Famous Ponderous Poems by Famous Poets

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

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A Prison gets to be a friend --

...A Prison gets to be a friend --
Between its Ponderous face
And Ours -- a Kinsmanship express --
And in its narrow Eyes --

We come to look with gratitude
For the appointed Beam
It deal us -- stated as our food --
And hungered for -- the same --

We learn to know the Planks --
That answer to Our feet --
So miserable a sound -- at first --
Nor ever now -- so sweet --

As plashing in the Pools --
When Me...Read more of this...
by Dickinson, Emily


At the Top of My voice

...light of dead stars reaches you.

My verse
 by labor
 will break the mountain chain of years,
and will present itself
 ponderous, 
 crude,
 tangible,
as an aqueduct,
 by slaves of Rome
constructed,
 enters into our days.

When in mounds of books,
 where verse lies buried,
you discover by chance the iron filings of lines,
touch them
 with respect,
 as you would
some antique
 yet awesome weapon.

It’s no habit of mine
 to caress
 the ear
 with words;
a maiden’s ear
 curly-ring...Read more of this...
by Mayakovsky, Vladimir

Baby Tortoise

...umb-nail,
Buon viaggio.

All animate creation on your shoulder,
Set forth, little Titan, under your battle-shield.

The ponderous, preponderate,
Inanimate universe;
And you are slowly moving, pioneer, you alone.

How vivid your travelling seems now, in the troubled sunshine,
Stoic, Ulyssean atom;
Suddenly hasty, reckless, on high toes.

Voiceless little bird,
Resting your head half out of your wimple
In the slow dignity of your eternal pause.
Alone, with no sense of being alo...Read more of this...
by Lawrence, D. H.

Carol of Occupations

...s, reaping-machines, ploughing-machines,
 thrashing-machines,
 steam
 wagons, 
The cart of the carman, the omnibus, the ponderous dray; 
Pyrotechny, letting off color’d fire-works at night, fancy figures and jets;
Beef on the butcher’s stall, the slaughter-house of the butcher, the butcher in his
 killing-clothes, 
The pens of live pork, the killing-hammer, the hog-hook, the scalder’s tub, gutting,
 the
 cutter’s cleaver, the packer’s maul, and the plenteous winter-work of
 p...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt

Dickinson Poems by Number

...easy as a Star
Abolish his Captivity—
And laugh—No more have I—

652

A Prison gets to be a friend—
Between its Ponderous face
And Ours—a Kinsmanship express—
And in its narrow Eyes—

We come to look with gratitude
For the appointed Beam
It deal us—stated as our food—
And hungered for—the same—

We learn to know the Planks—
That answer to Our feet—
So miserable a sound—at first—
Nor ever now—so sweet—

As plashing in the Pools—
When Memory was a Boy—
B...Read more of this...
by Dickinson, Emily


Elegy

...OH snatch'd away in beauty's bloom! 
On thee shall press no ponderous tomb; 
But on thy turf shall roses rear 
Their leaves the earliest of the year  
And the wild cypress wave in tender gloom: 5 

And oft by yon blue gushing stream 
Shall Sorrow lean her drooping head  
And feed deep thought with many a dream  
And lingering pause and lightly tread; 
Fond wretch! as if her step disturb'd the dead! 10 

Aw...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)

Endymion: Book I

...intensity: the crown of these
Is made of love and friendship, and sits high
Upon the forehead of humanity.
All its more ponderous and bulky worth
Is friendship, whence there ever issues forth
A steady splendour; but at the tip-top,
There hangs by unseen film, an orbed drop
Of light, and that is love: its influence,
Thrown in our eyes, genders a novel sense,
At which we start and fret; till in the end,
Melting into its radiance, we blend,
Mingle, and so become a part of it,--
...Read more of this...
by Keats, John

Endymion: Book III

...e; mouldering scrolls,
Writ in the tongue of heaven, by those souls
Who first were on the earth; and sculptures rude
In ponderous stone, developing the mood
Of ancient Nox;--then skeletons of man,
Of beast, behemoth, and leviathan,
And elephant, and eagle, and huge jaw
Of nameless monster. A cold leaden awe
These secrets struck into him; and unless
Dian had chaced away that heaviness,
He might have died: but now, with cheered feel,
He onward kept; wooing these thoughts to ste...Read more of this...
by Keats, John

Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie

...
Cheerily neighed the steeds, with dew on their manes and their fetlocks,
While aloft on their shoulders the wooden and ponderous saddles,
Painted with brilliant dyes, and adorned with tassels of crimson,
Nodded in bright array, like hollyhocks heavy with blossoms.
Patiently stood the cows meanwhile, and yielded their udders
Unto the milkmaid's hand; whilst loud and in regular cadence
Into the sounding pails the foaming streamlets descended.
Lowing of cattle and peals of laug...Read more of this...
by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth

Gareth And Lynette

...hey struck 
With sword, and these were mighty; the new knight 
Had fear he might be shamed; but as the Sun 
Heaved up a ponderous arm to strike the fifth, 
The hoof of his horse slipt in the stream, the stream 
Descended, and the Sun was washed away. 

