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Famous Sidelong Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Field, Eugene
...ened, often he did squeeze a lily hande,
Ye which proceeding ne'er before ben done in Arthure's lande;
And often wank a sidelong wink with either roving eye,
Whereat ye ladies laughen so that they had like to die.
But of ye damosels that sat around Kyng Arthure's table
He liked not her that sometime ben ron over by ye cable,
Ye which full evil hap had harmed and marked her person so
That in a passing wittie jest he dubbeth her ye crow.

But all ye oders of ye girls di...Read more of this...



by Blake, William
...ds with pins;
Roger from Dolly twitch'd the stool,
She, falling, kiss'd the ground, poor fool!
She blush'd so red, with sidelong glance
At hob-nail Dick, who griev'd the chance.
But now for Blind man's Buff they call;
Of each encumbrance clear the hall--
Jenny her silken 'kerchief folds,
And blear-eyed Will the black lot holds.
Now laughing stops, with `Silence! hush!'
And Peggy Pout gives Sam a push.
The Blind man's arms, extended wide,
Sam slips between:--`O woe...Read more of this...

by Jarrell, Randall
...With beasts and gods, above, the wall is bright.
The child's head, bent to the book-colored shelves,
Is slow and sidelong and food-gathering,
Moving in blind grace ... yet from the mural, Care
The grey-eyed one, fishing the morning mist,
Seizes the baby hero by the hair
And whispers, in the tongue of gods and children,
Words of a doom as ecumenical as dawn
But blanched like dawn, with dew.
The children's cries
Are to men the cries of crickets, dense wit...Read more of this...

by Roethke, Theodore
...(My student, thrown by a horse)

I remember the neckcurls, limp and damp as tendrils;
And her quick look, a sidelong pickerel smile;
And how, once startled into talk, the light syllables leaped for her,
And she balanced in the delight of her thought,

A wren, happy, tail into the wind,
Her song trembling the twigs and small branches.
The shade sang with her;
The leaves, their whispers turned to kissing,
And the mould sang in the bleached valleys under the rose...Read more of this...

by Keats, John
...d, on light tiptoe divine,
A quiver'd Dian. Stepping awfully,
The youth approach'd; oft turning his veil'd eye
Down sidelong aisles, and into niches old.
And when, more near against the marble cold
He had touch'd his forehead, he began to thread
All courts and passages, where silence dead
Rous'd by his whispering footsteps murmured faint:
And long he travers'd to and fro, to acquaint
Himself with every mystery, and awe;
Till, weary, he sat down before the maw
Of a wid...Read more of this...



by Keats, John
...-
 I rush'd into the folly!

"Within his car, aloft, young Bacchus stood,
Trifling his ivy-dart, in dancing mood,
 With sidelong laughing;
And little rills of crimson wine imbrued
His plump white arms, and shoulders, enough white
 For Venus' pearly bite;
And near him rode Silenus on his ass,
Pelted with flowers as he on did pass
 Tipsily quaffing.

"Whence came ye, merry Damsels! whence came ye!
So many, and so many, and such glee?
Why have ye left your bowers desolate,
 ...Read more of this...

by Keats, John
...height their steps found ease:
Then Thea spread abroad her trembling arms
Upon the precincts of this nest of pain,
And sidelong fix'd her eye on Saturn's face:
There saw she direst strife; the supreme God
At war with all the frailty of grief,
Of rage, of fear, anxiety, revenge,
Remorse, spleen, hope, but most of all despair.
Against these plagues he strove in vain; for Fate
Had pour'd a mortal oil upon his head,
A disanointing poison: so that Thea,
Affrighted, kept her s...Read more of this...

by Bishop, Elizabeth
...ou are one of them.
Why should you be one, too?
I scarcely dared to look
to see what it was I was.
I gave a sidelong glance
--I couldn't look any higher--
at shadowy gray knees,
trousers and skirts and boots
and different pairs of hands
lying under the lamps.
I knew that nothing stranger
had ever happened, that nothing
stranger could ever happen.

Why should I be my aunt,
or me, or anyone?
What similarities 
boots, hands, the family voice
I f...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...'er might Kaled's be, it was enow 
To seal his lip, but agonise his brow. 
He gazed on Ezzelin till Lara cast 
That sidelong smile upon on the knight he pass'd; 
When Kaled saw that smile his visage fell, 
As if on something recognised right well; 
His memory read in such a meaning more 
Than Lara's aspect unto others wore. 
Forward he sprung — a moment, both were gone, 
And all within that hall seem'd left alone; 
Each had so fix'd his eye on Lara's mien, 
All had so...Read more of this...

by Frost, Robert
...ght,
The breeze three odors brought,
And a gem-flower waved in a wand!

Then when I was distraught
And could not speak,
Sidelong, full on my cheek,
What should that reckless zephyr fling
But the wild touch of thy dye-dusty wing!

