Famous Metal Poems by Famous Poets

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

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A Lovers Complaint

...dear modesty,
Encamp'd in hearts, but fighting outwardly.

''And, lo, behold these talents of their hair,
With twisted metal amorously impleach'd,
I have received from many a several fair,
Their kind acceptance weepingly beseech'd,
With the annexions of fair gems enrich'd,
And deep-brain'd sonnets that did amplify
Each stone's dear nature, worth, and quality.

''The diamond,--why, 'twas beautiful and hard,
Whereto his invised properties did tend;
The deep-green emerald, in w...Read more of this...
by Shakespeare, William


Avons Harvest

...onable sorrow 
That would not die behind it. Then I caught
The shadowy glimpse of an uplifted arm, 
And a moon-flash of metal. That was all.… 

“When I believed I was alive again 
I was with Asher and The Admiral, 
Whom Asher had brought with him for a day
With nature. They had found me when they came; 
And there was not much left of me to find. 
I had not moved or known that I was there 
Since I had seen his eyes and felt his breath; 
And it was not for some uncertain hours
...Read more of this...
by Robinson, Edwin Arlington

Beowulf (Modern English)

...ng,
the war-armor of men. Their spears stood,
sea-men’s tackle, leaning together,
ashen shafts grey at the tip. That metal-bound troop
was worthied in weapons. Then a proud noble
asked the chosen champions about their lineage: (ll. 320-32)

“From where have you all ferried those fretted shields,
grey hauberks and masked helmets, this forest of battle-shafts?
I am Hrothgar’s herald and servant. Never have I seen
many strange men thus, more haughty of bearing.
I reck...Read more of this...
by Anonymous,

Briar Rose (Sleeping Beauty)

...s, the flies on the wall.
The fire in the hearth grew still
and the roast meat stopped crackling.
The trees turned into metal
and the dog became china.
They all lay in a trance,
each a catatonic
stuck in a time machine.
Even the frogs were zombies.
Only a bunch of briar roses grew
forming a great wall of tacks
around the castle.
Many princes
tried to get through the brambles
for they had heard much of Briar Rose
but they had not scoured their tongues
so they were held by the ...Read more of this...
by Sexton, Anne

Custer

...e General now, 
He gives the silent signal to the band
Which, all impatient, waits for his command.
Cold lips to colder metal press; the air
Echoes those merry strains which mean despair
For sleeping chieftain and for toiling squaw, 
But joy to those stern hearts which glory in the law



XVI.
Of murder paying murder's awful debt.
And now four squadrons in one charge are met.
From east and west, from north and south they come, 
At call of bugle and at roll of drum.
Their rifl...Read more of this...
by Wilcox, Ella Wheeler


Eviradnus

...awning to taste again their dreadful life. 
 Like tears upon the palfreys' muzzles were 
 The hard reflections of the metal there; 
 From out these spectres, ages past exhumed, 
 And as their shadows on the roof-beams loomed, 
 Cast by the trembling light, each figure wan 
 Seemed growing, and a monstrous shape to don, 
 So that the double range of horrors made 
 The darkened zenith clouds of blackest shade, 
 That shaped themselves to profiles terrible. 
 
 All mo...Read more of this...
by Hugo, Victor

Four Quartets 4: Little Gidding

...etween 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 brown baked features
 The eyes of a familiar compound ghost...Read more of this...
by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)

Hospital Window

...rinding jaw and tightening anus 
not released the weeping scream of horror at robot Mayaguez 
World self ton billions metal grief unloaded 
Pnom Penh to Nakon Thanom, Santiago & Tehran. 
Fresh warm breeze in the window, day's release 
>from pain, cars float downside the bridge trestle 
and uncounted building-wall windows multiplied a mile 
deep into ash-delicate sky beguile 
my empty mind. A seagull passes alone wings 
spread silent over roofs. 

- May 20, 1975 May...Read more of this...
by Ginsberg, Allen

Hyperion

...ths
Of incense, breath'd aloft from sacred hills,
Instead of sweets, his ample palate took
Savor of poisonous brass and metal sick:
And so, when harbor'd in the sleepy west,
After the full completion of fair day,---
For rest divine upon exalted couch,
And slumber in the arms of melody,
He pac'd away the pleasant hours of ease
With stride colossal, on from hall to hall;
While far within each aisle and deep recess,
His winged minions in close clusters stood,
Amaz'd and full off...Read more of this...
by Keats, John

Inferno (English)

...ink." 

