Famous Steadied Poems by Famous Poets

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

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News For The Delphic Oracle

by William Butler Yeats
 I

There all the golden codgers lay,
There the silver dew,
And the great water sighed for love,
And the wind sighed too.
Man-picker Niamh leant and sighed
By Oisin on the grass;
There sighed amid his choir of love
Tall pythagoras.
plotinus came and looked about,
The salt-flakes on his breast,
And having stretched and yawned awhile
Lay sighing like the rest.

 II

Straddling each a dolphin's back
And steadied by a...Read more of this...

Searcy Foote

by Edgar Lee Masters
 I wanted to go away to college
But rich Aunt Persis wouldn't help me.
So I made gardens and raked the lawns
And bought John Alden's books with my earnings
And toiled for the very means of life.
I wanted to marry Delia Prickett,
But how could I do it with what I earned?
And there was Aunt Persis more than seventy,
Who sat in a wheel-chair...Read more of this...

Butch Weldy

by Edgar Lee Masters
 After I got religion and steadied down
They gave me a job in the canning works,
And every morning I had to fill
The tank in the yard with gasoline,
That fed the blow-fires in the sheds
To heat the soldering irons.
And I mounted a rickety ladder to do it,
Carrying buckets full of the stuff.
One morning, as I stood there pouring,
The air grew still...Read more of this...

As a Strong Bird on Pinions Free

by Walt Whitman
 1
AS a strong bird on pinions free, 
Joyous, the amplest spaces heavenward cleaving, 
Such be the thought I’d think to-day of thee, America, 
Such be the recitative I’d bring to-day for thee. 

The conceits of the poets of other lands I bring thee not,
Nor the compliments that have served their turn so long, 
Nor rhyme—nor the classics—nor perfume of...Read more of this...

Goalkeeper Joe

by Marriott Edgar
 Joe Dunn were a bobby for football 
He gave all his time to that sport, 
He played for the West Wigan Whippets, 
On days when they turned out one short. 

He’d been member of club for three seasons 
And had grumbled again and again, 
Cos he found only time that they’d used him, 
Were when it were pouring with...Read more of this...

A Miracle For Breakfast

by Elizabeth Bishop
 At six o'clock we were waiting for coffee, 
waiting for coffee and the charitable crumb 
that was going to be served from a certain balcony 
—like kings of old, or like a miracle. 
It was still dark. One foot of the sun 
steadied itself on a long ripple in the river. 

The first ferry of the day had just...Read more of this...

Mulligans Mare

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 Oh, Mulligan's bar was the deuce of a place 
To drink, and to fight, and to gamble and race; 
The height of choice spirits from near and from far 
Were all concentrated on Mulligan's bar. 

There was "Jerry the Swell", and the jockey-boy Ned, 
"Dog-bite-me" -- so called from the shape of his head -- 
And a man whom...Read more of this...

Tommy Corrigan

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 You talk of riders on the flat, of nerve and pluck and pace -- 
Not one in fifty has the nerve to ride a steeplechase. 
It's right enough, while horses pull and take their faces strong, 
To rush a flier to the front and bring the field along; 
Bur what about the last half-mile, with horses blown and beat...Read more of this...

The Negatives

by Philip Levine
 On March 1, 1958, four deserters from the French Army of North Africa, 
August Rein, Henri Bruette, Jack Dauville, & Thomas Delain, robbed a 
government pay station at Orleansville. Because of the subsequent 
confession of Dauville the other three were captured or shot. Dauville 
was given his freedom and returned to the land of his birth, the U.S.A.

AUGUST REIN:...Read more of this...

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