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Famous Spread Out Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
...ing the room enclosed.
  Footsteps shuffled on the stair.
  Under the firelight, under the brush, her hair
  Spread out in fiery points
  Glowed into words, then would be savagely still.                        110

  "My nerves are bad to-night. Yes, bad. Stay with me.
  "Speak to me. Why do you never speak. Speak.
  "What are you thinking of? What thinking? What?
  "I never know what you are thinking. Think."

  I think ...Read more of this...



by Piercy, Marge
...have been at my thinnest, 
you have never abandoned me but curled 
round as a sleeping cat under my skirt. 
When I spread out, so do you. You like 
to eat, drink and bang on another belly. 
In anxiety I clutch you with nervous fingers 
as if you were a purse full of calm. 
In my grandmother standing in the fierce sun 
I see your cauldron that held eleven children 
shaped under the tent of her summer dress. 
I see you in my mother at thirty 
in her flapper...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...nenchanted eye
To save her blossoms, and defend her fruit,
From the rash hand of bold Incontinence.
You may as well spread out the unsunned heaps
Of miser's treasure by an outlaw's den,
And tell me it is safe, as bid me hope
Danger will wink on Opportunity,
And let a single helpless maiden pass
Uninjured in this wild surrounding waste.
Of night or loneliness it recks me not;
I fear the dread events that dog them both,
Lest some ill-greeting touch attempt the person
Of...Read more of this...

by Keats, John
...s morning gold
Wide o'er the swelling streams: and constantly
At brim of day-tide, on some grassy lea,
My nets would be spread out, and I at rest.
The poor folk of the sea-country I blest
With daily boon of fish most delicate:
They knew not whence this bounty, and elate
Would strew sweet flowers on a sterile beach.

 "Why was I not contented? Wherefore reach
At things which, but for thee, O Latmian!
Had been my dreary death? Fool! I began
To feel distemper'd longings:...Read more of this...

by Baudelaire, Charles
...homage to youth, 
—To the young saint, the sweet air, the simple truth, 
To the eye as limpid as the water current, 
To spread out over all, insouciant 
Like the blue sky, the birds and the flowers, 
Its perfumes, its songs and its sweet fervors....Read more of this...



by Wordsworth, William
...houghts I cannot measure:--
But the least motion which they made
It seemed a thrill of pleasure.

The budding twigs spread out their fan,
To catch the breezy air;
And I must think, do all I can,
That there was pleasure there.

If this belief from heaven be sent,
If such be Nature's holy plan,
Have I not reason to lament
What man has made of man?...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...terrour changed 
His countenance too severe to be beheld, 
And full of wrath bent on his enemies. 
At once the Four spread out their starry wings 
With dreadful shade contiguous, and the orbs 
Of his fierce chariot rolled, as with the sound 
Of torrent floods, or of a numerous host. 
He on his impious foes right onward drove, 
Gloomy as night; under his burning wheels 
The stedfast empyrean shook throughout, 
All but the throne itself of God. Full soon 
Among them...Read more of this...

by Brautigan, Richard
...works of Benjamin Franklin

like a clock, hat in hand.

 Trout Fishing in America Shorty lay there below, his

face spread out like a fan in the grass.

 A friend and I got to talking about Trout Fishing in Ameri

ca Shorty one afternoon. We decided the best thing to do witl:

him was to pack him in a big shipping crate with a couple of

cases of sweet wine and send him to Nelson Algren.

 Nelson Algren is always writing about Railroad Shorty, a

hero of the N...Read more of this...

by Brautigan, Richard
...itself to be the last cat in the world, not having seen

another cat in such a long time, totally unafraid, newspaper

spread out all over the bathroom floor, and something good

cooking on the hot plate.









 THE SURGEON





I watched my day begin on Little Redfish Lake as clearly as

the first light of dawn or the first ray of the sunrise, though

the dawn and the sunrise had long since passed and it was

now late in the morning.

 The surgeon took a knife fr...Read more of this...

by Sexton, Anne
...he bed. 
I break out of my body this way, 
an annoying miracle. Could I 
put the dream market on display? 
I am spread out. I crucify. 
My little plum is what you said. 
At night, alone, I marry the bed. 
Then my black-eyed rival came. 
The lady of water, rising on the beach, 
a piano at her fingertips, shame 
on her lips and a flute's speech. 
And I was the knock-kneed broom instead. 
At night, alone, I marry the bed. 
She took you the...Read more of this...

by Johnson, James Weldon
...he green grass sprouted,
And the little red flowers blossomed,
The pine tree pointed his finger to the sky,
And the oak spread out his arms,
The lakes cuddled down in the hollows of the ground,
And the rivers ran down to the sea;
And God smiled again, 
And the rainbow appeared,
And curled itself around his shoulder.