Then Gareth laid his lance athwart the ford; 
So drew him home; but he that fought no more, 
As being all bone-battered on the rock, 
Yielded; and Gareth sent him to the King, 
'Myself when I return will plead for thee.' 
'Lead...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord

Hymns Of The Marshes

...our heart and I held you fast in mine;
But now when the noon is no more, and riot is rest,
And the sun is a-wait at the ponderous gate of the West,
And the slant yellow beam down the wood-aisle doth seem
Like a lane into heaven that leads from a dream, --
Ay, now, when my soul all day hath drunken the soul of the oak,
And my heart is at ease from men, and the wearisome sound of the stroke
Of the scythe of time and the trowel of trade is low,
And belief overmasters doubt, and ...Read more of this...
by Lanier, Sidney

Hyperion

...ghout night.
Each one kept shroud, nor to his neighbour gave
Or word, or look, or action of despair.
Creus was one; his ponderous iron mace
Lay by him, and a shatter'd rib of rock
Told of his rage, ere he thus sank and pined.
Iapetus another; in his grasp,
A serpent's plashy neck; its barbed tongue
Squeez'd from the gorge, and all its uncurl'd length
Dead: and because the creature could not spit
Its poison in the eyes of conquering Jove.
Next Cottus: prone he lay, chin upperm...Read more of this...
by Keats, John

Paradise Lost: Book 01

...nder, fallen such a pernicious height!" 
 He scare had ceased when the superior Fiend 
Was moving toward the shore; his ponderous shield, 
Ethereal temper, massy, large, and round, 
Behind him cast. The broad circumference 
Hung on his shoulders like the moon, whose orb 
Through optic glass the Tuscan artist views 
At evening, from the top of Fesole, 
Or in Valdarno, to descry new lands, 
Rivers, or mountains, in her spotty globe. 
His spear--to equal which the tallest pine 
...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Passage to India

...the great achievements of the present, 
Singing the strong, light works of engineers, 
Our modern wonders, (the antique ponderous Seven outvied,) 
In the Old World, the east, the Suez canal,
The New by its mighty railroad spann’d, 
The seas inlaid with eloquent, gentle wires, 
I sound, to commence, the cry, with thee, O soul, 
The Past! the Past! the Past! 

The Past! the dark, unfathom’d retrospect!
The teeming gulf! the sleepers and the shadows! 
The past! the infinite grea...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt

Perseus: The Triumph of Wit Over Suffering

...the whole globe
Expressive of grief turns gods, like kings, to rocks.
Those rocks, cleft and worn, themselves then grow
Ponderous and extend despair on earth's
Dark face.
 So might rigor mortis come to stiffen
All creation, were it not for a bigger belly
Still than swallows joy.
 You enter now,
Armed with feathers to tickle as well as fly,
And a fun-house mirror that turns the tragic muse
To the beheaded head of a sullen doll, one braid,
A bedraggled snake, hanging limp as th...Read more of this...
by Plath, Sylvia

Song of the Broad-Axe

...
I see the European headsman; 
He stands mask’d, clothed in red, with huge legs, and strong naked arms, 
And leans on a ponderous axe. 

(Whom have you slaughter’d lately, European headsman? 
Whose is that blood upon you, so wet and sticky?)

I see the clear sunsets of the martyrs; 
I see from the scaffolds the descending ghosts, 
Ghosts of dead lords, uncrown’d ladies, impeach’d ministers, rejected kings, 
Rivals, traitors, poisoners, disgraced chieftains, and the rest. 

I ...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt

The Deserted Village

...the barber's tale,
No more the woodman's ballad shall prevail;
No more the smith his dusky brow shall clear,
Relax his ponderous strength, and lean to hear;
The host himself no longer shall be found
Careful to see the mantling bliss go round;
Nor the coy maid, half willing to be pressed,
Shall kiss the cup to pass it to the rest.

Yes! let the rich deride, the proud disdain,
These simple blessings of the lowly train;
To me more dear, congenial to my heart,
One native charm, ...Read more of this...
by Goldsmith, Oliver

The Lady of the Lake

...ow me;
     Thy Lord and Chieftain shalt thou see.'
     XII.

     Then, from a rusted iron hook,
     A bunch of ponderous keys he took,
     Lighted a torch, and Allan led
     Through grated arch and passage dread.
     Portals they passed, where, deep within,
     Spoke prisoner's moan and fetters' din;
     Through rugged vaults, where, loosely stored,
     Lay wheel, and axe, and headsmen's sword,
     And many a hideous engine grim,
     For wrenching joi...Read more of this...
by Scott, Sir Walter

The Siege of Corinth

...annon's breath 
Wings the far hissing globe of death; 
Fast whirl the fragments from the wall, 
Which crumbles with the ponderous ball; 
And from that wall the foe replies, 
O'er dusty plain and smoky skies, 
With fires that answer fast and well 
The summons of the Infidel. 

III. 

But near and nearest to the wall 
Of those who wish and work its fall, 
With deeper skill in war's black art 
Than Othman's sons, and high of heart 
As any chief that ever stood 
Triumphant in the...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)

To Julia De Burgos

...my heart.

You are like your world, selfish; not me
who gambles everything betting on what I am.

You are only the ponderous lady very lady;
not me; I am life, strength, woman.

You belong to your husband, your master; not me;
I belong to nobody, or all, because to all, to all
I give myself in my clean feeling and in my thought.

You curl your hair and paint yourself; not me;
the wind curls my hair, the sun paints me.

You are a housewife, resigned, submissive,...Read more of this...
by Burgos, Julia de

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