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Famous On The Rocks Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Crowley, Aleister
...r swerved; your high-pooped galleon
Went marvellously, majestically on
Full-sailed, while every other braver bark
Drove on the rocks, or foundered in the dark.

Then Easter, and the days of all delight!
God's sun lit noontide and his moon midnight,
While above all, true centre of our world,
True source of light, our great love passion-pearled
Gave all its life and splendour to the sea
Above whose tides stood our stability.

Then sudden and fierce, no monitory moan,
Sm...Read more of this...



by Sexton, Anne
...ut I have no one left to tell.

Once I was a couple. I was my own king and queen
with cheese and bread and rosé on the rocks of Rockport.
Once I sunbathed in the buff, all brown and lean,
watching the toy sloops go by, holding court
for busloads of tourists. Once I called breakfast the sexiest
meal of the day. Once I invited arrest

at the peace march in Washington. Once I was young and bold
and left hundreds of unmatched people out in the cold....Read more of this...

by Sandburg, Carl
...y as a cloud in the gray of morning.
And I saw the dream pools of fjords in Norway … and the scarf of dancing water on the rocks and over the edges of mountain shelves.
Bury me in a mountain graveyard in Norway.
Three tongues of water sing around it with snow from the mountains.

Bury me in the North Atlantic.
A fog there from Iceland will be a murmur in gray over me and a long deep wind sob always.

Bury me in an Illinois cornfield.
The blizzards ...Read more of this...

by Blake, William
...e Infernal Grove, 
I shall never worthy be 
To step into Eternity. 

‘And, to end thy cruel mocks, 
Annihilate thee on the rocks, 
And another form create 
To be subservient to my fate. 

‘Let us agree to give up love, 
And root up the Infernal Grove; 
Then shall we return and see 
The worlds of happy Eternity. 

‘And throughout all Eternity 
I forgive you, you forgive me. 
As our dear Redeemer said: 
“This the Wine, and this the Bread.”’...Read more of this...

by Edgar, Marriott
...the seaside,
Where they took off their shoes and their socks,
And rushed to the water and left him,
Alone on his throne on the rocks.

Said one, "Come on King, have a paddle,
I'll look after your sceptre and crown."
He replied, "Nay, I promised the missus,
And I can't let the old... lady down."

"No need to do that," said the Tempter,
"The tide's coming in, as you see;
You promised you wouldn't go to it,
But you can't stop it coming to thee!"

And that...Read more of this...



by Wilde, Oscar
...deep
His glassy-portaled chamber will unfold,
And we will see the painted dolphins sleep
Cradled by murmuring halcyons on the rocks
Where Proteus in quaint suit of green pastures his monstrous
flocks.

And tremulous opal-hued anemones
Will wave their purple fringes where we tread
Upon the mirrored floor, and argosies
Of fishes flecked with tawny scales will thread
The drifting cordage of the shattered wreck,
And honey-coloured amber beads our twining limbs will deck....Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...ate of yore,— 
He had no rest at sea, nor I on shore.

If my inheritance of storms hath been
In other elements, and on the rocks
Of perils, overlooked or unforeseen,
I have sustained my share of worldly shocks,
The fault was mine; nor do I seek to screen
My errors with defensive paradox;
I have been cunning in mine overthrow,
The careful pilot of my proper woe.

Mine were my faults, and mine be their reward,
My whole life was a contest, since the day
That gave me bein...Read more of this...

by Bukowski, Charles
...out
3 more pickups and into the station
I'd be, my car
waiting to get me to Miriam who sat on my blue couch
with scotch on the rocks
crossing her legs and swinging her ankles
like she did,
2 more stops. . .
the truck stalled at a traffic light, it was hell
kicking it over
again. . .
I had to be home by 8,8 was the deadline for Miriam.
I made the last pickup and the truck stalled at a signal
1/2 block from the station. . .
it wouldn't st...Read more of this...

by Crowley, Aleister
...thy man,
Goat of thy flock, I am gold , I am god,
Flesh to thy bone, flower to thy rod.
With hoofs of steel I race on the rocks
Through solstice stubborn to equinox.
And I rave; and I rape and I rip and I rend
Everlasting, world without end.
Mannikin, maiden, maenad, man,
In the might of Pan.
Io Pan ! Io Pan Pan ! Pan ! Io Pan !...Read more of this...

by Kipling, Rudyard
...>

The eagles is screamin' around us, the river's a-moanin' below,
We're clear o' the pine an' the oak-scrub, we're out on the rocks an' the snow,
An' the wind is as thin as a whip-lash what carries away to the plains
The rattle an' stamp o' the lead-mules -- the jinglety-jink o' the chains -- 'Tss! 'Tss!
 For you all love the screw-guns . . .

