Famous Rowing Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Rowing poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous rowing poems. These examples illustrate what a famous rowing poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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You draw your head forward, slowly, from your little wimple
And set forward, slow-dragging, on your four-pinned toes, Rowing slowly forward.
Whither away, small bird?
Rather like a baby working its limbs,
Except that you make slow, ageless progress
And a baby makes none.
The touch of sun excites you,
And the long ages, and the lingering chill
Make you pause to yawn,
Opening your impervious mouth,
Suddenly beak-shaped, and very wide, like some suddenly gaping pincers;
Soft ...Read more of this...
by
Lawrence, D. H.
...from how many people,
terrifying noble men, after he was found
so needy at the start. He wrangled his remedy after,
growing hale under the heavens, thriving honorably,
until all of them had to obey him,
those scattered about, across the whale-road,
must pay him tribute. That was a good king! (ll. 4-11)
To him was conceived an heir in days after,
young in the yards, whom God had sent
as a comfort to the people—he understood the dire distress
they had suffered befor...Read more of this...
by
Anonymous,
...QUINQUIREME of Nineveh from distant Ophir,
Rowing home to haven in sunny Palestine,
With a cargo of ivory,
And apes and peacocks,
Sandalwood, cedarwood, and sweet white wine.
Stately Spanish galleon coming from the Isthmus,
Dipping through the Tropics by the palm-green shores,
With a cargo of diamonds,
Emeralds, amythysts,
Topazes, and cinnamon, and gold moidores.
Dirty British coaster wit...Read more of this...
by
Masefield, John
...ights should be
Our luxury!
Futile—the Winds—
To a heart in port—
Done with the Compass—
Done with the Chart!
Rowing in Eden—
Ah, the Sea!
Might I but moor—Tonight—
In Thee!
253
You see I cannot see—your lifetime—
I must guess—
How many times it ache for me—today—Confess—
How many times for my far sake
The brave eyes film—
But I guess guessing hurts—
Mine—get so dim!
Too vague—the face—
My own—so patient—covers—
Too far—the strength—
My timidnes...Read more of this...
by
Dickinson, Emily
...the sensation
of fishing on the Susquehanna.
There is little doubt
that others have been fishing
on the Susquehanna,
rowing upstream in a wooden boat,
sliding the oars under the water
then raising them to drip in the light.
But the nearest I have ever come to
fishing on the Susquehanna
was one afternoon in a museum in Philadelphia,
when I balanced a little egg of time
in front of a painting
in which that river curled around a bend
under a blue cloud-ruffled sky,
dense t...Read more of this...
by
Collins, Billy
...
The angels labored diligent;
Extinguished, now, for you!
It might have been the lighthouse spark
Some sailor, rowing in the dark,
Had importuned to see!
It might have been the waning lamp
That lit the drummer from the camp
To purer reveille!...Read more of this...
by
Dickinson, Emily
...high on the big waves the boat did float;
Then Grace and her father took each an oar in hand,
And to see Grace Darling rowing the picture was grand.
And as the little boat to the sufferers drew near,
Poor souls, they tried to raise a cheer;
But as they gazed upon the heroic Grace,
The big tears trickled down each sufferer's face.
And nine persons were rescued almost dead with the cold
By modest and lovely Grace Darling, that heroine bold;
The survivors were taken to the ...Read more of this...
by
McGonagall, William Topaz
...ost beautiful to see and hear the whales whistling and blowing,
And the sailors in their small boats quickly after them rowing,
While the whales keep lashing the water all their might
With their mighty tails, left and right.
In winter there's no sunlight there night or day,
Which, no doubt, will cause the time to pass tediously away,
And cause the Esquimaux to long for the light of day,
So as they will get basking themselves in the sun's bright array.
In summer there is p...Read more of this...
by
McGonagall, William Topaz
...t pilot needs?
Here, sailor! Here, ship! take aboard the most perfect pilot,
Whom, in a little boat, putting off, and rowing, I, hailing you, offer....Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...ack-board of her shell.
Their two shells like domed boats bumping,
Hers huge, his small;
Their splay feet rambling and rowing like paddles,
And stumbling mixed up in one another,
In the race of love --
Two tortoises,
She huge, he small.
She seems earthily apathetic,
And he has a reptile's awful persistence.
I heard a woman pitying her, pitying the Mère Tortue.
While I, I pity Monsieur.
"He pesters her and torments her," said the woman.
