Famous Staggers Poems by Famous Poets

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

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A bee

...A bee
staggers out
 of the peony....Read more of this...
by Basho, Matsuo


A Way to Love God

...ow of truth, for only the shadow is true.
And the line where the incoming swell from the sunset Pacific
First leans and staggers to break will tell all you need to know
About submarine geography, and your father's death rattle
Provides all biographical data required for the Who's Who of the dead.

I cannot recall what I started to tell you, but at least
I can say how night-long I have lain under the stars and 
Heard mountains moan in their sleep.By daylight,
They remember not...Read more of this...
by Warren, Robert Penn

Battle

...un.

The web your speeches spun
Tears and blood shall streak;
The war of words is done.

Smoke enshrouds the sun;
Earth staggers at the shriek
Of battle new begun.

Poltroons and braggarts run:
Woe to the poor, the meek!
The war of words is done.

"And hope not now to shun
The doom that dogs the weak,"
Thunders every gun;

"Victory must be won."
When the red-lipped cannon speak,
The war of words is done,
The slaughter has begun....Read more of this...
by Davidson, John

Call It Music

...bove my own breath
as this bright morning fades into afternoon.
Music, I'll call it music. It's what we need
as the sun staggers behind the low gray clouds
blowing relentlessly in from that nameless ocean,
the calm and endless one I've still to cross....Read more of this...
by Levine, Philip

Disguises

...spiced, 
He proffers me to taste. 
Then I to Him:—‘Art Thou the Christ?’ 
He saith—‘Thou say’st.’ 

Like to an ox 
That staggers ’neath the mortal blow, 
She grinds upon the rocks:— 
Then straight and low 
Leaps forth the levelled line, and in our quarter locks 
The cradle’s rigged; with swerving of the blast 
We go, 
Our Captain last— 
Demands 
‘Who fired that shot?’ Each silent stands— 
Ah, sweet perplexity! 
This too was He. 

I have an arbour wherein came a toad 
Most hid...Read more of this...
by Brown, Thomas Edward


Good and Evil XXII

...e root. 

You are good when you are fully awake in your speech, 

Yet you are not evil when you sleep while your tongue staggers without purpose. 

And even stumbling speech may strengthen a weak tongue. 

You are good when you walk to your goal firmly and with bold steps. 

Yet you are not evil when you go thither limping. 

Even those who limp go not backward. 

But you who are strong and swift, see that you do not limp before the lame, deeming it kindness. 

You are good i...Read more of this...
by Gibran, Kahlil

Hudsons Last Voyage

...This gulf is mine; 
I name it! and that flying sail is mine!
And there, hull-down below that flying sail,
The ship that staggers home is mine, mine, mine!
My ship Discoverie!
The sullen dogs
Of mutineers, the bitches' whelps that snatched
Their food and bit the hand that nourished them, 
Have stolen her. You ingrate Henry Greene, 
I picked you from the gutter of Houndsditch, 
And paid your debts, and kept you in my house, 
And brought you here to make a man of you! 
You Rober...Read more of this...
by Dyke, Henry Van

In Memoriam A. H. H.

...r has the shock, so harshly given,
Confused me like the unhappy bark
 
That strikes by night a craggy shelf,
   And staggers blindly ere she sink?
   And stunn'd me from my power to think
And all my knowledge of myself;
 
And made me that delirious man
   Whose fancy fuses old and new,
   And flashes into false and true,
And mingles all without a plan?
 
XVII
Thou comest, much wept for: such a breeze
   Compell'd thy canvas, and my prayer
   Was as the whisper...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord

Interim

...ngle in the frantic hands of God
And the worlds gallop headlong to destruction!

O God, I see it now, and my sick brain
Staggers and swoons! How often over me
Flashes this breathlessness of sudden sight
In which I see the universe unrolled
Before me like a scroll and read thereon
Chaos and Doom, where helpless planets whirl
Dizzily round and round and round and round,
Like tops across a table, gathering speed
With every spin, to waver on the edge
One instant—looking over—and ...Read more of this...
by St. Vincent Millay, Edna

Ode in Memory of the American Volunteers Fallen for France

...gallant charge expires, 
When the slain bugler has long ceased to sound, 
And on the tangled wires 
The last wild rally staggers, crumbles, stops, 
Withered beneath the shrapnel's iron showers: -- 
Now heaven be thanked, we gave a few brave drops; 
Now heaven be thanked, a few brave drops were ours." 

V 

There, holding still, in frozen steadfastness, 
Their bayonets toward the beckoning frontiers, 
They lie -- our comrades -- lie among their peers, 
Clad in the glory of fal...Read more of this...
by Seeger, Alan

On a Line From Valery (Gulf War)

...ws
His whole green sky is dying as it flares.

