Famous Lengths Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Lengths poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous lengths poems. These examples illustrate what a famous lengths poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Horace,
...Was heard among the foes.
A wild and wrathful clamor
From all the vanguard rose.
Six spears' lengths from the entrance
Halted that deep array,
And for a space no man came forth
To win the narrow way.
XLII
But hark! the cry is Astur:
And lo! the ranks divide;
And the great Lord of Luna
Comes with his stately stride.
Upon his ample shoulders
Clangs loud ...Read more of this...
by
Kees, Weldon
...nsubstantial waves held up
His slender and inviolate feet. The gulls flew over,
Dropping, crying alone; thin ragged lengths of cloud
Drifted in bars across the sun. There on the shore
The crowd's response was instantaneous. He
Handled it well, I thought--the gait, the tilt of the head, just right.
Long streaks of light were blinding on the waves.
And then we knew our work well worth the time:
The days of sawing, fitting, all those nails,
The tiresome rehea...Read more of this...
by
Larkin, Philip
...n the old tenantry away;
How soon succeeding eyes begin
To look, not read. Rigidly they
Persisted, linked, through lengths and breadths
Of time. Snow fell, undated. Light
Each summer thronged the grass. A bright
Litter of birdcalls strewed the same
Bone-littered ground. And up the paths
The endless altered people came,
Washing at their identity.
Now, helpless in the hollow of
An unarmorial age, a trough
Of smoke in slow suspended skeins
Above their s...Read more of this...
by
Pope, Alexander
...fearless Youth we tempt the Heights of Arts,
While from the bounded Level of our Mind,
Short Views we take, nor see the lengths behind,
But more advanc'd, behold with strange Surprize
New, distant Scenes of endless Science rise!
So pleas'd at first, the towring Alps we try,
Mount o'er the Vales, and seem to tread the Sky;
Th' Eternal Snows appear already past,
And the first Clouds and Mountains seem the last:
But those attain'd, we tremble to survey
The growing Labours of the...Read more of this...
by
Clare, John
...t and noises loud
With white neck peering to the evening clowd.
The weary rooks to distant woods are gone.
With lengths of tail the magpie winnows on
To neighbouring tree, and leaves the distant crow
While small birds nestle in the edge below....Read more of this...
by
Sandburg, Carl
...is own drum-major,
Each charged with the honor
Of the ancient goose nation,
Each with a nose-length surpassing
The nose-lengths of rival nations.
Somberly, slowly, unimpeachably,
Five geese deploy mysteriously....Read more of this...
by
Watts, Isaac
...er and love
That crowns my doctrine with success,
And makes the babes in knowledge learn
The heights, and breadths, and lengths of grace.
"But all this glory lies concealed
From men of prudence and of wit;
The prince of darkness blinds their eyes,
And their own pride resists the light.
"Father, 'tis thus, because thy will
Chose and ordained it should be so;
'Tis thy delight t' abase the proud,
And lay the haughty scorner low.
"There's none can know the Father r...Read more of this...
by
Aiken, Conrad
...upon it
That we might walk without wetting our feet.
V
When I was a boy, and saw bright rows of icicles
In many lengths along a wall
I was dissappointed to find
That I could not play music upon them:
I ran my hand lightly across them
And they fell, tinkling.
I tell you this, young man, so that your expectations of life
Will not be too great.
VI
It is now two hours since I left you,
And the perfume of your hands is still on my hands.
And though si...Read more of this...
by
Clare, John
...them in my childish joy
By swarms and swarms and never cloy
When their lank shades oer morning pearls
Shrink from their lengths to little girls
And like the clock hand pointing one
Is turnd and tells the morning gone
They leave their toils for dinners hour
Beneath some hedges bramble bower
And season sweet their savory meals
Wi joke and tale and merry peals
Of ancient tunes from happy tongues
While linnets join their fitful songs
Perchd oer their heads in frolic play
Among th...Read more of this...
by
Paterson, Andrew Barton
...e'd race with a dogged persistence,
And wear them all down at the last.
At the Turon the Yattendon filly
Led by lengths at the mile-and-a-half,
And we all began to look silly,
While her crowd were starting to laugh;
But the old horse came faster and faster,
His pluck told its tale, and his strength,
He gained on her, caught her, and passed her,
And won it, hands down, by a length.
