Famous Single File Poems by Famous Poets

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

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A Life

...to answer.
The inhabitants are light as cork,
Every one of them permanently busy.

At their feet, the sea waves bow in single file.
Never trespassing in bad temper:
Stalling in midair, 
Short-reined, pawing like paradeground horses.
Overhead, the clouds sit tasseled and fancy

As Victorian cushions. This family
Of valentine faces might please a collector:
They ring true, like good china.

Elsewhere the landscape is more frank.
The light falls without letup, blindingly.

A wo...Read more of this...
by Plath, Sylvia


American Feuillage

...AMERICA always! 
Always our own feuillage! 
Always Florida’s green peninsula! Always the priceless delta of Louisiana! Always the
 cotton-fields of Alabama and Texas! 
Always California’s golden hills and hollows—and the silver mountains of New
 Mexico!
 Always soft-breath’d Cuba! 
Always the vast slope drain’d by the Southern Sea—inseparable with the slop...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt

Depressed By A Book Of Bad Poetry I Walk Toward An Unused Pasture And Invite The Insects To Join Me

..., I let the book fall behind a stone.
I climb a slight rise of grass.
I do not want to disturb the ants
Who are walking single file up the fence post,
Carrying small white petals,
Casting shadows so frail that I can see through them.
I close my eyes for a moment and listen.
The old grasshoppers
Are tired, they leap heavily now,
Their thighs are burdened.
I want to hear them, they have clear sounds to make.
Then lovely, far off, a dark cricket begins
In the maple trees....Read more of this...
by Wright, James

Now let no charitable hope

...
I live by squeezing from a stone 
What little nourishment I get. 

In masks outrageous and austere 
The years go by in single file; 
But none has merited my fear, 
And none has quite escaped my smile....Read more of this...
by Wylie, Elinor

Prairie

...other
To the copper faces, the worker in flint and clay,
The singing women and their sons a thousand years ago
Marching single file the timber and the plain.

I hold the dust of these amid changing stars.
I last while old wars are fought, while peace broods mother-like,
While new wars arise and the fresh killings of young men.
I fed the boys who went to France in great dark days.
Appomattox is a beautiful word to me and so is Valley Forge and the Marne and Verdun,
I who have ...Read more of this...
by Sandburg, Carl


Sohrab and Rustum

...on the snow,
Choked by the air, and scarce can they themselves
Slake their parch'd throats with sugar'd mulberries--
In single file they move, and stop their breath,
For fear they should dislodge the o'er hanging snows--
So the pale Persians held their breath with fear. 

And to Ferood his brother chiefs came up
To counsel; Gudurz and Zoarrah came
And Feraburz, who ruled the Persian host
Second, and was the uncle of the King
These came and counsell'd, and then Gudurz said:-- ...Read more of this...
by Arnold, Matthew

Song of Myself

...change;
The floor-men are laying the floor—the tinners are tinning the
 roof—the masons are calling for mortar; 
In single file, each shouldering his hod, pass onward the laborers; 
Seasons pursuing each other, the indescribable crowd is gather’d—it is
 the Fourth of Seventh-month—(What salutes of cannon and small arms!) 
Seasons pursuing each other, the plougher ploughs, the mower mows, and the
 winter-grain falls in the ground; 
Off on the lakes the pike-fisher wat...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt

Those Were The Days

...o brush them flat and place 
the part just where it belonged. 
We came down the carpeted stairs 
one step at a time, in single file, 
gleaming in our sailor suits, two 
four year olds with unscratched knees 
and scrubbed teeth. Breakfast came 
on silver dishes with silver covers 
and was set in table center, and Mother 
handed out the portions of eggs 
and bacon, toast and juice. We could 
hear the ocean, not far off, and boats 
firing up their engines, and the shouts 
of cou...Read more of this...
by Levine, Philip

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