Famous Ranged Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Protus

by Robert Browning
 Among these latter busts we count by scores,
Half-emperors and quarter-emperors,
Each with his bay-leaf fillet, loose-thonged vest,
Loricand low-browed Gorgon on the breast,---
One loves a baby face, with violets there,
Violets instead of laurel in the hair,
As those were all the little locks could bear.

Now read here. ``Protus ends a period
``Of empery beginning with a god;
``Born in the porphyry chamber at Byzant,
``Queens...Read more of this...

Once I saw mountains angry

by Stephen Crane
 Once I saw mountains angry,
And ranged in battle-front.
Against them stood a little man;
Aye, he was no bigger than my finger.
I laughed, and spoke to one near me,
"Will he prevail?"
"Surely," replied this other;
"His grandfathers beat them many times."
Then did I see much virtue in grandfathers --
At least, for the little man
Who stood against the mountains....Read more of this...

Dockery And Son

by Philip Larkin
 'Dockery was junior to you,
Wasn't he?' said the Dean. 'His son's here now.'
Death-suited, visitant, I nod. 'And do
You keep in touch with-' Or remember how
Black-gowned, unbreakfasted, and still half-tight
We used to stand before that desk, to give
'Our version' of 'these incidents last night'?
I try the door of where I used to live:

Locked. The lawn spreads dazzlingly wide.
A known bell...Read more of this...

The Man He Killed

by Thomas Hardy
 Had he and I but met 
By some old ancient inn, 
We should have set us down to wet 
Right many a nipperkin! 

But ranged as infantry, 
And staring face to face, 
I shot at him as he at me, 
And killed him in his place. 

I shot him dead because-- 
Because he was my foe, 
Just so: my...Read more of this...

Rain In My Heart

by Edgar Lee Masters
 There is a quiet in my heart
Like on who rests from days of pain.
Outside, the sparrows on the roof
Are chirping in the dripping rain.

Rain in my heart; rain on the roof;
And memory sleeps beneath the gray 
And the windless sky and brings no
 dreams
Of any well remembered day.

I would not have the heavens fair,
Nor golden clouds, nor breezes
 mild,
But...Read more of this...

The Executor

by Anne Kingsmill Finch
 A Greedy Heir long waited to fulfill, 
As his Executor, a Kinsman's Will; 
And to himself his Age repeated o'er, 
To his Infirmities still adding more; 
And nicely kept th' Account of the expected Store: 
When Death, at last, to either gave Release, 
Making One's Pains, the Other's Longings cease: 
Who to the Grave must decently convey, 
Ere he...Read more of this...

A Broadway Pageant

by Walt Whitman
 1
OVER the western sea, hither from Niphon come, 
Courteous, the swart-cheek’d two-sworded envoys, 
Leaning back in their open barouches, bare-headed, impassive, 
Ride to-day through Manhattan. 

Libertad!
I do not know whether others behold what I behold, 
In the procession, along with the nobles of Asia, the errand-bearers, 
Bringing up the rear, hovering above, around, or in the ranks marching; 
But...Read more of this...

A General Summary

by Rudyard Kipling
 We are very slightly changed
From the semi-apes who ranged
 India's Prehistoric clay;
He that drew the longest bow
Ran his brother down, you know,
 As we run men down to-tday.

"Dowb," the first of all his race,
Met the Mammoth face to face
 On the lake or in the cave:
Stole the steadiest canoe,
Ate the quarry others slew,
 Died -- and took the finest...Read more of this...

Broken Dreams

by William Butler Yeats
 There is grey in your hair.
Young men no longer suddenly catch their breath
When you are passing;
But maybe some old gaffer mutters a blessing
Because it was your prayer
Recovered him upon the bed of death.
For your sole sake - that all heart's ache have known,
And given to others all heart's ache,
From meagre girlhood's putting on
Burdensome beauty -- for your sole sake
Heaven...Read more of this...

A Lost Dream

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
Ah, I have changed, I do not know
Why lonely hours affect me so.
In days of yore, this were not wont,
No loneliness my soul could daunt.
For me too serious for my age,
The weighty tome of hoary sage,
Until with puzzled heart astir,
One God-giv'n night, I dreamed of her.
I loved no woman, hardly knew
More of the sex that strong men woo
Than cloistered monk...Read more of this...

The Glory

by Edward Thomas
 The glory of the beauty of the morning, -
The cuckoo crying over the untouched dew; 
The blackbird that has found it, and the dove
That tempts me on to something sweeter than love; 
White clouds ranged even and fair as new-mown hay; 
The heat, the stir, the sublime vacancy
Of sky and meadow and forest and my own heart: -
The glory...Read more of this...

After a hundred years

by Emily Dickinson
 After a hundred years
Nobody knows the Place
Agony that enacted there
Motionless as Peace

Weeds triumphant ranged
Strangers strolled and spelled
At the lone Orthography
Of the Elder Dead

Winds of Summer Fields
Recollect the way --
Instinct picking up the Key
Dropped by memory --...Read more of this...

Heiress And Architect

by Thomas Hardy
 For A. W. B.

SHE sought the Studios, beckoning to her side
An arch-designer, for she planned to build.
He was of wise contrivance, deeply skilled
In every intervolve of high and wide--
Well fit to be her guide.

