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Famous Steely Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Marvell, Andrew
...es:
And now his Life, suspended by her breath,
Ran out impetuously to hasting Death.
Like polish'd Mirrours, so his steely Brest
Had ev'ry figure of her woes exprest;
And with the damp of her last Gasps obscur'd,
Had drawn such staines as were not to be cur'd.
Fate could not either reach with single stroke,
But the dear Image fled the Mirrour broke.
Who now shall tell us more of mournful Swans,
Of Halcyons kind, or bleeding Pelicans?
No downy breast did ere so gen...Read more of this...



by Sandburg, Carl
...boy, he went to sea, long and long ago,
Curls of brown were slipping underneath his cap,
He looked at me from blue and steely eyes;
Natty, straight and true, he stepped away,
My boy, he went to sea.
All day long in fog and wind,
The waves have flung their beating crests
Against the palisades of adamant....Read more of this...

by Tebb, Barry
...listing broken windows blew our minds-

Like discovering a Tintoretto in a gallery of fakes.

Leeds takes away the steely glare of Sutton

Weighing down on me like breeze-blocks by the ton,

When all I want to do is run away and make a home

In Keighley, catch a bus to Haworth and walk and walk

Till human talk is silenced by the sun....Read more of this...

by Hughes, Ted
...s to the centrepin of his body

He sets the little circlets on her fingertips

She stiches his body here and there with steely purple silk

He oils the delicate cogs of her mouth

She inlays with deep cut scrolls the nape of his neck

He sinks into place the inside of her thighs

So, gasping with joy, with cries of wonderment
Like two gods of mud
Sprawling in the dirt, but with infinite care
They bring each other to perfection....Read more of this...

by Wilde, Oscar
...galaxy,
And back to Athens on her clattering car
In all the pride of venged divinity
Pale Pallas swept with shrill and steely clank,
And a few gurgling bubbles rose where her boy lover sank.

And the mast shuddered as the gaunt owl flew
With mocking hoots after the wrathful Queen,
And the old pilot bade the trembling crew
Hoist the big sail, and told how he had seen
Close to the stern a dim and giant form,
And like a dipping swallow the stout ship dashed through the stor...Read more of this...



by Kilmer, Joyce
...rade.
He fights, and for his fireside's sake;
He fights for clothing and for bread:
The lances of his foemen make
A steely halo round his head.
He decks his window artfully,
He haggles over paltry sums.
In this strange field his war must be
And by such blows his triumph comes.
What if no trumpet sounds to call
His armed legions to his side?
What if, to no ancestral hall
He comes in all a victor's pride?
The scene shall never fit the deed.
Grotesquely wonde...Read more of this...

by Robinson, Mary Darby
...eir low roof, slanting.

And, as the wicket latch she clos'd,
A groan was heard!--she trembled!
And now a clashing, steely sound,
In quick vibrations echoed round,
Like murd'rous swords, assembled!

She started back; she look'd around,
The Goatherd Swain was sleeping;
A stagnate paleness mark'd her cheek,
She would have call'd, but could not speak,
While, through the lattice peeping.

And O! how dimly shone the Moon,
Upon the snowy mountain!
And fiercely did the wild ...Read more of this...

by Lowell, Amy
...f armour, the tread of a heavy man.
The door bursts open and standing there, his thin hair wavering
in the glare of steely daylight, is my Lord of Clair.

Over the yawning chimney hangs the fog. Drip -- hiss 
-- drip -- hiss --
fall the raindrops. Overhead hammers and chinks the rain 
which never stops.
The velvet coverlet is sodden and wet, yet the 
roof beams are tight.
Overhead, the coronet gleams with its blackened gold, winking and 
blinking.
...Read more of this...

by Gregory, Rg
...fused)

for all its roar it
slumbers through its present
wanting its glory back
the talk of its old
workers flawed with steely
pride (that stainless stain)
there's no dawn there - its power
and wealth have long borne
all its sons away

it's in the detritus
i stand in (in this mix
of race and stymied
passion heeley has become
- and all such cast-off
cesspits of our dreams)
the not-yet written 
songs of human dignity
are not yet being sung

the shudder leaves me
i'm just this o...Read more of this...

by Lowell, Amy
...I
How fresh the Dartle's little waves that day! A 
steely silver, underlined with blue,
And flashing where the round clouds, blown away, Let drop the 
yellow sunshine to gleam through
And tip the edges of the waves with shifts And spots of whitest 
fire, hard like gems
Cut from the midnight moon they were, and sharp As 
wind through leafless stems.
The Lady Eunice walked between the drifts
Of blooming ch...Read more of this...

by Tebb, Barry
...must share the honour with Jimmy Keery,

Of whom I will admit I’m somewhat leery,

His critical acuity so absolute and steely.



