Famous Ropes Poems by Famous Poets

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

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LEnvoi

by Rudyard Kipling
 There's a whisper down the field where the year has shot her yield,
 And the ricks stand gray to the sun,
Singing: -- "Over then, come over, for the bee has quit the clover,
 And your English summer's done."
 You have heard the beat of the off-shore wind,
 And the thresh of the deep-sea rain;
 You have heard the song...Read more of this...

In The Baggage Room At Greyhound

by Allen Ginsberg
 I

In the depths of the Greyhound Terminal 
sitting dumbly on a baggage truck looking at the sky 
 waiting for the Los Angeles Express to depart 
worrying about eternity over the Post Office roof in 
 the night-time red downtown heaven 
staring through my eyeglasses I realized shuddering 
 these thoughts were not eternity, nor the poverty 
 of...Read more of this...

The Whip

by Edwin Arlington Robinson
 The doubt you fought so long 
The cynic net you cast, 
The tyranny, the wrong, 
The ruin, they are past; 
And here you are at last,
Your blood no longer vexed. 
The coffin has you fast, 
The clod will have you next. 

But fear you not the clod, 
Nor ever doubt the grave:
The roses and the sod 
Will not forswear...Read more of this...

Wrestling Match

by Robert William Service
 What guts he had, the Dago lad
Who fought that Frenchman grim with guile;
For nigh an hour they milled like mad,
And mauled the mat in rare old style.
Then up and launched like catapults,
And tangled, twisted, clinched and clung,
Then tossed in savage somersaults,
And hacked and hammered, ducked and swung;
And groaned and grunted, sighed and cried,
Now knotted tight, now springing free;
To bend...Read more of this...

The Imaginary Iceberg

by Elizabeth Bishop
 We'd rather have the iceberg than the ship, 
although it meant the end of travel. 
Although it stood stock-still like cloudy rock 
and all the sea were moving marble. 
We'd rather have the iceberg than the ship; 
we'd rather own this breathing plain of snow 
though the ship's sails were laid upon the sea 
as the snow lies undissolved...Read more of this...

Venetian Glass

by Amy Lowell
 As one who sails upon a wide, blue sea
Far out of sight of land, his mind intent
Upon the sailing of his little boat,
On tightening ropes and shaping fair his course,
Hears suddenly, across the restless sea,
The rhythmic striking of some towered clock,
And wakes from thoughtless idleness to time:
Time, the slow pulse which beats eternity!
So through the vacancy of busy life
At...Read more of this...

The Outlaw

by Badger Clark
  When my rope takes hold on a two-year-old,
    By the foot or the neck or the horn,
  He kin plunge and fight till his eyes go white
    But I'll throw him as sure as you're born.
  Though the taut ropes sing like a banjo string
    And the...Read more of this...

WARS and RUMORS OF WARS

by Emanuel Xavier
 “Ye shall hear of wars and rumors of wars;
see that ye not be troubles;
all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet”
-Matthew 24:6

1.
I escape the horrors of war 
with a towel and a room
Offering myself 
to Palestinian and Jewish boys
as a ‘piece’ to the Middle East
when I should be concerned with the untimely deaths
of dark-skinned...Read more of this...

After the Sea-Ship

by Walt Whitman
 AFTER the Sea-Ship—after the whistling winds; 
After the white-gray sails, taut to their spars and ropes, 
Below, a myriad, myriad waves, hastening, lifting up their necks, 
Tending in ceaseless flow toward the track of the ship: 
Waves of the ocean, bubbling and gurgling, blithely prying,
Waves, undulating waves—liquid, uneven, emulous waves, 
Toward that whirling current, laughing and buoyant, with curves,...Read more of this...

Cholera Camp

by Rudyard Kipling
 We've got the cholerer in camp -- it's worse than forty fights;
 We're dyin' in the wilderness the same as Isrulites;
It's before us, an' be'ind us, an' we cannot get away,
 An' the doctor's just reported we've ten more to-day!

Oh, strike your camp an' go, the Bugle's callin',
 The Rains are fallin' --
The dead are bushed an' stoned to...Read more of this...

Annie Marshall the Foundling

by William Topaz McGonagall
 Annie Marshall was a foundling, and lived in Downderry,
And was trained up by a coast-guardsman, kind-hearted and merry
And he loved Annie Marshall as dear as his life,
And he resolved to make her his own loving wife. 

The night was tempestuous, most terrific, and pitch dark,
When Matthew Pengelly rescued Annie Marshall from an ill-fated barque,
But her parents were engulfed in...Read more of this...

To the Leaven'd Soil They Trod

by Walt Whitman
 TO the leaven’d soil they trod, calling, I sing, for the last; 
(Not cities, nor man alone, nor war, nor the dead, 
But forth from my tent emerging for good—loosing, untying the tent-ropes;) 
In the freshness, the forenoon air, in the far-stretching circuits and vistas, again to
 peace
 restored, 
To the fiery fields emanative, and the endless vistas beyond—to...Read more of this...

Ametas And Thestylis Making Hay-Ropes

by Andrew Marvell
 Ametas
Think'st Thou that this Love can stand,
Whilst Thou still dost say me nay?
Love unpaid does soon disband:
Love binds Love as Hay binds Hay.

