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Famous Stroked Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Hardy, Thomas
...ake
That high compassion which can overbear
Reluctance for pure loving kindness' sake
Grieved I, when, as the hope-hour stroked its sum,
You did not come. 

You love me not,
And love alone can lend you loyalty;
--I know and knew it. But, unto the store
Of human deeds divine in all but name,
Was it not worth a little hour or more
To add yet this: Once you, a woman, came
To soothe a time-torn man; even though it be
You love me not....Read more of this...



by Frost, Robert
...e all you want."
Good-looking books like that." He picked one fresh
In virgin wrapper from deep in the box,
And stroked it with a horny-handed kindness.
He read in one and I read in another,
Both either looking for or finding something.

The attic wasps went missing by like bullets.

I was soon satisfied for the time being.

All the way home I kept remembering
The small book in my pocket. It was there.
The poetess had sighed, I knew, in heaven
...Read more of this...

by Tebb, Barry
...court

By the petrol pumps

Where I first kissed you.





67



When I kissed you again

It was forty years on,

I stroked your crystal hair

And your eyes shone.



When I put my tongue

Inside you, your body

Shook with all the tears

Of forty years.





68



“Don’t leave me again

I’ve not got another

Lifetime to lose, touch

My face with your hand,

Kiss me better.”

Making love again

Entering every orifice

With ***** and tongue

We tried to heal and...Read more of this...

by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
...hym bifore stod vpon hyyght,
Herre then ani in the hous by the hede and more.
Wyth sturne schere ther he stod he stroked his berde,
And wyth a countenaunce dryyghe he droygh doun his cote,
No more mate ne dismayd for hys mayn dintez
Then any burne vpon bench hade broyght hym to drynk
of wyne.
Gawan, that sate bi the quene,
To the kyng he can enclyne:
"I beseche now with sayghez sene
This melly mot be myne.
"Wolde yghe, worthilych lorde," quoth Wawan to...Read more of this...

by Rich, Adrienne
...o hands
and they have caught the baby leaping
from between trembling legs
and they have worked the vacuum aspirator
and stroked the sweated temples
and steered the boat there through this hot
misblotted sunlight, critical light
imperceptibly scalding
the skin these hands will also salve....Read more of this...



by Walcott, Derek
...but he felt bodiless, like a man stumbling from
the pages of a novel, not a forest,
written a hundred years ago. He stroked his uniform,
clogged with the hooked burrs that had tried
to pull him, like the other drowning hands whom
his panic abandoned. The others had died,
like real men, by death. I, Koenig, am a ghost,
ghost-king of rivers. Well, even ghosts must rest.
If he knew he was lost he was not lost.
It was when you pretended that you were a foo...Read more of this...

by Arnold, Matthew
...Sohrab crawl'd to where he lay, and cast
His arms about his neck, and kiss'd his lips,
And with fond faltering fingers stroked his cheeks,
Trying to call him back to life; and life
Came back to Rustum, and he oped his eyes,
And they stood wide with horror; and he seized
In both his hands the dust which lay around,
And threw it on his head, and smirch'd his hair,--
His hair, and face, and beard, and glittering arms;
And strong convulsive groanings shook his breast,
And his so...Read more of this...

by Lowell, Amy
...ther, as swords and seeds.
Your neighbours must have greatly differing needs."
"My neighbours," he said, and he stroked his chin,
"Live everywhere from here to Pekin.
But you are wrong, my sort of goods
Is but one thing in all its moods."
He took a shagreen letter case
From his pocket, and with charming grace
Offered me a printed card.
I read the legend, "Ephraim Bard.
Dealer in Words." And that was all.
I stared at the letters, whimsical
Indee...Read more of this...

by Hardy, Thomas
...heart, Dear; that must stay!"

--With breathings broken
Farewell was kissed unspoken,
And they parted there as morning stroked the panes;
And the Volunteer went on, and turned, and twirled his glove for
token,
And took the coastward lanes.

When above He'th Hills he found him,
He saw, on gazing round him,
The Barrow-Beacon burning--burning low,
As if, perhaps, uplighted ever since he'd homeward bound him;
And it meant: Expect the Foe!

Leaving the byway,
And following sw...Read more of this...

by Service, Robert William
...he black fox skin a shadow cast from the roof nigh to the floor;
And sleek it seemed and soft it gleamed, and the woman stroked it o'er;
And the man stood by with a brooding eye, and gnashed his teeth and swore.

