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Famous Muffled Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry
...ind us farther than to-day. 

Art is long and Time is fleeting  
And our hearts though stout and brave  
Still like muffled drums are beating 15 
Funeral marches to the grave. 

In the world's broad field of battle  
In the bivouac of Life  
Be not like dumb driven cattle! 
Be a hero in the strife! 20 

Trust no Future howe'er pleasant! 
Let the dead Past bury its dead! 
Act ¡ªact in the living Present! 
Heart within and God o'erhead! 

Lives of great men all...Read more of this...
by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth



...r dull commercial liturgies -- 
I dare not yet believe! My ears are shut! 
I will not hear the thin satiric praise 
And muffled laughter of our enemies, 
Bidding us never sheathe our valiant sword 
Till we have changed our birthright for a gourd 
Of wild pulse stolen from a barbarian's hut; 
Showing how wise it is to cast away 
The symbols of our spiritual sway, 
That so our hands with better ease 
May wield the driver's whip and grasp the jailer's keys. 


VIII 

Was it for ...Read more of this...
by Moody, William Vaughn
...stop barking.
I close all the windows in the house
and put on a Beethoven symphony full blast
but I can still hear him muffled under the music,
barking, barking, barking,

and now I can see him sitting in the orchestra,
his head raised confidently as if Beethoven
had included a part for barking dog.

When the record finally ends he is still barking,
sitting there in the oboe section barking,
his eyes fixed on the conductor who is
entreating him with his baton

while the othe...Read more of this...
by Collins, Billy
...ain't my style," said Casey. 

"Strike one!" the umpire said. 
From the benches, black with people, there went up a muffled roar, 
like the beating of the storm waves on a stern and distant shore. 

"Kill him! Kill the umpire!" shouted someone on the stand, 
and it's likely they'd have killed him had not Casey raised his hand. 

With a smile of Christian charity, great Casey's visage shone, 
he stilled the rising tumult, he bade the game go on. 

He signaled to t...Read more of this...
by Thayer, Ernest Lawrence
...DAUGHTERS of Time the hypocritic Days  
Muffled and dumb like barefoot dervishes  
And marching single in an endless file  
Bring diadems and fagots in their hands. 
To each they offer gifts after his will 5 
Bread kingdoms stars and sky that holds them all. 
I in my pleach¨¨d garden watched the pomp  
Forgot my morning wishes hastily 
Took a few herbs and apples and the Day 
Turned and de...Read more of this...
by Emerson, Ralph Waldo



...all bats, issued from their hangings, flitter o'erhead
thru' the summer twilight, with thin cries to and fro
hunting in muffled flight atween the stars and flowers.
Then fell I in strange delusion, illusion strange to tell;
for as a man who lyeth fast asleep in his bed
may dream he waketh, and that he walketh upright
pursuing some endeavour in full conscience-so 'twas
with me; but contrawise; for being in truth awake
methought I slept and dreamt; and in thatt dream methought
...Read more of this...
by Bridges, Robert Seymour
...light twinkled; anon 
Came lights and lights, and once again he blew; 
Whereon were hollow tramplings up and down 
And muffled voices heard, and shadows past; 
Till high above him, circled with her maids, 
The Lady Lyonors at a window stood, 
Beautiful among lights, and waving to him 
White hands, and courtesy; but when the Prince 
Three times had blown--after long hush--at last-- 
The huge pavilion slowly yielded up, 
Through those black foldings, that which housed therein....Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...of his open barn,
Like a lone actor on a gloomy stage—
And recognized him, through the iron gray
In which his face was muffled to the eyes,
As an old boyhood friend, and once indeed
A drover with me on the road to Brighton.
His farm was "grounds," and not a farm at all;
His house among the local sheds and shanties
Rose like a factor's at a trading station.
And be was rich, and I was still a rascal.
I couldn't keep from asking impolitely,
Where bad he been and what had he bee...Read more of this...
by Frost, Robert
...every Middlesex village and farm, 
For the country-folk to be up and to arm." 

Then he said "Good night!" and with muffled oar 
Silently rowed to the Charlestown shore, 
Just as the moon rose over the bay, 
Where swinging wide at her moorings lay 
The Somerset, British man-of-war: 
A phantom ship, with each mast and spar 
Across the moon, like a prison-bar, 
And a huge black hulk, that was magnified 
By its own reflection in the tide. 

Meanwhile, his friend, t...Read more of this...
by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...talking.”
“No.”

“Why, yes, I hear—what is it?”

“What do you say it is?”

“A baby’s crying!
Frantic it sounds, though muffled and far off.”

“Its mother wouldn’t let it cry like that,
Not if she’s there.”

“What do you make of it?”

“There’s only one thing possible to make,
That is, assuming—that she has gone out.
Of course she hasn’t though.” They both sat down
Helpless. “There’s nothing we can do till morning.”

“Fred, I shan’t let you think of going out.”

