Famous Loitering Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Loitering poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous loitering poems. These examples illustrate what a famous loitering poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Browning, Elizabeth Barrett
...
Neighbours then see beating.
V
Love me with thine hand stretched out
Freely -- open-minded:
Love me with thy loitering foot, --
Hearing one behind it.
VI
Love me with thy voice, that turns
Sudden faint above me;
Love me with thy blush that burns
When I murmur 'Love me!'
VII
Love me with thy thinking soul,
Break it to love-sighing;
Love me with thy thoughts that roll
On through living -- dying.
VIII
Love me in thy gorgeous airs,
When the ...Read more of this...
by
Sassoon, Siegfried
...l that irked him in his bound employ
Once more become a vagrom-hearted boy
He moves to roundelays and jocund airs;
Loitering with dusty harvestmen he shares 5
Old ale and sunshine; or with maids half-coy
Pays court to shadows; fools himself with joy
Shaking a leg at junketings and fairs.
Sometimes returning down his breezy miles
A snatch of wayward April he will bring 10
Piping the daffodilly that beguiles
Foolhardy lovers in the surge of spring.
And...Read more of this...
by
Allingham, William
...iceless vales, o'er lawn and purpled hill
And hazéd mead, her mystery to fulfil.
Cows low from far-off farms; the loitering wind
Sighs in the hedge, you hear it if you will,--
Tho' all the wood, alive atop with wings
Lifting and sinking through the leafy nooks,
Seethes with the clamour of a thousand rooks.
Now every sound at length is hush'd away.
These few are sacred moments. One more Day
Drops in the shadowy gulf of bygone things....Read more of this...
by
Browning, Robert
...love in very deed?
I know that nature! Pass a festive day
Thou dost not throw its relic-flower away
Nor bid its music's loitering echo speed.
VII
Thou let'st the stranger's glove lie where it fell;
If old things remain old things all is well,
For thou art grateful as becomes man best:
And hadst thou only heard me play one tune,
Or viewed me from a window, not so soon
With thee would such things fade as with the rest.
VIII
I seem to see! we meet and part: 'tis brie...Read more of this...
by
Aiken, Conrad
...In the mazes of loitering people, the watchful and furtive,
The shadows of tree-trunks and shadows of leaves,
In the drowse of the sunlight, among the low voices,
I suddenly face you,
Your dark eyes return for a space from her who is with you,
They shine into mine with a sunlit desire,
They say an 'I love you, what star do you live on?'
They smile and then...Read more of this...
by
Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
...like tin
Over the asphalt where no other sound was
Between three districts whence the smoke arose
I met one walking, loitering and hurried
As if blown towards me like the metal leaves
Before the urban dawn wind unresisting.
And as I fixed upon the down-turned face
That pointed scrutiny with which we challenge
The first-met stranger in the waning dusk
I caught the sudden look of some dead master
Whom I had known, forgotten, half recalled
Both one and many; in the b...Read more of this...
by
Brooke, Rupert
...open house,
Nor left untasted
Aught of his high emprise and ventures dear,
No quest of his unshar'd --
All these, with loitering feet and sad head bar'd,
Followed their old friend's bier.
FOLLY went first,
With muffled bells and coxcomb still revers'd;
And after trod the bearers, hat in hand --
LAUGHTER, most hoarse, and Captain PRIDE with tanned
And martial face all grim, and fussy JOY,
Who had to catch a train, and LUST, poor, snivelling boy;
These bore the dear depart...Read more of this...
by
Gibran, Kahlil
..., deeming it kindness.
You are good in countless ways, and you are not evil when you are not good,
You are only loitering and sluggard.
Pity that the stags cannot teach swiftness to the turtles.
In your longing for your giant self lies your goodness: and that longing is in all of you.
But in some of you that longing is a torrent rushing with might to the sea, carrying the secrets of the hillsides and the songs of the forest.
And in others it is...Read more of this...
by
Keats, John
...'O WHAT can ail thee knight-at-arms
Alone and palely loitering?
The sedge is wither'd from the lake
And no birds sing.
'O what can ail thee knight-at-arms 5
So haggard and so woe-begone?
The squirrel's granary is full
And the harvest 's done.
'I see a lily on thy brow
With anguish moist and fever dew; 10
And on thy cheeks a fading rose
Fast withereth too.'
'I met a lad...Read more of this...
by
Byron, George (Lord)
...e upon the sea;
That element may meet thy smile --
It ne'er was ruled by thee!
Or trace with thine all idle hand
In loitering mood upon the sand
That Earth is now as free!
That Corinth's pedagogue hath now
Transferr'd his by-word to thy brow.
XV
Thou Timour! in his captive's cage
What thought will there be thine,
While brooding in thy prison'd rage?
But one -- "The word was mine!"