When thieves and thugs fall out and fight there's fell arrears to pay;
And soon or late sin meets its fate, and so it fell one day
That Claw-fingered Kitty and Windy Ike fanged up like dogs at bay.

"The skin is mine, all mine," she cried; "I did the deed alo...Read more of this...

by Chesterton, G K
...ike the child's book to read,
Or like a friend's face seen in a glass;
He looked; and there Our Lady was,
She stood and stroked the tall live grass
As a man strokes his steed.

Her face was like an open word
When brave men speak and choose,
The very colours of her coat
Were better than good news.

She spoke not, nor turned not,
Nor any sign she cast,
Only she stood up straight and free,
Between the flowers in Athelney,
And the river running past.

One dim ancestra...Read more of this...

by Jarrell, Randall
...From the moon and stars and frogs of the floor.
 But the swan my sister called, "Sleep at last, little sister,"
And stroked all night, with a black wing, my wings....Read more of this...

by Service, Robert William
...in,
And indolently seemed to sigh:
"There's not another cat in Spain
One half so marvelous as I."

Its owner gently stroked its head,
And tickled it with fingers light.
"Ah no, it cannot fly," he said;
"But see - it has the wings all right."
Then tenderly from off its back
He raised, despite its feline fears,
Appendages that seemed to lack
Vitality - like rabbit's ears.

And then the vision that I had
Of Tabbie soaring through the night,
Quick vanished, and I ...Read more of this...

by Sexton, Anne
...w slam
of the dory against the float.
Black arms of thunder strapped
upon us, squalled out, we breathed in rain
and stroked past the boat.
We thrashed for shore as if we were trapped
in green and that suddenly inadequate stain

of lightning belling around
our skin. Bodies in air
we raced for the empty lobsterman-shack.
It was yellow inside, the sound
of the underwing of the sun. I swear,
I most solemnly swear, on all the bric-a-brac

of summer loves, I kno...Read more of this...

by Betjeman, John
...the rain.

Had I kissed and drawn you to me
Had you yielded warm for cold,
What a power had pounded through me
As I stroked your streaming gold!
You were right to keep us parted:
Bound and parted we remain,
Aching, if unbroken hearted -
Oh! Dungarvan in the rain!...Read more of this...

by Walcott, Derek
...bath of dictators, Trujillo, Machado, 
and those whose faces had yellowed like posters 
on municipal walls. Now she stroked his hair 
until it turned white, but she would not understand 
that he wanted no other power but peace, 
that he wanted a revolution without any bloodshed, 
he wanted a history without any memory, 
streets without statues, 
and a geography without myth. He wanted no armies 
but those regiments of bananas, thick lances of cane, 
and he sobbed,"I a...Read more of this...

by Yeats, William Butler
...
About them; and the horse of Faery screamed
And shivered, knowing the Isle of Many Fears,
Nor ceased until white Niamh stroked his ears
And named him by sweet names.

 A foaming tide
Whitened afar with surge, fan-formed and wide,
Burst from a great door matred by many a blow
From mace and sword and pole-axe, long ago
When gods and giants warred. We rode between
The seaweed-covered pillars; and the green
And surging phosphorus alone gave light
On our dark pathway, til...Read more of this...

by Wright, James
...ce
In the unendurable snow.
He had a singe of white
Beard on his face.
He paused on a street in Minneapolis
And stroked my face.
Give it to me, he begged.
I'll pay you anything.

I flinched. Both terrified,
We slunk away,
Each in his own way dodging
The cruel darts of the cold.

Beautiful natural blossoms,
How could you possibly
Worry or bother or care
About the ashamed, hopeless
Old man? He was so near death
He was willing to take
Any love he coul...Read more of this...

by Levertov, Denise
...Green Snake, when I hung you round my neck
and stroked your cold, pulsing throat
as you hissed to me, glinting
arrowy gold scales, and I felt
the weight of you on my shoulders,
and the whispering silver of your dryness
sounded close at my ears --


Green Snake--I swore to my companions that certainly
you were harmless! But truly
I had no certainty, and no hope, only desiring
to hold you, for that joy, 
w...Read more of this...

by Walker, Alice
...," said Golda.


Only in Africa could she finally
Settle down and comb her hair.
The children crept up and stroked it,
And she felt beautiful.


Such wonderful people, Africans
Childish, arrogant, self-indulgent, pompous,
Cowardly and treacherous-a great disappointment
To Israel, of course, and really rather
Ridiculous in international affairs
But, withal, opined Golda, a people of charm
And good taste. ...Read more of this...

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