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Famous Seized Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Shelley, Percy Bysshe
...er it. I' the midst was left,
Reflecting yet distorting every cloud,
A pool of treacherous and tremendous calm.
Seized by the sway of the ascending stream,
With dizzy swiftness, round and round and round,
Ridge after ridge the straining boat arose,
Till on the verge of the extremest curve, 
Where through an opening of the rocky bank
The waters overflow, and a smooth spot
Of glassy quiet 'mid those battling tides
Is left, the boat paused shuddering.--Shall it sink
...Read more of this...



by Wilcox, Ella Wheeler
...above, 
While priests proclaim the law of Christ, the King of Love.



III.
The avaricious and encroaching rail
Seized the wide fields which knew the Indians' trail.
Back to the reservations in the West
The native owners of the land were pressed, 
And selfish cities, harbingers of want, 
Shut from their vision each accustomed haunt.
Yet hungry Progress, never satisfied, 
Gazed on the western plains, and gazing, longed and sighed.



IV.
As some strange...Read more of this...

by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...s, after the tocsin's alarum, distinctly the clock strikes.
"What is this that ye do, my children? what madness has seized you?
Forty years of my life have I labored among you, and taught you,
Not in word alone, but in deed, to love one another!
Is this the fruit of my toils, of my vigils and prayers and privations?
Have you so soon forgotten all lessons of love and forgiveness?
This is the house of the Prince of Peace, and would you profane
it
Thus with violent deeds and...Read more of this...

by Hugo, Victor
...n had one aim, it was to take 
 All land he could, and it his own to make. 
 The Pole already having Baltic shore, 
 Seized Celtic ports, still needing more and more. 
 On all the Northern Sea his crafts roused fear: 
 Iceland beheld his demon navy near. 
 Antwerp the German burnt; and Prussias twain 
 Bowed to the yoke. The Polish King was fain 
 To help the Russian Spotocus—his aid 
 Was like the help that in their common trade 
 A sturdy butcher gives a weaker on...Read more of this...

by Pinsky, Robert
...d Swahili, and bathed the corpse
From head to foot, and with a final prayer

In Babylonian, gasping with exhaustion,
He seized the dead man's head and kissed the lips
And dropped it again and leaping back commanded,

"Arise and breathe!" The corpse lay still as ever.
At this, as when Bashõ's disciples wind
Along the curving spine that links the renga

Across the different voices, each one adding
A transformation according to the rules
Of stasis and repetition, all in orde...Read more of this...



by Frost, Robert
...amp
And oil are buried out of reach?”
Again
The house was full of tramping, and the dark,
Door-filling men burst in and seized the stove.
A cannon-mouth-like hole was in the wall,
To which they set it true by eye; and then
Came up the jointed stovepipe in their hands,
So much too light and airy for their strength
It almost seemed to come ballooning up,
Slipping from clumsy clutches toward the ceiling.
“A fit!” said one, and banged a stovepipe shoulder.
“It’s good ...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...anger broke; 
Yet there was something fix'd in that low tone 
Which shew'd resolve, determined, though unknown. 
He seized his cloak — his head he slightly bow'd, 
And passing Ezzelin he left the crowd; 
And as he pass'd him, smiling met the frown 
With which that chieftain's brow would bear him down: 
It was nor smile of mirth, nor struggling pride 
That curbs to scorn the wrath it cannot hide; 
But that of one in his own heart secure 
Of all that he would do, or could e...Read more of this...

by Marvell, Andrew
...ht expect, 
Confusion, folly, treach'ry, fear, neglect. 
But when the Royal Charles (what rage, what grief) 
He saw seized, and could give her no relief! 
That sacred keel which had, as he, restored 
His exiled sovereign on its happy board, 
And thence the British Admiral became, 
Crowned, for that merit, with their master's name; 
That pleasure-boat of war, in whose dear side 
Secure so oft he had this foe defied, 
Now a cheap spoil, and the mean victor's slave, 
Taught ...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...ighest worth, unmoved thus spake:-- 
 "O Progeny of Heaven! Empyreal Thrones! 
With reason hath deep silence and demur 
Seized us, though undismayed. Long is the way 
And hard, that out of Hell leads up to light. 
Our prison strong, this huge convex of fire, 
Outrageous to devour, immures us round 
Ninefold; and gates of burning adamant, 
Barred over us, prohibit all egress. 
These passed, if any pass, the void profound 
Of unessential Night receives him next, 
Wi...Read more of this...

by Schiller, Friedrich von
...st Nature's beauteous spirit fled away
Unfelt, untasted, and unknown.

And, as it hovered o'er with parting ray,
Ye seized the shades so neighborly,
With silent hand, with feeling mind,
And taught how they might be combined
In one firm bond of harmony.
The gaze, light-soaring, felt uplifted then,
When first the cedar's slender trunk it viewed;
And pleasingly the ocean's crystal flood
Reflected back the dancing form again.
Could ye mistake the look, with beauty fra...Read more of this...

by Chesterton, G K
...une.

