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Famous Round About Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Browning, Elizabeth Barrett
...As the moths around a taper,
As the bees around a rose,
As the gnats around a vapour,---
So the Spirits group and close
Round about a holy childhood, as if drinking its repose.

Shapes of brightness overlean thee,---
Flash their diadems of youth
On the ringlets which half screen thee,---
While thou smilest, . . . not in sooth
Thy smile . . . but the overfair one, dropt from some aethereal mouth.

Haply it is angels' duty,
During slumber, shade ...Read more of this...



by Browning, Robert
...d ('tis no dream-- 
We know this, which we had not else perceived) 
That there's a world of capability 
For joy, spread round about us, meant for us, 
Inviting us; and still the soul craves all, 
And still the flesh replies, "Take no jot more 
Than ere thou clombst the tower to look abroad! 
Nay, so much less as that fatigue has brought 
Deduction to it." We struggle, fain to enlarge 
Our bounded physical recipiency, 
Increase our power, supply fresh oil to life, 
Repair ...Read more of this...

by Berry, Wendell
...You will be walking some night
in the comfortable dark of your yard
and suddenly a great light will shine
round about you, and behind you
will be a wall you never saw before.
It will be clear to you suddenly
that you were about to escape,
and that you are guilty: you misread
the complex instructions, you are not
a member, you lost your card
or never had one. And you will know
that they have been there all along,
their eyes on your letters and books,
thei...Read more of this...

by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...th youthful Bacchus follow;
Ivy crowns that brow supernal
As the forehead of Apollo,
And possessing youth eternal.

Round about him, fair Bacchantes,
Bearing cymbals, flutes, and thyrses,
Wild from Naxian groves, or Zante's
Vineyards, sing delirious verses.

Thus he won, through all the nations,
Bloodless victories, and the farmer
Bore, as trophies and oblations,
Vines for banners, ploughs for armor.

Judged by no o'erzealous rigor,
Much this mystic throng express...Read more of this...

by Pope, Alexander
...eals much, spends little, yet has nothing left:
And he, who now to sense, now nonsense leaning,
Means not, but blunders round about a meaning:
And he, whose fustian's so sublimely bad,
It is not poetry, but prose run mad:
All these, my modest satire bade translate,
And own'd, that nine such poets made a Tate.
How did they fume, and stamp, and roar, and chafe?
And swear, not Addison himself was safe.

Peace to all such! but were there one whose fires
True genius kindle...Read more of this...



by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...re the house and the barn. The merry lads of the village
Strongly have built them and well; and, breaking the glebe round about them,
Filled the barn with hay, and the house with food for a twelvemonth.
Rene Leblanc will be here anon, with his papers and inkhorn.
Shall we not then be glad, and rejoice in the joy of our children?"
As apart by the window she stood, with her hand in her lover's,
Blushing Evangeline heard the words that her father had spoken,
And, as ...Read more of this...

by Homer,
...75] When she had so said, the goddess changed her stature and her looks, thrusting old age away from her: beauty spread round about her and a lovely fragrance was wafted from her sweet-smelling robes, and from the divine body of the goddess a light shone afar, while golden tresses spread down over her shoulders, so that the strong house was filled with brightness as with lightning. And so she went out from the palace.

And straightway Metaneira's knees were loosed a...Read more of this...

by Keats, John
...th of morn,
Far from the fiery noon, and eve's one star,
Sat gray-hair'd Saturn, quiet as a stone,
Still as the silence round about his lair;
Forest on forest hung above his head
Like cloud on cloud. No stir of air was there,
Not so much life as on a summer's day
Robs not one light seed from the feather'd grass,
But where the dead leaf fell, there did it rest.
A stream went voiceless by, still deadened more
By reason of his fallen divinity
Spreading a shade: the Naiad...Read more of this...

by Emerson, Ralph Waldo
...till,
I turned to Cheshire's haughty hill.
From the fixed cone the cloud-rack flowed
Like ample banner flung abroad
Round about, a hundred miles,
With invitation to the sea, and to the bordering isles.

