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Famous Rung Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry
...ll of sparks divine,
And all my heather-couch was wreathed
By that celestial shine! 

And, while the wide earth echoing rung
To their strange minstrelsy,
The little glittering spirits sung,
Or seemed to sing, to me. 

"O mortal! mortal! let them die;
Let time and tears destroy,
That we may overflow the sky
With universal joy! 

Let grief distract the sufferer's breast,
And night obscure his way;
They hasten him to endless rest,
And everlasting day. 

To thee the world is like...Read more of this...
by Brontë, Emily



...ves in a higher sphere than senates grave, 
Or mix'd assembly, or the hall of kings, 
Which erst with pompous panegyric rung. 
Vain words and soothing flattery she hates, 
And feigned tears, and tongue which silver-tipt 
Moves in the cause of wickedness and pride. 
She mourns not that fair liberty depress'd 
Which kings tyrannic can extort, but that 
Pure freedom of the soul to truth divine 
Which first indulg'd her and with envious hand 
Pluck'd thence, left hideous slavery ...Read more of this...
by Brackenridge, Hugh Henry
...lness with Obscenity must prove
As Shameful sure as Importance in Love.
In the fat Age of Pleasure, Wealth, and Ease,
Sprung the rank Weed, and thriv'd with large Increase;
When Love was all an easie Monarch's Care;
Seldom at Council, never in a War:
Jilts rul'd the State, and Statesmen Farces writ;
Nay Wits had Pensions, and young Lords had Wit:
The Fair sate panting at a Courtier's Play,
And not a Mask went un-improv'd away:
The modest Fan was liked up no more,
And Virgins ...Read more of this...
by Pope, Alexander
...know what it is for,
we who have used it.
Otherwise
it is a piece of maritime floss
some sundry equipment.

I go down.
Rung after rung and still
the oxygen immerses me
the blue light
the clear atoms
of our human air.
I go down.
My flippers cripple me,
I crawl like an insect down the ladder
and there is no one
to tell me when the ocean
will begin.

First the air is blue and then
it is bluer and then green and then
black I am blacking out and yet
my mask is powerful
it pumps m...Read more of this...
by Rich, Adrienne
...ded homewards, and the seagull:
And under the oppression of the silent fog
The tolling bell
Measures time not our time, rung by the unhurried
Ground swell, a time
Older than the time of chronometers, older
Than time counted by anxious worried women
Lying awake, calculating the future,
Trying to unweave, unwind, unravel
And piece together the past and the future,
Between midnight and dawn, when the past is all deception,
The future futureless, before the morning watch
When tim...Read more of this...
by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)



...her bleeding in the dust,
He raised her up and whispered, 'Hope and Trust.'

For her his voice, a fearless clarion, rung
That broke in warning on the ears of men;
For her the strong bow of his pow'r he strung
And sent his arrows to the very den
Where grim Oppression held his bloody place
And gloated o'er the mis'ries of a race.

And he was no soft-tongued apologist;
He spoke straight-forward, fearlessly uncowed;
The sunlight of his truth dispelled the mist
And s...Read more of this...
by Laurence Dunbar, Paul
...rts,
Whether I took the lead, or in character parts.
I have sat by the bedside of poor Little Nell;
When the Curfew was rung, then I swung on the bell.
In the Pantomime season I never fell flat,
And I once understudied Dick Whittington's Cat.
But my grandest creation, as history will tell,
Was Firefrorefiddle, the Fiend of the Fell."

Then, if someone will give him a toothful of gin,
He will tell how he once played a part in East Lynne.
At a Shakespeare performance he once wa...Read more of this...
by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
...eed.

Ah! it was easy when the world was young
To keep one's life free and inviolate,
From our sad lips another song is rung,
By our own hands our heads are desecrate,
Wanderers in drear exile, and dispossessed
Of what should be our own, we can but feed on wild unrest.

Somehow the grace, the bloom of things has flown,
And of all men we are most wretched who
Must live each other's lives and not our own
For very pity's sake and then undo
All that we lived for - it was otherwis...Read more of this...
by Wilde, Oscar
...t sea
Of dancing, glittering, blending tone,
Where every instrument is sounding free,
And harps like wedding-chimes are rung, and trumpets blown
Around the barque of love
That sweeps, with smiling skies above,
A royal galley, many-oared,
Into the happy harbour of the perfect chord.


IX

IRIS

Light to the eye and Music to the ear,--
These are the builders of the bridge that springs
>From earths's dim shore of half-remembered things
To reach the spirit's home, the heavenly sp...Read more of this...
by Dyke, Henry Van
...fairest hopes of man. 

Soon as thy fatal birth was known, 
From her unhallow'd throne
With ghastly smile pale Hecate sprung; 
Thy hideous form the Sorc'ress press'd
With kindred fondness to her breast; 
Her haggard eye
Short forth a ray of transient joy, 
Whilst thro' th' infernal shades exulting clamours rung. 

