Famous Span Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Span poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous span poems. These examples illustrate what a famous span poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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...the life-warden. The men hurried
advancing in step, until they could perceive
the timbered hall, magnificent and gold-spangled—
it was the most famous house under the heavens
among all earth-dwellers—and inside waited the king.
Its rays of light blazed over a bevy of lands. (ll. 301-11)
Then the battle-brave soldier showed them
the bright house of heady men, so that they could
aim straight for it. That certain war-veteran
steered his horse away, speaking a word aft...Read more of this...
by
Anonymous,
...eart work a spell
My last song's light, and the star of mine earliest,
As we turn from thee, sweet, who wast ours for a span,
Fare well we may not who say farewell.
III. SUMMER IN AUVERGNE
THE sundawn fills the land
Full as a feaster's hand
Fills full with bloom of bland
Bright wine his cup;
Flows full to flood that fills
From the arch of air it thrills
Those rust-red iron hills
With morning up.
Dawn, as a panther springs,
With fierce and fire-fledged wings
Leaps on the lan...Read more of this...
by
Swinburne, Algernon Charles
...en, he mixed willingness with happiness.
He added lots of faith,
And he stirred it up well.
Then he spread it over a span of a lifetime,
And he served it to each and every deserving person he met....Read more of this...
by
Ali, Muhammad
...de the Mede
Between the waving poplars and the sea
Which men call Artemisium, till he saw Thermopylae
Its steep ravine spanned by a narrow wall,
And on the nearer side a little brood
Of careless lions holding festival!
And stood amazed at such hardihood,
And pitched his tent upon the reedy shore,
And stayed two days to wonder, and then crept at midnight o'er
Some unfrequented height, and coming down
The autumn forests treacherously slew
What Sparta held most dear and was th...Read more of this...
by
Wilde, Oscar
...ound themselves among
Unwonted folk that spake an hostile tongue,
Some soul from all the rest who'd not forgot
The star-span acres of a former lot
Where boundless mid the clouds his course he swung,
Or carnate with his elder brothers sung
Ere ballad-makers lisped of Camelot?
Old singers half-forgetful of their tunes,
Old painters color-blind come back once more,
Old poets skill-less in the wind-heart runes,
Old wizards lacking in their wonder-lore:
All they that with strang...Read more of this...
by
Pound, Ezra
...ers, (the antique ponderous Seven outvied,)
In the Old World, the east, the Suez canal,
The New by its mighty railroad spann’d,
The seas inlaid with eloquent, gentle wires,
I sound, to commence, the cry, with thee, O soul,
The Past! the Past! the Past!
The Past! the dark, unfathom’d retrospect!
The teeming gulf! the sleepers and the shadows!
The past! the infinite greatness of the past!
For what is the present, after all, but a growth out of the past?
(As a projectil...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...n model's size
But when I start to tell them,
They think I'm telling lies.
I say,
It's in the reach of my arms
The span of my hips,
The stride of my step,
The curl of my lips.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.
I walk into a room
Just as cool as you please,
And to a man,
The fellows stand or
Fall down on their knees.
Then they swarm around me,
A hive of honey bees.
I say,
It's the fire in my eyes,
And the flash of my teeth,
The swin...Read more of this...
by
Angelou, Maya
...I know a country laced with roads,
They join the hills and they span the brooks,
They weave like a shuttle between broad fields,
And slide discreetly through hidden nooks.
They are canopied like a Persian dome
And carpeted with orient dyes.
They are myriad-voiced, and musical,
And scented with happiest memories.
O Winding roads that I know so well,
Every twist and turn, every hollow and hill!
They are set in my heart to ...Read more of this...
by
Lowell, Amy
...d Terror crept behind.
The Warders strutted up and down,
And kept their herd of brutes,
Their uniforms were spick and span,
And they wore their Sunday suits,
But we knew the work they had been at,
By the quicklime on their boots.
For where a grave had opened wide,
There was no grave at all:
Only a stretch of mud and sand
By the hideous prison-wall,
And a little heap of burning lime,
That the man should have his pall.
For he has a pall, this wretched man,
Such as few men c...Read more of this...
by
Wilde, Oscar
...oking for crusts and ale.
And the woman, with a woman's eyes
Of pity at once and ire,
Said, when that she had glared a span,
"There is a cake for any man
If he will watch the fire."
And Alfred, bowing heavily,
Sat down the fire to stir,
And even as the woman pitied him
So did he pity her.