In his own loom's garment drest,
By his own bounty blest,
Fast abides this constant giver,
Pouring many a cheerful river;
To far eyes, an aërial isle,
Unploughed, which finer spirits pile,
Which morn and crimson evening paint
For bard, for lover, and for saint;
The cou...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...here thou sit'st 
Throned inaccessible, but when thou shadest 
The full blaze of thy beams, and, through a cloud 
Drawn round about thee like a radiant shrine, 
Dark with excessive bright thy skirts appear, 
Yet dazzle Heaven, that brightest Seraphim 
Approach not, but with both wings veil their eyes. 
Thee next they sang of all creation first, 
Begotten Son, Divine Similitude, 
In whose conspicuous countenance, without cloud 
Made visible, the Almighty Father shines, 
Wh...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...ubt distract 
His troubled thoughts, and from the bottom stir 
The Hell within him; for within him Hell 
He brings, and round about him, nor from Hell 
One step, no more than from himself, can fly 
By change of place: Now conscience wakes despair, 
That slumbered; wakes the bitter memory 
Of what he was, what is, and what must be 
Worse; of worse deeds worse sufferings must ensue. 
Sometimes towards Eden, which now in his view 
Lay pleasant, his grieved look he fixes sad;...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...I fell 
Submiss: He reared me, and 'Whom thou soughtest I am,' 
Said mildly, 'Author of all this thou seest 
'Above, or round about thee, or beneath. 
'This Paradise I give thee, count it thine 
'To till and keep, and of the fruit to eat: 
'Of every tree that in the garden grows 
'Eat freely with glad heart; fear here no dearth: 
'But of the tree whose operation brings 
'Knowledge of good and ill, which I have set 
'The pledge of thy obedience and thy faith, 
'Amid the ga...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...ch, under state 
Of richest texture spread, at the upper end 
Was placed in regal lustre. Down a while 
He sat, and round about him saw unseen: 
At last, as from a cloud, his fulgent head 
And shape star-bright appeared, or brighter; clad 
With what permissive glory since his fall 
Was left him, or false glitter: All amazed 
At that so sudden blaze the Stygian throng 
Bent their aspect, and whom they wished beheld, 
Their mighty Chief returned: loud was the acclaim: 
Fort...Read more of this...

by Browning, Robert
...cattle-tract,
And cattle-tract to open-chase,
And open-chase to the very base
Of the mountain where, at a funeral pace,
Round about, solemn and slow,
One by one, row after row,
Up and up the pine-trees go,
So, like black priests up, and so
Down the other side again
To another greater, wilder country,
That's one vast red drear burnt-up plain,
Branched through and through with many a vein
Whence iron's dug, and copper's dealt;
Look right, look left, look straight before,---
Ben...Read more of this...

by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...ly the low sky raining 
Over tower'd Camelot; 

Down she came and found a boat 
Beneath a willow left afloat, 
And round about the prow she wrote 125 
The Lady of Shalott. 

And down the river's dim expanse¡ª 
Like some bold seer in a trance, 
Seeing all his own mischance¡ª 
With a glassy countenance 130 
Did she look to Camelot. 
And at the closing of the day 
She loosed the chain, and down she lay; 
The broad stream bore her far away, 
The Lady of Sh...Read more of this...

by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...so galloped up the knoll. 
A purple scarf, at either end whereof 
There swung an apple of the purest gold, 
Swayed round about him, as he galloped up 
To join them, glancing like a dragon-fly 
In summer suit and silks of holiday. 
Low bowed the tributary Prince, and she, 
Sweet and statelily, and with all grace 
Of womanhood and queenhood, answered him: 
'Late, late, Sir Prince,' she said, 'later than we!' 
'Yea, noble Queen,' he answered, 'and so late 
That I but co...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...th below
Its massy waters meet and flow:
Thus much the fathom-line was sent
From Chillon's snow-white battlement,
Which round about the wave inthrals:
A double dungeon wall and wave
Have made - and like a living grave
Below the surface of the lake
The dark vault lies wherein we lay,
We heard it ripple night and day;
Sounding o'er our heads it knock'd;
And I have felt the winter's spray
Wash through the bars when winds were high
And wanton in the happy sky;
And then the very r...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
.... 

LXXIII 

'However, I knew what to think of it, 
When I beheld you in your jesting way, 
Flitting and whispering round about the spit 
Where Belial, upon duty for the day, 
With Fox's lard was basting William Pitt, 
His pupil; I knew what to think, I say: 
That fellow even in hell breeds farther ills; 
I'll have him gagg'd — 'twas one of his own bills. 

LXXIV 

'Call Junius!' From the crowd a shadow stalk'd, 
And at the same there was a general squeeze, 
So that t...Read more of this...

by Schiller, Friedrich von
...ughs;
Thee, too, peaceably azure, in infinite measure extending
Round the dusky-hued mount, over the forest so green,--
Round about me, who now from my chamber's confinement escaping,
And from vain frivolous talk, gladly seek refuge with thee.
Through me to quicken me runs the balsamic stream of thy breezes,
While the energetical light freshens the gaze as it thirsts.
Bright o'er the blooming meadow the changeable colors are gleaming,
But the strife, full of charms, i...Read more of this...

by Plath, Sylvia
...A Poem for Three Voices

Setting: A Maternity Ward and round about

FIRST VOICE:
I am slow as the world. I am very patient,
Turning through my time, the suns and stars
Regarding me with attention.
The moon's concern is more personal:
She passes and repasses, luminous as a nurse.
Is she sorry for what will happen? I do not think so.
She is simply astonished at fertility.

When I walk out, I am...Read more of this...

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