Famous Neck Poems by Famous Poets

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

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As I Sat Alone by Blue Ontario's Shores

...near, 
Used to dispense with other lands, incarnating this land,
Attracting it Body and Soul to himself, hanging on its neck with incomparable love, 
Plunging his seminal muscle into its merits and demerits, 
Making its cities, beginnings, events, diversities, wars, vocal in him, 
Making its rivers, lakes, bays, embouchure in him, 
Mississippi with yearly freshets and changing chutes—Columbia, Niagara, Hudson,
 spending
 themselves lovingly in him,
If the Atlantic coast stret...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt


Beowulf (Modern English)

...their wanted journey, the wood tightly bound.
Then it departed over the wavy sea, hurried by the wind,
a float foamy-necked, very much like a bird,
until about the same time on the second day,
the whorled prow had traversed the distance,
so that the sailors saw land, the shining sea-cliffs,
the steep hills and the broad promontories.
The sea-crossing was sailed, their voyage had ended.
Thence they went swiftly, heroes of the Weder-Geats,
descended onto dry land, res...Read more of this...
by Anonymous,

Beowulf (Old English)

...ip by shore of ocean
faithfully watching till once again
it waft o’er the waters those well-loved thanes,
-- winding-neck’d wood, -- to Weders’ bounds,
heroes such as the hest of fate
shall succor and save from the shock of war.”
They bent them to march, -- the boat lay still,
fettered by cable and fast at anchor,
broad-bosomed ship. -- Then shone the boars {4b}
over the cheek-guard; chased with gold,
keen and gleaming, guard it kept
o’er the man of war, as marched...Read more of this...
by Anonymous,

Charmides

...alf swooned for surfeit of such luxuries,
And then his lips in hungering delight
Fed on her lips, and round the towered neck
He flung his arms, nor cared at all his passion's will to check.

Never I ween did lover hold such tryst,
For all night long he murmured honeyed word,
And saw her sweet unravished limbs, and kissed
Her pale and argent body undisturbed,
And paddled with the polished throat, and pressed
His hot and beating heart upon her chill and icy breast.

It was as i...Read more of this...
by Wilde, Oscar

Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie

...rought back the evening star to the sky, and the herds to the homestead.
Pawing the ground they came, and resting their necks on each other,
And with their nostrils distended inhaling the freshness of evening.
Foremost, bearing the bell, Evangeline's beautiful heifer,
Proud of her snow-white hide, and the ribbon that waved from her collar,
Quietly paced and slow, as if conscious of human affection.
Then came the shepherd back with his bleating flocks from the seaside,
Where w...Read more of this...
by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth


Howl

...down crying in white gymnasiums naked and trembling before the machinery of other skeletons,
who bit detectives in the neck and shrieked with delight in policecars for committing no crime but their own wild cooking pederasty and intoxication,
who howled on their knees in the subway and were dragged off the roof waving genitals and manuscripts,
who let themselves be fucked in the ass by saintly motorcyclists, and screamed with joy,
who blew and were blown by those human se...Read more of this...
by Ginsberg, Allen

Humanitad

...the fen the ice-pools crack

Where the gaunt bittern stalks among the reeds
And flaps his wings, and stretches back his neck,
And hoots to see the moon; across the meads
Limps the poor frightened hare, a little speck;
And a stray seamew with its fretful cry
Flits like a sudden drift of snow against the dull grey sky.

Full winter: and the lusty goodman brings
His load of faggots from the chilly byre,
And stamps his feet upon the hearth, and flings
The sappy billets on the wan...Read more of this...
by Wilde, Oscar

Hyperion

...d;
By her in stature the tall Amazon
Had stood a pigmy's height: she would have ta'en
Achilles by the hair and bent his neck;
Or with a finger stay'd Ixion's wheel.
Her face was large as that of Memphian sphinx,
Pedestal'd haply in a palace court,
When sages look'd to Egypt for their lore.
But oh! how unlike marble was that face:
How beautiful, if sorrow had not made
Sorrow more beautiful than Beauty's self.
There was a listening fear in her regard,
As if calamity had but beg...Read more of this...
by Keats, John

Paradise Lost: Book 09

...folds, that towered 
Fold above fold, a surging maze! his head 
Crested aloft, and carbuncle his eyes; 
With burnished neck of verdant gold, erect 
Amidst his circling spires, that on the grass 
Floated redundant: pleasing was his shape 
And lovely; never since of serpent-kind 
Lovelier, not those that in Illyria changed, 
Hermione and Cadmus, or the god 
In Epidaurus; nor to which transformed 
Ammonian Jove, or Capitoline, was seen; 
He with Olympias; this with her who bore...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Salut au Monde

...re the girls? who are the married women? 
Who are the groups of old men going slowly with their arms about each other’s necks?
What rivers are these? what forests and fruits are these? 
What are the mountains call’d that rise so high in the mists? 
What myriads of dwellings are they, fill’d with dwellers? 

2
Within me latitude widens, longitude lengthens; 
Asia, Africa, Europe, are to the east—America is provided for in the west;
Banding the bulge of the earth winds the hot ...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt

Snow

...found so interesting
In one another, and had gone to sleep
Of its own stupid lack of understanding,
Or broken its white neck of mushroom stuff
Short off, and died against the window-pane.”

