Famous Moves Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Modern Love L: Thus Piteously Love

by George Meredith
 Thus piteously Love closed what he begat:
The union of this ever-diverse pair!
These two were rapid falcons in a snare,
Condemned to do the flitting of the bat.
Lovers beneath the singing sky of May,
They wandered once; clear as the dew on flowers:
But they fed not on the advancing hours:
Their hearts held cravings for the buried day.
Then each applied to each that...Read more of this...

Pull A String A Puppet Moves

by Charles Bukowski
 each man must realize
that it can all disappear very 
quickly:
the cat, the woman, the job,
the front tire,
the bed, the walls, the
room; all our necessities
including love,
rest on foundations of sand - 
and any given cause,
no matter how unrelated:
the death of a boy in Hong Kong
or a blizzard in Omaha ...
can serve as your undoing.
all your chinaware crashing to the 
kitchen...Read more of this...

The Freebooter

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 No door has my house,

No house has my door;
And in and out ever

I carry my store.

No grate has my kitchen,

No kitchen my grate;
Yet roasts it and boils it

Both early and late.

My bed has no trestles,

My trestles no bed;
Yet merrier moments

No mortal e'er led.

My cellar is lofty,

My barn is full deep,
From top to the bottom,--

There lie I and sleep.

And soon...Read more of this...

The Elephant Is Slow To Mate

by D. H. Lawrence
 The elephant, the huge old beast,
 is slow to mate;
he finds a female, they show no haste
 they wait

for the sympathy in their vast shy hearts
 slowly, slowly to rouse
as they loiter along the river-beds
 and drink and browse

and dash in panic through the brake
 of forest with the herd,
and sleep in massive silence, and wake
 together, without a...Read more of this...

By The River

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 WHEN by the broad stream thou dost dwell,

Oft shallow is its sluggish flood;
Then, when thy fields thou tendest well,

It o'er them spreads its slime and mud.

The ships descend ere daylight wanes,

The prudent fisher upward goes;
Round reef and rock ice casts its chains,

And boys at will the pathway close.

To this attend, then, carefully,

And what thou wouldst, that execute!
Ne'er linger, ne'er...Read more of this...

How To Kill

by Keith Douglas
 Under the parabola of a ball,
a child turning into a man,
I looked into the air too long.
The ball fell in my hand, it sang
in the closed fist: Open Open
Behold a gift designed to kill.

Now in my dial of glass appears
the soldier who is going to die.
He smiles, and moves about in ways
his mother knows, habits of his.
The wires touch...Read more of this...

My Ladys Law

by Rudyard Kipling
 The Law whereby my lady moves
 Was never Law to me, 
 But 'tis enough that she approves 
 Whatever Law it be.

 For in that Law, and by that Law
 My constant course I'll steer; 
 Not that I heed or deem it dread,
 But that she holds it dear.

 Tho' Asia sent for my content
 Her richest...Read more of this...

Far Rockaway

by Delmore Schwartz
 "the cure of souls." Henry James


The radiant soda of the seashore fashions
Fun, foam and freedom. The sea laves
The Shaven sand. And the light sways forward
On self-destroying waves. 

The rigor of the weekday is cast aside with shoes,
With business suits and traffic's motion;
The lolling man lies with the passionate sun,
Or is drunken in the ocean. 

A socialist health take should...Read more of this...

To His Muse

by Victor Hugo
 ("Puisqu'ici-bas tout âme.") 
 
 {XL, May 19, 1836.} 
 
 Since everything below, 
 Doth, in this mortal state, 
 Its tone, its fragrance, or its glow 
 Communicate; 
 
 Since all that lives and moves 
 Upon the earth, bestows 
 On what it seeks and what it loves 
 Its thorn or rose; 
 
...Read more of this...

Atavism

by Elinor Wylie
 I was always afraid of Somes's Pond: 
Not the little pond, by which the willow stands, 
Where laughing boys catch alewives in their hands 
In brown, bright shallows; but the one beyond. 
There, where the frost makes all the birches burn 
Yellow as cow-lilies, and the pale sky shines 
Like a polished shell between black spruce and pines, 
Some...Read more of this...

The Dance Of Death

by Charles Baudelaire
 CARRYING bouquet, and handkerchief, and gloves, 
Proud of her height as when she lived, she moves 
With all the careless and high-stepping grace, 
And the extravagant courtesan's thin face. 

Was slimmer waist e'er in a ball-room wooed? 
Her floating robe, in royal amplitude, 
Falls in deep folds around a dry foot, shod 
With a bright flower-like shoe that gems...Read more of this...

Ox Tamer The

by Walt Whitman
 IN a faraway northern county, in the placid, pastoral region, 
Lives my farmer friend, the theme of my recitative, a famous Tamer of Oxen: 
There they bring him the three-year-olds and the four-year-olds, to break them; 
He will take the wildest steer in the world, and break him and tame him; 
He will go, fearless, without any whip, where...Read more of this...

Dirge for Two Veterans

by Walt Whitman
 1
 THE last sunbeam 
Lightly falls from the finish’d Sabbath, 
On the pavement here—and there beyond, it is looking, 
 Down a new-made double grave. 