I ask you all to stay with me

Through time into infinity

Not even death can undo

The love I have for you....Read more of this...

by Service, Robert William
...vitch.
In long hip-boots and overalls, and dingy denim shirt,
Behind a giant monitor he pounded at the dirt.

A steely shaft of water shot, and smote the face of clay;
It burrowed in the frozen muck, and scooped the dirt away;
It gored the gravel from its bed, it bellowed like a bull;
It hurled the heavy rock aloft like heaps of fleecy wool.

Strength of a hundred men was there, resistess might and skill,
And only Riley Dooleyvitch to swing it at his will.
He ...Read more of this...

by Marvell, Andrew
...: 
And now his life, suspended by her breath, 
Ran out impetuously to hasting death. 
Like polished mirrors, so his steely breast 
Had every figure of her woes expressed, 
And with the damp of her last gasp obscured, 
Had drawn such stains as were not to be cured. 
Fate could not either reach with single stroke, 
But the dear image fled, the mirror broke. 

Who now shall tell us more of mournful swans, 
Of halcyons kind, or bleeding pelicans? 
No downy breast did ...Read more of this...

by Murray, Les
...stion posed by a work-shorts counter
with its pressed stack, bulk khaki and blue,
reading Yakka or King Gee, crisp with steely warehouse odour. 

Satisfied ambition, defeat, true unconcern,
the wish and the knack of self-forgetfulness
all fall within the scunge ambit
wearing board shorts of similar;
it is a kind of weightlessness. 

Unlike public nakedness, which in Westerners
is deeply circumstantial, relaxed as exam time,
artless and equal as the corsetry of a hussa...Read more of this...

by Morris, William
...se it is,
If ye will read aright, and pardon me,
Who strive to build a shadowy isle of bliss
Midmost the beating of the steely sea,
Where tossed about all hearts of men must be;
Whose ravening monsters mighty men shall slay,
Not the poor singer of an empty day....Read more of this...

by Bishop, Elizabeth
...ide; 
disrupted the formation 
of a lone flight of Canada geese; 
and blew back the low, inaudible rollers 
in upright, steely mist. 

The sky was darker than the water 
--it was the color of mutton-fat jade. 
Along the wet sand, in rubber boots, we followed 
a track of big dog-prints (so big 
they were more like lion-prints). Then we came on 
lengths and lengths, endless, of wet white string, 
looping up to the tide-line, down to the water, 
over and over. Fi...Read more of this...

by McKay, Claude
...to view 
The ghastly body swaying in the sun 
The women thronged to look, but never a one 
Showed sorrow in her eyes of steely blue; 
And little lads, lynchers that were to be, 
Danced round the dreadful thing in fiendish glee....Read more of this...

by Kipling, Rudyard
...rass shake in the sun for leagues on either hand,
I see a river loop and run about a treeless land --
An empty plain, a steely pond, a distance diamond-clear,
And low blue naked hills beyond. And what is that to fear?"

"Go softly by that river-side or, when you would depart,
You'll find its every winding tied and knotted round your heart.
Be wary as the seasons pass, or you may ne'er outrun
The wind that sets that yellowed grass a-shiver 'neath the Sun."

I hear ...Read more of this...

by Marvell, Andrew
...ce that thawed the most congeal?d breast -- 
He who loved best and them defended best, 
Whose hand so rudely grasps the steely brand, 
Whose hand most gently melts the lady's hand -- 
They all in mutiny though yet undressed 
Sallied, and would in his defence contest. 
And one, the loveliest that was yet e'er seen, 
Thinking that I too of the rout had been, 
Mine eyes invaded with a female spite, 
(She knew what pain 'twould cause to lose that sight.) 
`O no, mistake n...Read more of this...

by Crapsey, Adelaide
...The cold
With steely clutch
Grips all the land…alack,
The little people in the hills
Will die!...Read more of this...

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