Famous Notched Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Aurora Leigh (excerpts)

...ter fevers, men
Thread back the passage of delirium,
Missing the turn still, baffled by the door ;
Smooth endless days, notched here and there with knives ;
A weary, wormy darkness, spurr'd i' the flank
With flame, that it should eat and end itself
Like some tormented scorpion. Then at last
I do remember clearly, how there came
A stranger with authority, not right,
(I thought not) who commanded, caught me up
From old Assunta's neck ; how, with a shriek,
She let me go, -- whil...Read more of this...
by Browning, Elizabeth Barrett


Death sets a thing significant

...t was put among the dust
Upon the closet shelves.

A book I have, a friend gave,
Whose pencil, here and there,
Had notched the place that pleased him,--
At rest his fingers are.

Now, when I read, I read not,
For interrupting tears
Obliterate the etchings
Too costly for repairs....Read more of this...
by Dickinson, Emily

Joy to have merited the Pain --

...pparition --
Remanded of the Morn --

The Height I recollect --
'Twas even with the Hills --
The Depth upon my Soul was notched --
As Floods -- on Whites of Wheels --

To Haunt -- till Time have dropped
His last Decade away,
And Haunting actualize -- to last
At least -- Eternity --...Read more of this...
by Dickinson, Emily

Manhole Covers

...stones, unliftable, indecipherable,
Not like the old electrum, chased and scored,
Mottoed and sculptured to a turn,
But notched and whelked and pocked and smashed
With the great company names
(Gentle Bethlehem, smiling United States).
This rustproof artifact of my street,
Long after roads are melted away will lie
Sidewise in the grave of the iron-old world,
Bitten at the edges,
Strong with its cryptic American,
Its dated beauty....Read more of this...
by Shapiro, Karl

The Bride of Abydos

...rs of gold. Amongst those in my possession is one with a blade of singular construction; it is very broad, and the edge notched into serpentine curves like the ripple of water, or the wavering of flame. I asked the Armenian who sold it what possible use such a figure could add: he said, in Italian, that he did not know; but the Mussulmans had an idea that those of this form gave a severer wound; and liked it because it was "piu feroce." I did not much admire the reason, but b...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)


The Mortal One

...there in the room is the comfortable smell of rot,
the bulb that did not make it, marked with
ridges like an elephant's notched foot,
I walk down the hall as if I were moving through the
long stem of the tulip toward the closed sheath.
In the kitchen I throw a palmful of peppercorns into the
 saucepan
as if I would grow a black tree from the soup,
I throw out the rotten chicken part,
glad again that we burned my father
before one single bloom of mold could
grow up
out of him,...Read more of this...
by Olds, Sharon

The Shepherds Tree

...Huge elm, with rifted trunk all notched and scarred,
Like to a warrior's destiny! I love
To stretch me often on thy shadowed sward,
And hear the laugh of summer leaves above;
Or on thy buttressed roots to sit, and lean
In careless attitude, and there reflect
On times and deeds and darings that have been—
Old castaways, now swallowed in neglect,—
While thou art towering in thy strength of h...Read more of this...
by Clare, John

The Window

...All night long, by a distant bell,
The passing hours were notched
On the dark, while her breathing rose and fell,
And the spark of life I watched
In her face was glowing or fading, -- who could tell? --
And the open window of the room,
With a flare of yellow light,
Was peering out into the gloom,
Like an eye that searched the night. 

Oh, what do you see in the dark, little window, and why do you fear?
"I see that ...Read more of this...
by Dyke, Henry Van

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