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Famous Structures Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Clampitt, Amy
...adying
for being turned over and over as gravely
and gradually as an intellect
engaged in the hazardous
redefinition of structures
no one has yet looked at....Read more of this...



by Milton, John
...That dumb things would be moved to sympathise,
And the brute Earth would lend her nerves, and shake,
Till all thy magic structures, reared so high,
Were shattered into heaps o'er thy false head.
 COMUS. She fables not. I feel that I do fear
Her words set off by some superior power;
And, though not mortal, yet a cold shuddering dew
Dips me all o'er, as when the wrath of Jove
Speaks thunder and the chains of Erebus
To some of Saturn's crew. I must dissemble,
And...Read more of this...

by Lowell, Robert
...Those blessed structures plot and rhyme-
why are they no help to me now
i want to make
something imagined not recalled?
I hear the noise of my own voice:
The painter's vision is not a lens 
it trembles to caress the light.
But sometimes everything i write
With the threadbare art of my eye
seems a snapshot 
lurid rapid garish grouped 
heightened from life 
...Read more of this...

by Marvell, Andrew
...e bass: 
No note he struck, but a new stone was laid, 
And the great work ascended while he played. 

The listening structures he with wonder eyed, 
And still new stops to various time applied: 
Now through the strings a martial rage he throws, 
And joining straight the Theban tower arose; 
Then as he strokes them with a touch more sweet, 
The flocking marbles in a palace meet; 
But for the most the graver notes did try, 
Therefore the temples reared their columns high: 
...Read more of this...

by Gregory, Rg
...freight
emptied of pomp their anarchy instinct
they'd rattle down their tracks at such a rate
they'd writhe their upper structures like an eight
being drawn by revelling legless topers
strict rails (they claimed) gave sanction for such capers

trams had this kind of catholic conviction
the end ordained their waywardness was blessed
if tramways claimed per se this benediction
who cared if errant trams at times seemed pissed
religions prosper from the hedonist
who shags the wor...Read more of this...



by Finch, Anne Kingsmill
...ons, which the Freeze has borne 
Through Ages past, t'extol and to adorn, 
And to our latter Times convey; 
Who did the Structures deep Foundation lay, 
Forcing his Praise upon the gazing Croud, 
And, whilst he moulders in a scanty Shroud, 
Telling both Earth and Skies, he when alive was proud. 
Now down at once comes the superfluous Load, 
The costly Fret-work with it yields, 
Whose imitated Fruits and Flow'rs are strew'd, 
Like those of real Growth o'er the Autumnal Fie...Read more of this...

by Petrarch, Francesco
...same,Amid the thunderings of Rome's Jove—the Pope.Not here do human structures interlopeThe fir to rival, or the pine-tree's claim,The soul may revel in poetic flameUpon yon mountain's green and gentle slope.And thus from earth to heaven the spirit soars,Whilst Philomel her tale of woe repeats...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...ands, 
Crossing the prairies—dwelling again in Chicago—dwelling in every
 town, 
Observing shows, births, improvements, structures, arts, 
Listening to the orators and the oratresses in public halls, 
Of and through The States, as during life—each man and woman my neighbor,
The Louisianian, the Georgian, as near to me, and I as near to him and her, 
The Mississippian and Arkansian yet with me—and I yet with any of them; 
Yet upon the plains west of the spinal river—yet in my ...Read more of this...

by Doty, Mark
...the Modern World"; 
I loved the promise of my father's blueprints, 
the unfulfilled turquoise schemes, 
but in the real structures 
you could hardly imagine a future. 
I wanted the density of history, 
which I confused with the smell of the book: 

Babylon's ziggurat tropical with ferns, 
engraved watercourses rippling; 
the Colossus of Rhodes balanced 
over the harbormouth on his immense ankles. 
Athena filled one end of the Parthenon, 
in an "artist's reconstruction...Read more of this...

by Marvell, Andrew
...d, or the Base:
No Note he struck, but a new Story lay'd,
And the great Work ascended while he play'd.
The listning Structures he with Wonder ey'd,
And still new Stopps to various Time apply'd:
Now through the Strings a Martial rage he throws,
And joyng streight the Theban Tow'r arose;
Then as he strokes them with a Touch more sweet,
The flocking Marbles in a Palace meet;
But, for he most the graver Notes did try,
Therefore the Temples rear'd their Columns high:
Thus, ere...Read more of this...

by Emerson, Ralph Waldo
...nd the world 
Is all his own, retiring, as he were not, 
Leaves, when the sun appears, astonished Art 
To mimic in slow structures, stone by stone, 
Built in an age, the mad wind's night-work, 
The frolic architecture of the snow....Read more of this...

by Emerson, Ralph Waldo
..., and the world
Is all his own, retiring, as he were not,
Leaves, when the sun appears, astonished Art
To mimic in slow structures, stone by stone,
Built in an age, the mad wind's night-work,
The frolic architecture of the snow....Read more of this...

by Hecht, Anthony
...et me tell you,
It keeps me quite intent and occupied.
Now all the leaves are down, you can see the spare,
Delicate structures of the sycamores,
The fine articulation of the beeches.
I have sat here for days studying them,
And I have only just begun to see
What it is that they resemble. One by one,
They stand there like magnificent enlargements
Of the vascular system of the human brain.
I see them there like huge discarnate minds,
Lost in their meditative sile...Read more of this...

by Piercy, Marge
...urning grey in your beard. 

All poets are unemployed nowadays. 
My country marches in its sleep. 
The past structures a heavy mausoleum 
hiding its iron frame in masonry. 
Men burn like grass 
while armies grow. 

Thirty years in the vast rumbling gut 
of this society you stormed 
to be used, screamed 
no louder than any other breaking voice. 
The waste of a good man 
bleeds the future that's come 
in Chicago, in flat America, 
where the poor still bl...Read more of this...

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