2
 Lo! the moon ascending!
Up from the east, the silvery round moon; 
Beautiful over the house tops, ghastly phantom moon; 
 Immense and silent moon. 

3
 I see a sad procession, 
And I hear...Read more of this...

Sonnet LXXXVI

by Francesco Petrarch
SONNET LXXXVI. Lasso! quante fiate Amor m' assale. WHEN LOVE DISTURBS HIM, HE CALMS HIMSELF BY THINKING OF THE EYES AND WORDS OF LAURA.  Alas! how ceaselessly is urged Love's claim,By day, by night, a thousand times I turnWhere best I may behold the dear lights burnWhich have immortalized my bosom's flame.Read more of this...

The Withdrawal

by Robert Lowell
 1
Only today and just for this minute,
when the sunslant finds its true angle,
you can see yellow and pinkish leaves spangle
our gentle, fluffy tree—
suddenly the green summer is momentary...
Autumn is my favorite season—
why does it change clothes and withdraw?

This week the house went on the market—
suddenly I woke up among strangers;
when I go into a room, it moves
with embarrassment, and...Read more of this...

As the lone, frighted user of a night-road

by Fernando Pessoa
As the lone, frighted user of a night-road

Suddenly turns round, nothing to detect,

Yet on his fear's sense keepeth still the load

Of that brink-nothing he doth but suspect;

And the cold terror moves to him more near

Of something that from nothing casts a spell,

That, when he moves, to fright more is not there,

And's only visible when invisible

So I upon the world turn...Read more of this...

from crossing the line

by Rg Gregory
 (1) a great man

there was a great man
so great he couldn't be criticised in the light
who died
and for a whole week people turned up their collars over their ears
and wept with great gossiping

houses wore their roofs at a mournful angle
and television announcers carried their eyes around in long drooping bags
there was a hush upon the voice of the land
as...Read more of this...

To a Lady on Her Coming to North-America

by Phillis Wheatley
 Indulgent muse! my grov'ling mind inspire,
And fill my bosom with celestial fire.
See from Jamaica's fervid shore she moves,
Like the fair mother of the blooming loves,
When from above the Goddess with her hand
Fans the soft breeze, and lights upon the land;
Thus she on Neptune's wat'ry realm reclin'd
Appear'd, and thus invites the ling'ring wind.
"Arise, ye winds, America explore,

"Waft me, ye gales,...Read more of this...

From Shadow

by Duncan Campbell Scott
 Now the November skies,
And the clouds that are thin and gray,
That drop with the wind away;
A flood of sunlight rolls,
In a tide of shallow light,
Gold on the land and white
On the water, dim and warm in the wood;
Then it is gone, and the wan
Clear of the shade
Covers fields and barren and glade.
The peace of labor done,
Is wide in the...Read more of this...

Ode To an Artichoke

by Pablo Neruda
 The artichoke
of delicate heart
erect
in its battle-dress, builds
its minimal cupola;
keeps
stark
in its scallop of
scales.
Around it,
demoniac vegetables
bristle their thicknesses,
devise
tendrils and belfries,
the bulb's agitations;
while under the subsoil
the carrot
sleeps sound in its
rusty mustaches.
Runner and filaments
bleach in the vineyards,
whereon rise the vines.
The sedulous cabbage
arranges its petticoats;
oregano
sweetens a world;
and the artichoke
dulcetly there in a gardenplot,
armed for a skirmish,
goes proud
in its pomegranate
burnishes.
Till, on a day,
each by the...Read more of this...

Torch The

by Walt Whitman
 ON my northwest coast in the midst of the night, a fishermen’s group stands watching;

Out on the lake, that expands before them, others are spearing salmon; 
The canoe, a dim shadowy thing, moves across the black water, 
Bearing a Torch a-blaze at the prow....Read more of this...

On the Death of the Honourable Mr. James Thynne

by Anne Kingsmill Finch
 Farewell, lov'd Youth! since 'twas the Will of Heaven 
So soon to take, what had so late been giv'n; 
And thus our Expectations to destroy, 
Raising a Grief, where we had form'd a Joy; 
Who once believ'd, it was the Fates Design 
In Him to double an Illustrious Line, 
And in a second Channel spread that Race 
Where ev'ry...Read more of this...

Apologia

by Oscar Wilde
 Is it thy will that I should wax and wane,
Barter my cloth of gold for hodden grey,
And at thy pleasure weave that web of pain
Whose brightest threads are each a wasted day?

Is it thy will - Love that I love so well -
That my Soul's House should be a tortured spot
Wherein, like evil paramours, must dwell
The quenchless flame, the...Read more of this...

The Last Meeting

by Siegfried Sassoon
 I

Because the night was falling warm and still 
Upon a golden day at April’s end, 
I thought; I will go up the hill once more 
To find the face of him that I have lost, 
And speak with him before his ghost has flown
Far from the earth that might not keep him long. 

So down the road I went,...Read more of this...

God Moves In A Mysterious Way

by William Cowper
 God moves in a mysterious way
His wonders to perform;
He plants His footsteps in the sea,
And rides upon the storm.

Deep in unfathomable mines
Of never-failing skill
He treasures up His bright designs,
And works His sovereign will.

Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take,
The clouds ye so much dread
Are big with mercy, and shall break
In blessings on your head.

Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,
But...Read more of this...

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