Famous Spanning Poems by Famous Poets

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

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The Way

by Amy Lowell
 At first a mere thread of a footpath half blotted 
out by the grasses
Sweeping triumphant across it, it wound between hedges of roses
Whose blossoms were poised above leaves as pond lilies float on 
the water,
While hidden by bloom in a hawthorn a bird filled the morning with 
singing.
It widened a highway, majestic, stretching ever 
to distant horizons,
Where shadows of...Read more of this...

Roast Leviathan

by Louis Untermeyer
"Old Jews!" Well, David, aren't we?
What news is that to make you see so red,
To swear and almost tear your beard in half?
Jeered at? Well, let them laugh.
You can laugh longer when you're dead.
What? Are you still too blind to see?
Have you forgot your Midrash!... They were right,
The little goyim, with their angry stones.
You should be buried in the desert...Read more of this...

Bonnie Montrose

by William Topaz McGonagall
 Beautiful town of Montrose, I will now commence my lay,
And I will write in praise of thee without dismay,
And in spite of all your foes,
I will venture to call thee Bonnie Montrose. 

Your beautiful Chain Bridge is magnificent to be seen,
Spanning the river Esk, a beautiful tidal stream,
Which abounds with trout and salmon,
And can be had for the catching...Read more of this...

The Song Of The Wage-Slave

by Robert William Service
 When the long, long day is over, and the Big Boss gives me my pay,
I hope that it won't be hell-fire, as some of the parsons say.
And I hope that it won't be heaven, with some of the parsons I've met --
All I want is just quiet, just to rest and forget.
Look at my face, toil-furrowed; look at my...Read more of this...

Montrose

by William Topaz McGonagall
 Beautiful town of Montrose, I will now commence my lay,
And I will write in praise of thee without dismay,
And in spite of all your foes,
l will venture to call thee Bonnie Montrose.
Your beautiful Chain Bridge is magnificent to be seen,
Spanning the river Esk, a beautiful tidal stream,
Which abounds with trout and salmon,
Which can be had for the catching without...Read more of this...

A Hymn to the Peoples

by W. E. B. Du Bois
O Truce of God!
And primal meeting of the Sons of Man,
Foreshadowing the union of the World!
From all the ends of earth we come!
Old Night, the elder sister of the Day,
Mother of Dawn in the golden East,
Meets in the misty twilight with her brood,
Pale and black, tawny, red and brown,
The mighty human rainbow of the world,
Spanning its wilderness of storm.
Softly in...Read more of this...

An Address to the New Tay Bridge

by William Topaz McGonagall
 Beautiful new railway bridge of the Silvery Tay,
With your strong brick piers and buttresses in so grand array,
And your thirteen central girders, which seem to my eye
Strong enough all windy storms to defy.
And as I gaze upon thee my heart feels gay,
Because thou are the greatest railway bridge of the present day,
And can be seen for miles away
From North,...Read more of this...

A Carol of Harvest for 1867

by Walt Whitman
 1
A SONG of the good green grass! 
A song no more of the city streets; 
A song of farms—a song of the soil of fields. 

A song with the smell of sun-dried hay, where the nimble pitchers handle the pitch-fork; 
A song tasting of new wheat, and of fresh-husk’d maize.

2
For the lands, and for these passionate days, and for...Read more of this...

Winds of May

by James Joyce
 Winds of May, that dance on the sea, 
Dancing a ring-around in glee 
From furrow to furrow, while overhead 
The foam flies up to be garlanded, 
In silvery arches spanning the air, 
Saw you my true love anywhere? 
Welladay! Welladay! 
For the winds of May! 
Love is unhappy when love is away!...Read more of this...

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