I found that wing broken today!
For thou art dead, I said,
And the strang birds say.
I found it with the withered leaves
Under the eaves....Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...ecoiled; the tenth on bended knee 
His massy spear upstaid; as if on earth 
Winds under ground, or waters forcing way, 
Sidelong had pushed a mountain from his seat, 
Half sunk with all his pines. Amazement seised 
The rebel Thrones, but greater rage, to see 
Thus foiled their mightiest; ours joy filled, and shout, 
Presage of victory, and fierce desire 
Of battle: Whereat Michael bid sound 
The Arch-Angel trumpet; through the vast of Heaven 
It sounded, and the faithful ...Read more of this...

by Keats, John
...h'd into the folly! 

Within his car, aloft, young Bacchus stood, 
Trifling his ivy-dart, in dancing mood, 65 
With sidelong laughing; 
And little rills of crimson wine imbrued 
His plump white arms and shoulders, enough white 
For Venus' pearly bite; 
And near him rode Silenus on his ass, 70 
Pelted with flowers as he on did pass 
Tipsily quaffing. 

'Whence came ye, merry Damsels! whence came ye, 
So many, and so many, and such glee? 
Why have ye left your...Read more of this...

by Keats, John
...I rush'd into the folly! 

Within his car, aloft, young Bacchus stood, 
Trifling his ivy-dart, in dancing mood, 
 With sidelong laughing; 
And little rills of crimson wine imbrued 
His plump white arms and shoulders, enough white 
 For Venus' pearly bite; 
And near him rode Silenus on his ass, 
Pelted with flowers as he on did pass 
 Tipsily quaffing. 

'Whence came ye, merry Damsels! whence came ye, 
So many, and so many, and such glee? 
Why have ye left your bowers des...Read more of this...

by Keats, John
...I rush'd into the folly! 

Within his car, aloft, young Bacchus stood, 
Trifling his ivy-dart, in dancing mood, 
 With sidelong laughing; 
And little rills of crimson wine imbrued 
His plump white arms and shoulders, enough white 
 For Venus' pearly bite; 
And near him rode Silenus on his ass, 
Pelted with flowers as he on did pass 
 Tipsily quaffing. 

'Whence came ye, merry Damsels! whence came ye, 
So many, and so many, and such glee? 
Why have ye left your bowers des...Read more of this...

by Goldsmith, Oliver
...down!
The swain mistrustless of his smutted face,
While secret laughter tittered round the place;
The bashful virgin's sidelong look of love,
The matron's glance that would those looks reprove:
These were thy charms, sweet village; sports like these,
With sweet succession, taught even toil to please;
These round thy bowers their cheerful influence shed,
These were thy charms—But all these charms are fled.

Sweet smiling village, loveliest of the lawn,
Thy sports are fled...Read more of this...

by Browning, Elizabeth Barrett
...and unwritten.

Bring the red cloud from the sun
While he sinketh, catch it.
That shall be a couch,---with one
Sidelong star to watch it,---
Fit for poet's finest Thought,
At the curfew-sounding,--- ;
Things unseen being nearer brought
Than the seen, around him.

Poet's thought,----not poet's sigh!
'Las, they come together!
Cloudy walls divide and fly,
As in April weather!
Cupola and column proud,
Structure bright to see---
Gone---except that moonlit cloud,
To wh...Read more of this...

by Aiken, Conrad
...the gorgeous promise of certain nights:
Of the woman who suddenly smiled at me this day,
Smiled in a certain delicious sidelong way,
And turned, as she reached the door,
To smile once more . . .
Her hands are whiter than snow on midnight water.
Her throat is golden and full of golden laughter,
Her eyes are strange as the stealth of the moon
On a night in June . . .
She runs among whistling leaves; I hurry after;
She dances in dreams over white-wav...Read more of this...

by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...science: Lady Blanche alone 
Of faded form and haughtiest lineaments, 
With all her autumn tresses falsely brown, 
Shot sidelong daggers at us, a tiger-cat 
In act to spring. 
At last a solemn grace 
Concluded, and we sought the gardens: there 
One walked reciting by herself, and one 
In this hand held a volume as to read, 
And smoothed a petted peacock down with that: 
Some to a low song oared a shallop by, 
Or under arches of the marble bridge 
Hung, shadowed from the h...Read more of this...

by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...alace floors, or called 
On flying Time from all their silver tongues-- 
And out of memories of her kindlier days, 
And sidelong glances at my father's grief, 
And at the happy lovers heart in heart-- 
And out of hauntings of my spoken love, 
And lonely listenings to my muttered dream, 
And often feeling of the helpless hands, 
And wordless broodings on the wasted cheek-- 
From all a closer interest flourished up, 
Tenderness touch by touch, and last, to these, 
Love, like an...Read more of this...

by Lanier, Sidney
...That leap to covert from wild lawns,
And tremble if the day but dawns;
All sparklings of small beady eyes
Of birds, and sidelong glances wise
Wherewith the jay hints tragedies;
All piquancies of prickly burs,
And smoothnesses of downs and furs
Of eiders and of minevers;
All limpid honeys that do lie
At stamen-bases, nor deny
The humming-birds' fine roguery,
Bee-thighs, nor any butterfly;
All gracious curves of slender wings,
Bark-mottlings, fibre-spiralings,
Fern-wavings and ...Read more of this...

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