 I said, 
 "Master, already through the night I view 
 The mosques of that sad city, that fiery red 
 As heated metal extend, and crowd the plain." 
 He answered, "These the eternal fire contain, 
 That pulsing through them sets their domes aglow." 
 At this we came those joyless walls below, 
 - Of iron I thought them, - with a circling moat; 
 But saw no entrance, and the burdened boat 
 Traced the deep fosse for half its girth, before 
 The steersman warned us. "Ge...Read more of this...
by Alighieri, Dante

Last Instructions to a Painter

...t, 
Unpaid, refuse to mount our ships for spite, 
Or to their fellows swim on board the Dutch, 
Which show the tempting metal in their clutch. 
Oft had he sent of Duncombe and of Legge 
Cannon and powder, but in vain, to beg; 
And Upnor Castle's ill-deserted wall, 
Now needful, does for ammunition call. 
He finds, wheres'e'er he succor might expect, 
Confusion, folly, treach'ry, fear, neglect. 
But when the Royal Charles (what rage, what grief) 
He saw seized, and could give ...Read more of this...
by Marvell, Andrew

Letter In November

...
Imagine it ----

My seventy trees
Holding their gold-ruddy balls
In a thick gray death-soup,
Their million
Gold leaves metal and breathless.

O love, O celibate.
Nobody but me
Walks the waist high wet.
The irreplaceable
Golds bleed and deepen, the mouths of Thermopylae....Read more of this...
by Plath, Sylvia

New Hampshire

.... She was free to question
Her gift for reading letters locked in boxes.
Why was it so much greater when the boxes
Were metal than it was when they were wooden?
It made the world seem so mysterious.
The S'ciety for Psychical Research
Was cognizant. Her husband was worth millions.
I think he owned some shares in Harvard College.)

New Hampshire used to have at Salem
A company we called the White Corpuscles,
Whose duty was at any hour of night
To rush in sheets and fool's caps ...Read more of this...
by Frost, Robert

Paradise Lost: Book 01

...streaming to the wind, 
With gems and golden lustre rich emblazed, 
Seraphic arms and trophies; all the while 
Sonorous metal blowing martial sounds: 
At which the universal host up-sent 
A shout that tore Hell's concave, and beyond 
Frighted the reign of Chaos and old Night. 
All in a moment through the gloom were seen 
Ten thousand banners rise into the air, 
With orient colours waving: with them rose 
A forest huge of spears; and thronging helms 
Appeared, and serried shie...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Plutonian Ode

...th 
 your presence, I roar your Lion Roar with mortal
 mouth.
One microgram inspired to one lung, ten pounds of 
 heavy metal dust adrift slow motion over grey
 Alps
the breadth of the planet, how long before your radiance
 speeds blight and death to sentient beings?
Enter my body or not I carol my spirit inside you,
 Unnaproachable Weight,
O heavy heavy Element awakened I vocalize your con-
 sciousness to six worlds
I chant your absolute Vanity. Yeah monster of Anger
 birthe...Read more of this...
by Ginsberg, Allen

Self-Portrait At 28

...s "go out long" are what stand out now.

If squeezed for more information
I can remember old clock radios
with flipping metal numbers
and an entree called Surf and Turf.

As a way of getting in touch with my origins
every night I set the alarm clock
for the time I was born so that waking up
becomes a historical reenactment and the first thing I do
 is take a reading of the day and try to flow with it like
 when you're riding a mechanical bull and you strain to learn
 the patt...Read more of this...
by Berman, David

Song of the Broad-Axe

...1
WEAPON, shapely, naked, wan! 
Head from the mother’s bowels drawn! 
Wooded flesh and metal bone! limb only one, and lip only one! 
Gray-blue leaf by red-heat grown! helve produced from a little seed sown! 
Resting the grass amid and upon,
To be lean’d, and to lean on. 

Strong shapes, and attributes of strong shapes—masculine trades, sights and sounds; 
Long varied train of an emblem, dabs of music; 
Fingers of the organist skipping staccato...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt

The Dance Of Death

...attles the door--for the warder 'tis well
That 'tis bless'd, and so able the foe to repel,

All cover'd with crosses in metal.

The shroud he must have, and no rest will allow,

There remains for reflection no time;
On the ornaments Gothic the wight seizes now,

And from point on to point hastes to climb.
Alas for the warder! his doom is decreed!
Like a long-legged spider, with ne'er-changing speed,

Advances the dreaded pursuer.

The warder he quakes, and the warder turns pa...Read more of this...
by von Goethe, Johann Wolfgang

The Four Ages of Man

...face as fresh, as is Aurora fair,
1.30 When blushing first, she 'gins to red the Air.
1.31 No wooden horse, but one of metal try'd:
1.32 He seems to fly, or swim, and not to ride.
1.33 Then prancing on the Stage, about he wheels;
1.34 But as he went, death waited at his heels.
1.35 The next came up, in a more graver sort,
1.36 As one that cared for a good report.
1.37 His Sword by's side, and choler in his eyes,
1.38 But neither us'd (as yet) for he was wise,
1.39 Of Autumn ...Read more of this...
by Bradstreet, Anne

The Wife of Baths Tale

...y, then," quoth she, "I shrew* us bothe two, *curse
For though that I be old, and foul, and poor,
I n'ould* for all the metal nor the ore, *would not
That under earth is grave,* or lies above *buried
But if thy wife I were and eke thy love."
"My love?" quoth he, "nay, my damnation,
Alas! that any of my nation
Should ever so foul disparaged be.
But all for nought; the end is this, that he
Constrained was, that needs he muste wed,
And take this olde wife, and go to bed.

Now wo...Read more of this...
by Chaucer, Geoffrey

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