Famous Hurtling Poems by Famous Poets

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

See also:

Storm and Sunlight

by Siegfried Sassoon
 I

In barns we crouch, and under stacks of straw, 
Harking the storm that rides a hurtling legion 
Up the arched sky, and speeds quick heels of panic 
With growling thunder loosed in fork and clap 
That echoes crashing thro’ the slumbrous vault.
The whispering woodlands darken: vulture Gloom 
Stoops, menacing the skeltering flocks of Light, 
Where the gaunt shepherd shakes...Read more of this...

The Cup On The Battle-field

by Victor Hugo
 ("Mon pére, ce héros au sourire.") 
 
 {Bk. XLIX. iv.} 


 My sire, the hero with the smile so soft, 
 And a tall trooper, his companion oft, 
 Whom he loved greatly for his courage high 
 And strength and stature, as the night drew nigh 
 Rode out together. The battle was done; 
 The dead...Read more of this...

Metro North

by Mark Doty
 Over the terminal,
 the arms and chest
 of the god

brightened by snow.
 Formerly mercury,
 formerly silver,

surface yellowed
 by atmospheric sulphurs
 acid exhalations,

and now the shining
 thing's descendant.
 Obscure passages,

dim apertures:
 these clouded windows
 show a few faces

or some empty car's
 filmstrip of lit flames
 --remember them

from school,
 how they were supposed
 to teach us something?--

waxy light hurrying
 inches away...Read more of this...

The Book of Urizen: Chapter IV

by William Blake
 a

1. Los smitten with astonishment
Frightend at the hurtling bones

2. And at the surging sulphureous
Perturbed Immortal mad raging

3. In whirlwinds & pitch & nitre 
Round the furious limbs of Los

4. And Los formed nets & gins 
And threw the nets round about

5. He watch'd in shuddring fear
The dark changes & bound every change 
With rivets of iron & brass;

6. And...Read more of this...

Farm Implements and Rutabagas in a Landscape

by John Ashbery
 The first of the undecoded messages read: "Popeye sits 
in thunder,
Unthought of. From that shoebox of an apartment,
From livid curtain's hue, a tangram emerges: a country."
Meanwhile the Sea Hag was relaxing on a green couch: "How 
pleasant
To spend one's vacation en la casa de Popeye," she 
scratched
Her cleft chin's solitary hair. She remembered spinach

And was going to ask Wimpy...Read more of this...

Limited

by Carl Sandburg
 I AM riding on a limited express, one of the crack trains
of the nation.
Hurtling across the prairie into blue haze and dark air
go fifteen all-steel coaches holding a thousand people.
(All the coaches shall be scrap and rust and all the men
and women laughing in the diners and sleepers shall
pass to ashes.)
I ask a man in the smoker where he...Read more of this...

Stretcher Case

by Siegfried Sassoon
 He woke; the clank and racket of the train 
Kept time with angry throbbings in his brain. 
Then for a while he lapsed and drowsed again. 

At last he lifted his bewildered eyes 
And blinked, and rolled them sidelong; hills and skies,
Heavily wooded, hot with August haze, 
And, slipping backward, golden for his gaze, 
Acres of harvest. 

Feebly now...Read more of this...

Casey At The Bat

by Ernest Lawrence Thayer
The outlook wasn't brilliant for the Mudville nine that day, 
The score stood four to two, with but one inning more to play. 

And then when Cooney died at first, and Barrows did the same, 
A pall-like silence fell upon the patrons of the game. 

A straggling few got up to go in deep despair. 
The rest clung to that...Read more of this...

Christopher Marlowe

by Algernon Charles Swinburne
 Crowned, girdled, garbed and shod with light and fire,
Son first-born of the morning, sovereign star!
Soul nearest ours of all, that wert most far,
Most far off in the abysm of time, thy lyre
Hung highest above the dawn-enkindled quire
Where all ye sang together, all that are,
And all the starry songs behind thy car
Rang sequence, all our souls acclaim thee sire.
"If all...Read more of this...

St. George

by Emile Verhaeren
Opening the mists on a sudden through,
An Avenue!
Then, all one ferment of varied gold,
With foam of plumes where the chamfrom bends
Round his horse's head, that no bit doth hold,
St. George descends!


The diamond-rayed caparison,
Makes of his flight one declining path
From Heaven's pity down upon
Our waiting earth.


Hero and Lord
Of the joyous, helpful virtues all.
Sonorous, pure and crystalline!
Let his radiance fall
On my heart...Read more of this...

Dont forget to view our wonderful member Hurtling poems.

Get a Premium Membership
Turn off ads, get more exposure for your poetry, and get more features with a Premium Membership.
Book: Diverse Voices: The Poetry of Human Rights and the Pursuit of Peace