Famous Rolling Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Beautiful Crief

by William Topaz McGonagall
 Ye lovers of the picturesque, if ye wish to drown your grief,
Take my advice, and visit the ancient town of Crieff;
The climate is bracing, and the walks lovely to see.
Besides, ye can ramble over the district, and view the beautiful scenery. 

The town is admirably situated from the cold winter winds,
And the visitors, during their stay there, great comfort...Read more of this...

The Parting

by Anne Bronte
 1 

The chestnut steed stood by the gate
His noble master's will to wait,
The woody park so green and bright
Was glowing in the morning light,
The young leaves of the aspen trees
Were dancing in the morning breeze.
The palace door was open wide,
Its lord was standing there,
And his sweet lady by his side
With soft dark eyes and raven hair.
He smiling took her...Read more of this...

How Clear She Shines

by Emily Brontë
 How clear she shines! How quietly
I lie beneath her guardian light;
While heaven and earth are whispering me,
" Tomorrow, wake, but, dream to-night."
Yes, Fancy, come, my Fairy love!
These throbbing temples softly kiss;
And bend my lonely couch above
And bring me rest, and bring me bliss. 

The world is going; dark world, adieu!
Grim world, conceal thee till the day;
The heart, thou canst...Read more of this...

The Ghosts of the Buffaloes

by Vachel Lindsay
 Last night at black midnight I woke with a cry,
The windows were shaking, there was thunder on high,
The floor was a-tremble, the door was a-jar,
White fires, crimson fires, shone from afar.
I rushed to the door yard. The city was gone.
My home was a hut without orchard or lawn.
It was mud-smear and logs near a whispering stream,
Nothing else built by...Read more of this...

Smoke and Steel

by Carl Sandburg
 SMOKE of the fields in spring is one,
Smoke of the leaves in autumn another.
Smoke of a steel-mill roof or a battleship funnel,
They all go up in a line with a smokestack,
Or they twist … in the slow twist … of the wind.

If the north wind comes they run to the south.
If the west wind comes they run to the...Read more of this...

Out of the Rolling Ocean the Crowd

by Walt Whitman
 1
OUT of the rolling ocean, the crowd, came a drop gently to me, 
Whispering, I love you, before long I die, 
I have travel’d a long way, merely to look on you, to touch you, 
For I could not die till I once look’d on you, 
For I fear’d I might afterward lose you.

2
(Now we have met, we have...Read more of this...

A Descriptive Poem on the Silvery Tay

by William Topaz McGonagall
 Beautiful silvery Tay,
With your landscapes, so lovely and gay,
Along each side of your waters, to Perth all the way;
No other river in the world has got scenery more fine,
Only I am told the beautiful Rhine,
Near to Wormit Bay, it seems very fine,
Where the Railway Bridge is towering above its waters sublime,
And the beautiful ship Mars,
With her Juvenile Tare,
Both lively...Read more of this...

To Ladies Of A Certain Age

by John Trumbull
 Ye ancient Maids, who ne'er must prove
The early joys of youth and love,
Whose names grim Fate (to whom 'twas given,
When marriages were made in heaven)
Survey'd with unrelenting scowl,
And struck them from the muster-roll;
Or set you by, in dismal sort,
For wintry bachelors to court;
Or doom'd to lead your faded lives,
Heirs to the joys of former wives;
Attend! nor fear in state...Read more of this...

Liberty

by James Whitcomb Riley
 New Castle, July 4, 1878

or a hundred years the pulse of time
Has throbbed for Liberty;
For a hundred years the grand old clime
Columbia has been free;
For a hundred years our country's love,
The Stars and Stripes, has waved above.

Away far out on the gulf of years--
Misty and faint and white
Through the fogs of wrong--a sail appears,
And the Mayflower heaves in sight,
And...Read more of this...

The Burning of the Steamer City of Montreal

by William Topaz McGonagall
 A sad tale of the sea I will relate, which will your hearts appal
Concerning the burning of the steamship "City of Montreal,"
Which had on board two hundred and forty-nine souls in all,
But, alas! a fearful catastrophe did them befall. 

The steamer left New York on the 6th August with a general cargo,
Bound for Queenstown and Liverpool also;
And all went...Read more of this...

The Rolling English Road

by G K Chesterton
 Before the Roman came to Rye or out to Severn strode,
The rolling English drunkard made the rolling English road.
A reeling road, a rolling road, that rambles round the shire,
And after him the parson ran, the sexton and the squire;
A merry road, a mazy road, and such as we did tread
The night we went to Birmingham by way of Beachy...Read more of this...

Winter Seascape

by John Betjeman
 The sea runs back against itself
With scarcely time for breaking wave
To cannonade a slatey shelf
And thunder under in a cave.

Before the next can fully burst
The headwind, blowing harder still,
Smooths it to what it was at first -
A slowly rolling water-hill.

Against the breeze the breakers haste,
Against the tide their ridges run
And all the sea's a dappled waste
Criss-crossing underneath the sun.

Far...Read more of this...

On Imagination

by Phillis Wheatley
 Thy various works, imperial queen, we see,
 How bright their forms! how deck'd with pomp by thee!
Thy wond'rous acts in beauteous order stand,
And all attest how potent is thine hand.

 From Helicon's refulgent heights attend,
Ye sacred choir, and my attempts befriend:
To tell her glories with a faithful tongue,
Ye blooming graces, triumph in my song.

 Now here, now there, the...Read more of this...

The Lotos-eaters

by Alfred Lord Tennyson
 "Courage!" he said, and pointed toward the land, 
"This mounting wave will roll us shoreward soon."
In the afternoon they came unto a land 
In which it seemed always afternoon.
All round the coast the languid air did swoon,
Breathing like one that hath a weary dream.
Full-faced above the valley stood the moon;
And like a downward smoke, the slender stream 
Along the...Read more of this...

The Princess: A Medley: Thy Voice is Heard

by Alfred Lord Tennyson
 Thy voice is heard thro' rolling drums,
That beat to battle where he stands;
Thy face across his fancy comes,
And gives the battle to his hands:
A moment, while the trumpets blow,
He sees his brood about thy knee;
The next, like fire he meets the foe,
And strikes him dead for thine and thee....Read more of this...

This rolling hostelry we call the world, where light and

by Omar Khayyam
This rolling hostelry we call the world, where light and
darkness alternate, is but the ruin of a Jamshid's entertainment
of a hundred Kings, or e'en a faint memento
of a host of hunters like to Bahram's self....Read more of this...

Solid Ironical Rolling Orb

by Walt Whitman
 SOLID, ironical, rolling orb! 
Master of all, and matter of fact!—at last I accept your terms; 
Bringing to practical, vulgar tests, of all my ideal dreams, 
And of me, as lover and hero....Read more of this...

What Kind Of Mistress He Would Have

by Robert Herrick
 Be the mistress of my choice,
Clean in manners, clear in voice;
Be she witty, more than wise,
Pure enough, though not precise;
Be she showing in her dress,
Like a civil wilderness,
That the curious may detect
Order in a sweet neglect;
Be she rolling in her eye,
Tempting all the passers by;
And each ringlet of her hair,
An enchantment, or a snare,
For to catch the lookers on;
But...Read more of this...

A Rolling Stone

by Robert William Service
 There's sunshine in the heart of me,
My blood sings in the breeze;
The mountains are a part of me,
I'm fellow to the trees.
My golden youth I'm squandering,
Sun-libertine am I;
A-wandering, a-wandering,
Until the day I die.

I was once, I declare, a Stone-Age man,
 And I roomed in the cool of a cave;
I have known, I will swear, in a new life-span,
 The...Read more of this...

The Two Streams

by Oliver Wendell Holmes
 Behold the rocky wall 
That down its sloping sides 
Pours the swift rain-drops, blending, as they fall, 
In rushing river-tides! 
Yon stream, whose sources run 
Turned by a pebble's edge, 
Is Athabasca, rolling toward the sun 
Through the cleft mountain-ledge. 
The slender rill had strayed, 
But for the slanting stone, 
To evening's ocean, with the tangled braid 
Of foam-flecked...Read more of this...

The Gallery

by Andrew Marvell
Clora, come view my soul, and tell
Whether I have contrived it well.
Now all its several lodgings lie
Composed into one gallery;
And the great arras-hangings, made
Of various faces, by are laid;
That, for all furniture, you'll find
Only your picture in my mind.

Here thou art painted in the dress
Of an inhuman murderess;
Examining upon our hearts
Thy fertile shop of cruel arts:
Engines more keen than ever...Read more of this...

Hilaire Belloc - The South Country

by Hilaire Belloc
 When I am living in the Midlands
 That are sodden and unkind,
I light my lamp in the evening:
 My work is left behind;
And the great hills of the South Country
 Come back into my mind.

The great hills of the South Country
 They stand along the sea;
And it's there walking in the high woods
 That I could wish to be,
And...Read more of this...

First Party At Ken Keseys With Hells Angels

by Allen Ginsberg
 Cool black night thru redwoods
cars parked outside in shade
behind the gate, stars dim above
the ravine, a fire burning by the side
porch and a few tired souls hunched over
in black leather jackets. In the huge
wooden house, a yellow chandelier 
at 3 A.M. the blast of loudspeakers
hi-fi Rolling Stones Ray Charles Beatles
Jumping Joe Jackson and twenty youths
dancing to the vibration thru...Read more of this...

Audley Court

by Alfred Lord Tennyson
 ‘The Bull, the Fleece are cramm’d, and not a room
For love or money. Let us picnic there
At Audley Court.’

I spoke, while Audley feast

Humm’d like a hive all round the narrow quay,
To Francis, with a basket on his arm,
To Francis just alighted from the boat,
And breathing of the sea. ‘With all my heart,’
Said Francis. Then we shoulder’d thro’ the swarm,
And...Read more of this...

In Excelsis

by Anne Sexton
 It is half winter, half spring,
and Barbara and I are standing
confronting the ocean.
Its mouth is open very wide,
and it has dug up its green,
throwing it, throwing it at the shore.
You say it is angry.
I say it is like a kicked Madonna.
Its womb collapses, drunk with its fever.
We breathe in its fury.

I, the inlander,
am here with you for just a...Read more of this...

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