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Famous Paved Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Davidson, John
...re is no help on earth,
No help in heaven; the dead-man's bell
Must toll our wedding; our first hearth
Must be the well-paved floor of hell.'

The colour died from out her face,
Her eyes like ghostly candles shone;
She cast dread looks about the place,
Then clenched her teeth and read right on.

'I may not pass the prison door;
Here must I rot from day to day,
Unless I wed whom I abhor,
My cousin, Blanche of Valencay.

'At midnight with my dagger keen,
I'll take m...Read more of this...



by Shelley, Percy Bysshe
...ts more sharp than they,
Rent the soft Form they never could repel,
Whose sacred blood, like the young tears of May,
Paved with eternal flowers that undeserving way.

In the death-chamber for a moment Death,
Shamed by the presence of that living Might,
Blushed to annihilation, and the breath
Revisited those lips, and Life's pale light
Flashed through those limbs, so late her dear delight.
"Leave me not wild and drear and comfortless,
As silent lightning lea...Read more of this...

by Wheatley, Phillis
...O! for this dark terrestrial ball
Forsakes his azure-paved hall
 A prince of heav'nly birth!
Divine Humanity behold,
What wonders rise, what charms unfold
 At his descent to earth!

II.

The bosoms of the great and good
With wonder and delight he view'd,
 And fix'd his empire there:
Him, close compressing to his breast,
The sire of gods and men address'd,
 "My son, my heav'nly fair!

III.

"Descend to ...Read more of this...

by Lowell, Amy
...tuff of happiness,
No less,
Which wraps me in its glad-hued folds
Of peacock golds.
Before my feet the dusty, rough-paved way
Flushes beneath its gray.
My steps fall ringed with light,
So bright,
It seems a myriad suns are strown
About the town.
Around me is the sound of steepled bells,
And rich perfumed smells
Hang like a wind-forgotten cloud,
And shroud
Me from close contact with the world.
I dwell impearled.
You blazon me with jewelled insignia.
A f...Read more of this...

by Tebb, Barry
...ou better.



And when I was younger

Auntie Nellie took me

Once a week to Leeds

For sweets in the County

Arcade paved with mosaics

Like a Roman forum, the shop

That sold penny rolls of

Swizzles in rainbow colours

Was always our first call

And our last was milk and

Angel cake at Marks and Sparks.

33



Behind the streets

Lay the cooper’s yard

The drays of empty barrels

Coming and going all day



At dusk there was quiet

In the streets, the gas-lamps

Fli...Read more of this...



by Bowers, Edgar
...n built Flying Fortresses
For Lockheed, in Atlanta; now they build
Brick mansions in the woods they left, with lawns
To paved and lighted streets, azaleas, camellias
Blooming among the pines and tulip trees—
Mercedes Benz and Cadillac Republicans.
There was another stream further along 
Divided through a marsh, lined by the fence
We stretched to posts with Mister Garner’s help
The time he needed cash for his son’s bail
And offered all his place. A noble spring
Under t...Read more of this...

by Keats, John
...he flared
From stately nave to nave, from vault to vault,
Through bowers of fragrant and enwreathed light,
And diamond-paved lustrous long arcades,
Until he reach'd the great main cupola;
There standing fierce beneath, he stampt his foot,
And from the basements deep to the high towers
Jarr'd his own golden region; and before
The quavering thunder thereupon had ceas'd,
His voice leapt out, despite of godlike curb,
To this result: "O dreams of day and night!
O monstrous forms!...Read more of this...

by Berry, Wendell
...tone and the changing tree
whose branches spread above.

For want of songs and stories
they have dug away the soil,
paved over what is left,

set up their perfunctory walls
in tribute to no god,
for the love of no man or woman,

so that the good that was here
cannot be called back
except by long waiting, by great

sorrows remembered and to come
by invoking the thunderstones
of the world, and the vivid air.

II.

The poem is important,
as the want of it
proves....Read more of this...

by Lawson, Henry
...saw. 
The villagers gaped at the tales they told, 
and old eyes glistened with pride -- 
When barbarous cities were paved with gold 
in the days when the world was wide. 

'Twas honest metal and honest wood, in the days of the Outward Bound, 
When men were gallant and ships were good -- roaming the wide world round. 
The gods could envy a leader then when `Follow me, lads!' he cried -- 
They faced each other and fought like men 
in the days when the world was wide...Read more of this...

by Blake, William
...the morning peeps
Over the eastern steeps,
And the rustling birds of dawn
The earth do scorn. 

Lo! to the vault
Of paved heaven,
With sorrow fraught
My notes are driven:
They strike the ear of night,
Make weep the eyes of day;
They make mad the roaring winds,
And with tempests play. 