Our crops of wheat have turned to fields of tares.
This dreadful century staggers to its close
And the sky dies for us, its poisoned heirs.

All rain was dust. Its granules were our cares.
Throats burst as everywhere winter arose
To dye the dead sky green. The last tree bears
Within its canopy ripe poisoned pears....Read more of this...
by Kizer, Carolyn

On a Line from Valéry (The Gulf War)

...ws
His whole green sky is dying as it flares.

Our crops of wheat have turned to fields of tares.
This dreadful century staggers to its close
And the sky dies for us, its poisoned heirs.

All rain was dust.Its granules were our tears.
Throats burst as universal winter rose
To kill the whole green sky, the last tree bare
Beneath its canopy of poisoned air....Read more of this...
by Kizer, Carolyn

Rosalind and Helen: a Modern Eclogue

...ause they blush not with remorse
Among their crawling worms. Behold,
I have no child! my tale grows old
With grief, and staggers; let it reach
The limits of my feeble speech, 
And languidly at length recline
On the brink of its own grave and mine.

Thou knowest what a thing is Poverty
Among the fallen on evil days.
'T is Crime, and Fear, and Infamy,
And houseless Want in frozen ways
Wandering ungarmented, and Pain,
And, worse than all, that inward stain,
Foul Self-contempt, w...Read more of this...
by Shelley, Percy Bysshe

the adventures (from frederick and the enchantress – dance drama)

...torted
  grotesque eccentric in the moon-toothed
  half-light
  tug clutch struggle
  with the haggard form
  zigzag he staggers
  awe-plagued giddy
  near-garrotted mind-deranged
  forcing his sagging limbs through the mangled danger

  till almost beyond redemption beyond self-care
  he once again survives to breathe free air


 (v) the barrier of thorns

  immediately a barrier of thorns
  springs up to choke his track
  thick brier evil bramble twitch
  stick sharp needle...Read more of this...
by Gregory, Rg

The Haggis Of Private McPhee

...ap!
For the sake o' that haggis I'll gang till I drap."
And he gets on his feet wi' a heave and a strain,
And onward he staggers in passion and pain.
And the flare and the glare and the fury increase,
Till you'd think they'd jist taken a' hell on a lease.
And on they go reelin' in peetifu' plight,
And someone is shoutin' away on their right;
And someone is runnin', and noo they can hear
A sound like a prayer and a sound like a cheer;
And swift through the crash and the flash ...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William

The Retreat

...ce th' enlighten'd spirit sees
26 That shady city of palm trees.
27 But ah! my soul with too much stay
28 Is drunk, and staggers in the way.
29 Some men a forward motion love,
30 But I by backward steps would move;
31 And when this dust falls to the urn,
32 In that state I came, return....Read more of this...
by Vaughan, Henry

The Sun Weilds Mercy

...ead
radioactive fish from their beaks;
indeed, indeed, the waters wash
the rocks with slime; and on wall st.
the market staggers like a lost drunk
looking for his key; ah,
this will be a good one,by God:
it will take us back to the
sabre-teeth, the winged monkey
scrabbling in pits over bits
of helmet, instrument and glass;
a lightning crashes across
the window and in a million rooms
lovers lie entwined and lost
and sick as peace;
the sky still breaks red and orange for the
pa...Read more of this...
by Bukowski, Charles

The Trail Of Ninety-Eight

...menace of doom.

The river springs like a racer, sweeps through a gash in the rock;
Buts at the boulder-ribbed bottom, staggers and rears at the shock;
Leaps like a terrified monster, writhes in its fury and pain;
Then with the crash of a demon springs to the onset again.

Dared we that ravening terror; heard we its din in our ears;
Called on the Gods of our fathers, juggled forlorn with our fears;
Sank to our waists in its fury, tossed to the sky like a fleece;
Then, when o...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William

When A Woman Loves A Man

...
she is asleep he is watching the ball scores and eating pretzels
drinking lemonade
and two hours later he wakes up and staggers into bed
where she remains asleep and very warm.

When she says tomorrow she means in three or four weeks.
When she says, "We're talking about me now,"
he stops talking. Her best friend comes over and says,
"Did somebody die?"

When a woman loves a man, they have gone
to swim naked in the stream
on a glorious July day
with the sound of the waterfall...Read more of this...
by Lehman, David

Winged Man

...les like a swallow, wheeling, flaming, gyre on gyre. 

Gazing straight at the sun, half his pilgrimage is done, 
And he staggers for a moment, hurries on, reels backward, swerves 
In a rain of scattered feathers as he falls in broken curves. 

Icarus, Icarus, though the end is piteous, 
Yet forever, yea, forever we shall see thee rising thus, 
See the first supernal glory, not the ruin hideous. 

You were Man, you who ran farther than our eyes can scan, 
Man absurd, gigantic,...Read more of this...
by Benet, Stephen Vincent

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