"Whatever it be,"
Responded he,
With cold, clear voice, and cold, clear view,
"In true accord with prudent fashionings
For such vicissitudes as living brings,
And thwarting not the law of...Read more of this...

Sonnet CIX

by William Shakespeare
 O, never say that I was false of heart,
Though absence seem'd my flame to qualify.
As easy might I from myself depart
As from my soul, which in thy breast doth lie:
That is my home of love: if I have ranged,
Like him that travels I return again,
Just to the time, not with the time exchanged,
So that myself bring water for my...Read more of this...

For A Coming Extinction

by W S Merwin
 Gray whale
Now that we are sinding you to The End
That great god
Tell him
That we who follow you invented forgiveness
And forgive nothing

I write as though you could understand
And I could say it
One must always pretend something
Among the dying
When you have left the seas nodding on their stalks
Empty of you
Tell him that we were made
On another day

The bewilderment will diminish like...Read more of this...

The Boston Athenaeum

by Amy Lowell
 Thou dear and well-loved haunt of happy hours,
How often in some distant gallery,
Gained by a little painful spiral stair,
Far from the halls and corridors where throng
The crowd of casual readers, have I passed
Long, peaceful hours seated on the floor
Of some retired nook, all lined with books,
Where reverie and quiet reign supreme!
Above, below, on every side, high shelved
From careless grasp...Read more of this...

To Wolcott Balestier

by Rudyard Kipling
 Beyond the path of the outmost sun through utter darkness hurled --
Further than ever comet flared or vagrant star-dust swirled --
Live such as fought and sailed and ruled and loved and made our world.

They are purged of pride because they died, they know the worth of their bays,
They sit at wine with the Maidens Nine and the Gods of...Read more of this...

The Forsaken Merman

by Matthew Arnold
 Come, dear children, let us away;
Down and away below!
Now my brothers call from the bay,
Now the great winds shoreward blow,
Now the salt tides seaward flow;
Now the wild white horses play,
Champ and chafe and toss in the spray.
Children dear, let us away!
This way, this way!

Call her once before you go— 
Call once yet!
In a voice that she will know:
'Margaret! Margaret!'
Children's...Read more of this...

The House Of Dust: Part 03: 07: Porcelain

by Conrad Aiken
 You see that porcelain ranged there in the window—
Platters and soup-plates done with pale pink rosebuds,
And tiny violets, and wreaths of ivy?
See how the pattern clings to the gleaming edges!
They're works of art—minutely seen and felt,
Each petal done devoutly. Is it failure
To spend your blood like this?

Study them . . . you will see there, in the porcelain,
If you...Read more of this...

The Toys

by Coventry Patmore
 My little Son, who look'd from thoughtful eyes 
And moved and spoke in quiet grown-up wise, 
Having my law the seventh time disobey'd, 
I struck him, and dismiss'd 
With hard words and unkiss'd,
—His Mother, who was patient, being dead. 
Then, fearing lest his grief should hinder sleep, 
I visited his bed, 
But found him slumbering deep, 
With darken'd eyelids,...Read more of this...

An Exiles Farewell

by Adam Lindsay Gordon
 The ocean heaves around us still
With long and measured swell,
The autumn gales our canvas fill,
Our ship rides smooth and well.
The broad Atlantic's bed of foam
Still breaks against our prow;
I shed no tears at quitting home,
Nor will I shed them now!

Against the bulwarks on the poop
I lean, and watch the sun
Behind the red horizon stoop —
His race is nearly run.
Those...Read more of this...

Changed

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
 From the outskirts of the town,
Where of old the mile-stone stood,
Now a stranger, looking down
I behold the shadowy crown
Of the dark and haunted wood.

Is it changed, or am I changed?
Ah! the oaks are fresh and green,
But the friends with whom I ranged
Through their thickets are estranged
By the years that intervene.

Bright as ever flows the sea,
Bright as ever shines the...Read more of this...

She Of The Garden

by Emile Verhaeren
In such a spot, with radiant flowers for halo,
I saw the Guardian Angel sit her down;
Vine-branches fashioned a green shrine above her
And sun-flowers rose behind her like a crown.


Her fingers, their white slenderness encircled
With humble, fragile rings of coral round.
Held, ranged in couples, sprays of faithful roses.
Sealed with a clasp, with threads of woollen bound.


A shimmering air the golden calm...Read more of this...

Garden Francies

by Robert Browning
 I. THE FLOWER'S NAME

Here's the garden she walked across,
Arm in my arm, such a short while since:
Hark, now I push its wicket, the moss
Hinders the hinges and makes them wince!
She must have reached this shrub ere she turned,
As back with that murmur the wicket swung;
For she laid the poor snail, my chance foot spurned,
To feed and forget it the...Read more of this...

When I heard the Learn'd Astronomer

by Walt Whitman
 WHEN I heard the learn’d astronomer; 
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me; 
When I was shown the charts and the diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them; 
When I, sitting, heard the astronomer, where he lectured with much applause in the
 lecture-room, 
How soon, unaccountable, I became tired and sick;
Till rising and gliding out,...Read more of this...

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