“Brother Meserve, take care, you’ll scare yourself
More than you will us with such nightmare talk.
It’s you it matters to, because it’s you
Who have to go out into it alone.”

“Let him talk, Helen, and perhaps he’ll stay.”

“Before you drop the curtain—I’m reminded:
You recollect the boy w...Read more of this...
by Frost, Robert

Song of Myself

...
 shoulders; 
On a bank lounged the trapper—he was drest mostly in skins—his
 luxuriant beard and curls protected his neck—he held his bride by the hand;

She had long eyelashes—her head was bare—her coarse straight locks
 descended upon her voluptuous limbs and reach’d to her feet.

The runaway slave came to my house and stopt outside; 
I heard his motions crackling the twigs of the woodpile; 
Through the swung half-door of the kitchen I saw him limpsy and weak, 
A...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt

The Ballad of the White Horse

...e.

Lady, by one light only
We look from Alfred's eyes,
We know he saw athwart the wreck
The sign that hangs about your neck,
Where One more than Melchizedek
Is dead and never dies.

Therefore I bring these rhymes to you
Who brought the cross to me,
Since on you flaming without flaw
I saw the sign that Guthrum saw
When he let break his ships of awe,
And laid peace on the sea.

Do you remember when we went
Under a dragon moon,
And `mid volcanic tints of night
Walked where they...Read more of this...
by Chesterton, G K

The Bride of Abydos

...aceful arms in meekness bending 
Across her gently-budding breast; 
At one kind word those arms extending 
To clasp the neck of him who blest 
His child caressing and carest, 
Zuleika came — Giaffir felt 
His purpose half within him melt; 
Not that against her fancied weal 
His heart though stern could ever feel; 
Affection chain'd her to that heart; 
Ambition tore the links apart. 

VII. 

"Zuleika! child of gentleness! 
How dear this very day must tell, 
When I forget my ow...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)

The Everlasting Mercy

...that never fails) 
A pin beneath my finger nails. 
They poured what seemed a running beck 
Of cold spring water down my neck; 
Jim with a lancet quick as flies 
Lowered the swelling round my eyes. 
They sluiced my legs and fanned my face 
Through all that blessed minute's grace; 
They gave my calves a thorough kneading, 
They salved my cuts and stopped the bleeding. 
A gulp of liquor dulled the pain, 
And then the flasks clinked again. 
Time! 

There was Bill as grim as death...Read more of this...
by Masefield, John

The Growth of Love

...pleasant on all sides,
And to kind salutation give good heed:
I ride as one who for his pleasure rides,
And stroke the neck of my delighted steed,
And seek what cheer the village inn provides. 

38
An idle June day on the sunny Thames,
Floating or rowing as our fancy led,
Now in the high beams basking as we sped,
Now in green shade gliding by mirror'd stems;
By lock and weir and isle, and many a spot
Of memoried pleasure, glad with strength and skill,
Friendship, good wine, ...Read more of this...
by Bridges, Robert Seymour

The Hunting Of The Snark

...large discount--he offered a cheque
 (Drawn "to bearer") for seven-pounds-ten:
But the Bandersnatch merely extended its neck
 And grabbed at the Banker again.

Without rest or pause--while those frumious jaws
 Went savagely snapping around--
He skipped and he hopped, and he floundered and flopped,
 Till fainting he fell to the ground.

The Bandersnatch fled as the others appeared
 Led on by that fear-stricken yell:
And the Bellman remarked "It is just as I feared!"
 And solem...Read more of this...
by Carroll, Lewis

The Lady of the Lake

...
     De Vaux and Herries, follow me.
     XVIII.

     'Stand, Bayard, stand!'—the steed obeyed,
     With arching neck and bended head,
     And glancing eye and quivering ear,
     As if he loved his lord to hear.
     No foot Fitz-James in stirrup stayed,
     No grasp upon the saddle laid,
     But wreathed his left hand in the mane,
     And lightly bounded from the plain,
     Turned on the horse his armed heel,
     And stirred his courage with the steel.
...Read more of this...
by Scott, Sir Walter

The Vision of Judgment

...XVI

'Confound the renegado! I have sprain'd 
My left wing, he's so heavy; one would think 
Some of his works about his neck were chain'd. 
But to the point; while hovering o'er the brink 
Of Skiddaw (where as usual it still rain'd), 
I saw a taper, far below me, wink, 
And stooping, caught this fellow at a libel — 
No less on history than the Holy Bible. 

LXXXVII 

'The former is the devil's scripture, and 
The latter yours, good Michael: so the affair 
Belongs to all of us...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)

The White Cliffs

...and Seward over the Trent.
All very long ago, you'll say,
But whenever I go up Boston-way,
I drive through Concord—that neck of the wood, 
Where once the embattled farmers stood, 
And I think of Revere, and the old South Steeple, 
And I say, by heck, we're the only people 
Who licked them not only once, but twice. 
Never forget it-that's my advice. 
They have their points—they're honest and brave,
Loyal and sure—as sure as the grave; 
They make other nations seem pale and fli...Read more of this...
by Miller, Alice Duer

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