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Famous Sank Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry
...aint-work all was spatter dashed with other peoples brains, 
She was boarded, she was looted, she was scuttled till she sank. 
And the pale survivors left us by the medium of the plank. 

O! then it was (while standing by the taffrail on the poop) 
We could hear the drowning folk lament the absent chicken coop; 
Then, having washed the blood away, we'd little else to do 
Than to dance a quiet hornpipe as the old salts taught us to. 

O! the fiddle on the fo'c'sle, and the sla...Read more of this...
by Masefield, John



...the wings of the song birds rose.

You swallowed everything, like distance.
Like the sea, like time. In you everything sank!

It was the happy hour of assault and the kiss.
The hour of the spell that blazed like a lighthouse.

Pilot's dread, fury of blind driver,
turbulent drunkenness of love, in you everything sank!

In the childhood of mist my soul, winged and wounded.
Lost discoverer, in you everything sank!

You girdled sorrow, you clung to desire,
sadness stunned you, i...Read more of this...
by Neruda, Pablo
...own on one of them, with all my clothes on, 
Like a man getting into his own grave, 
I lay—and waited. As the firelight sank, 
The moonlight, which had partly been consumed 
By the black trees, framed on the other wall
A glimmering window not far from the ground. 
The coals were going, and only a few sparks 
Were there to tell of them; and as they died 
The window lightened, and I saw the trees. 
They moved a little, but I could not move,
More than to turn my face the other w...Read more of this...
by Robinson, Edwin Arlington
...o the habitations of men, just as it always does
attending to time perpetually, weather glory-bright.
Then the winter sank away, the lap of the earth lovely. (ll. 1125-37a)

The exiled guest went out from the yard—
he thought more about a terrible vengeance
than about the sea-paths, if he could call to order
the miserable moot that he envisioned for the sons of the Jutes.
And so he did not shun the worldly custom,
when Hunlafing placed upon his lap,
the battle-brigh...Read more of this...
by Anonymous,
...
on the fathomless sea-ways sailor-folk
are never molested. -- Light from east,
came bright God’s beacon; the billows sank,
so that I saw the sea-cliffs high,
windy walls. For Wyrd oft saveth
earl undoomed if he doughty be!
And so it came that I killed with my sword
nine of the nicors. Of night-fought battles
ne’er heard I a harder ’neath heaven’s dome,
nor adrift on the deep a more desolate man!
Yet I came unharmed from that hostile clutch,
though spent with swimm...Read more of this...
by Anonymous,



...of venged divinity
Pale Pallas swept with shrill and steely clank,
And a few gurgling bubbles rose where her boy lover sank.

And the mast shuddered as the gaunt owl flew
With mocking hoots after the wrathful Queen,
And the old pilot bade the trembling crew
Hoist the big sail, and told how he had seen
Close to the stern a dim and giant form,
And like a dipping swallow the stout ship dashed through the storm.

And no man dared to speak of Charmides
Deeming that he some evil t...Read more of this...
by Wilde, Oscar
...his slow approach with words of affectionate welcome.
Then came the laborers home from the field, and serenely the sun sank
Down to his rest, and twilight prevailed. Anon from the belfry
Softly the Angelus sounded, and over the roofs of the village
Columns of pale blue smoke, like clouds of incense ascending,
Rose from a hundred hearths, the homes of peace and contentment.
Thus dwelt together in love these simple Acadian farmers,--
Dwelt in the love of God and of man. Alike ...Read more of this...
by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...hem down shuddering mouth-wracked and battered bleak of brain all drained of brilliance in the drear light of Zoo,
who sank all night in submarine light of Bickford’s floated out and sat through the stale beer afternoon in desolate Fugazzi’s, listening to the crack of doom on the hydrogen jukebox,
who talked continuously seventy hours from park to pad to bar to Bellevue to museum to the Brooklyn Bridge,
a lost battalion of platonic conversationalists jumping down the stoop...Read more of this...
by Ginsberg, Allen
...f despair.
Creus was one; his ponderous iron mace
Lay by him, and a shatter'd rib of rock
Told of his rage, ere he thus sank and pined.
Iapetus another; in his grasp,
A serpent's plashy neck; its barbed tongue
Squeez'd from the gorge, and all its uncurl'd length
Dead: and because the creature could not spit
Its poison in the eyes of conquering Jove.
Next Cottus: prone he lay, chin uppermost,
As though in pain; for still upon the flint
He ground severe his skull, with open mou...Read more of this...
by Keats, John
...h, that so 
 For me be consolation. Thou shalt say, 
 "I come from Beatric?." Downward far, 
 From Heaven to I leaven I sank, from star to star, 
 To find thee, and to point his rescuing way. 
 Fain would I to my place of light return; 
 Love moved me from it, and gave me power to learn 
 Thy speech. When next before my Lord I stand 
 I very oft shall praise thee.' 
 Here
 she ceased, 
 And I gave answer to that dear command, 
 'Lady, alone through whom the whole race of thos...Read more of this...
by Alighieri, Dante
...n is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay....Read more of this...
by Frost, Robert
...he west the circling clouds had spun
A royal robe, which some great God might wear,
While into ocean-seas of purple air
Sank the gold galley of the Lord of Light.