Unless, like he of Babylon,
All sense is with thy sceptre gone,
Life will no...Read more of this...
by
Poe, Edgar Allan
...ments, upon my mind,
Are- shadows on th' unstable wind:
Thus I remember having dwelt
Some page of early lore upon,
With loitering eye, till I have felt
The letters- with their meaning- melt
To fantasies- with none.
O, she was worthy of all love!
Love- as in infancy was mine-
'Twas such as angel minds above
Might envy; her young heart the shrine
On which my every hope and thought
Were incense- then a goodly gift,
For they were childish and upright-
Pure- as her young exam...Read more of this...
by
Chesterton, G K
...the kitchen stones.
But smoke of some good feasting
Went upwards evermore,
And Eldred's doors stood wide apart
For loitering foot or labouring cart,
And Eldred's great and foolish heart
Stood open like his door.
A mighty man was Eldred,
A bulk for casks to fill,
His face a dreaming furnace,
His body a walking hill.
In the old wars of Wessex
His sword had sunken deep,
But all his friends, he signed and said,
Were broken about Ethelred;
And between the deep drink...Read more of this...
by
Wordsworth, William
...arbler! till to-morrow eve, And you, my friends! farewell, a short farewell! We have been loitering long and pleasantly, And now for our dear homes.—That strain again! Full fain it would delay me!-My dear Babe, Who, capable of no articulate sound, Mars all things with his imitative lisp, How he would place his hand beside his ear, His little hand, the sm...Read more of this...
by
Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
...oxes, cigarette ends
Or other testimony of summer nights. The nymphs are departed.
And their friends, the loitering heirs of city directors; 180
Departed, have left no addresses.
Line 161 ALRIGHT. This spelling occurs also in
the Hogarth Press edition— Editor.
By the waters of Leman I sat down and wept . . .
Sweet Thames, run softly till I end my song,
Sweet Thames, run softly, for I speak not loud or l...Read more of this...
by
Brooke, Rupert
...open house,
Nor left untasted
Aught of his high emprise and ventures dear,
No quest of his unshar’d—
All these, with loitering feet and sad head bar’d,
Followed their old friend’s bier.
Folly went first,
With muffled bells and coxcomb still revers’d;
And after trod the bearers, hat in hand—
Laughter, most hoarse, and Captain Pride with tanned
And martial face all grim, and fussy Joy
Who had to catch a train, and Lust, poor, snivelling boy;
These bore the dear depar...Read more of this...
by
Wilde, Oscar
...rney westward, till the moon
The pale usurper of its tribute grows
From a thin sickle to a silver shield
And chides its loitering car - how oft, in some cool grassy field
Far from the cricket-ground and noisy eight,
At Bagley, where the rustling bluebells come
Almost before the blackbird finds a mate
And overstay the swallow, and the hum
Of many murmuring bees flits through the leaves,
Have I lain poring on the dreamy tales his fancy weaves,
And through their unreal woes an...Read more of this...
by
Byron, George (Lord)
...d sparkle in the fountain rill,
Whose welcome waters, cool and clear,
Draw blessings from the mountaineer:
Here may the loitering merchant Greek
Find that repose 'twere vain to seek
In cities lodged too near his lord,
And trembling for his secret hoard -
Here may he rest where none can see,
In crowds a slave, in deserts free;
And with forbidden wine may stain
The bowl a Moslem must not drain.
The foremost Tartar's in the gap,
Conspicuous by his yellow cap;
The rest in ...Read more of this...
by
Frost, Robert
...eams and cross- and counter-streams
Can but give ear to that sweet cry
For its suggestion of what dreams!
And the more loitering are turned
To view once more the sacrifice
Of those who for some good discerned
Will gladly give up paradise.
And a white shimmering concourse rolls
Toward the throne to witness there
The speeding of devoted souls
Which God makes his especial care.
And none are taken but who will,
Having first heard the life read out
That opens earthward, ...Read more of this...
by
Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
...oard boxes, cigarette ends
Or other testimony of summer nights. The nymphs are departed.
And their friends, the loitering heirs of city directors;
Departed, have left no addresses.
By the waters of Leman I sat down and wept . . .
Sweet Thames, run softly till I end my song,
Sweet Thames, run softly, for I speak not loud or long.
But at my back in a cold blast I hear
The rattle of the bones, and chuckle spread from ear to ear.
A rat crept softl...Read more of this...
by
Thoreau, Henry David
...astures where the Johnswort grew;
Or heard, amid the verdure of my mind,
The bee's long smothered hum, on the blue flag
Loitering amidst the mead; or busy rill,
Which now through all its course stands still and dumb
Its own memorial,—purling at its play
Along the slopes, and through the meadows next,
Until its youthful sound was hushed at last
In the staid current of the lowland stream;
Or seen the furrows shine but late upturned,
And where the fieldfare followed in the rear,...Read more of this...
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