Famous Ruffled Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Alastor: or the Spirit of Solitude

...in a silver vision floats
Obedient to the sweep of odorous winds
Upon resplendent clouds, so rapidly
Along the dark and ruffled waters fled
The straining boat. A whirlwind swept it on, 
With fierce gusts and precipitating force,
Through the white ridges of the chafèd sea.
The waves arose. Higher and higher still
Their fierce necks writhed beneath the tempest's scourge
Like serpents struggling in a vulture's grasp.
Calm and rejoicing in the fearful war
Of wave ruining on wave,...Read more of this...
by Shelley, Percy Bysshe


All My Pretty Ones

...faces. They must go. 

But the eyes, as thick as wood in this album,
hold me. I stop here, where a small boy
waits in a ruffled dress for someone to come...
for this soldier who holds his bugle like a toy 
or for this velvet lady who cannot smile.
Is this your father's father, this Commodore 
in a mailman suit? My father, time meanwhile
has made it unimportant who you are looking for. 
I'll never know what these faces are all about. 
I lock them into their book and throw them...Read more of this...
by Sexton, Anne

Comus

...se, Contemplation,
She plumes her feathers, and lets grow her wings,
That, in the various bustle of resort,
Were all to-ruffled, and sometimes impaired.
He that has light within his own clear breast
May sit i' the centre, and enjoy bright day:
But he that hides a dark soul and foul thoughts
Benighted walks under the mid-day sun;
Himself is his own dungeon.
 SEC. BRO. 'Tis most true
That musing meditation most affects
The pensive secrecy of desert cell,
Far from the cheerful h...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Courage

...little brown chicks scattered and scuffled,
Under the blue-berries hiding in fear;
Mother-grouse cackling, feathers all ruffled,
Dashed to defend them as we drew near.
Heart of a heroine, how I admired her!
Of such devotion great poets have sung;
Homes have been blest by the love that inspired her,
Risking her life for the sake of her young.

Ten little chicks on her valour reliant,
Peered with bright eyes from the bilberry spray;
Fiercely she faced us, dismayed but defiant,
...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William

Discontent

...LIGHT human nature is too lightly tost
And ruffled without cause, complaining on--
Restless with rest, until, being overthrown,
It learneth to lie quiet. Let a frost
Or a small wasp have crept to the inner-most
Of our ripe peach, or let the wilful sun
Shine westward of our window,--straight we run
A furlong's sigh as if the world were lost.
But what time through the heart and through the brain
God ha...Read more of this...
by Browning, Elizabeth Barrett


Dutch lullaby

...d.

The old moon laughed and sung a song,
As they rocked in the wooden shoe;
And the wind that sped them all night long
Ruffled the waves of dew;
The little stars were the herring-fish
That lived in the beautiful sea.
"Now cast your nets wherever you wish,
But never afeard are we!"
So cried the stars to the fishermen three,
Wynken,
Blynken,
And Nod.

All night long their nets they threw
For the fish in the twinkling foam,
Then down from the sky came the wooden shoe,
Bringing ...Read more of this...
by Field, Eugene

Endymion: Book I

...s, glooms, the birth, life, death
Of unseen flowers in heavy peacefulness;
Who lov'st to see the hamadryads dress
Their ruffled locks where meeting hazels darken;
And through whole solemn hours dost sit, and hearken
The dreary melody of bedded reeds--
In desolate places, where dank moisture breeds
The pipy hemlock to strange overgrowth;
Bethinking thee, how melancholy loth
Thou wast to lose fair Syrinx--do thou now,
By thy love's milky brow!
By all the trembling mazes that sh...Read more of this...
by Keats, John

Endymion: Book II

..., who can write
Of these first minutes? The unchariest muse
To embracements warm as theirs makes coy excuse.

 O it has ruffled every spirit there,
Saving love's self, who stands superb to share
The general gladness: awfully he stands;
A sovereign quell is in his waving hands;
No sight can bear the lightning of his bow;
His quiver is mysterious, none can know
What themselves think of it; from forth his eyes
There darts strange light of varied hues and dyes:
A scowl is sometim...Read more of this...
by Keats, John

Fishing On The Susquehanna In July

...hen 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 trees along the banks,
and a fellow with a red bandana

sitting in a small, green
flat-bottom boat
holding the thin whip of a pole.

That is something I am unlikely
ever to do, I remember
saying to myself and the person next to me.

Then I blinked and moved on
to other American scenes
of haystacks, water whitening over rocks,

even one of ...Read more of this...
by Collins, Billy

Guinevere

...rice 
Full sharply smote his knees, and smiled, and went: 
But, ever after, the small violence done 
Rankled in him and ruffled all his heart, 
As the sharp wind that ruffles all day long 
A little bitter pool about a stone 
On the bare coast. 

But when Sir Lancelot told 
This matter to the Queen, at first she laughed 
Lightly, to think of Modred's dusty fall, 
Then shuddered, as the village wife who cries 
`I shudder, some one steps across my grave;' 
Then laughed again, bu...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord

In Memory of Jane Fraser

...hain
Creation to a stunned repose.