Saying, "O great heart in the night,
O best cast forth for worst,
Twilight shall melt and morning stir,
And no kind thing shall come to her,
Till God shall turn the world over
And all the...Read more of this...
by
Chesterton, G K
...ring signboards whimper in cold nights
171 Or seeing the midsummer artifice
172 Of heat upon his pane. This was the span
173 Of force, the quintessential fact, the note
174 Of Vulcan, that a valet seeks to own,
175 The thing that makes him envious in phrase.
176 And while the torrent on the roof still droned
177 He felt the Andean breath. His mind was free
178 And more than free, elate, intent, profound
179 And studious of a self possessing him,
180 That...Read more of this...
by
Stevens, Wallace
...rd the vibrating of strings and wood.
She was washing the dishes, her hands all suds,
When the sound began,
Long as the span
Of a white road snaking about a hill.
The orchards are filled
With cherry blossoms at butterfly poise.
Hawthorn buds are cracking,
And in the distance a shepherd is clacking
His shears, snip-snipping the wool from his sheep.
The notes are asleep,
Lying adrift on the air
In level lines
Like sunlight hanging in pines and pines,
Strung and threaded,
All im...Read more of this...
by
Lowell, Amy
...sharp-edged sword,
And lightning from its small eyes poured;
A serpent's tail of many a fold
Ended its body's monstrous span,
And round itself with fierceness rolled,
So as to clasp both steed and man."
"I formed the whole to nature true,
In skin of gray and hideous hue;
Part dragon it appeared, part snake,
Engendered in the poisonous lake.
And, when the figure was complete,
A pair of dogs I chose me, fleet,
Of mighty strength, of nimble pace,
Inured the savage boar to chase...Read more of this...
by
Schiller, Friedrich von
...There are four seasons in the mind of man:
He has his lusty Spring, when fancy clear
Takes in all beauty with an easy span:
He has his Summer, when luxuriously
Spring's honied cud of youthful thought he loves
To ruminate, and by such dreaming high
Is nearest unto heaven: quiet coves
His soul has in its Autumn, when his wings
He furleth close; contented so to look
On mists in idleness--to let fair things
Pass by unheeded as a threshold brook.
He has his Winter too of pal...Read more of this...
by
Keats, John
...the whole
Of those three stanzas that you made
About my Ôgiant bole;'
"And in a fit of frolic mirth
She strove to span my waist:
Alas, I was so broad of girth,
I could not be embraced.
"I wish'd myself the fair young beech
That here beside me stands,
That round me, clasping each in each,
She might have lock'd her hands.
"Yet seem'd the pressure thrice as sweet
As woodbine's fragile hold,
Or when I feel about my feet
The berried briony fold."
O muffle round...Read more of this...
by
Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...OF DEATH. PART I. Questa leggiadra e gloriosa Donna. The glorious Maid, whose soul to heaven is goneAnd left the rest cold earth, she who was grownA pillar of true valour, and had gain'dMuch honour by her victory, and chain'dThat god which doth the world with terror bind,<SPAN c...Read more of this...
by
Petrarch, Francesco
...[Pg 400] THE TRIUMPH OF ETERNITY. Da poi che sotto 'l ciel cosa non vidi. When all beneath the ample cope of heavenI saw, like clouds before the tempest driven,<SPAN cl...Read more of this...
by
Petrarch, Francesco
...OF FAME. PART I. Da poi che Morte trionfò nel volto. When cruel Death his paly ensign spreadOver that face, which oft in triumph ledMy subject thoughts; and beauty's sovereign light,Retiring, left the world immersed in night;The Phantom, with a frown that chill'd the heart,<SPAN...Read more of this...
by
Petrarch, Francesco
...I must refer him to Fielding's 'Journey from the World to the next,' and to the Visions of myself, the said Quevedo, in Spanish or translated. The reader is also requested to observe, that no doctrinal tenets are insisted upon or discussed; that the person of the Deity is carefully withheld from sight, which is more than can be said for the Laureate, who hath thought proper to make him talk, not 'like a school-divine,' but like the unscholarlike Mr. Southey. The whole action ...Read more of this...
by
Byron, George (Lord)
...ck at rhyme.
His way of writing now is past;
The town has got a better taste.
I keep no antiquated stuff;
But spick and span I have enough.
Pray do but give me leave to show 'em:
Here's Colley Cibber's birthday poem.
This ode you never yet have seen,
By Stephen Duck, upon the queen.
Then here's a letter finely penned
Against the Craftsman and his friend;
It clearly shows that all reflection
On ministers is disaffection.
Next, here's Sir Robert's vindication;
And Mr Henley's l...Read more of this...
by
Swift, Jonathan
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