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Famous Scales Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry
...golden breastplate, swings
in his predicted circle, gilded legs and wings
bright with frost, predicting frost. The tide
scales with moon-silver, floods the marsh, fulfils
Payne Creek and Quivett Creek, rises to lift
the fishing-boats against a jetty wall;
and past them floods the plankton and the weed
and limp sea-lettuce for the horseshoe crab
who sleeps till daybreak in his nest of reed.
The hour is open as the mind is open.
Closed as the mind is closed. Opens as the hand o...Read more of this...
by Aiken, Conrad



...of the pen 
 That keeps the fool's conceit. 

 L 
PRAISE above all—for praise prevails; 
Heap up the measure, load the scales, 
 And good to goodness add: 
The gen'rous soul her Saviour aids, 
But peevish obloquy degrades; 
 The Lord is great and glad. 

 LI 
For ADORATION all the ranks 
Of angels yield eternal thanks, 
 And DAVID in the midst; 
With God's good poor, which last and least 
In man's esteem, thou to thy feast, 
 O blessed bridegroom, bidst. 
 LII 
For ADORATION...Read more of this...
by Smart, Christopher
...Under its burnished belly slips a ray of eventide, 
The flickerings of a hundred glowing clouds in tenebrous side 
With scales of golden mail ensheathe. 

Then mounts a palace, then the air vibrates--the vision flees. 
Confounded to its base, the fearful cloudy edifice 
Ruins immense in mounded wrack; 
Afar the fragments strew the sky, and each envermeiled cone 
Hangeth, peak downward, overhead, like mountains overthrown 
When the earthquake heaves its hugy back. 

These vapo...Read more of this...
by Hugo, Victor
...d of his company, behind his steep shield
when the wyrm quickly coiled itself together—
it awaited him in its armored scales.
Then it turned, burning, slithering forward, coiled up,
rushing toward its destiny. The shield sheltered
the life and body of that famous prince
for a shorter time, that his desire had hoped,
where for the space of that very first day,
he would not be allowed to take control
of glory in battle, just as the way of the world
had decreed for him...Read more of this...
by Anonymous,
...assed and done with. I, then, keep the line 
Before your sages,--just the men to shrink 
From the gross weights, coarse scales and labels broad 
You offer their refinement. Fool or knave? 
Why needs a bishop be a fool or knave 
When there's a thousand diamond weights between? 
So, I enlist them. Your picked twelve, you'll find, 
Profess themselves indignant, scandalized 
At thus being held unable to explain 
How a superior man who disbelieves 
May not believe as well: that's ...Read more of this...
by Browning, Robert



...emones
Will wave their purple fringes where we tread
Upon the mirrored floor, and argosies
Of fishes flecked with tawny scales will thread
The drifting cordage of the shattered wreck,
And honey-coloured amber beads our twining limbs will deck.'

But when that baffled Lord of War the Sun
With gaudy pennon flying passed away
Into his brazen House, and one by one
The little yellow stars began to stray
Across the field of heaven, ah! then indeed
She feared his lips upon her lips ...Read more of this...
by Wilde, Oscar
...Somebody found my chrysalis 
And shut it in a match-box. 
My shrivelled wings were beaten, 
Shed their colours in dusty scales 
Before the box was opened 
For the moth to fly. 

