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Famous Powder Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Thomas, Dylan
...ries, tugged by bishops and storks. And they rang their tidings
over the bandaged town, over the frozen foam of the powder and ice-cream hills, over the crackling sea. It
seemed that all the churches boomed for joy under my window; and the weathercocks crew for Christmas, on our
fence."

"Get back to the postmen"
"They were just ordinary postmen, found of walking and dogs and Christmas and the snow. They knocked on the
doors with blue knuckles .......Read more of this...



by Ashbery, John
...I Thought about You" or something mellow from
Amadigi di Gaula for everything--a mint-condition can
Of Rumford's Baking Powder, a celluloid earring, Speedy
Gonzales, the latest from Helen Topping Miller's fertile
Escritoire, a sheaf of suggestive pix on greige, deckle-edged
Stock--to come clattering through the rainbow trellis
Where Pistachio Avenue rams the 2300 block of Highland
Fling Terrace. He promised he'd get me out of this one,
That mean old cartoonist, but just l...Read more of this...

by Tebb, Barry
...iles, the hard handshake

Of work-roughened hands.



One night he smashed up the tidy flat.

The TV screen was powder

The clock ticked on the neat lawn

‘Murder in Seacroft Hospital’

Emblazoned on the kitchen wall.



I went with you and your sister in her car to Roundhay Wing.

Your sister had to leave for work or sleep

You had to back to meet the children from school.

For Ward 42 it wasn’t an especially difficult admission.

My first lesson: I s...Read more of this...

by Marvell, Andrew
...rd the Dutch, 
Which show the tempting metal in their clutch. 
Oft had he sent of Duncombe and of Legge 
Cannon and powder, but in vain, to beg; 
And Upnor Castle's ill-deserted wall, 
Now needful, does for ammunition call. 
He finds, wheres'e'er he succor might expect, 
Confusion, folly, treach'ry, fear, neglect. 
But when the Royal Charles (what rage, what grief) 
He saw seized, and could give her no relief! 
That sacred keel which had, as he, restored 
His exil...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...d laid his lance beneath his oak,
Felt if his arms in order good
The long day's march had well withstood -
If still the powder filled the pan,
And flints unloosened kept their lock -
His sabre's hilt and scabbard felt,
And whether they had chafed his belt;
And next the venerable man,
From out his haversack and can,
Prepared and spread his slender stock 
And to the monarch and his men 
The whole or portion offered then
With far less of inquietude
Than courtiers at a banquet wo...Read more of this...



by Ashbery, John
...en you remember something
William James
wrote in some book of his you never read--it was fine, it had the
fineness,
the powder of life dusted over it, by chance, of course, yet
still looking
for evidence of fingerprints. Someone had handled it
even before he formulated it, though the thought was his and
his alone.

It's fine, in summer, to visit the seashore.
There are lots of little trips to be made.
A grove of fledgling aspens welcomes the traveler.Nearb...Read more of this...

by Neruda, Pablo
...hedral,
crystal of the sea, oblivion
of the waves.

And then on every table
in the world,
salt,
we see your piquant
powder
sprinkling
vital light
upon
our food. Preserver
of the ancient
holds of ships,
discoverer
on
the high seas,
earliest
sailor
of the unknown, shifting
byways of the foam.
Dust of the sea, in you
the tongue receives a kiss
from ocean night:
taste imparts to every seasoned
dish your ocean essence;
the smallest,
miniature
wave from the saltcellar
r...Read more of this...

by Housman, A E
...a noise in dreams. 

Far and near and low and louder
On the roads of earth go by, 
Dear to friends and food for powder, 
Soldiers marching, all to die. 

East and west on fields forgotten
Bleach the bones of comrades slain, 
Lovely lads and dead and rotten; 
None that go return again. 

Far the calling bugles hollo, 
High the screaming fife replies, 
Gay the files of scarlet follow: 
Woman bore me, I will rise.
...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...
Of force to its own likeness: Up he starts 
Discovered and surprised. As when a spark 
Lights on a heap of nitrous powder, laid 
Fit for the tun some magazine to store 
Against a rumoured war, the smutty grain, 
With sudden blaze diffused, inflames the air; 
So started up in his own shape the Fiend. 
Back stept those two fair Angels, half amazed 
So sudden to behold the grisly king; 
Yet thus, unmoved with fear, accost him soon. 
Which of those rebel Spirits adju...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...g and benumbing a few moments, for reasons; 
Myself, discharging my excrementitious body, to be burn’d, or render’d to
 powder, or
 buried, 
My real body doubtless left to me for other spheres,
My voided body, nothing more to me, returning to the purifications, further offices,
 eternal
 uses of the earth. 

13
O to bathe in the swimming-bath, or in a good place along shore! 
To splash the water! to walk ankle-deep—to race naked along the shore. 

O to realize space! ...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
..., 
To flutes’ clear notes, and sounding harps’ cantabile. 

