Famous Spins Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Phoebus with Admetus

by George Meredith
 WHEN by Zeus relenting the mandate was revoked, 
 Sentencing to exile the bright Sun-God, 
Mindful were the ploughmen of who the steer had yoked, 
 Who: and what a track show'd the upturn'd sod! 
Mindful were the shepherds, as now the noon severe 
 Bent a burning eyebrow to brown evetide, 
How the rustic flute drew the silver...Read more of this...

The Village

by R S Thomas
 Scarcely a street, too few houses
To merit the title; just a way between
The one tavern and the one shop
That leads nowhere and fails at the top
Of the short hill, eaten away
By long erosion of the green tide
Of grass creeping perpetually nearer 
This last outpost of time past.

So little happens; the black dog
Cracking his fleas in the hot sun
Is history....Read more of this...

90 North

by Randall Jarrell
 At home, in my flannel gown, like a bear to its floe,
I clambered to bed; up the globe's impossible sides
I sailed all night—till at last, with my black beard,
My furs and my dogs, I stood at the northern pole.

There in the childish night my companions lay frozen,
The stiff fur knocked at my starveling throat,
And I gave my great sigh:...Read more of this...

Narva and Mored

by Thomas Chatterton
 Recite the loves of Narva and Mored 
The priest of Chalma's triple idol said. 
High from the ground the youthful warriors sprung, 
Loud on the concave shell the lances rung: 
In all the mystic mazes of the dance, 
The youths of Banny's burning sands advance, 
Whilst the soft virgin panting looks behind, 
And rides upon the pinions of the...Read more of this...

The Old Guitar

by James Whitcomb Riley
 Neglected now is the old guitar
And moldering into decay;
Fretted with many a rift and scar
That the dull dust hides away,
While the spider spins a silver star
In its silent lips to-day.

The keys hold only nerveless strings--
The sinews of brave old airs
Are pulseless now; and the scarf that clings
So closely here declares
A sad regret in its ravelings
And the faded hue it...Read more of this...

Embrace Noir

by Nick Flynn
 I go back to the scene where the two men embrace
& grapple a handgun at stomach level between them.

They jerk around the apartment like that
holding on to each other, their cheeks

almost touching. One is shirtless, the other
wears a suit, the one in the suit came in through a window

to steal documents or diamonds, it doesn't matter anymore 
which, what's...Read more of this...

The Kiss

by Siegfried Sassoon
 To these I turn, in these I trust; 
Brother Lead and Sister Steel. 
To his blind power I make appeal; 
I guard her beauty clean from rust. 

He spins and burns and loves the air, 
And splits a skull to win my praise; 
But up the nobly marching days 
She glitters naked, cold and fair. 

Sweet Sister, grant your...Read more of this...

The Englishman In Italy

by Robert Browning
 (PIANO DI SORRENTO.)

Fortu, Frotu, my beloved one,
Sit here by my side,
On my knees put up both little feet!
I was sure, if I tried,
I could make you laugh spite of Scirocco;
Now, open your eyes— 
Let me keep you amused till he vanish
In black from the skies,
With telling my memories over
As you tell your beads;
All the memories plucked at Sorrento
—The flowers,...Read more of this...

eight roundels

by Rg Gregory
 (roundel: variation of the rondeau
consisting of three stanzas of three
lines each, linked together with but
two rhymes and a refrain at the end
of the first and third group)



1.
the blind rose

today's fullness is tomorrow's gone
(the next day after no one knows)
last year's dream now feeds upon
 what blindly grows

imagine if you like a rose
on which no likely sun has shone
a darkness...Read more of this...

Sonnet For The End Of A Sequence

by Dorothy Parker
 So take my vows and scatter them to sea;
Who swears the sweetest is no more than human.
And say no kinder words than these of me:
"Ever she longed for peace, but was a woman!
And thus they are, whose silly female dust
Needs little enough to clutter it and bind it,
Who meet a slanted gaze, and ever must
Go build themselves a soul...Read more of this...

The Voices in the Dream (Ryton Firs)

by Lascelles Abercrombie
Follow my heart, my dancing feet,
Dance as blithe as my heart can beat.
Only can dancing understand
What a heavenly way we pass
Treading the green and golden land,
Daffodillies and grass.

I had a song, too, on my road,
But mine was in my eyes;
For Malvern Hills were with me all the way,
Singing loveliest visible melodies
Blue as a south-sea bay;
And ruddy as wine of France
Breadths...Read more of this...

Youve seen Balloons set -- Havent You?

by Emily Dickinson
 You've seen Balloons set -- Haven't You?
So stately they ascend --
It is as Swans -- discarded You,
For Duties Diamond --

Their Liquid Feet go softly out
Upon a Sea of Blonde --
They spurn the Air, as t'were too mean
For Creatures so renowned --

Their Ribbons just beyond the eye --
They struggle -- some -- for Breath --
And yet the Crowd applaud, below...Read more of this...