III 

I hate that town; 
I hate the town I lived in when I was little; 
I hate to think of it. 
There wre always clouds, smoke, rain 
In that dingly little valley. 
It rained; it always rained. 
I think I never saw the sun until I was nine -- 
And then it was too late; 
Everything's too late after the...Read more of this...
by Aldington, Richard
...me I no longer remember,
Raised aloft on a column, a brazen statue of Justice
Stood in the public square, upholding the scales in its left hand,
And in its right a sword, as an emblem that justice presided
Over the laws of the land, and the hearts and homes of the people.
Even the birds had built their nests in the scales of the balance,
Having no fear of the sword that flashed in the sunshine above them.
But in the course of time the laws of the land were corrupted;
Might to...Read more of this...
by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...ed, 
 And men and horses' armor interlaced 
 Blent horribly; the man and steed we feel 
 Made but one hydra with its scales of steel. 
 Yet is there history here. Each coat of mail 
 Is representant of some stirring tale. 
 Each delta-shaped escutcheon shines to show 
 A vision of the chief by it we know. 
 Here are the blood-stained Dukes' and Marquis' line, 
 Barbaric lords, who amid war's rapine 
 Bore gilded saints upon their banners still 
 Painted on fishes' ...Read more of this...
by Hugo, Victor
...ith violence of this conflict, had not soon 
The Eternal, to prevent such horrid fray, 
Hung forth in Heaven his golden scales, yet seen 
Betwixt Astrea and the Scorpion sign, 
Wherein all things created first he weighed, 
The pendulous round earth with balanced air 
In counterpoise, now ponders all events, 
Battles and realms: In these he put two weights, 
The sequel each of parting and of fight: 
The latter quick up flew, and kicked the beam, 
Which Gabriel spying, thus bes...Read more of this...
by Milton, John
...
Atlantick Sisters, and the Spartan Twins, 
Up to the Tropick Crab: thence down amain 
By Leo, and the Virgin, and the Scales, 
As deep as Capricorn; to bring in change 
Of seasons to each clime; else had the spring 
Perpetual smiled on earth with vernant flowers, 
Equal in days and nights, except to those 
Beyond the polar circles; to them day 
Had unbenighted shone, while the low sun, 
To recompense his distance, in their sight 
Had rounded still the horizon, and not known...Read more of this...
by Milton, John
...it veers in and out, back and forth,
Refusing to surround us and still the only
Thing we can see? Love once
Tipped the scales but now is shadowed, invisible,
Though mysteriously present, around somewhere.
But we know it cannot be sandwiched
Between two adjacent moments, that its windings
Lead nowhere except to further tributaries
And that these empty themselves into a vague
Sense of something that can never be known
Even though it seems likely that each of us
Knows what it i...Read more of this...
by Ashbery, John
...in your arms alone,
Soon as his knowledge, beauty-ripe at last.
To art ennobled shall have grown,--
Soon as with you he scales a mountain-height,
And there, illumined by the setting sun,
The smiling valley bursts upon his sight.
The richer ye reward the eager gaze
The higher, fairer orders that the mind
May traverse with its magic rays,
Or compass with enjoyment unconfined--
The wider thoughts and feelings open lie
To more luxuriant floods of harmony.
To beauty's richer, more...Read more of this...
by Schiller, Friedrich von
...neath — his golden plated vest 
Clung like a cuirass to his breast 
The greaves below his knee that wound 
With silvery scales were sheathed and bound. 
But were it not that high command 
Spake in his eye, and tone, and hand, 
All that a careless eye could see 
In him was some young Galiong?e. [28] 

X. 

"I said I was not what I seem'd; 
And now thou see'st my words were true: 
I have a tale thou hast not dream'd, 
If sooth — its truth must others rue. 
My story now 'twere v...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)
...lazy pike lies basking in the sun,
His eyes half shut, - he is some mitred old
Bishop in PARTIBUS! look at those gaudy scales all green and gold.

The wind the restless prisoner of the trees
Does well for Palaestrina, one would say
The mighty master's hands were on the keys
Of the Maria organ, which they play
When early on some sapphire Easter morn
In a high litter red as blood or sin the Pope is borne

From his dark House out to the Balcony
Above the bronze gates and the cr...Read more of this...
by Wilde, Oscar
...y hiss and melt on the window.
In one room, minute by minute, the flutist plays
The lamplit page of music, the tireless scales.
His hands are trembling, his short breath fails.

In one room, silently, lover looks upon lover,
And thinks the air is fire.
The drunkard swears and touches the harlot's heartstrings
With the sudden hand of desire.

And one goes late in the streets, and thinks of murder;
And one lies staring, and thinks of death.
And one, who has suffered, clenches h...Read more of this...
by Aiken, Conrad
...ere death 
Has the imprints of life 

VII. A flawless fire 

The threat under the red sky 
Came from below -- jaws 
And scales and links 
Of a slippery, heavy chain 

Life was spread about generously 
So that death took seriously 
The debt it was paid without a thought 

Death was the God of love 
And the conquerors in a kiss 
Swooned upon their victims 
Corruption gained courage 

And yet, beneath the red sky 
Under the appetites for blood 
Under the dismal starvation 
The c...Read more of this...
by Eluard, Paul
...he rocky way,
     Of stature tall and poor array?
     Mark'st thou the firm, yet active stride,
     With which he scales the mountain-side?
     Know'st thou from whence he comes, or whom?'
     'No, by my word;—a burly groom
     He seems, who in the field or chase
     A baron's train would nobly grace—'
     'Out, out, De Vaux! can fear supply,
     And jealousy, no sharper eye?
     Afar, ere to the hill he drew,
     That stately form and step I knew;
    ...Read more of this...
by Scott, Sir Walter
...own;
She smil'd to see the doughty Hero slain,
But at her Smile, the Beau reviv'd again. 

Now Jove suspends his golden Scales in Air,
Weighs the Mens Wits against the Lady's Hair;
The doubtful Beam long nods from side to side;
At length the Wits mount up, the Hairs subside.

See fierce Belinda on the Baron flies,
With more than usual Lightning in her Eyes;
Nor fear'd the Chief th' unequal Fight to try,
Who sought no more than on his Foe to die.
But this bold Lord, with manly...Read more of this...
by Pope, Alexander
...COND VOICE:
There is the moon in the high window. It is over.
How winter fills my soul! And that chalk light
Laying its scales on the windows, the windows of empty offices,
Empty schoolrooms, empty churches. O so much emptiness!
There is this cessation. This terrible cessation of everything.
These bodies mounded around me now, these polar sleepers--
What blue, moony ray ices their dreams?

I feel it enter me, cold, alien, like an instrument.
And that mad, hard face at the end...Read more of this...
by Plath, Sylvia

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Book: Reflection on the Important Things