Then God raised his arm and he waved his hand
Over the sea and over the land,
And he said: Bring forth! Bring forth!
And quicker than God could drop his hand...Read more of this...

by Pushkin, Alexander
...at; I better trudge...
Show me, where?" -- "Right there, Dad, farther!"
On the sand where netting ropes
Lay spread out, the peasant father
Saw the veritable corpse.

Badly mangled, ugly, frightening,
Blue and swollen on each side...
Has he fished in storm and lightning,
Or committed suicide?
Could this be a careless drunkard,
Or a mermaid-seeking monk,
Or a merchandizer, conquered
By some bandits, robbed and sunk?

To the peasant, what's it matter!...Read more of this...

by Wordsworth, William
...e least motion which they made,  It seem'd a thrill of pleasure.   The budding twigs spread out their fan,  To catch the breezy air;  And I must think, do all I can,  That there was pleasure there.   If I these thoughts may not prevent,  If such be of my creed the plan,  Have I not reason to lament  What man has made of man? Read more of this...

by Aiken, Conrad
...scattered waves, crowding and shouting;
In broken slow cascades.
The gardens extend before us . . . We spread out swiftly;
Trees are above us, and darkness. The canyon fades . . .

And we recall, with a gleaming stab of sadness,
Vaguely and incoherently, some dream
Of a world we came from, a world of sun-blue hills . . .
A black wood whispers around us, green eyes gleam;
Someone cries in the forest, and someone kills.

We flow ...Read more of this...

by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
...rno vivo alcun, s’i’odo il vero,
Senza tema d’infamia ti rispondo.


Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherised upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question...
Oh, do not as...Read more of this...

by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
...name that's particular,
A name that's peculiar, and more dignified,
Else how can he keep up his tail perpendicular,
Or spread out his whiskers, or cherish his pride?
Of names of this kind, I can give you a quorum,
Such as Munkustrap, Quaxo, or Coricopat,
Such as Bombalurina, or else Jellylorum-
Names that never belong to more than one cat.
But above and beyond there's still one name left over,
And that is the name that you never will guess;
The name that no human researc...Read more of this...

by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...en-work in which the hunter rued 
His rash intrusion, manlike, but his brows 
Had sprouted, and the branches thereupon 
Spread out at top, and grimly spiked the gates. 

A little space was left between the horns, 
Through which I clambered o'er at top with pain, 
Dropt on the sward, and up the linden walks, 
And, tost on thoughts that changed from hue to hue, 
Now poring on the glowworm, now the star, 
I paced the terrace, till the Bear had wheeled 
Through a great arc hi...Read more of this...

by Dyke, Henry Van
...e,
And drew --- a thousand minnows from the tide!
Then came the fisher to conclude the match,
And at the monarch's feet spread out his catch ---
A hundred salmon, greater than before ---
"I win!" he cried: "the King must pay the score."
Then Martin, angry, threw his tackle down:
"Rather than lose this game I'd lose me crown!"


"Nay, thou has lost them both," the fisher said;
And as he spoke a wondrous light was shed
Around his form; he dropped his garments mean,
And in h...Read more of this...

by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
...ing, hushing the room enclosed.
Footsteps shuffled on the stair.
Under the firelight, under the brush, her hair
Spread out in fiery points
Glowed into words, then would be savagely still. 
 "My nerves are bad to-night. Yes, bad. Stay with me.
"Speak to me. Why do you never speak. Speak.
 "What are you thinking of? What thinking? What?
"I never know what you are thinking. Think."
 I think we are in rats' alley
Where the dead men lost...Read more of this...

by Yeats, William Butler
...,
Weigh me down, and not a day
But something is recalled,
My conscience or my vanity appalled.

 VI

A rivery field spread out below,
An odour of the new-mown hay
In his nostrils, the great lord of Chou
Cried, casting off the mountain snow,
`Let all things pass away.'

Wheels by milk-white asses drawn
Where Babylon or Nineveh
Rose; some conquer drew rein
And cried to battle-weary men,
`Let all things pass away.'

From man's blood-sodden heart are sprung
Those bran...Read more of this...

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Book: Shattered Sighs