3
Now loud approaching drums! 
Victoria! see’st thou in powder-smoke the banners torn but flying? the rout of the
 baffled? 
Hearest those shouts of a conquering army?

(Ah, Soul, the sobs of women—the wounded groaning in agony, 
The hiss and crackle of flames—the blacken’d ruins—the embers of cities, 
The dirge and desolation of mankind.) 

4
Now airs antique and medieval fill me! 
I see and hear old harpers...Read more of this...

by Spenser, Edmund
...
That Roman eagle seen to cleave asunder, 
And towards heaven freshly to arise 
Out of these mountains, not consum'd to powder. 
In which the fowl that serves to bear the lightning, 
Is now no more seen flying, nor alighting. 


18 

These heaps of stones, these old walls which ye see, 
Were first enclosures but of savage soil; 
And these brave palaces which mastered be 
Of time, were shepherds cottages somewhile. 
Then took the shepherd kingly ornamnets 
And the ...Read more of this...

by Ginsberg, Allen
...Maya cry

Two children together in palmroof shade
Stare at me no word is said
Rice ration, lentils one time a week
Milk powder for warweary infants meek

No vegetable money or work for the man
Rice lasts four days eat while they can
Then children starve three days in a row
and vomit their next food unless they eat slow.

On Jessore road Mother wept at my knees
Bengali tongue cried mister Please
Identity card torn up on the floor
Husband still waits at the camp office door...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...nd a sell, and nothing remains at the end but threadbare
 crape, and tears. 

Whimpering and truckling fold with powders for invalids—conformity goes to
 the fourth-remov’d; 
I wear my hat as I please, indoors or out.

Why should I pray? Why should I venerate and be ceremonious? 

Having pried through the strata, analyzed to a hair, counsell’d with
 doctors, and calculated close, 
I find no sweeter fat than sticks to my own bones. 

In all people I se...Read more of this...

by Chaucer, Geoffrey
...y y-bore.

A COOK they hadde with them for the nones*, *occasion
To boil the chickens and the marrow bones,
And powder merchant tart and galingale.
Well could he know a draught of London ale.
He could roast, and stew, and broil, and fry,
Make mortrewes, and well bake a pie.
But great harm was it, as it thoughte me,
That, on his shin a mormal* hadde he. *ulcer
For blanc manger, that made he with the best 

A SHIPMAN was there, *wonned far by West*: ...Read more of this...

by Pope, Alexander
...phant unite,
Transform'd to Combs, the speckled and the white.
Here Files of Pins extend their shining Rows,
Puffs, Powders, Patches, Bibles, Billet-doux.
Now awful Beauty puts on all its Arms;
The Fair each moment rises in her Charms, 
Repairs her Smiles, awakens ev'ry Grace,
And calls forth all the Wonders of her Face;
Sees by Degrees a purer Blush arise,
And keener Lightnings quicken in her Eyes.
The busy Sylphs surround their darling Care;
These set the Head, ...Read more of this...

by Tebb, Barry
...n ornaments,

The heart of Hall Ings Mill crumpled under mechanical hammers

And reeled before our eyes, dust rising to powder the wings

Of passing butterflies. We watched the white-glazed inner walls

Sink in shame to shattered heaps of stone and shards of nothingness.



I never thought it would be the experience it was-

How could anything be more banal than a visit to Oakes?

Twenty two Georgian semis from the sixties, brass coach-lamps

By glass front doors, irr...Read more of this...

by Walcott, Derek
...As for that minister-monster who smuggled the booze,
that half-Syrian saurian, I got so vex to see
that face thick with powder, the warts, the stone lids
like a dinosaur caked with primordial ooze
by the lightning of flashbulbs sinking in wealth,
that I said: "Shabine, this is ****, understand!"
But he get somebody to kick my crutch out his office
like I was some artist! That ***** was so grand,
couldn't get off his high horse and kick me himself.
I have seen things that ...Read more of this...

by Lowell, Amy
...br> The cord of life
Snapped as he cut the little string.
He knew that he must do the thing
He feared. He shook powder into the wine,
And holding it up so the candle's shine
Sparked a ruby through its heart,
He drank it. "Dear, never apart
Again! You have said it was mine to do.
It is done, and I am come to you!"

Paul Jannes let the empty wine-glass fall,
And held out his arms. The insentient wall
Stared down at him with its cold, white glare
Unstained! T...Read more of this...

by Miller, Alice Duer
...where, 
Tall young men with English faces 
Standing rigidly in their places, 
Rows and rows of them stiff and staid 
In powder and breeches and bright gold braid; 
And high above them on the wall 
Hung other English faces-all 
Part of the pattern of English life—
General Sir Charles, and his pretty wife, 
Admirals, Lords-Lieutenant of Shires, 
Men who were served by these footmen's sires 
At their great parties-none of them knowing 
How soon or late they would all be going 
I...Read more of this...

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Book: Reflection on the Important Things