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Famous Steeples Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Burns, Robert
...ir kindling wrath.


 Note 1. A noted tavern at the Auld Brig end.—R. B. [back]
Note 2. The two steeples.—R. B. [back]
Note 3. The two steeples.—R. B. [back]
Note 4. The Gos-hawk, or Falcon.—R. B. [back]
Note 5. A noted ford, just above the Auld Brig.—R. B. [back]
Note 6. The source of the River Ayr.—R. B. [back]
Note 7. A well-known performer of Scottish music on the violi...Read more of this...



by Burns, Robert
...t-liv’d glow’r,
 Far south the lift,
Dim-dark’ning thro’ the flaky show’r,
 Or whirling drift:


Ae night the storm the steeples rocked,
Poor Labour sweet in sleep was locked,
While burns, wi’ snawy wreaths up-choked,
 Wild-eddying swirl;
Or, thro’ the mining outlet bocked,
 Down headlong hurl:


List’ning the doors an’ winnocks rattle,
I thought me on the ourie cattle,
Or silly sheep, wha bide this brattle
 O’ winter war,
And thro’ the drift, deep-lairing, sprattle
 Beneath ...Read more of this...

by Lowell, Amy
...unning with blood they have gulped; it is plain
Such excellent sport does not recollect pain.
Toll the bells in the steeples left standing. Half-mast
The flags which meant order, for order is past.
Take the dust of the streets and sprinkle your head,
The civilization we've worked for is dead.
Squeeze into this archway, the head of the line
Has just swung round the corner to `Die Wacht am Rhein'....Read more of this...

by Chesterton, G K
...You fight well and get your fee;
For your God or dream or devil
You will answer, not to me.
Talk about the pews and steeples
And the cash that goes therewith!
But the souls of Christian peoples...
Chuck it, Smith!...Read more of this...

by Thomas, Dylan
...
And thunderbolts in their manes.
O Rome and Sodom To-morrow and London
The country tide is cobbled with towns

And steeples pierce the cloud on her shoulder
And the streets that the fisherman combed
When his long-legged flesh was a wind on fire
And his loin was a hunting flame

Coil from the thoroughfares of her hair
And terribly lead him home alive
Lead her prodigal home to his terror,
The furious ox-killing house of love.

Down, down, down, under the ground,
Under ...Read more of this...



by Housman, A E
...In summertime on Bredon
The bells they sound so clear;
Round both the shires they ring them
In steeples far and near,
A happy noise to hear.

Here of a Sunday morning
My love and I would lie,
And see the coloured counties,
And hear the larks so high
About us in the sky.

The bells would ring to call her
In valleys miles away:
'Come all to church, good people;
Good people, come and pray.
But here my love would stay.

And I would turn an...Read more of this...

by Hugo, Victor
...
 The darkened city breathed no more; 
 The moon was mantled long, 
 Till towers thrust the cloudy cloak 
 Upon the steeples' throng; 
 The crossway Christ, in ivy draped, 
 Shrank, grieving, 'neath the pall,— 
 Away, ye merry maids, etc. 
 
 But while, alone, they kept the shade, 
 The other dark-eyed dears 
 Were murmuring on the stifling air 
 Their jealous threats and fears; 
 Alizia was so blamed, that time, 
 Unheeded rang the call: 
 Away, ye merry maids...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...napsacks
 cover’d with dust!) 
The blood of the city up—arm’d! arm’d! the cry everywhere; 
The flags flung out from the steeples of churches, and from all the public buildings and
 stores;
The tearful parting—the mother kisses her son—the son kisses his mother; 
(Loth is the mother to part—yet not a word does she speak to detain him;) 
The tumultuous escort—the ranks of policemen preceding, clearing the way; 
The unpent enthusiasm—the wild cheers of the crowd for their favori...Read more of this...

by Dickinson, Emily
...I'll tell you how the Sun rose --
A Ribbon at a time --
The Steeples swam in Amethyst --
The news, like Squirrels, ran --
The Hills untied their Bonnets --
The Bobolinks -- begun --
Then I said softly to myself --
"That must have been the Sun"!
But how he set -- I know not --
There seemed a purple stile
That little Yellow boys and girls
Were climbing all the while --
Till when they reached the other side,
A Dominie i...Read more of this...

by Whittier, John Greenleaf
...or; 
An equal-handed labor; 
The richer life, where beauty 
Walks hand in hand with duty. 

Ring, bells in unreared steeples, 
The joy of unborn peoples! 
Sound, trumpets far off blown, 
Your triumph is my own! 

Parcel and part of all, 
I keep the festival, 
Fore-reach the good to be, 
And share the victory. 