She died before the world could stir.
In March the ice unloosed the brook
And water ruffled the sun's hair.
Dead cones upon the alder shook....Read more of this...
by Hill, Geoffrey

One Morning

...ittle, stood again -- a hieroglyph
or just longevity reflecting on itself
between the sky clouding over and the lightly ruffled water.

This was the morning after your dream of dying, of being held
and told it didn't matter. A butterfly went jinking over
the wave-silky stones, and where I turned
to go up the road again, a couple in a blue camper sat
smoking their cigarettes over their breakfast coffee (blue
scent of smoke, the thick dark smell of fresh coffee)
and talking in ...Read more of this...
by Grennan, Eamon

Punctuality

...pace,
As though a birthday gift.

And when the hour arrives, be there,
Where'er that "there" may be;
Uncleanly hands or ruffled hair
Let no one ever see.

If dinner at "half-past" be placed,
At "half-past" then be dressed.
If at a "quarter-past" make haste
To be down with the rest

Better to be before you time,
Than e're to be behind;
To open the door while strikes the chime,
That shows a punctual mind. 

Moral:

Let punctuality and care
Seize every flitting hour,
So shalt th...Read more of this...
by Carroll, Lewis

Summer

...ds the hot, blue mid-day sky,
Far down the hillside lies the sleeping lake
Lazily reflecting back the sun,
And scarcely ruffled by the little breeze
Which wanders idly through the nodding ferns.
The blue crest of the distant mountain, tops
The green crest of the hill on which I sit;
And it is summer, glorious, deep-toned summer,
The very crown of nature's changing year
When all her surging life is at its full.
To me alone it is a time of pause,
A void and silent space between...Read more of this...
by Lowell, Amy

The Cremona Violin

...laced
With silver, and he wore his own brown hair
Tied, but unpowdered. His whole bearing graced
A fine cloth coat, and ruffled shirt, and chased
Sword-hilt. Charlotta looked, but her position
Was hardly easy. When would his volition
Suggest his walking on? And then that 
tune!
A half-a-dozen bars from `Orfeo'
Gone over and over, and murdered. What Fortune
Had brought him there to stare about him so?
"Ach, Gott im Himmel! Why will he not go!"
Thought Lotta, but the young man ...Read more of this...
by Lowell, Amy

The Giaour

...obly walks the water;
So moved on earth Circassia’s daughter,
The loveliest bird of Franguestan!
As rears her crest the ruffled swan,
And spurns the wave with wings of pride,
When pass the steps of stranger man
Along the banks that bound her tide;
Thus rose fair Leila’s whiter neck:-
Thus armed with beauty would she check
Intrusion’s glance, till folly’s gaze
Shrunk from the charms it meant to praise:
Thus high and graceful as her gait;
Her heart as tender to her mate;
Her ma...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)

The Lady of the Lake

...en,
     Closer she drew her bosom's screen;—
     So forth the startled swan would swing,
     So turn to prune his ruffled wing.
     Then safe, though fluttered and amazed,
     She paused, and on the stranger gazed.
     Not his the form, nor his the eye,
     That youthful maidens wont to fly.
     XXI.

     On his bold visage middle age
     Had slightly pressed its signet sage,
     Yet had not quenched the open truth
     And fiery vehemence of youth;
 ...Read more of this...
by Scott, Sir Walter

The Lay of a Golden Goose

...e waters still, 
Where the parental goose could rest 
Unvexed by any bill. 

And here she paused to smooth her plumes, 
Ruffled by many plagues; 
When suddenly arose the cry, 
"This goose lays golden eggs." 

At once the farmyard was agog; 
The ducks began to quack; 
Prim Guinea fowls relenting called, 
"Come back, come back, come back." 

Great chanticleer was pleased to give 
A patronizing crow, 
And the contemptuous biddies clucked, 
"I wish my chicks did so." 

The peacoc...Read more of this...
by Alcott, Louisa May

The Siege of Corinth

...'d from afar complainingly, 
With mix'd and mournful sound, 
Like crying babe, and beaten hound: 
With sudden wing, and ruffled breast, 
The eagle left his rocky nest, 
And mounted nearer to the sun, 
The clouds beneath him seem'd so dun 
Their smoke assail'd his startled beak, 
And made him higher soar and shriek — 
Thus was Corinth lost and won!...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)

Tunbridge Wells

...wit, whose business was to woo,
With hat removed and solemn scrape of shoe
Advanceth bowing, then genteelly shrugs,
And ruffled foretop into order tugs,
And thus accosts her: "Madam, methinks the weather
Is grown much more serene since you came hither.
You influence the heavens; but should the sun
Withdraw himself to see his rays outdone
By your bright eyes, they would supply the morn,
And make a day before the day be born."
With mouth screwed up, conceited winking eyes,
And ...Read more of this...
by Wilmot, John

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