Famous Spangled Poems by Famous Poets

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

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The Unbeliever

by Elizabeth Bishop
 He sleeps on the top of a mast. - Bunyan


He sleeps on the top of a mast
with his eyes fast closed.
The sails fall away below him
like the sheets of his bed,
leaving out in the air of the night the sleeper's head.

Asleep he was transported there,
asleep he curled
in a gilded ball on the mast's top,
or climbed inside
a gilded bird, or...Read more of this...

The Faded Bouquet

by Mary Darby Robinson
 FAIR was this blushing ROSE of May,
And fresh it hail'd morn's breezy hour,
When ev'ry spangled leaf look'd gay,
Besprinkled with the twilight show'r;
When to its mossy buds so sweet,
The BUTTERFLY enamour'd flew,
And hov'ring o'er the fragrant treat,
Oft bath'd its silken wings in dew. 

SWEET was this PRIMROSE of the dale,
When on its native turf it grew;
And deck'd with charms this...Read more of this...

The Watching Angel

by Victor Hugo
 ("Dans l'alcôve sombre.") 
 
 {XX., November, 1831.} 


 In the dusky nook, 
 Near the altar laid, 
 Sleeps the child in shadow 
 Of his mother's bed: 
 Softly he reposes, 
 And his lid of roses, 
 Closed to earth, uncloses 
 On the heaven o'erhead. 
 
 Many a dream is with him, 
 Fresh...Read more of this...

Sestina VII

by Francesco Petrarch
SESTINA VII. Non ha tanti animali il mar fra l' onde. HE DESPAIRS OF ESCAPE FROM THE TORMENTS BY WHICH HE IS SURROUNDED.  Nor Ocean holds such swarms amid his waves,Not overhead, where circles the pale moon,Were stars so numerous ever seen by night,Nor dwell so many birds among the woods,Read more of this...

The Flower of Liberty

by Oliver Wendell Holmes
 WHAT flower is this that greets the morn,
Its hues from Heaven so freshly born?
With burning star and flaming band
It kindles all the sunset land:
Oh tell us what its name may be,--
Is this the Flower of Liberty? 

It is the banner of the free,
The starry Flower of Liberty!

In savage Nature's far abode
Its tender seed our fathers sowed;
The storm-winds rocked its...Read more of this...

The Sun -- just touched the Morning

by Emily Dickinson
 The Sun -- just touched the Morning --
The Morning -- Happy thing --
Supposed that He had come to dwell --
And Life would all be Spring!

She felt herself supremer --
A Raised -- Ethereal Thing!
Henceforth -- for Her -- What Holiday!
Meanwhile -- Her wheeling King --
Trailed -- slow -- along the Orchards --
His haughty -- spangled Hems --
Leaving a new necessity!
The...Read more of this...

The Forsaken

by Duncan Campbell Scott
 I 
Once in the winter
Out on a lake
In the heart of the north-land,
Far from the Fort
And far from the hunters,
A Chippewa woman
With her sick baby,
Crouched in the last hours
Of a great storm.
Frozen and hungry,
She fished through the ice
With a line of the twisted
Bark of the cedar,
And a rabbit-bone hook
Polished and barbed;
Fished with the bare hook
All through the wild day,
Fished...Read more of this...

He Lurks Among the Reeds

by Adela Florence Cory Nicolson
   He lurks among the reeds, beside the marsh,
     Red oleanders twisted in His hair,
   His eyes are haggard and His lips are harsh,
     Upon His breast the bones show gaunt and bare.

   The green and stagnant waters lick His feet,
     And...Read more of this...

Moon-Lover

by Robert William Service
 I

The Moon is like a ping-pong ball;
I lean against the orchard wall,
And see it soar into the void,
A silky sphere of celluloid.

Then fairy fire enkindles it,
Like gossamer by taper lit,
Until it glows above the trees
As mellow as a Cheddar cheese.

And up and up I watch it press
Into appalling loneliness;
Like realms of ice without a stain,
A corpse Moon come to...Read more of this...

Gregory Corso

by Gregory Corso
 Budger of history Brake of time You Bomb
 Toy of universe Grandest of all snatched sky I cannot hate you
 Do I hate the mischievous thunderbolt the jawbone of an ass
 The bumpy club of One Million B.C. the mace the flail the axe
 Catapult Da Vinci tomahawk Cochise flintlock Kidd dagger Rathbone
 Ah and the sad desparate gun...Read more of this...

Recollection of the Arabian Nights

by Alfred Lord Tennyson
 WHEN the breeze of a joyful dawn blew free 
In the silken sail of infancy, 
The tide of time flow'd back with me, 
The forward-flowing tide of time; 
And many a sheeny summer-morn, 
Adown the Tigris I was borne, 
By Bagdat's shrines of fretted gold, 
High-walled gardens green and old; 
True Mussulman was I and sworn, 
For it was...Read more of this...

The Ghosts of the Buffaloes

by Vachel Lindsay
 Last night at black midnight I woke with a cry,
The windows were shaking, there was thunder on high,
The floor was a-tremble, the door was a-jar,
White fires, crimson fires, shone from afar.
I rushed to the door yard. The city was gone.
My home was a hut without orchard or lawn.
It was mud-smear and logs near a whispering stream,
Nothing else built by...Read more of this...

Upon Julias Hair Filled With Dew

by Robert Herrick
 Dew sat on Julia's hair,
And spangled too,
Like leaves that laden are
With trembling dew.