Midmost the saddles rose and swayed,
And a stir of horses' manes,
Where Guthrum and a few rode high
On horses seized in victory;
But Ogier went on foot to die,
In the old way of the Danes.

Far to the King's left Elf the bard
Led on the eastern wing
With songs and spells that change the blood;
And on the King's right Harold stood,
The kinsman of the King.

Young Harold, coarse, with colours gay,
Smoking with oil and musk,
And the pleasant violence of the you...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...ntique Oratory stood
The Boy of whom I spake;—he was alone,
And pale, and pacing to and fro: anon
He sate him down, and seized a pen, and traced
Words which I could not guess of; then he leaned
His bowed head on his hands and shook, as 'twere
With a convulsion—then rose again,
And with his teeth and quivering hands did tear
What he had written, but he shed no tears.
And he did calm himself, and fix his brow
Into a kind of quiet: as he paused,
The Lady of his love re-enter...Read more of this...

by Masefield, John
...ough both the winders 
And knocked the glass to little flinders; 
The punch bowl and the tumblers followed, 
and then I seized the lamps and holloed, 
And down the stairs, and tore back bolts, 
As mad as twenty blooded colts; 
And out into the street I pass, 
As mad as two-year-olds at grass 
A naked madman saving grand 
A blazing lamp in either hand. 
I yelled like twenty drunken sailors, 
:The devil's come among the tailors." 
A blaze of flame behind me streamed, 
A...Read more of this...

by Wordsworth, William
...ittle range of water was denied; [3]  All but the bed where his old body lay.  All, all was seized, and weeping, side by side,  We sought a home where we uninjured might abide. [Footnote 3: Several of the Lakes in the north of England are let out to different Fishermen, in parcels marked out by imaginary lines drawn from rock to rock.]   Can I forget that miserable hour,  When from the las...Read more of this...

by Bridges, Robert Seymour
...e of lament
With flowers and sunshine of spring's sure returning;
Only in visions of the white air wan
By godlike fancy seized and dwelt upon. 

58
When first I saw thee, dearest, if I say
The spells that conjure back the hour and place,
And evermore I look upon thy face,
As in the spring of years long pass'd away;
No fading of thy beauty's rich array,
No detriment of age on thee I trace,
But time's defeat written in spoils of grace,
From rivals robb'd, whom thou didst pi...Read more of this...

by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...world is warmed?" 
And when his answer chafed them, the rough crowd, 
Hearing he had a difference with their priests, 
Seized him, and bound and plunged him into a cell 
Of great piled stones; and lying bounden there 
In darkness through innumerable hours 
He heard the hollow-ringing heavens sweep 
Over him till by miracle--what else?-- 
Heavy as it was, a great stone slipt and fell, 
Such as no wind could move: and through the gap 
Glimmered the streaming scud: then came a ...Read more of this...

by Chaucer, Geoffrey
...all my torment and my woe."

Therewith the fire of jealousy upstart
Within his breast, and hent* him by the heart *seized
So woodly*, that he like was to behold *madly
The box-tree, or the ashes dead and cold.
Then said; "O cruel goddess, that govern
This world with binding of your word etern* *eternal
And writen in the table of adamant
Your parlement* and your eternal grant, *consultation
What is mankind more *unto you y-hold* *by you esteemed
Than is the sheep, tha...Read more of this...

by Scott, Sir Walter
...Speed forth the signal! clansmen, speed!'
     XVIII,

     Angus, the heir of Duncan's line,
     Sprung forth and seized the fatal sign.
     In haste the stripling to his side
      His father's dirk and broadsword tied;
     But when he saw his mother's eye
     Watch him in speechless agony,
     Back to her opened arms he flew
     Pressed on her lips a fond adieu,—
     'Alas' she sobbed,—'and yet be gone,
     And speed thee forth, like Duncan's son!'
   ...Read more of this...

by Brooks, Gwendolyn
...tracted. I have eased
My dim dears at the breasts they could never suck.
I have said, Sweets, if I sinned, if I seized
Your luck
And your lives from your unfinished reach,
If I stole your births and your names,
Your straight baby tears and your games,
Your stilted or lovely loves, your tumults, your marriages, aches,
and your deaths,
If I poisoned the beginnings of your breaths,
Believe that even in my deliberateness I was not deliberate.
Though why should I whine...Read more of this...

by Tebb, Barry
...ather.



Perhaps I have lost that jouissance-and who would not given the tornadoes,

Undivined and undeserved that seized our lives in their burning fury,

Leaving us awake in a world of dark horizons and troubled days,

Our memory a cave of broken shards.



One death came when a brother and a mother gathered so that a father

Might die opportunely and without succour in a hill-top hospital,

Lonely as a scarecrow and inaccessible on the moorland midnight,

Beyond t...Read more of this...

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