Famous Patterns Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Patterns poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous patterns poems. These examples illustrate what a famous patterns poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Alan Seeger
Flaked, drifting clouds hide not the full moon's rays
More than her beautiful bright limbs were hid
By the light veils they burned and blushed amid,
Skilled to provoke in soft, lascivious ways,
And there was invitation in her voice
And laughing lips and wonderful dark eyes,
As though above the gates of Paradise
Fair verses bade, Be welcome...Read more of this...
by
William Butler Yeats
I
Around me the images of thirty years:
An ambush; pilgrims at the water-side;
Casement upon trial, half hidden by the bars,
Guarded; Griffith staring in hysterical pride;
Kevin O'Higgins' countenance that wears
A gentle questioning look that cannot hide
A soul incapable of remorse or rest;
A revolutionary soldier kneeling to be blessed;
II
An Abbot or Archbishop with an upraised hand
Blessing the Tricolour. 'This is not,'...Read more of this...
by
John Berryman
The sunburnt terraces which swans make home
with water purling, Macchu Pichu died
like Delphi long ago-”
a message to Justinian closing it out,
the thousand years' authority, although
tho' never found exactly wrong
political patterns did indeed emerge;
the Oracle was conservative, like Lippmann,
roared the winds on the height,
The Shining Ones behind the shrine, whose verge
saw the impious plunged, 6000 statures
above the Temple shone
plundered, centuries...Read more of this...
by
Rg Gregory
up the ladder and round the bend
age spirals like a convolvulus
its bells break into the light
catching breath with their beauty
but how in the sightless earth
its roots work to a wise agenda
for all the seasonal pleasures
sun and open air afford us
we grow below more tightly
(knowing squeezed into essence)
till each pinch of inner space
networks our darkest truths
the convolvulus keeps climbing
probing wise...Read more of this...
by
Amy Lowell
Bath
The day is fresh-washed and fair, and there is
a smell of tulips and narcissus
in the air.
The sunshine pours in at the bath-room window and
bores through the water
in the bath-tub in lathes and planes of greenish-white. It
cleaves the water
into flaws like a jewel, and cracks it to bright light.
Little spots of sunshine lie on the surface of...Read more of this...
by
Conrad Aiken
You see that porcelain ranged there in the window—
Platters and soup-plates done with pale pink rosebuds,
And tiny violets, and wreaths of ivy?
See how the pattern clings to the gleaming edges!
They're works of art—minutely seen and felt,
Each petal done devoutly. Is it failure
To spend your blood like this?
Study them . . . you will see there, in the porcelain,
If you...Read more of this...
by
Wanda Phipps
sleep patterns
shifting-down late
up early
interrupted dreams...Read more of this...
by
James Schuyler
Books litter the bed,
leaves the lawn. It
lightly rains. Fall has
come: unpatterned, in
the shedding leaves.
The maples ripen. Apples
come home crisp in bags.
This pear tastes good.
It rains lightly on the
random leaf patterns.
The nimbus is spread
above our island. Rain
lightly patters on un-
shed leaves. The books
of fall litter the bed....Read more of this...
by
Elinor Wylie
The Hielan' lassies are a' for spinnin',
The Lowlan' lassies for prinkin' and pinnin';
My daddie w'u'd chide me, an' so w'u'd my minnie
If I s'u'd bring hame sic a prinkin' leddie.
Now haud your tongue, ye haverin' coward,
For whilst I'm young I'll go flounced an' flowered,
In lutestring striped like the strings o' a fiddle,
Wi' gowden...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
In Winter in my Room
I came upon a Worm --
Pink, lank and warm --
But as he was a worm
And worms presume
Not quite with him at home --
Secured him by a string
To something neighboring
And went along.
A Trifle afterward
A thing occurred
I'd not believe it if I heard
But state with creeping blood --
A snake with mottles rare
Surveyed my chamber floor
In feature as...Read more of this...
by
Ruth Stone
Writing poems about writing poems
is like rolling bales of hay in Texas.
Nothing but the horizon to stop you.
But consider the railroad's edge of metal trash;
bird perches, miles of telephone wires.
What is so innocent as grazing cattle?
If you think about it, it turns into words.
Trash is so cheerful; flying up
like grasshoppers in front of the reaper.
The dust devil whirls...Read more of this...
by
D. H. Lawrence
My world is a painted fresco, where coloured shapes
Of old, ineffectual lives linger blurred and warm;
An endless tapestry the past has women drapes
The halls of my life, compelling my soul to conform.
The surface of dreams is broken,
The picture of the past is shaken and scattered.
Fluent, active figures of men pass along the railway, and...Read more of this...
by
Conrad Aiken
From time to time, lifting his eyes, he sees
The soft blue starlight through the one small window,
The moon above black trees, and clouds, and Venus,—
And turns to write . . . The clock, behind ticks softly.