Thestylis
Think'st Thou that this Rope would twine
If we both should turn one way?
Where both parties so combine,
Neither Love will twist nor Hay.

Ametas
Thus you vain Excuses find,
Which your selve and us delay:
And Love tyes a Womans Mind
Looser then...Read more of this...

The Silken Tent

by Robert Frost
 She is as in a field a silken tent
At midday when the sunny summer breeze
Has dried the dew and all its ropes relent,
So that in guys it gently sways at ease,
And its supporting central cedar pole,
That is its pinnacle to heavenward
And signifies the sureness of the soul,
Seems to owe naught to any single cord,
But strictly held by none, is...Read more of this...

Screw-Guns

by Rudyard Kipling
 Smokin' my pipe on the mountings, sniffin' the mornin' cool,
I walks in my old brown gaiters along o' my old brown mule,
With seventy gunners be'ind me, an' never a beggar forgets
It's only the pick of the Army that handles the dear little pets -- 'Tss! 'Tss!
 For you all love the screw-guns -- the screw-guns they all love you!
...Read more of this...

Bachin'

by Badger Clark
  Our lives are hid; our trails are strange;
    We're scattered through the West
  In canyon cool, on blistered range
    Or windy mountain crest.
  Wherever Nature drops her ears
    And bares her claws to scratch,
  From Yuma to the north frontiers,
    You'll likely find...Read more of this...

A yacht from its harbour ropes pulled free

by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
 A yacht from its harbour ropes pulled free,
And leaped like a steed o’er the race track blue,
Then up behind her, the dust of the sea,
A gray fog, drifted, and hid her from view....Read more of this...

Strayed Reveller The

by Matthew Arnold
 The Youth

Faster, faster,
O Circe, Goddess,
Let the wild, thronging train
The bright procession
Of eddying forms,
Sweep through my soul!
Thou standest, smiling
Down on me! thy right arm,
Lean'd up against the column there,
Props thy soft cheek;
Thy left holds, hanging loosely,
The deep cup, ivy-cinctured,
I held but now.
Is it, then, evening
So soon? I see, the night-dews,
Cluster'd in thick beads, dim
The agate brooch-stones
On thy white shoulder;
The cool...Read more of this...

Trebetherick

by John Betjeman
 We used to picnic where the thrift
Grew deep and tufted to the edge;
We saw the yellow foam flakes drift
In trembling sponges on the ledge
Below us, till the wind would lift
Them up the cliff and o’er the hedge.
Sand in the sandwiches, wasps in the tea,
Sun on our bathing dresses heavy with the wet,
Squelch of the bladder-wrack waiting for the sea,
Fleas...Read more of this...

Man the Man-Hunter

by Carl Sandburg
 I SAW Man, the man-hunter,
Hunting with a torch in one hand
And a kerosene can in the other,
Hunting with guns, ropes, shackles.

 I listened
 And the high cry rang,
The high cry of Man, the man-hunter:
We’ll get you yet, you sbxyzch!

 I listened later.
 The high cry rang:
Kill him! kill him! the sbxyzch!

In the morning the sun saw
Two butts of something,...Read more of this...

The Englishman In Italy

by Robert Browning
 (PIANO DI SORRENTO.)

Fortu, Frotu, my beloved one,
Sit here by my side,
On my knees put up both little feet!
I was sure, if I tried,
I could make you laugh spite of Scirocco;
Now, open your eyes— 
Let me keep you amused till he vanish
In black from the skies,
With telling my memories over
As you tell your beads;
All the memories plucked at Sorrento
—The flowers,...Read more of this...

Memorial Day For The War Dead

by Yehuda Amichai
 Memorial day for the war dead. Add now
the grief of all your losses to their grief,
even of a woman that has left you. Mix
sorrow with sorrow, like time-saving history,
which stacks holiday and sacrifice and mourning
on one day for easy, convenient memory.

Oh, sweet world soaked, like bread,
in sweet milk for the terrible toothless God.
"Behind all this some great happiness is...Read more of this...

That Nature Is A Heraclitean Fire And Of The Comfort Of The Resurrection

by Gerard Manley Hopkins
 Cloud-puffball, torn tufts, tossed pillows ' flaunt forth, then chevy on an air-
built thoroughfare: heaven-roysterers, in gay-gangs ' they throng; they glitter in marches.
Down roughcast, down dazzling whitewash, ' wherever an elm arches,
Shivelights and shadowtackle in long ' lashes lace, lance, and pair.
Delightfully the bright wind boisterous ' ropes, wrestles, beats earth bare
Of yestertempest's creases; in pool and rut...Read more of this...

The Licorice Fields at Pontefract

by John Betjeman
 In the licorice fields at Pontefract
My love and I did meet
And many a burdened licorice bush
Was blooming round our feet;
Red hair she had and golden skin,
Her sulky lips were shaped for sin,
Her sturdy legs were flannel-slack'd
The strongest legs in Pontefract.

The light and dangling licorice flowers
Gave off the sweetest smells;
From various black Victorian towers
The Sunday evening bells
Came pealing over dales...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...

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