I feel the earth move sunward, 
I join the great march onward, 
And take, by faith, while living, 
My freehold of thanksgiving....Read more of this...

by Spenser, Edmund
...r sing, 
Your glory, fairest of all earthly thing. 


2 

Great Babylon her haughty walls will praise, 
And sharpèd steeples high shot up in air; 
Greece will the old Ephesian buildings blaze; 
And Nylus' nurslings their Pyramids fair; 
The same yet vaunting Greece will tell the story 
Of Jove's great image in Olympus placed, 
Mausolus' work will be the Carian's glory, 
And Crete will boast the Labybrinth, now 'rased; 
The antique Rhodian will likewise set forth 
The grea...Read more of this...

by Marvell, Andrew
...ch the Sea, then those to scale the Sky.
Yet still his claim the Injur'd Ocean laid,
And oft at Leap-frog ore their Steeples plaid:
As if on purpose it on Land had come
To shew them what's their Mare Liberum.
A daily deluge over them does boyl;
The Earth and Water play at Level-coyl;
The Fish oft-times the Burger dispossest,
And sat not as a Meat but as a Guest;
And oft the Tritons and the Sea-Nymphs saw
Whole sholes of Dutch serv'd up for Cabillan;
Or as they over th...Read more of this...

by Hugo, Victor
...endly neighbors made? 
 The while ye might, in peaceful cheer, 
 Mirror upon your waters clear, 
 Semlin! thy Gothic steeples dear, 
 And thy bright minarets, Belgrade! 
 
 Fraser's Magazine 


 




...Read more of this...

by Verhaeren, Emile
...t'ring themselves upon it at one stroke,
The Silence has not stirred, there in the heather.


All round about stand steeples straight as stakes,
And each its bell between its fingers shakes;
All round about, with their three-storied loads,
The teams prowl down the roads;
All round about, where'er the pine woods end,
The wheel creaks on along its rutty bed,
But not a sound is strong enough to rend
That space intense and dead.


Since summer, thunder-laden, last w...Read more of this...

by Sandburg, Carl
...ood winds sift over and sing low?”
The answer: “We manufacture musical instruments here.”

Here I saw churches with steeples like hatpins,
Undertaking rooms with sample coffins in the show window
And signs everywhere satisfaction is guaranteed,
Shooting galleries where men kill imitation pigeons,
And there were doctors for the sick,
And lawyers for people waiting in jail,
And a dog catcher and a superintendent of streets,
And telephones, water-works, trolley cars,
And new...Read more of this...

by Whittier, John Greenleaf
...

When the Father of his Country 
Through the north-land riding came 
And the roofs were starred with banners, 
And the steeples rang acclaim,--- 

When each war-scarred Continental 
Leaving smithy, mill,.and farm, 
Waved his rusted sword in welcome, 
And shot off his old king's-arm,--- 

Slowly passed that august Presence 
Down the thronged and shouting street; 
Village girls as white as angels 
Scattering flowers around his feet. 

Midway, where the plane-tree's sha...Read more of this...

by Bosselaar, Laure-Anne
...on her good husband's belly. 

 And all along that year the winds 
kept blowing as they do today, above oceans 
and steeples, and this one speck of dust 
was lifted from somewhere to land exactly 
here, on my desk, and will lift again — into 
the worlds in this world.

 Say now, at this instant: 
one thornless rose opens in a blue jar above 
that speck, but you — reading this — know 
nothing of how it came to flower here, and I 
nothing of who bred it, or where, nothi...Read more of this...

by Dickinson, Emily
...s sweet!
Defeat means nothing but Defeat,
No drearier, can befall!

And if I gain! Oh Gun at Sea!
Oh Bells, that in the Steeples be!
At first, repeat it slow!
For Heaven is a different thing,
Conjectured, and waked sudden in --
And might extinguish me!...Read more of this...

by Brautigan, Richard
...56, before

 a crowd of 40, 000 people.



 There is a tall church across the street from the statue

with crosses, steeples, bells and a vast door that looks like

 a huge mousehole, perhaps from a Tom and Jerry cartoon,

 and written above the door is "Per L'Universo."

 Around five o'clock in the afternoon of my cover for

Trout Fishing in America, people gather in the park across

 the street from the church and they are hungry.

It's sandwich time for the poo...Read more of this...

by Betjeman, John
...Hark, I hear the bells of Westgate,
I will tell you what they sigh,
Where those minarets and steeples
Prick the open Thanet sky.

Happy bells of eighteen-ninety,
Bursting from your freestone tower!
Recalling laurel, shrubs and privet,
Red geraniums in flower.

Feet that scamper on the asphalt
Through the Borough Council grass,
Till they hide inside the shelter
Bright with ironwork and glass,

Striving chains of ordered children
Purple by the...Read more of this...

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Book: Shattered Sighs