It is so long, indeed, since I have written,—
Two years, almost, your last is turning yellow,—
That these first words I write seem cold and...Read more of this...
by
T S (Thomas Stearns) Eliot
S’io credesse che mia risposta fosse
A persona che mai tornasse al mondo,
Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse.
Ma perciocche giammai di questo fondo
Non torno vivo alcun, s’i’odo il vero,
Senza tema d’infamia ti rispondo.
Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherised upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering...Read more of this...
by
Wystan Hugh (W H) Auden
When there are so many we shall have to mourn,when grief has been made so public, and exposedto the critique of a whole epochthe frailty of our conscience and anguish, of whom shall we speak? For every day they dieamong us, those who were doing us some good,who knew it was never enough buthoped to improve a little by living....Read more of this...
by
Katherine Philips
I CANNOT hold, for though to write were rude,
Yet to be silent were Ingratitude,
And Folly too; for if Posterity
Should never hear of such a one as thee,
And onely know this Age's brutish fame,
They would think Vertue nothing but a Name.
And though far abler Pens must her define,
Yet her Adoption hath engaged mine:...Read more of this...
by
Conrad Aiken
'Number four—the girl who died on the table—
The girl with golden hair—'
The purpling body lies on the polished marble.
We open the throat, and lay the thyroid bare . . .
One, who held the ether-cone, remembers
Her dark blue frightened eyes.
He heard the sharp breath quiver, and saw her breast
More hurriedly fall and rise.
Her hands made futile gestures, she turned her...Read more of this...
by
Amy Lowell
I walk down the garden paths,
And all the daffodils
Are blowing, and the bright blue squills.
I walk down the patterned garden-paths
In my stiff, brocaded gown.
With my powdered hair and jewelled fan,
I too am a rare
Pattern. As I wander down
The garden paths.
My dress is richly figured,
And the train
Makes a pink and silver stain
On the gravel, and the thrift
Of the borders.
Just a...Read more of this...
by
Amy Levy
(AN ECHO FROM A LARGER LYRE.)
That was love that I had before
Years ago, when my heart was young;
Ev'ry smile was a gem you wore;
Ev'ry word was a sweet song sung.
You came--all my pulses burn'd and beat.
(O sweet wild throbs of an early day!)
You went--with the last dear sound of your feet
The light wax'd dim and the place grew grey.
And...Read more of this...
by
Dorothy Parker
He will love you presently
If you be the way you be.
Send your heart a-skittering.
He will stoop, and lift the thing.
Be your dreams as thread, to tease
Into patterns he shall please.
Let him see your passion is
Ever tenderer than his....
Go and bless your star above,
Thus are you, and thus is Love.
He will leave you white with woe,
If you go the way...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
It's easy to invent a Life --
God does it -- every Day --
Creation -- but the Gambol
Of His Authority --
It's easy to efface it --
The thrifty Deity
Could scarce afford Eternity
To Spontaneity --
The Perished Patterns murmur --
But His Perturbless Plan
Proceed -- inserting Here -- a Sun --
There -- leaving out a Man --...Read more of this...
by
A S J Tessimond
Light's patterns freeze:
Frost on our faces.
Light's pollen sifts
Through the lids of our eyes ...
Light sinks and rusts
In water; is broken
By glass ... rests
On deserted dust.
Light lies like torn
Paper in corners:
A rock-pool's pledge
Of the sea's return.
Light, wrenched at the edges
By wind, looks down
At itself in wrinkled
Mirrors from bridges.
Light thinly unweaves
Itself through darkness
Like foam's unknotting
Strings in waves ...
Now light is again
Accumulated
Swords...Read more of this...
by
Rg Gregory
(a)
they seek to celebrate the word
not to bring their knives out on a poem
dissecting it to find a heart
whose beat lies naked on a table
not to score in triumph on a line
no sensitive would put a nostril to
but simply to receive it as an
offering glimpsing the sacred there
poem probes the poet's once-intention
but each time said budges its truth
afresh (leaving...Read more of this...
by
Stephen Crane
I stood upon a highway,
And, behold, there came
Many strange peddlers.
To me each one made gestures,
Holding forth little images, saying,
"This is my pattern of God.
Now this is the God I prefer."
But I said, "Hence!
Leave me with mine own,
And take you yours away;
I can't buy of your patterns of God,
The little gods you may rightly prefer."...Read more of this...
by
Dorothy Parker
Needle, needle, dip and dart,
Thrusting up and down,
Where's the man could ease a heart
Like a satin gown?
See the stitches curve and crawl
Round the cunning seams-
Patterns thin and sweet and small
As a lady's dreams.
Wantons go in bright brocade;
Brides in organdie;
Gingham's for the plighted maid;
Satin's for the free!
Wool's to line a miser's chest;
Crepe's to calm the old;
Velvet hides an empty breast
Satin's...Read more of this...
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