Into the Dusk-Charged Air

by John Ashbery
 Far from the Rappahannock, the silent
Danube moves along toward the sea.
The brown and green Nile rolls slowly
Like the Niagara's welling descent.
Tractors stood on the green banks of the Loire
Near where it joined the Cher.
The St. Lawrence prods among black stones
And mud. But the Arno is all stones.
Wind ruffles the Hudson's
Surface. The Irawaddy is overflowing.
But the yellowish, gray Tiber
Is contained...Read more of this...

She Spins Silk

by Li Po
 Far up river in Szechuan,
waters rise as spring winds roar.

How can I dare to meet her now,
to brave the dangerous gorge?

The grass grows green in the valley below
where silk worms silently spin.

Her hands work threads that never end,
dawn to dusk when the cuckoo sings....Read more of this...

Seven Strophes

by Joseph Brodsky
I was but what you'd brush
with your palm what your leaning
brow would hunch to in evening's
raven-black hush.

I was but what your gaze
in that dark could distinguish:
a dim shape to begin with 
later - features a face.

It was you on my right 
on my left with your heated
sighs who molded my helix
whispering at my side.

It was you by that black
window's trembling...Read more of this...

sam swill

by Rg Gregory
 sam swill
took a pill
went blue
ate stew
had pains
no brains
sucked a date
too late
swallowed stone
all alone
too proud
to cry aloud
scoffed cake
great ache
at work
went beserk
in a funk
did a bunk
hitch hike
stole a bike
empty car
not too far
flat tyre
on fire
skid swerve
lost his nerve
bang crash
frantic dash
turned bend
pond at end
police whistle
fall on thistle
jump in air
pond there
shocked scream
can't swim
hold breath
certain death
police leap
foot deep
soaking wet
vow they'll get
sam swill
off up hill
put in...Read more of this...

An English Breeze

by Robert Louis Stevenson
 UP with the sun, the breeze arose,
Across the talking corn she goes,
And smooth she rustles far and wide
Through all the voiceful countryside.

Through all the land her tale she tells;
She spins, she tosses, she compels
The kites, the clouds, the windmill sails
And all the trees in all the dales.

God calls us, and the day prepares
With nimble, gay and gracious airs:
And from...Read more of this...

Not From This Anger

by Dylan Thomas
 Not from this anger, anticlimax after
Refusal struck her loin and the lame flower
Bent like a beast to lap the singular floods
In a land strapped by hunger
Shall she receive a bellyful of weeds
And bear those tendril hands I touch across
The agonized, two seas.
Behind my head a square of sky sags over
The circular smile tossed from lover to lover
And the golden...Read more of this...

Picture-Show

by Siegfried Sassoon
 And still they come and go: and this is all I know— 
That from the gloom I watch an endless picture-show, 
Where wild or listless faces flicker on their way, 
With glad or grievous hearts I’ll never understand 
Because Time spins so fast, and they’ve no time to stay
Beyond the moment’s gesture of a lifted hand. 

And still, between...Read more of this...

Rabbi Ben Ezra

by Robert Browning
 Grow old along with me!
The best is yet to be,
The last of life, for which the first was made:
Our times are in His hand
Who saith 'A whole I planned,
Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid!'

Not that, amassing flowers,
Youth sighed 'Which rose make ours,
Which lily leave and then as best recall?'
Not that, admiring stars,
It yearned 'Nor...Read more of this...

The Steeple-Jack

by Marianne Moore
 Dürer would have seen a reason for living
 in a town like this, with eight stranded whales
to look at; with the sweet sea air coming into your house
on a fine day, from water etched
 with waves as formal as the scales
on a fish.

One by one in two's and three's, the seagulls keep
 flying back and forth over the town...Read more of this...

Chaplin

by A S J Tessimond
 The sun, a heavy spider, spins in the thirsty sky.
The wind hides under cactus leaves, in doorway corners. Only the wry

Small shadow accompanies Hamlet-Petrouchka's march - the slight
Wry sniggering shadow in front of the morning, turning at noon, behind towards night.

The plumed cavalcade has passed to tomorrow, is lost again;
But the wisecrack-mask, the quick-flick-fanfare of the cane remain.

Diminuendo of...Read more of this...

Think No More Lad

by A E Housman
 Think no more, lad; laugh, be jolly: 
Why should men make haste to die? 
Empty heads and tongues a-talking 
Make the rough road easy walking, 
And the feather pate of folly 
Bears the falling sky. 

Oh, 'tis jesting, dancing, drinking 
Spins the heavy world around. 
If young hearts were not so clever, 
Oh, they would be young for ever:...Read more of this...

O wheel of heaven! no ties of bread you feel,

by Omar Khayyam
O wheel of heaven! no ties of bread you feel,
No ties of salt, you flay me like an eel!
A woman's wheel spins clothes for man and wife,
It does more good than you, O heavenly wheel!...Read more of this...

Autopsychography

by Fernando Pessoa
The poet is a faker.
Pretends so completely
That comes to pretend that is pain 
The pain that he really feels.

And those who read what he writes,
In the pain read they feel right ,
Not the two that he had,
But only the one which they have not.

And so on the wheel rails
It spins to entertain the reason,
This train of rope
Called heart....Read more of this...

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