And then we swooped down on Menindie
To run for the President's Cup;
Oh! t...Read more of this...
by
Brautigan, Richard
...back, " he said. "You go straight through
that door and then turn right until you're outside. It's stacked
in lengths. You can't miss it. The waterfalls are upstairs in
the used plumbing department. "
"What about the animals?"
"Well, what's left of the animals are straight back from
the stream. You'll see a bunch of our trucks parked on a
road by the railroad tracks. Turn right on the road and fol-
low it down past the piles of lumber.Read more of this...
by
Plath, Sylvia
...eye, mouth-pipe, He pipes. Pipes green. Pipes water.
Pipes water green until green waters waver
With reedy lengths and necks and undulatings.
And as his notes twine green, the green river
Shapes its images around his sons.
He pipes a place to stand on, but no rocks,
No floor: a wave of flickering grass tongues
Supports his foot. He pipes a world of snakes,
Of sways and coilings, from the snake-rooted bottom
Of his mind. And now nothing but snake...Read more of this...
by
Bishop, Elizabeth
...in rubber boots, we followed
a track of big dog-prints (so big
they were more like lion-prints). Then we came on
lengths and lengths, endless, of wet white string,
looping up to the tide-line, down to the water,
over and over. Finally, they did end:
a thick white snarl, man-size, awash,
rising on every wave, a sodden ghost,
falling back, sodden, giving up the ghost...
A kite string?--But no kite.
I wanted to get as far as my proto-dream-hous...Read more of this...
by
Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...A prince I was, blue-eyed, and fair in face,
Of temper amorous, as the first of May,
With lengths of yellow ringlet, like a girl,
For on my cradle shone the Northern star.
There lived an ancient legend in our house.
Some sorcerer, whom a far-off grandsire burnt
Because he cast no shadow, had foretold,
Dying, that none of all our blood should know
The shadow from the substance, and that one
Should come to fight with shadows and to ...Read more of this...
by
Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...following through the porch that sang
All round with laurel, issued in a court
Compact of lucid marbles, bossed with lengths
Of classic frieze, with ample awnings gay
Betwixt the pillars, and with great urns of flowers.
The Muses and the Graces, grouped in threes,
Enringed a billowing fountain in the midst;
And here and there on lattice edges lay
Or book or lute; but hastily we past,
And up a flight of stairs into the hall.
There at a board by tome and pap...Read more of this...
by
Levine, Philip
...le, onion, lump, double
yolked egg on two legs,
a star as perfect as salt --
and my own shape a compound
of so many lengths, lumps,
and flat palms. And while I'm
here at the shore I bow to
take a few handfuls of water
which run between my fingers,
those poor noodles good for
holding nothing for long, and
I speak in a tongue hungering
for salt and water without salt,
I give a shape to the air going
out and the air coming in,
and the sea winds scatter it
lik...Read more of this...
by
Browning, Robert
...d passion, joy and peace,
An everlasting wash of air—
Rome's ghost since her decease.
Such life here, through such lengths of hours,
Such miracles performed in play,
Such primal naked forms of flowers,
Such letting nature have her way
While heaven looks from its towers!
How say you? Let us, O my dove,
Let us be unashamed of soul,
As earth lies bare to heaven above!
How is it under our control
To love or not to love?
I would that you were all to me,
You that are just so ...Read more of this...
by
Dickinson, Emily
...Two Lengths has every Day --
Its absolute extent
And Area superior
By Hope or Horror lent --
Eternity will be
Velocity or Pause
At Fundamental Signals
From Fundamental Laws.
To die is not to go --
On Doom's consummate Chart
No Territory new is staked --
Remain thou as thou art....Read more of this...
by
Frost, Robert
..., my ears
Against my brother's nonsense; "Drop," he said,
"I'll catch you in my arms. It isn't far."
(Stated in lengths of him it might not be.)
"Drop or I'll shake the tree and shake you down."
Grim silence on my part as I sank lower,
My small wrists stretching till they showed the banjo strings.
"Why, if she isn't serious about it!
Hold tight awhile till I think what to do.
I'll bend the tree down and let you down by it."
I don't know much about ...Read more of this...
by
Meredith, George
...f earth across the dome.
It is a night to make the heavens our home
More than the nest whereto apace we strive.
Lengths down our road each fir-tree seems a hive,
In swarms outrushing from the golden comb.
They waken waves of thoughts that burst to foam:
The living throb in me, the dead revive.
Yon mantle clothes us: there, past mortal breath,
Life glistens on the river of the death.
It folds us, flesh and dust; and have we knelt,
Or never knelt, or eyed as...Read more of this...
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