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Famous Quartered Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Emerson, Ralph Waldo
...Himself it was who wrote
His rank, and quartered his own coat.
There is no king nor sovereign state
That can fix a hero's rate;
Each to all is venerable,
Cap-a-pie invulnerable,
Until he write, where all eyes rest,
Slave or master on his breast.

I saw men go up and down
In the country and the town,
With this prayer upon their neck,
"Judgment and a judge we seek."
Not to monarchs they...Read more of this...



by Kipling, Rudyard
...You may talk o' gin and beer
When you're quartered safe out 'ere,
An' you're sent to penny-fights an' Aldershot it;
But when it comes to slaughter
You will do your work on water,
An' you'll lick the bloomin' boots of 'im that's got it.
Now in Injia's sunny clime,
Where I used to spend my time
A-servin' of 'Er Majesty the Queen,
Of all them blackfaced crew
The finest man I knew
Was our regimenta...Read more of this...

by Kipling, Rudyard
...You may talk o' gin and beer
When you're quartered safe out 'ere,
An' you're sent to penny-fights an' Aldershot it;
But when it comes to slaughter
You will do your work on water,
An' you'll lick the bloomin' boots of 'im that's got it.
Now in Injia's sunny clime,
Where I used to spend my time
A-servin' of 'Er Majesty the Queen,
Of all them blackfaced crew
The finest man I knew
Was our regimenta...Read more of this...

by Levine, Philip
...Torn into light, you woke wriggling 
on a woman's palm. Halved, quartered, 
shredded to the wind, you were the life 
that thrilled along the underbelly 
of a stone. Stilled in the frozen pond 
you rinsed heaven with a sigh. 

How much earth is a man. 
A wall fies down and roses 
rush from its teeth; in the fists 
of the hungry, cucumbers sleep 
their lives away, under your nails 
the ocean moans in its bed.Read more of this...

by Thomas, Dylan
...their mothers
Split up the brawned womb's weathers,
Divide the night and day with fairy thumbs;
There in the deep with quartered shades
Of sun and moon they paint their dams
As sunlight paints the shelling of their heads.

I see that from these boys shall men of nothing
Stature by seedy shifting,
Or lame the air with leaping from its hearts;
There from their hearts the dogdayed pulse
Of love and light bursts in their throats.
O see the pulse of summer in the ice....Read more of this...



by Hardy, Thomas
...s, when the Allies
Her city overcame.

"My father was one of the German Hussars,
My mother of Leipzig; but he,
Long quartered here, fetched her at close of the wars,
And a Wessex lad reared me.

"And as I grew up, again and again
She'd tell, after trilling that air,
Of her youth, and the battles on Leipzig plain
And of all that was suffered there!...

"--'Twas a time of alarms. Three Chiefs-at-arms
Combined them to crush One,
And by numbers' might, for...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...
What both from Men and Angels I receive, 
Tetrarchs of Fire, Air, Flood, and on the Earth
Nations besides from all the quartered winds—
God of this World invoked, and World beneath.
Who then thou art, whose coming is foretold
To me most fatal, me it most concerns.
The trial hath indamaged thee no way,
Rather more honour left and more esteem;
Me naught advantaged, missing what I aimed.
Therefore let pass, as they are transitory,
The kingdoms of this world; I shall...Read more of this...

by Carroll, Lewis
...rop all FORMAL parleying -
And then you're SURE to catch it! 

"The Fourth prohibits trespassing
Where other Ghosts are quartered:
And those convicted of the thing
(Unless when pardoned by the King)
Must instantly be slaughtered. 

"That simply means 'be cut up small':
Ghosts soon unite anew.
The process scarcely hurts at all -
Not more than when YOU're what you call
'Cut up' by a Review. 

"The Fifth is one you may prefer
That I should quote entire:-
THE KING MUS...Read more of this...

by McGonagall, William Topaz
...he same time leaving behind a garrison under Colonel Balfour. 

Besides leaving a force of about three thousand men quartered in different parts of Fife,
To protect the people's property, and quell party strife,
The army along with him amounted to three thousand foot and twelve hundred cavalry,
All in the best of order, a most pleasant sight to see. 

The two armies bivouacked near Sheriffmuir during the night,
And around their camp-fires they talked concerning the co...Read more of this...

by Masefield, John
...xed. 
My hand was out, why, Heaven knows; 
Bill punched me when and where he chose. 
Through two more rounds we quartered wide, 
And all the time my hands seemed tied; 
Bill punched me when and where he pleased. 
The cheering from my backers eased, 
But every punch I heard a yell 
Of "That's the style, Bill, give him hell." 
No one for me, but Jimmy's light 
"Straight left! Straight left!" and "Watch his right." 

I don't know how a boxer goes 
When all hi...Read more of this...

by Paterson, Andrew Barton
...That I keep it lest the rum should spoil its flavour. 


When we get to Africay we'll be landed straight away, 
And quartered with the troops of Queen Victoria; 
And we hope they'll understand that the moment that we land 
We are ready for a march upon Pretoria. 
And we'll pay off all the scores on old Kruger and his Boers, 
And just to prove our manners aren't a failure, 
And to show we are not mean, shure we'll give them the quinine, 
And drink the rum in honour of ...Read more of this...

by Lee, Laurie
...On eves of cold, when slow coal fires,
rooted in basements, burn and branch,
brushing with smoke the city air;
When quartered moons pale in the sky,
and neons glow along the dark
like deadly nightshade on a briar;
Above the muffled traffic then
I hear the owl, and at his note
I shudder in my private chair.
For like an auger he has come
to roost among our crumbling walls,
his blooded talons sheathed in fur.
Some secret lure of time it seems
has called him from his ...Read more of this...

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