Above thy fellow fiends thy tyrant hand
Grasp'd with resistless force supreme command: 
The dread terrific crowd
Before thy iron sceptre bow'd. 
Now, seated in thy ...Read more of this...
by Robinson, Mary Darby
...tal sting. About her middle round 
A cry of Hell-hounds never-ceasing barked 
With wide Cerberean mouths full loud, and rung 
A hideous peal; yet, when they list, would creep, 
If aught disturbed their noise, into her womb, 
And kennel there; yet there still barked and howled 
Within unseen. Far less abhorred than these 
Vexed Scylla, bathing in the sea that parts 
Calabria from the hoarse Trinacrian shore; 
Nor uglier follow the night-hag, when, called 
In secret, riding thr...Read more of this...
by Milton, John
...oo easy entrance won: 
Fixed on the fruit she gazed, which to behold 
Might tempt alone; and in her ears the sound 
Yet rung of his persuasive words, impregned 
With reason, to her seeming, and with truth: 
Mean while the hour of noon drew on, and waked 
An eager appetite, raised by the smell 
So savoury of that fruit, which with desire, 
Inclinable now grown to touch or taste, 
Solicited her longing eye; yet first 
Pausing a while, thus to herself she mused. 
Great are thy v...Read more of this...
by Milton, John
...e three steps, ere Music's golden tongue
 Flatter'd to tears this aged man and poor;
 But no--already had his deathbell rung;
 The joys of all his life were said and sung:
 His was harsh penance on St. Agnes' Eve:
 Another way he went, and soon among
 Rough ashes sat he for his soul's reprieve,
And all night kept awake, for sinners' sake to grieve.

 That ancient Beadsman heard the prelude soft;
 And so it chanc'd, for many a door was wide,
 From hurry to and fro. Soon, up al...Read more of this...
by Keats, John
...er assail the shaky ladders Fame has from her niches hung, 
Lest unfriendly heels above you grind your fingers from the rung; 
Or the fools who idle under, envious of your fair renown, 
Heedless of the pain you suffer, do their worst to shake you down. 
At the praise of men, or censure, let your lip in scorn be curled, 
`Self and Pelf', my friend, remember, is the motto of the world. 

`Flowing founts of inspiration leave their sources parched and dry, 
Scalding tears of indi...Read more of this...
by Baudelaire, Charles
...vanished from my sight,
His aspect and his air impressed
A troubled memory on my breast,
And long upon my startled ear
Rung his dark courser's hoofs of fear.
He spurs his steed; he nears the steep,
That, jutting, shadows o'er the deep;
He winds around; he hurries by;
The rock relieves him from mine eye;
For, well I ween, unwelcome he
Whose glance is fixed on those that flee;
And not a start that shines too bright
On him who takes such timeless flight.
He wound along; but ere...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)
...e rode down to Camelot: 
And from his blazon'd baldric slung 
A mighty silver bugle hung, 
And as he rode his armour rung, 
Beside remote Shalott. 90 

All in the blue unclouded weather 
Thick-jewell'd shone the saddle-leather, 
The helmet and the helmet-feather 
Burn'd like one burning flame together, 
As he rode down to Camelot. 95 
As often thro' the purple night, 
Below the starry clusters bright, 
Some bearded meteor, trailing light, 
Moves over still Shalo...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...who hears his warder call,
     'To arms! the foemen storm the wall,'
     The antlered monarch of the waste
     Sprung from his heathery couch in haste.
     But ere his fleet career he took,
     The dew-drops from his flanks he shook;
     Like crested leader proud and high
     Tossed his beamed frontlet to the sky;
     A moment gazed adown the dale,
     A moment snuffed the tainted gale,
     A moment listened to the cry,
     That thickened as the chase d...Read more of this...
by Scott, Sir Walter
...ust eclipse the Day;
Now Lapdogs give themselves the rowzing Shake,
And sleepless Lovers, just at Twelve, awake:
Thrice rung the Bell, the Slipper knock'd the Ground,
And the press'd Watch return'd a silver Sound.
Belinda still her downy Pillow prest, 
Her Guardian Sylph prolong'd the balmy Rest. 
'Twas he had summon'd to her silent Bed
The Morning-Dream that hover'd o'er her Head.
A Youth more glitt'ring than a Birth-night Beau,
(That ev'n in Slumber caus'd her Cheek to glow...Read more of this...
by Pope, Alexander
...he prelude to that noble play, 
The drama of Joined Lives? Ah, they forget 
They cannot write their parts; the bell has rung, 
The curtain rises and the stage is set 
For tragedy-they were in love and young. 

V
We went to the Tower,
We went to the Zoo, 
We saw every flower 
In the gardens at Kew. 
We saw King Charles a-prancing
On his long-tailed horse, 
And thought him more entrancing
Than better kings, of course. 
At a strange early hour, 
In St. James's palace yard, 
We w...Read more of this...
by Miller, Alice Duer
...dness
By which to imagine the face.



On a late afternoon of snow
In a dim badly-aired grocery,

Where a door has just rung
With a short, shrill echo,

A little boy hands the old,
Hard-faced woman

Bending low over the counter,
A shiny nickel for a cupcake.

Now only that shine, now
Only that lull abides.



That your gaze
Be merciful,

Sister, bride
Of my first hopeless insomnia.

Kind nurse, show me
The place of salves.

Teach me the song
That makes a man rise

His glass a...Read more of this...
by Simic, Charles

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Book: Reflection on the Important Things