Like a fiend in a cloud,
With howling woe,
After night I do crowd,
And with night will go;
I turn my back to the east,
From whence comforts have increas'd;
For light doth seize my brain...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...oon after, when Man fell, 
Strange alteration! Sin and Death amain, 
Following his track (such was the will of Heaven) 
Paved after him a broad and beaten way 
Over the dark Abyss, whose boiling gulf 
Tamely endured a bridge of wondrous length, 
From Hell continued, reaching th' utmost orb 
Of this frail World; by which the Spirits perverse 
With easy intercourse pass to and fro 
To tempt or punish mortals, except whom 
God and good Angels guard by special grace. 
 But no...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...d thou with thy compeers, 
Us'd to the yoke, drawest his triumphant wheels 
In progress through the road of Heaven star-paved. 
While thus he spake, the angelick squadron bright 
Turned fiery red, sharpening in mooned horns 
Their phalanx, and began to hem him round 
With ported spears, as thick as when a field 
Of Ceres ripe for harvest waving bends 
Her bearded grove of ears, which way the wind 
Sways them; the careful plowman doubting stands, 
Left on the threshing flo...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...pain 
Voyaged th' unreal, vast, unbounded deep 
Of horrible confusion; over which 
By Sin and Death a broad way now is paved, 
To expedite your glorious march; but I 
Toiled out my uncouth passage, forced to ride 
The untractable abyss, plunged in the womb 
Of unoriginal Night and Chaos wild; 
That, jealous of their secrets, fiercely opposed 
My journey strange, with clamorous uproar 
Protesting Fate supreme; thence how I found 
The new created world, which fame in Heaven 
L...Read more of this...

by Bible, The
...of of silver, the bottom thereof of
           gold, the covering of it of purple, the midst thereof being
           paved with love, for the daughters of Jerusalem.

22:003:011 Go forth, O ye daughters of Zion, and behold king Solomon with
           the crown wherewith his mother crowned him in the day of his
           espousals, and in the day of the gladness of his heart.

22:004:001 Behold, thou art fair, my love; behold, thou art fair; thou
          ...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...e Kanzas, countless herds of buffalo, feeding on short curly grass;
See, in my poems, cities, solid, vast, inland, with paved streets, with iron and
 stone edifices, ceaseless vehicles, and commerce; 
See, the many-cylinder’d steam printing-press—See, the electric
 telegraph, stretching across the Continent, from the Western Sea to Manhattan; 
See, through Atlantica’s depths, pulses American, Europe
 reaching—pulses of Europe, duly return’d; 
See, the strong and quick locomot...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...p from Spledour to Disgrace;
Enough--no foreign foe could quell
Thy soul, till from itself it fell;
Yet! Self-abasement paved the way
To villain-bonds and despot sway.

What can he tell who tread thy shore?
No legend of thine olden time,
No theme on which the Muse might soar
High as thine own days of yore,
When man was worthy of thy clime.
The hearts within thy valleys bred,
The fiery souls that might have led
Thy sons to deeds sublime,
Now crawl from cradle to the Gr...Read more of this...

by Tebb, Barry
...er in the soil

Of my father’s first sowing.



2

For us there was no garden, the cottage at Hall lngs

Had only a paved yard, with tufts of grass and lichen

The whole country round an abundance of hedges and ditches

Where dog-roses blossomed, meadows of cow-parsley, stiles to field paths,

The weathered sign ‘To Thurstonland’ we followed with hand-in-hand innocence,

Returning at sunset, our hands full of violets.



3

The garden at Oakes stayed barren, thc bare ...Read more of this...

by Shelley, Percy Bysshe
...emerald fire--there stood
"Amid the sun, as he amid the blaze
Of his own glory, on the vibrating
Floor of the fountain, paved with flashing rays,
"A shape all light, which with one hand did fling
Dew on the earth, as if she were the Dawn
Whose invisible rain forever seemed to sing
"A silver music on the mossy lawn,
And still before her on the dusky grass
Iris her many coloured scarf had drawn.--
"In her right hand she bore a crystal glass
Mantling with bright Nepenthe;--t...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...f a different aspect waves 
His wings, like thunder-clouds above some coast 
Whose barren beach with frequent wrecks is paved; 
His brow was like the deep when tempest-toss'd; 
Fierce and unfathomable thoughts engraved 
Eternal wrath on his immortal face, 
And where he gazed a gloom pervaded space. 

XXV 

As he drew near, he gazed upon the gate 
Ne'er to be enter'd more by him or Sin, 
With such a glance of supernatural hate, 
As made Saint Peter wish himself within; 
He...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...semen,
Some prowling through woods—Some living peaceably on farms, laboring, reaping,
 filling
 barns, 
Some traversing paved avenues, amid temples, palaces, factories, libraries, shows, courts,
 theatres, wonderful monuments. 

Are those billions of men really gone? 
Are those women of the old experience of the earth gone? 
Do their lives, cities, arts, rest only with us?
Did they achieve nothing for good, for themselves? 

I believe of all those billions of men and wome...Read more of this...

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Book: Reflection on the Important Things