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Famous Ragged Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry
...ir solid case 
And in convulsions tore the drowned world! 
'Till by the winds assuag'd they quickly fell 
And all their ragged bed exposed to view. 
Perhaps far wand'ring towards the northren pole, 
The straits of Zembla and the Frozen Zone, 
And where the eastern Greenland almost joins 
America's north point, the hardy tribes 
Of banish'd Jews, Siberians, Tartars wild 
Came over icy mountains, or on floats 
First reach'd these coasts hid from the world beside. 
And yet anoth...Read more of this...
by Brackenridge, Hugh Henry



...nds.
"Well, maybe next time." And they rise,
Glittering like pools of ink under moonlight,

And vanish. I clutch at the ragged holes
They leave behind, here at the edge of darkness.
Night rests like a ball of fur on my tongue....Read more of this...
by Dove, Rita
...
27



Margaret’s voice

Pure and clear

“I am here,

I am waiting”

Murillo painted

The steps down

To the Aire, her

Ragged dress, my

Torn trousers, her

Hair a crown of

Crystal.



Her eyes shone

Her tongue was

In my ear

Twilight kept on

With no mothers

To call us

Margaret, wherever

You are, you are

More beautiful

Than the stars.





28



Together we stood

In the blacksmith’s

Dooryard, lilac

In her hair

And I had

Put it there.

The anvil was Gretna,

The...Read more of this...
by Tebb, Barry
...ut he was dead, 
They said, and they should have their friend no more.— 
However, there was once a starveling child— 
A ragged-vested little incubus,
Born to be cuffed and frighted out of all 
Capacity for childhood’s happiness— 
Who started out one day, quite suddenly, 
To drown himself. He ran away from home, 
Across the clover-fields and through the woods,
And waited on a rock above a stream, 
Just like a kingfisher. He might have dived, 
Or jumped, or he might not; but an...Read more of this...
by Robinson, Edwin Arlington
...y fawn and satyr flies
For willing service; whether to surprise
The squatted hare while in half sleeping fit;
Or upward ragged precipices flit
To save poor lambkins from the eagle's maw;
Or by mysterious enticement draw
Bewildered shepherds to their path again;
Or to tread breathless round the frothy main,
And gather up all fancifullest shells
For thee to tumble into Naiads' cells,
And, being hidden, laugh at their out-peeping;
Or to delight thee with fantastic leaping,
The w...Read more of this...
by Keats, John



...the river with its cargo of dead *******, cows and chicken coops,
The bitter apple, and the bite in the apple.
And the ragged rock in the restless waters,
Waves wash over it, fogs conceal it;
On a halcyon day it is merely a monument,
In navigable weather it is always a seamark
To lay a course by: but in the sombre season
Or the sudden fury, is what it always was.


III

I sometimes wonder if that is what Krishna meant—
Among other things—or one way of putting the same thing:...Read more of this...
by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
...uire of Lot 
With whom he used to play at tourney once, 
When both were children, and in lonely haunts 
Would scratch a ragged oval on the sand, 
And each at either dash from either end-- 
Shame never made girl redder than Gareth joy. 
He laughed; he sprang. 'Out of the smoke, at once 
I leap from Satan's foot to Peter's knee-- 
These news be mine, none other's--nay, the King's-- 
Descend into the city:' whereon he sought 
The King alone, and found, and told him all. 

'I hav...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...ked into
the mirror
once having thought
myself to be
ugly,
I now liked what
I saw,almost
handsome,yes,
a bit ripped and
ragged,
scares,lumps,
odd turns,
but all in all,
not too bad,
almost handsome,
better at least than
some of those movie
star faces
like the cheeks of
a babys
butt.

and finally I discovered
real feelings fo
others,
unhearleded,
like latley,
like this morning,
as I was leaving,
for the track,
i saw my wif in bed,
just the 
shape of
her head there
(not forgett...Read more of this...
by Bukowski, Charles
...r,
A farmhouse that is sheltered by its wall,
An acre of stony ground,
Where the symbolic rose can break in flower,
Old ragged elms, old thorns innumerable,
The sound of the rain or sound
Of every wind that blows;
The stilted water-hen
Crossing Stream again
Scared by the splashing of a dozen cows;

A winding stair, a chamber arched with stone,
A grey stone fireplace with an open hearth,
A candle and written page.
Il Penseroso's Platonist toiled on
In some like chamber, shadow...Read more of this...
by Yeats, William Butler
...
``Lo, the trees are moaning loudly, underneath their hood-like shrouds, 
And the arch above us darkens, scarred with ragged thunder clouds!'' 
But the spirit answers nothing, and I linger all alone, 
Gazing through the moony vapours where the lovely Dream has flown; 

And my heart is beating sadly, and the music waxeth faint, 
Sailing up to holy Heaven, like the anthems of a Saint.
...Read more of this...
by Kendall, Henry
..." and corners echo "Paris-Sport." 


Where rows of tables from the street are screened with shoots of box and bay, 
The ragged minstrels sing and play and gather sous from those that eat. 


And old men stand with menu-cards, inviting passers-by to dine 
On the bright terraces that line the Latin Quarter boulevards. . . . 


But, having drunk and eaten well, 'tis pleasant then to stroll along 
And mingle with the merry throng that promenades on Saint Michel. 


Here saunter t...Read more of this...
by Seeger, Alan
...hick, 
And on its top the stout back-stick; 
The knotty forestick laid apart, 
And filled between with curious art 
The ragged brush; then, hovering near, 
We watched the first red blaze appear, 
Heard the sharp crackle, caught the gleam 
On whitewashed wall and sagging beam, 
Until the old, rude-furnished room 
Burst, flower-like, into rosy bloom; 
While radiant with a mimic flame 
Outside the sparkling drift became, 
And through the bare-boughed lilac-tree 
Our own warm hea...Read more of this...
by Whittier, John Greenleaf
...oes very well till one flash of defiance. 

The great city is that which has the greatest man or woman; 
If it be a few ragged huts, it is still the greatest city in the whole world. 

5
The place where the great city stands is not the place of stretch’d wharves, docks,
 manufactures,
 deposits of produce,
Nor the place of ceaseless salutes of new comers, or the anchor-lifters of the departing,

Nor the place of the tallest and costliest buildings, or shops selling goods from...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt
...I saw wild domes and bowers 
And smoking incense towers 
And mad exotic flowers 
In Illinois. 
Where ragged ditches ran 
Now springs of Heaven began 
Celestial drink for man 
In Illinois. 

There stood beside the town 
Beneath its incense-crown 
An angel and a clown 
In Illinois. 
He was as Clowns are: 
She was snow and star 
With eyes that looked afar 
In Illinois. 

I asked, "How came this place 
Of antique Asian grace 
Amid our callow race 
In Illinois?"...Read more of this...
by Lindsay, Vachel
...
signs
For swallows going south, would never spread
Their azure tents between the Attic vines;
Even that little weed of ragged red,
Which bids the robin pipe, in Arcady
Would be a trespasser, and many an unsung elegy

Sleeps in the reeds that fringe our winding Thames
Which to awake were sweeter ravishment
Than ever Syrinx wept for; diadems
Of brown bee-studded orchids which were meant
For Cytheraea's brows are hidden here
Unknown to Cytheraea, and by yonder pasturing steer

...Read more of this...
by Wilde, Oscar
...bones to watch
where the dying is done
in its usly hours. Black birds peck
at my window glass
and Easter will take its ragged son.
The clutter of worship
that you taught me, Mary Gray,
is old. I imitate
a memory of belief
that I do not own. I trip
on your death and jesus, my stranger
floats up over
my Christian home, wearing his straight
thorn tree. I have cast my lot
and am one third thief
of you. Time, that rearranger
of estates, equips
me with your garments, but not with ...Read more of this...
by Sexton, Anne
...men are slaves of stones.
But look! The long procession of the kings
Wavers and stops; the world is full of noise,
The ragged peoples storm the palaces,
They rave, they laugh, they thirst, they lap the stream
That trickles from the regal vestments down,
And, lapping, smack their heated chaps for more,
And ply their daggers for it, till the kings
All die and lie in a crooked sprawl of death,
Ungainly, foul, and stiff as any heap
Of villeins rotting on a battle-field.
'Tis tru...Read more of this...
by Lanier, Sidney
...e lie the dead, who gave the church their best 
Under his fiery preaching of the word. 
They sleep with him beneath the ragged grass... 
The village withers, by his voice unstirred. 

And tho' his tribe be scattered to the wind 
From the Atlantic to the China sea, 
Yet do they think of that bright lamp he burned 
Of family worth and proud integrity. 

And many a sturdy grandchild hears his name 
In reverence spoken, till he feels akin 
To all the lion-eyed who built the world...Read more of this...
by Lindsay, Vachel
...tted and has lost a man." 

So, as though stepping to a funeral march, 
She passed defeated homewards whence she came, 
Ragged with tattered canvas white as starch, 
A wild bird that misfortune had made tame. 

She was refitted soon: another took 
The dead man's office; then the singers hove 
Her capstan till the snapping hawsers shook; 
Out, with a bubble at her bows, she drove. 

Again they towed her seawards, and again 
We, watching, praised her beauty, praised her trim, 
...Read more of this...
by Masefield, John
...ey contain.

And wondrous works of substances unknown,
To which the enchantment of her Father's power
Had changed those ragged blocks of savage stone,
Were heaped in the recesses of her bower;
Carved lamps and chalices, and phials which shone
In their own golden beams--each like a flower
Out of whose depth a firefly shakes his light
Under a cypress in a starless night.

At first she lived alone in this wild home,
And her own thoughts were each a minister,
Clothing themselves ...Read more of this...
by Shelley, Percy Bysshe

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Book: Reflection on the Important Things