How much more is he pestered and torm...Read more of this...
by
Lawrence, D. H.
...er heat.
On BMX and mountain bike
She simply can’t be beat.
She’s highest in the high jump,
And a champ at hammer throwing,
Magnificent in marathons,
Remarkable at rowing.
She beats the best at boxing.
At the pole vault she is peerless.
Her fencing is the finest;
She is positively fearless.
She’s masterful at basketball,
She truly rules the court,
And equally incredible
At every other sport.
But what we find astonishing
And something of a shocker
Is how she w...Read more of this...
by
Nesbitt, Kenn
...ll it be to Africa, a-steering of the boat,
To Providence, or Babylon or off to Malabar?
Hi! but here's a squadron a-rowing on the sea--
Cattle on the meadow a-charging with a roar!
Quick, and we'll escape them, they're as mad as they can be,
The wicket is the harbour and the garden is the shore....Read more of this...
by
Stevenson, Robert Louis
...The opening scene. The yellow, coal-fed fog
Uncurling over the tainted city river,
A young girl rowing and her anxious father
Scavenging for corpses. Funeral meats. The clever
Abandoned orphan. The great athletic killer
Sulking in his tent. As though all stories began
With someone dying.
When her mother died,
My mother refused to attend the funeral--
In fact, she sulked in her tent all through the year
Of the old lady's dying. I don't know why:
She s...Read more of this...
by
Pinsky, Robert
...d I grew, I grew,
I wore rubies and bought tomatoes
and now, in my middle age,
about nineteen in the head I'd say,
I am rowing, I am rowing
though the oarlocks stick and are rusty
and the sea blinks and rolls
like a worried eyebal,
but I am rowing, I am rowing,
though the wind pushes me back
and I know that that island will not be perfect,
it will have the flaws of life,
the absurdities of the dinner table,
but there will be a door
and I will open it
and I will get rid of the...Read more of this...
by
Sexton, Anne
...O'er the wide, wide sea,
Towards its many distant isles,
Rowing I set forth.
This, to all the world proclaim,
O ye boats of fisher-folk!...Read more of this...
by
Hyakunin Isshu, Ogura
...ging lessons.
Mother, we are again a physical couple.
I brush out her hair for her at night.
She thinks that we'll be rowing outside Geneva
By the spring. I hope she won't be disappointed.
Yesterday morning while bread was frying
In one corner, she in another washed all of her legs
Right in front of the children. I think
We became sad at her beauty. She has a purple bruise
On an ankle.
Like Illya I made her chew on mint.
Our Christmas will be in this excellent barn.
The...Read more of this...
by
Dubie, Norman
...t with love to praise God's gracious law:
But suddenly--so short is pleasure's lease--
The cold returns, the buds from growing cease,
And nature's conquer'd face is full of awe;
As now the trait'rous north with icy flaw
Freezes the dew upon the sick lamb's fleece,
And 'neath the mock sun searching everywhere
Rattles the crispèd leaves with shivering din:
So that the birds are silent with despair
Within the thickets; nor their armour thin
Will gaudy flies adventure in the air...Read more of this...
by
Bridges, Robert Seymour
...ow-passengers and crew,
And sang "O rest in the Lord, and He will come to our rescue";
And for fourteen hours they were rowing on the mighty deep,
And when each man was done with his turn he fell asleep.
And about six o'clock in the morning a man shrieked out,
"There's a sailing boat coming towards us without any doubt";
And before the sailing boat could get near, a steamer hove in sight,
Which proved to be the steamer "Lynx," to their delight.
And they were conveyed to G...Read more of this...
by
McGonagall, William Topaz
...ve-fold complex-nature.
So turn him over on his toes again;
Four pin-point toes, and a problematical thumb-piece,
Four rowing limbs, and one wedge-balancing head,
Four and one makes five, which is the clue to all mathematics.
The Lord wrote it all down on the little slate
Of the baby tortoise.
Outward and visible indication of the plan within,
The complex, manifold involvednes,s of an individual creature
Plotted out
On this small bird, this rudiment,
This little dome, this ...Read more of this...
by
Lawrence, D. H.
...uld be
Our luxury!
Futile -- the Winds --
To a Heart in port --
Done with the Compass --
Done with the Chart!
Rowing in Eden --
Ah, the Sea!
Might I but moor -- Tonight --
In Thee!...Read more of this...
by
Dickinson, Emily
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