“Hold on.” The...Read more of this...
by Frost, Robert
...eamsters’ calls, and the clinking chains, and the music of choppers’ axes,

The falling trunk and limbs, the crash, the muffled shriek, the groan,
Such words combined from the Redwood-tree—as of wood-spirits’ voices ecstatic, ancient and
 rustling, 
The century-lasting, unseen dryads, singing, withdrawing, 
All their recesses of forests and mountains leaving, 
From the Cascade range to the Wasatch—or Idaho far, or Utah, 
To the deities of the Modern henceforth yielding,
The c...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt
...nd the people- ah, the people-
They that dwell up in the steeple,
All Alone
And who, tolling, tolling, tolling,
In that muffled monotone,
Feel a glory in so rolling
On the human heart a stone-
They are neither man nor woman-
They are neither brute nor human-
They are Ghouls:
And their king it is who tolls;
And he rolls, rolls, rolls,
Rolls
A paean from the bells!
And his merry bosom swells
With the paean of the bells!
And he dances, and he yells;
Keeping time, time, time,
In ...Read more of this...
by Poe, Edgar Allan
...wood-winds made a ring
Of reedy bubbling noises, and the sting
Of sharp, red brass pierced every ear-drum; patting
From muffled tympani made a dark slatting
Across the silver shimmering of flutes;
A bassoon grunted, and an oboe wailed;
The 'celli pizzicato-ed like great lutes,
And mutterings of double basses trailed
Away to silence, while loud harp-strings hailed
Their thin, bright colours down in such a scatter
They lost themselves amid the general clatter.
Frau Altgelt in t...Read more of this...
by Lowell, Amy
...nd caves,
And lit with sea-shine to thine inland lair,
Whose freedom clothed the naked souls of slaves
And stripped the muffled souls of tyrants bare,
O, by the centuries of thy glorious graves,
By the live light of the earth that was thy care,
Live, thou must not be dead,
Live; let thine armed head
Lift itself up to sunward and the fair
Daylight of time and man,
Thine head republican,
With the same splendour on thine helmless hair
That in his eyes kept up a light
Who on thy ...Read more of this...
by Swinburne, Algernon Charles
...e speak, kneel, touch, kiss--in sooth such things have been.

 He ventures in: let no buzz'd whisper tell:
 All eyes be muffled, or a hundred swords
 Will storm his heart, Love's fev'rous citadel:
 For him, those chambers held barbarian hordes,
 Hyena foemen, and hot-blooded lords,
 Whose very dogs would execrations howl
 Against his lineage: not one breast affords
 Him any mercy, in that mansion foul,
Save one old beldame, weak in body and in soul.

 Ah, happy chance! the ag...Read more of this...
by Keats, John
...made the fire-bell awake, 
I felt the bell-rope throb and shake; 
I felt the air mingle and clang 
And beat the walls a muffled bang, 
And stifle back and boom and bay 
Like muffled peals on Boxing Day, 
And then surge up and gather shape, 
And spread great pinions and escape; 
And each great bird of clanging shrieks 
O Fire! Fire, from iron beaks. 
My shoulders cracked to send around 
Those shrieking birds made out of sound 
With news of fire in their bills. 
(They heard 'em...Read more of this...
by Masefield, John
...or the pasiing peaceful prow,
Till the gay mariner's guitar
Is heard, and seen the Evening Star;
Then stealing with the muffled oar,
Far shaded by the rocky shore,
Rush the night-prowlers on the prey,
And turns to groan his roudelay.
Strande--that where Nature loved to trace,
As if for Gods, a dwelling place,
And every charm and grace hath mixed
Within the Paradise she fixed,
There man, enarmoured of distress,
Shoul mar it into wilderness,
And trample, brute-like, o'er each f...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)
...pened we shall hear a music:
Or see a skeleton fall . . .

We walk with you. Where is it that you lead us?
We climb the muffled stairs beneath high lanterns.
We descend again. We grope through darkened cells.
You say: this darkness, here, will slowly kill me.
It creeps and weighs upon me . . . Is full of bells.

This is the thing remembered I would forget—
No matter where I go, how soft I tread,
This windy gesture menaces me with death.
Fatigue! it says, and points its finger...Read more of this...
by Aiken, Conrad
...ew,
     Bristles his crest, and points his ears,
     As if some stranger step he hears.
     'T is not a mourner's muffled tread,
     Who comes to sorrow o'er the dead,
     But headlong haste or deadly fear
     Urge the precipitate career.
     All stand aghast:—unheeding all,
     The henchman bursts into the hall;
     Before the dead man's bier he stood,
     Held forth the Cross besmeared with blood;
     'The muster-place is Lanrick mead;
     Speed fort...Read more of this...
by Scott, Sir Walter
...hat was learning unto them? 
They wished to marry; they could rule a house; 
Men hated learned women: but we three 
Sat muffled like the Fates; and often came 
Melissa hitting all we saw with shafts 
Of gentle satire, kin to charity, 
That harmed not: then day droopt; the chapel bells 
Called us: we left the walks; we mixt with those 
Six hundred maidens clad in purest white, 
Before two streams of light from wall to wall, 
While the great organ almost burst his pipes, 
Groan...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord

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Book: Reflection on the Important Things