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Famous Stationary Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Whitman, Walt
...s ever
 made: 
Shadows of deepest, deepest black, just lit by moving candles and lamps, 
And by one great pitchy torch, stationary, with wild red flame, and clouds of smoke; 
By these, crowds, groups of forms, vaguely I see, on the floor, some in the pews laid
 down;
At my feet more distinctly, a soldier, a mere lad, in danger of bleeding to death, (he is
 shot
 in
 the abdomen;) 
I staunch the blood temporarily, (the youngster’s face is white as a lily;) 
Then before I depar...Read more of this...



by Larkin, Philip
...ce
Thrown off in helping to prolong
The Latin names around the base.

They would no guess how early in
Their supine stationary voyage
The air would change to soundless damage,
Turn the old tenantry away;
How soon succeeding eyes begin
To look, not read. Rigidly they

Persisted, linked, through lengths and breadths
Of time. Snow fell, undated. Light
Each summer thronged the grass. A bright
Litter of birdcalls strewed the same
Bone-littered ground. And u...Read more of this...

by Larkin, Philip
...A stationary sense... as, I suppose,
I shall have, till my single body grows
 Inaccurate, tired;
Then I shall start to feel the backward pull
Take over, sickening and masterful -
 Some say, desired.

And this must be the prime of life... I blink,
As if at pain; for it is pain, to think
 This pantomime
Of compensating act and counter...Read more of this...

by Graham, Jorie
...streets compel it 
from their intersections 
where a little 
belongs to no one. It is 
what is driven through 
all stationary portions 
of the world, gravity's 
stake in things, the leaves, 
pressed against the dank 
window of November 
soil, remain unwelcome 
till transformed, parts 
of a puzzle unsolvable 
till the edges give a bit 
and soften. See how 
then the picture becomes clear, 
the mind entering the ground 
more easily in pieces, 
and all the richer for it....Read more of this...

by Williams, William Carlos (WCW)
...twoeight! 

—rivers are tunneled: trestles 
cross oozy swampland: wheels repeating 
the same gesture remain relatively 
stationary: rails forever parallel 
return on themselves infinitely. 
...Read more of this...



by Moore, Marianne
...lets himself be flattened out by gravity,
as seaweed is tamed and weakened by the sun,
compelled when extended, to lie stationary.
Sleep is the result of his delusion that one must do as well
 as one can for oneself,
sleep--epitome of what is to him the end of life.
Demonstrate on him how the lady placed a forked stick
on the innocuous neck-sides of the dangerous southern snake.
One need not try to stir him up; his prune-shaped head
and alligator-eyes are not par...Read more of this...

by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...Now, scarce three paces measured from the mound, 
We stumbled on a stationary voice, 
And 'Stand, who goes?' 'Two from the palace' I. 
'The second two: they wait,' he said, 'pass on; 
His Highness wakes:' and one, that clashed in arms, 
By glimmering lanes and walls of canvas led 
Threading the soldier-city, till we heard 
The drowsy folds of our great ensign shake 
From blazoned lions o'er the imperial tent 
Whispers o...Read more of this...

by Cowper, William
...hese gates;
No powder'd pert proficient in the art
Of sounding an alarm, assaults these doors
Till the street rings; no stationary steeds
Cough their own knell, while, heedless of the sound,
The silent circle fan themselves, and quake:
But here the needle plies its busy task,
The pattern grows, the well-depicted flow'r,
Wrought patiently into the snowy lawn,
Unfolds its bosom; buds, and leaves, and sprigs,
And curling tendrils, gracefully dispos'd,
Follow the nimble finger of...Read more of this...

by Lanier, Sidney
...gains of vice, the lofty mark that's missed

By all the mortal space 'twixt heaven and hell,
The soul's sad growth o'er stationary friends
Who hear us from our height not well, not well,
The slant of accident, the sudden bends
Of purpose tempered strong, the gambler's spell,
The son's disgrace, the plan that e'er depends

On others' plots, the tricks that passion plays
(I loving you, you him, he none at all),
The artist's pain -- to walk his blood-stained ways,
A special soul...Read more of this...

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