Yet here the gentle stillness of the night
Brings back the swelling tide of memory,
And wakes again my passionate love for thee:
Now is the Spring of Love, yet soon will come
On meadow and tree the Summer's lordly bloom;
And soon the grass with brighter flowers will blow,
And send up lilies for some boy to mow.
The...Read more of this...
by Wilde, Oscar
...ng moon. 
Slow tracing down the thickening sky 
Its mute and ominous prophecy, 
A portent seeming less than threat, 
It sank from sight before it set. 
A chill no coat, however stout, 
Of homespun stuff could quite shut out, 
A hard, dull bitterness of cold, 
That checked, mid-vein, the circling race 
Of life-blood in the sharpened face, 
The coming of the snow-storm told. 
The wind blew east; we heard the roar 
Of Ocean on his wintry shore, 
And felt the strong pulse throbbi...Read more of this...
by Whittier, John Greenleaf
...ugh my embouchures my loudest and gayest for them. 

Vivas to those who have fail’d! 
And to those whose war-vessels sank in the sea!
And to those themselves who sank in the sea! 
And to all generals that lost engagements! and all overcome heroes! 
And the numberless unknown heroes, equal to the greatest heroes known. 

19
This is the meal equally set—this is the meat for natural hunger; 
It is for the wicked just the same as the righteous—I make appointments
 with...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt
...pagan sway
Had swirled his sires as sticks away
When a flood smites the sea.

And the great kings of Wessex
Wearied and sank in gore,
And even their ghosts in that great stress
Grew greyer and greyer, less and less,
With the lords that died in Lyonesse
And the king that comes no more.

And the God of the Golden Dragon
Was dumb upon his throne,
And the lord of the Golden Dragon
Ran in the woods alone.

And if ever he climbed the crest of luck
And set the flag before,
Returning...Read more of this...
by Chesterton, G K
...voice in ev'ry blast,
Could catch the sound no more.
For then, by toil subdued, he drank
The stifling wave, and then he sank.

No poet wept him: but the page
Of narrative sincere;
That tells his name, his worth, his age,
Is wet with Anson's tear.
And tears by bards or heroes shed
Alike immortalize the dead.

I therefore purpose not, or dream,
Descanting on his fate,
To give the melancholy theme
A more enduring date:
But misery still delights to trace
Its semblance in another'...Read more of this...
by Cowper, William
...and half despair,
Creaked the door of his garret den; Dick, his brother, was standing there.
Down on the pallet bed he sank, ashen his face, his voice a wail:
"Save me, brother! I've robbed the bank; to-morrow it's ruin, capture, gaol.
Yet there's a chance: I could to-day pay back the money, save our name;
You have a manuscript, they say, worth a thousand -- think, man! the shame. . . ."
Brown with his heart pain-pierced the while, with his stern, starved face,
 and his lips...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William
...n full evening dress,
And with senseless grimaces endeavoured to say
 What his tongue could no longer express.

Down he sank in a chair--ran his hands through his hair--
 And chanted in mimsiest tones
Words whose utter inanity proved his insanity,
 While he rattled a couple of bones.

"Leave him here to his fate--it is getting so late!"
 The Bellman exclaimed in a fright.
"We have lost half the day. Any further delay,
 And we sha'nt catch a Snark before night!"


FIT VIII.--T...Read more of this...
by Carroll, Lewis
...ones
Along the sides of his cracking bones.
But he laughed as he staggered towards the door,
And he laughed aloud as he sank on the floor.

The Coroner took the body away,
And the watches were sold that Saturday.
The Auctioneer said one could seldom buy
Such watches, and the prices were high....Read more of this...
by Lowell, Amy
...e Destinies 
Woven for the Laureate's final wreath, whene'er 
Reform shall happen either here or there. 

CV 

He first sank to the bottom - like his works, 
But soon rose to the surface — like himself; 
For all corrupted things are bouy'd like corks,(4) 
By their own rottenness, light as an elf, 
Or wisp that flits o'er a morass: he lurks, 
It may be, still, like dull books on a shelf, 
In his own den, to scrawl some 'Life' or 'Vision,' 
As Welborn says — 'the devil turn'd p...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry