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Famous Rolls Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Masefield, John
...the fiddle on the fo'c'sle, and the slapping naked soles, 
And the genial "Down the middle, Jake, and curtsey when she rolls!" 
With the silver seas around us and the pale moon overhead, 
And the look-out not a-looking and his pipe-bowl glowing red. 

Ah! the pig-tailed, quidding pirates and the pretty pranks we played, 
All have since been put a stop to by the naughty Board of Trade; 
The schooners and the merry crews are laid away to rest, 
A little south the sunset in...Read more of this...



by Aiken, Conrad
...Fanfare of northwest wind, a bluejay wind
announces autumn, and the equinox
rolls back blue bays to a far afternoon.
Somewhere beyond the Gorge Li Po is gone,
looking for friendship or an old love's sleeve
or writing letters to his children, lost,
and to his children's children, and to us.
What was his light? of lamp or moon or sun?
Say that it changed, for better or for worse,
sifted by leaves, sifted by snow; on mulberry s...Read more of this...

by Brackenridge, Hugh Henry
...To the cold lakes margin'd with snow: from that 
Long dreary tract of shady woods and hills, 
Where Hudson's icy stream rolls his cold wave, 
To those more sunny bowers where zephyrs breath, 
And round which flow in circling current swift 
The Delaware and Susquehannah streams. 
Thence to those smiling plains where Chesapeak 
Spreads her maternal arms, encompassing 
In soft embrace, full many a settlement, 
Where opulence, with hospitality, 
And polish'd manners, and the ...Read more of this...

by Brackenridge, Hugh Henry
...cience spreads 
Her orient ray, and wakes the muse's song; 
Where freedom holds her sacred standard high, 
And commerce rolls her golden tides profuse 
Of elegance and ev'ry joy of life. 



ACASTO. 
Since then Leander you attempt a strain 
So new, so noble and so full of fame; 
And since a friendly concourse centers here 
America's own sons, begin O muse! 
Now thro' the veil of ancient days review 
The period fam'd when first Columbus touch'd 
The shore so long unkno...Read more of this...

by Browning, Robert
...conduct!
At first, 'twas something our two souls
Should mix as mists do; each is sucked
In each now: on, the new stream rolls,
Whatever rocks obstruct.

XXVII.

Think, when our one soul understands
The great Word which makes all things new,
When earth breaks up and heaven expands,
How will the change strike me and you
ln the house not made with hands?

XXVIII.

Oh I must feel your brain prompt mine,
Your heart anticipate my heart,
You must be just before, in fine,...Read more of this...



by Wilcox, Ella Wheeler
...reless of the harvests that might grow.
Thus hour by hour the humblest human souls
Inscribe in cipher on unending scrolls, 
The history of nations yet to be; 
Incite fierce bloody wars, to rage from sea to sea, 

XIII.

Or pave the way to peace. There is no past, 
So deathless are events-results so vast.
And he who strives to make one act or hour
Stand separate and alone, needs first the power
To look upon the breaking wave and say, 
'These drops were bosomed ...Read more of this...

by Baudelaire, Charles
...ng,
ask the wind,
the wave,
the star,
the bird,
the clock,
ask everything that flees,
everything that groans
or rolls
or sings,
everything that speaks,
ask what time it is;
and the wind,
the wave,
the star,
the bird,
the clock
will answer you:
"Time to get drunk!
Don't be martyred slaves of Time,
Get drunk!
Stay drunk!
On wine, virtue, poetry, whatever!"...Read more of this...

by Sexton, Anne
...piness made. 

Forgive us, Father, for we know not. 

Once upon a time we were all born, 
popped out like jelly rolls 
forgetting our fishdom, 
the pleasuring seas, 
the country of comfort, 
spanked into the oxygens of death, 
Good morning life, we say when we wake, 
hail mary coffee toast 
and we Americans take juice, 
a liquid sun going down. 
Good morning life. 
To wake up is to be born. 
To brush your teeth is to be alive. 
To make a bowel movement...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...sh! he breathes, he speaks! 
The swarthy blush recolours in his cheeks, 
His lip resumes its red, his eye, though dim, 
Rolls wide and wild, each slowly quivering limb 
Recalls its function, but his words are strung 
In terms that seem not of his native tongue; 
Distinct but strange, enough they understand 
To deem them accents of another land, 
And such they were, and meant to meet an ear 
That hears him not — alas! that cannot hear! 

XIV. 