Or glittered to my sight,
As when the beams
Have their reflected light
Danced by the streams....Read more of this...

Yankee Doodle

by Vachel Lindsay
 This poem is intended as a description of a sort of Blashfield mural painting on the sky. To be sung to the tune of Yankee Doodle, yet in a slower, more orotund fashion. It is presumably an exercise for an entertainment on the evening of Washington's Birthday.


Dawn this morning burned all red
Watching them in wonder.
There I saw our spangled...Read more of this...

Darling Daughter of Babylon

by Vachel Lindsay
 Too soon you wearied of our tears.
And then you danced with spangled feet,
Leading Belshazzar's chattering court
A-tinkling through the shadowy street.
With mead they came, with chants of shame.
DESIRE'S red flag before them flew.
And Istar's music moved your mouth
And Baal's deep shames rewoke in you.

Now you could drive the royal car;
Forget our Nation's breaking load:
Now you could sleep on silver beds.—
(Bitter...Read more of this...

Infantile Influence

by Victor Hugo
 ("Lorsque l'enfant parait.") 
 
 {XIX., May 11, 1830.} 


 The child comes toddling in, and young and old 
 With smiling eyes its smiling eyes behold, 
 And artless, babyish joy; 
 A playful welcome greets it through the room, 
 The saddest brow unfolds its wrinkled gloom, 
 To greet the happy boy. 
 
 If June...Read more of this...

Of Tribulation these are They

by Emily Dickinson
 Of Tribulation, these are They,
Denoted by the White --
The Spangled Gowns, a lesser Rank
Of Victors -- designate --

All these -- did conquer --
But the ones who overcame most times --
Wear nothing commoner than Snow --
No Ornament, but Palms --

Surrender -- is a sort unknown --
On this superior soil --
Defeat -- an outgrown Anguish --
Remembered, as the Mile

Our panting Ankle...Read more of this...

The Bohemian

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
Bring me the livery of no other man.
I am my own to robe me at my pleasure.
[Pg 93]Accepted rules to me disclose no treasure:
What is the chief who shall my garments plan?
No garb conventional but I 'll attack it.
(Come, why not don my spangled jacket?)
...Read more of this...

The Ballad Of Pious Pete

by Robert William Service
 "The North has got him." --Yukonism.


I tried to refine that neighbor of mine, honest to God, I did.
I grieved for his fate, and early and late I watched over him like a kid.
I gave him excuse, I bore his abuse in every way that I could;
I swore to prevail; I camped on his trail; I plotted and planned for...Read more of this...

On The Morning Of Christ's Nativity

by John Milton
 I

This is the Month, and this the happy morn
Wherin the Son of Heav'ns eternal King,
Of wedded Maid, and Virgin Mother born,
Our great redemption from above did bring;
For so the holy sages once did sing,
That he our deadly forfeit should release,
And with his Father work us a perpetual peace.

II

That glorious Form, that Light unsufferable,
And that far-beaming blaze of Majesty,
Wherwith he...Read more of this...

Sonnet to Amicus

by Mary Darby Robinson
 WHOE'ER thou art, whose soul-enchanting song
Steals on the sullen ear of pensive woe;
To whom the sounds of melody belong,
Sounds, that can more than human bliss bestow; 

Like the wak'd God of day, whose rays pervade
The spangled veil of night, and fling their fires
O'er the cold bosom of the em'rald glade,
While bath'd in tears, the virgin orb retires. 

Thy glowing...Read more of this...

Ode Written On The First Of December

by Robert Southey
 Tho' now no more the musing ear
Delights to listen to the breeze
That lingers o'er the green wood shade,
I love thee Winter! well.

Sweet are the harmonies of Spring,
Sweet is the summer's evening gale,
Pleasant the autumnal winds that shake
The many-colour'd grove.

And pleasant to the sober'd soul
The silence of the wintry scene,
When Nature shrouds her in her trance

Not undelightful now to roam
The...Read more of this...

To Rinaldo

by Mary Darby Robinson
 SOFT is the balmy breath of May, 
When from the op'ning lids of day 
Meek twilight steals; and from its wings 
Translucent pearls of ether flings. 
MILD is the chaste Moon's languid eye, 
When gliding down the dappled sky 
She feebly lifts her spangled bow, 
Around her glitt'ring darts to throw.­ 
SWEET are the aromatic bowers, 
When Night sends...Read more of this...

Ode to the Moon

by Mary Darby Robinson
 PALE GODDESS of the witching hour;
Blest Contemplation's placid friend; 
Oft in my solitary bow'r,
I mark thy lucid beam
From thy crystal car descend,
Whitening the spangled heath, and limpid sapphire stream. 

And oft, amidst the shades of night
I court thy undulating light;
When Fairies dance around the verdant ring,
Or frisk beside the bubbling spring,
When the thoughtless SHEPHERD'S song
Echoes thro' the silent air,
As...Read more of this...

His Covenant Or Protestation To Julia

by Robert Herrick
 Why dost thou wound and break my heart,
As if we should for ever part?
Hast thou not heard an oath from me,
After a day, or two, or three,
I would come back and live with thee?
Take, if thou dost distrust that vow,
This second protestation now:--
Upon thy cheek that spangled tear,
Which sits as dew of roses there,
That tear shall scarce be dried...Read more of this...

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