There's a wheel on the Horns o' the Mornin', an' a wheel on the edge o' the Pit,
An' a drop into nothin' beneath you as s...Read more of this...

by Mansfield, Katherine
...The Sea called--I lay on the rocks and said:
"I am come."
She mocked and showed her teeth,
Stretching out her long green arms.
"Go away!" she thundered.
"Then tell me what I am to do," I begged.
"If I leave you, you will not be silent,
But cry my name in the cities
And wistfully entreat me in the plains and forests;
All else I forsake to come to you--what must I d...Read more of this...

by Aiken, Conrad
...ring moon 
Lights the pale floors of caverns by the sea. 
Wet weed hangs on the rock. In shimmering pools 
Left on the rocks by the receding sea 
Starfish slowly turn their white and brown 
Or writhe on the naked rocks and drown. 
Do sea-girls haunt these caves—do we hear faint singing? 
Do we hear from under the sea a faint bell ringing? 
Was that a white hand lifted among the bubbles 
And fallen softly back? 
No, these shores and caverns are all silent, 
Dead in...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...egs, 
I see his white body—I see his undaunted eyes, 
I hate the swift-running eddies that would dash him head-foremost on the rocks. 

What are you doing, you ruffianly red-trickled waves?
Will you kill the courageous giant? Will you kill him in the prime of his middle age? 

Steady and long he struggles, 
He is baffled, bang’d, bruis’d—he holds out while his strength holds out, 
The slapping eddies are spotted with his blood—they bear him away—they roll him,
 swing
 him...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...s, 
That matter of Troy, and Achilles’ wrath, and Eneas’, Odysseus’ wanderings; 
Placard “Removed” and “To Let” on the rocks of your snowy
 Parnassus;
Repeat at Jerusalem—place the notice high on Jaffa’s gate, and on Mount Moriah; 
The same on the walls of your Gothic European Cathedrals, and German, French and Spanish
 Castles; 
For know a better, fresher, busier sphere—a wide, untried domain awaits, demands you. 

3
Responsive to our summons, 
Or rather to her l...Read more of this...

by Turner Smith, Charlotte
...onfine
To the bleak coast of some unfriendly isle,
Cold, barren, desart, where no harvests smile,
But thirst and hunger on the rocks repine;
When, from some promontory's fearful brow,
Sun after sun he hopeless sees decline
In the broad shipless sea—perhaps may know
Such heartless pain, such blank despair as mine;
And, if a flattering cloud appears to show
The fancied semblance of a distant sail, 
Then melts away—anew his spirits fail,
While the lost hope but aggravates his wo...Read more of this...

by Lindsay, Vachel
...Wakefield, Three Years Old


There was a little turtle.
He lived in a box.
He swam in a puddle.
He climbed on the rocks.

He snapped at a mosquito.
He snapped at a flea.
He snapped at a minnow.
And he snapped at me.

He caught the mosquito.
He caught the flea.
He caught the minnow.
But he didn't catch me....Read more of this...

by Masefield, John
...ssing the unknown.

Time will go by, that outlasts clocks,
Dawn in the thorps will rouse the cocks,
Sunset be glory on the rocks:

But it, the thing, will never heed
Even the rootling from the seed
Thrusting to suck it for its need.

Since moons decay and suns decline,
How else should end this life of mine?
Water and saltness are not wine.

But in the darkest hour of night,
When even the foxes peer for sight,
The byre-cock crows; he feels the light.

So, in th...Read more of this...

by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...pt 
With Psyche, with Melissa Florian, I 
With mine affianced. Many a little hand 
Glanced like a touch of sunshine on the rocks, 
Many a light foot shone like a jewel set 
In the dark crag: and then we turned, we wound 
About the cliffs, the copses, out and in, 
Hammering and clinking, chattering stony names 
Of shales and hornblende, rag and trap and tuff, 
Amygdaloid and trachyte, till the Sun 
Grew broader toward his death and fell, and all 
The rosy heights came out ...Read more of this...

by Finch, Anne Kingsmill
...pe.
Still varying thy perplexing Form,
Now a Dead Sea thou'lt represent,
A Calm of stupid Discontent,
Then, dashing on the Rocks wilt rage into a Storm. 
Trembling sometimes thou dost appear,
Dissolv'd into a Panick Fear;
On Sleep intruding dost thy Shadows spread,
Thy gloomy Terrours round the silent Bed,
And croud with boading Dreams the Melancholy Head:
Or, when the Midnight Hour is told,
And drooping Lids thou still dost waking hold, 
Thy fond Delusions cheat the ...Read more of this...

by Teasdale, Sara
...ight;
I have remembered music in the dark,
 The clean swift brightness of a fugue of Bach's,
 And running water singing on the rocks
When once in English woods I heard a lark.

But all remembered beauty is no more
 Than a vague prelude to the thought of you --
 You are the rarest soul I ever knew,
 Lover of beauty, knightliest and best;
My thoughts seek you as waves that seek the shore,
 And when I think of you, I am at rest....Read more of this...

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Book: Reflection on the Important Things