His page approach'd, and he ...Read more of this...

by Wordsworth, William
...ky, and in the mind of man:
A motion and a spirit, that impels 
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still
A lover of the meadows and the woods,
And mountains; and of all that we behold
From this green earth; of all the mighty world
Of eye, and ear—both what they half create,
And what perceive; well pleased to recognize
In nature and the language of the sense
The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse, 
...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...es of torrent fire inflame with rage. 
Far off from these, a slow and silent stream, 
Lethe, the river of oblivion, rolls 
Her watery labyrinth, whereof who drinks 
Forthwith his former state and being forgets-- 
Forgets both joy and grief, pleasure and pain. 
Beyond this flood a frozen continent 
Lies dark and wild, beat with perpetual storms 
Of whirlwind and dire hail, which on firm land 
Thaws not, but gathers heap, and ruin seems 
Of ancient pile; all else deep s...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...y in a pail; 
The quadroon girl is sold at the auction-stand—the drunkard nods by the
 bar-room stove;
The machinist rolls up his sleeves—the policeman travels his beat—the
 gate-keeper marks who pass; 
The young fellow drives the express-wagon—(I love him, though I do not know
 him;) 
The half-breed straps on his light boots to complete in the race; 
The western turkey-shooting draws old and young—some lean on their rifles,
 some sit on logs, 
Out from the crowd st...Read more of this...

by Poe, Edgar Allan
...ey are neither man nor woman-
They are neither brute nor human-
They are Ghouls:
And their king it is who tolls;
And he rolls, rolls, rolls,
Rolls
A paean from the bells!
And his merry bosom swells
With the paean of the bells!
And he dances, and he yells;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the paean of the bells-
Of the bells:
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the throbbing of the bells-
Of the bells, bells, bells-
To the sobbing of th...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...e is old, but love anew 
May nerve young hearts to prove as true. 

II. 

The winds are high, and Helle's tide 
Rolls darkly heaving to the main; 
And Night's descending shadows hide 
That field with blood bedew'd in vain, 
The desert of old Priam's pride; 
The tombs, sole relics of his reign, 
All — save immortal dreams that could beguile 
The blind old man of Scio's rocky isle! 

III. 

Oh! yet — for there my steps have been! 
These feet have press'd the sacred ...Read more of this...

by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...thur's words-- 
A mocking fire: "what other fire than he, 
Whereby the blood beats, and the blossom blows, 
And the sea rolls, and all the world is warmed?" 
And when his answer chafed them, the rough crowd, 
Hearing he had a difference with their priests, 
Seized him, and bound and plunged him into a cell 
Of great piled stones; and lying bounden there 
In darkness through innumerable hours 
He heard the hollow-ringing heavens sweep 
Over him till by miracle--what else?-- 
H...Read more of this...

by Scott, Sir Walter
...e far halloo,
     And joyful from the shore withdrew.




CANTO THIRD.

The Gathering.

     I.

     Time rolls his ceaseless course. The race of yore,
          Who danced our infancy upon their knee,
     And told our marvelling boyhood legends store
          Of their strange ventures happed by land or sea,
     How are they blotted from the things that be!
          How few, all weak and withered of their force,
     Wait on the verge of dark eternity,...Read more of this...

by Trumbull, John
...th'infernal shade.


"Nor this the worst; for he that's dead,
With love no more will vex his head.
'Tis in the rolls of fate above,
That death's a certain cure for love;
A noose can end the cruel smart;
The lover's leap is from a cart.
But oft a living death they bear,
Scorn'd by the proud, capricious fair.
The fair to sense pay no regard,
And beauty is the fop's reward;
They slight the generous hearts' esteem,
And sigh for those, who fly from them.


Jus...Read more of this...

by Thomson, James
..., rapid, and deep,
It boils, and wheels, and foams, and thunders thro'.

NATURE! great Parent! whose directing Hand
Rolls round the Seasons of the changeful Year,
How mighty! how majestick are thy Works! 
With what a pleasing Dread they swell the Soul,
That sees, astonish'd! and, astonish'd sings!
You too, ye Winds! that now begin to blow,
With boisterous Sweep, I raise my Voice to you.
Where are your Stores, ye viewless Beings! say? 
Where your aerial Magazines reser...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...o let him be consumed. From out the past 
Of ages, since mankind have known the rule 
Of monarchs — from the bloody rolls amass'd 
Of sin and slaughter — from the C?sar's school, 
Take the worst pupil; and produce a reign 
More drench'd with gore, more cumber'd with the slain. 

XLV 

'He ever warr'd with freedom and the free: 
Nations as men, home subjects, foreign foes, 
So that they utter'd the word "Liberty!" 
Found George the Third their first opponent. Whose...Read more of this...

by Wordsworth, William
...the year to come may take  Our temper from to-day.   And from the blessed power that rolls  About, below, above;  We'll frame the measure of our souls,  They shall be tuned to love.   Then come, my sister I come, I pray,  With speed put on your woodland dress,  And bring no book; for this one day  We'll give to idleness....Read more of this...

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Book: Reflection on the Important Things