Famous Loosened Poems by Famous Poets

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

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The Mother Mourns

by Thomas Hardy
 When mid-autumn's moan shook the night-time, 
 And sedges were horny, 
And summer's green wonderwork faltered 
 On leaze and in lane, 

I fared Yell'ham-Firs way, where dimly 
 Came wheeling around me 
Those phantoms obscure and insistent 
 That shadows unchain. 

Till airs from the needle-thicks brought me 
 A low lamentation, 
As 'twere of a tree-god disheartened,...Read more of this...

An April Day

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
 When the warm sun, that brings
Seed-time and harvest, has returned again,
'T is sweet to visit the still wood, where springs
The first flower of the plain.

I love the season well,
When forest glades are teeming with bright forms,
Nor dark and many-folded clouds foretell
The coming-on of storms.

From the earth's loosened mould
The sapling draws its sustenance, and thrives;
Though stricken to the heart with...Read more of this...

Four Quartets 2: East Coker

by T S (Thomas Stearns) Eliot
 I

In my beginning is my end. In succession
Houses rise and fall, crumble, are extended,
Are removed, destroyed, restored, or in their place
Is an open field, or a factory, or a by-pass.
Old stone to new building, old timber to new fires,
Old fires to ashes, and ashes to the earth
Which is already flesh, fur and faeces,
Bone of man and beast, cornstalk and...Read more of this...

transformations

by Rg Gregory
 (service resettlement courses at studio fronceri – west wales)

and the swords came in their varying degrees
of shininess and sharpness – some never
having lost their pristine feel – others with blunt 
tips and broken blades – a few so steeped in blood 
a dried rustiness still stained them - and those wilted 
at the hilt (weary of the code that...Read more of this...

The Return of Persephone

by Alec Derwent (A D) Hope
 Gliding through the still air, he made no sound; 
Wing-shod and deft, dropped almost at her feet, 
And searched the ghostly regiments and found 
The living eyes, the tremor of breath, the beat 
Of blood in all that bodiless underground.

She left her majesty; she loosed the zone 
Of darkness and put by the rod of dread. 
Standing, she turned...Read more of this...

Like Rain it sounded till it curved

by Emily Dickinson
 Like Rain it sounded till it curved
And then I new 'twas Wind --
It walked as wet as any Wave
But swept as dry as sand --
When it had pushed itself away
To some remotest Plain
A coming as of Hosts was heard
It filled the Wells, it pleased the Pools
It warbled in the Road --
It pulled the spigot from the Hills
And let the...Read more of this...

The Thread

by Denise Levertov
 Something is very gently, 
invisibly, silently, 
pulling at me-a thread 
or net of threads 
finer than cobweb and as 
elastic. I haven't tried 
the strength of it. No barbed hook 
pierced and tore me. Was it 
not long ago this thread 
began to draw me? Or 
way back? Was I 
born with its knot about my 
neck, a bridle?...Read more of this...

The Riddle

by Richard Wilbur
 Shall I love God for causing me to be?
I was mere utterance; shall these words love me?

Yet when I caused His work to jar and stammer,
And one free subject loosened all His grammar,

I love Him that He did not in a rage
Once and forever rule me off the page,

But, thinking I might come to please Him yet,
Crossed out 'delete'...Read more of this...

You Looked So Tempting In The Pew

by Robert Louis Stevenson
 YOU looked so tempting in the pew,
You looked so sly and calm -
My trembling fingers played with yours
As both looked out the Psalm.

Your heart beat hard against my arm,
My foot to yours was set,
Your loosened ringlet burned my cheek
Whenever they two met.

O little, little we hearkened, dear,
And little, little cared,
Although the parson sermonised,
The congregation stared....Read more of this...

The Two Kings

by William Butler Yeats
 King Eochaid came at sundown to a wood
Westward of Tara. Hurrying to his queen
He had outridden his war-wasted men
That with empounded cattle trod the mire,
And where beech-trees had mixed a pale green light
With the ground-ivy's blue, he saw a stag
Whiter than curds, its eyes the tint of the sea.
Because it stood upon his path and seemed
More hands in height...Read more of this...

How Gilbert Died

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 There's never a stone at the sleeper's head, 
There's never a fence beside, 
And the wandering stock on the grave may tread 
Unnoticed and undenied; 
But the smallest child on the Watershed 
Can tell you how Gilbert died. 
For he rode at dusk with his comrade Dunn 
To the hut at the Stockman's Ford; 
In the waning light of...Read more of this...

Sampan Song

by Adela Florence Cory Nicolson
   You will be mine; those lightly dancing feet,
     Falling as softly on the careless street
   As the wind-loosened petals of a flower,
     Will bring you here, at the Appointed Hour.

   And all the Temple's little links and laws
     Will not for...Read more of this...

The Djinns

by Victor Hugo
 ("Murs, ville et port.") 
 
 {XXVIII., Aug. 28, 1828.} 


 Town, tower, 
 Shore, deep, 
 Where lower 
 Cliff's steep; 
 Waves gray, 
 Where play 
 Winds gay, 
 All sleep. 
 
