stars, 
Rejoicing in ours...Read more of this...

by Scott, Sir Walter
...ade;
     But when the sun his beacon red
     Had kindled on Benvoirlich's head,
     The deep-mouthed bloodhound's heavy bay
     Resounded up the rocky way,
     And faint, from farther distance borne,
     Were heard the clanging hoof and horn.
     II.

     As Chief, who hears his warder call,
     'To arms! the foemen storm the wall,'
     The antlered monarch of the waste
     Sprung from his heathery couch in haste.
     But ere his fleet career he took,...Read more of this...

by Thomson, James
...livid East, or piercing North,
Thick Clouds ascend, in whose capacious Womb,
A vapoury Deluge lies, to Snow congeal'd:
Heavy, they roll their fleecy World along;
And the Sky saddens with th'impending Storm. 
Thro' the hush'd Air, the whitening Shower descends,
At first, thin-wavering; till, at last, the Flakes
Fall broad, and wide, and fast, dimming the Day,
With a continual Flow. See! sudden, hoar'd,
The Woods beneath the stainless Burden bow, 
Blackning, along the ...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...all be one, if you leave the affair to me. 

LXXXVI

'Confound the renegado! I have sprain'd 
My left wing, he's so heavy; one would think 
Some of his works about his neck were chain'd. 
But to the point; while hovering o'er the brink 
Of Skiddaw (where as usual it still rain'd), 
I saw a taper, far below me, wink, 
And stooping, caught this fellow at a libel — 
No less on history than the Holy Bible. 

LXXXVII 

'The former is the devil's scripture, and 
The lat...Read more of this...

by Schiller, Friedrich von
...continue,
And the deception endure, apeing the fulness of life.
Until Nature awakes, and with hands all-brazen and heavy
'Gainst the hollow-formed pile time and necessity strikes.
Like a tigress, who, bursting the massive grating iron,
Of her Numidian wood suddenly, fearfully thinks,--
So with the fury of crime and anguish, humanity rises
Hoping nature, long-lost in the town's ashes, to find.
Oh then open, ye walls, and set the captive at freedom
To the long deso...Read more of this...

by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
...br>
 The river sweats
 Oil and tar
 The barges drift
 With the turning tide
 Red sails 
 Wide
 To leeward, swing on the heavy spar.
 The barges wash
 Drifting logs
 Down Greenwich reach
 Past the Isle of Dogs.
 Weialala leia
 Wallala leialala
 Elizabeth and Leicester
 Beating oars 
 The stern was formed
 A gilded shell
 Red and gold
 The brisk swell
 Rippled both shores
 Southwest wind
 Carried down stream
 The peal of bells
 White towers
 Weialala leia 
 Wallala leia...Read more of this...

by Miller, Alice Duer
...ed on the floor. 
I saw the moon-faced clock that told the hours, 
The crimson Turkey carpet, worn and frayed, 
The heavy dishes—gold with birds and flowers— 
Fruits of the China trade. 
I saw the jack o' lanterns, friendly, frightening,
Shine from our gateposts every Hallow-e'en; 
I saw the oak tree, shattered once by lightning,
Twisted, stripped clean.

I saw the Dioscuri— two black kittens,
Stalking relentlessly an empty spool;
I saw a little girl in scarlet mi...Read more of this...

by Plath, Sylvia
...tterly?

I talk to myself, myself only, set apart--
Swabbed and lurid with disinfectants, sacrificial.
Waiting lies heavy on my lids. It lies like sleep,
Like a big sea. Far off, far off, I feel the first wave tug
Its cargo of agony toward me, inescapable, tidal.
And I, a shell, echoing on this white beach
Face the voices that overwhelm, the terrible element.

THIRD VOICE:
I am a mountain now, among mountainy women.
The doctors move among us as if our ...Read more of this...

by Akhmatova, Anna
...it seems to me that everywhere
And always I'll hear her sweet voice.



x x x

True love's memory, You are heavy!
In your smoke I sing and burn,
And the rest -- is only fire
To keep the chilled soul warm.

To keep warm the sated body,
They need my tears for this
Did I for this sing your song, God?
Did I take part of love for this?

Let me drink of such a poison,
That I would be deaf and dumb,
And my unglorious glory
Wash away to the final crumb.<...Read more of this...

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