 Hark! a sound, 
 Far and slight, 
 Breathes around 
 On the night 
 High and higher, 
 Nigh and nigher, 
...Read more of this...

Song-Day in Autumn

by D. H. Lawrence
When the autumn roses
  Are heavy with dew,
Before the mist discloses
  The leaf's brown hue,
You would, among the laughing hills
  Of yesterday
Walk innocent in the daffodils,
Coiffing up your auburn hair
In a puritan fillet, a chaste white snare
To catch and keep me with you there
  So far away.

When from the autumn roses
  Trickles the dew,
When the...Read more of this...

The Old Guitar

by James Whitcomb Riley
 Neglected now is the old guitar
And moldering into decay;
Fretted with many a rift and scar
That the dull dust hides away,
While the spider spins a silver star
In its silent lips to-day.

The keys hold only nerveless strings--
The sinews of brave old airs
Are pulseless now; and the scarf that clings
So closely here declares
A sad regret in its ravelings
And the faded hue it...Read more of this...

Memory

by Adela Florence Cory Nicolson
   How I loved you in your sleep,
   With the starlight on your hair!

   The touch of your lips was sweet,
     Aziza whom I adore,
   I lay at your slender feet,
     And against their soft palms pressed,
   I fitted my face to...Read more of this...

Michael Robartes And The Dancer

by William Butler Yeats
 He. Opinion is not worth a rush;
In this altar-piece the knight,
Who grips his long spear so to push
That dragon through the fading light,
Loved the lady; and it's plain
The half-dead dragon was her thought,
That every morning rose again
And dug its claws and shrieked and fought.
Could the impossible come to pass
She would have time to turn her eyes,
Her lover thought, upon...Read more of this...

The Skeleton in Armor

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
"SPEAK! speak! thou fearful guest! 
Who, with thy hollow breast 
Still in rude armor drest, 
Comest to daunt me! 
Wrapt not in Eastern balms, 5 
But with thy fleshless palms 
Stretched, as if asking alms, 
Why dost thou haunt me?" 

Then, from those cavernous eyes 
Pale flashes seemed to rise, 10 
As when the Northern skies 
Gleam in December; 
And,...Read more of this...

Her Vision In The Wood

by William Butler Yeats
 Dry timber under that rich foliage,
At wine-dark midnight in the sacred wood,
Too old for a man's love I stood in rage
Imagining men. Imagining that I could
A greater with a lesser pang assuage
Or but to find if withered vein ran blood,
I tore my body that its wine might cover
Whatever could rccall the lip of lover.

And after that I held my...Read more of this...

Veni Creator

by Bliss Carman
 I

LORD of the grass and hill, 
Lord of the rain, 
White Overlord of will, 
Master of pain, 

I who am dust and air 
Blown through the halls of death, 
Like a pale ghost of prayer,— 
I am thy breath. 

Lord of the blade and leaf, 
Lord of the bloom, 
Sheer Overlord of grief, 
Master of doom, 

Lonely as wind...Read more of this...

The Sexes

by Friedrich von Schiller
 See in the babe two loveliest flowers united--yet in truth,
While in the bud they seem the same--the virgin and the youth!
But loosened is the gentle bond, no longer side by side--
From holy shame the fiery strength will soon itself divide.
Permit the youth to sport, and still the wild desire to chase,
For, but when sated, weary strength returns to seek...Read more of this...

Cambridge in the Long

by Amy Levy
 Where drowsy sound of college-chimes
Across the air is blown,
And drowsy fragrance of the limes,
I lie and dream alone.

A dazzling radiance reigns o'er all--
O'er gardens densely green,
O'er old grey bridges and the small,
Slow flood which slides between.

This is the place; it is not strange,
But known of old and dear.--
What went I forth to seek? The change
Is mine; why am I...Read more of this...

November Evening

by Lucy Maud Montgomery
 Come, for the dusk is our own; let us fare forth together,
With a quiet delight in our hearts for the ripe, still, autumn weather,
Through the rustling valley and wood and over the crisping meadow,
Under a high-sprung sky, winnowed of mist and shadow. 

Sharp is the frosty air, and through the far hill-gaps showing
Lucent sunset lakes of crocus and green...Read more of this...

He ate and drank the precious Words --

by Emily Dickinson
 He ate and drank the precious Words --
His Spirit grew robust --
He knew no more that he was poor,
Nor that his frame was Dust --

He danced along the dingy Days
And this Bequest of Wings
Was but a Book -- What Liberty
A loosened spirit brings --...Read more of this...

Before A Crucifix

by Algernon Charles Swinburne
 Here, down between the dusty trees,
At this lank edge of haggard wood,
Women with labour-loosened knees,
With gaunt backs bowed by servitude,
Stop, shift their loads, and pray, and fare
Forth with souls easier for the prayer.

The suns have branded black, the rains
Striped grey this piteous God of theirs;
The face is full of prayers and pains,
To which they bring their pains and prayers;
Lean...Read more of this...

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