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Famous Supine Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry
...earth that wears upon her
To keep her heart from cold
No memory more of men that brought it fire of old;

These limbs, supine, unbuckled,
In rottenness of rest,
These sleepy lips blood-suckled
And satiate of thy breast,
These dull wide mouths that drain thee dry and call thee blest;

These masters of thee mindless
That wear thee out of mind,
These children of thee kindless
That use thee out of kind,
Whose hands strew gold before thee and contempt behind;

Who have turned thy...Read more of this...
by Swinburne, Algernon Charles



...ned grace
Thrown off in helping to prolong
The Latin names around the base.

They would no guess how early in
Their supine stationary voyage
The air would change to soundless damage,
Turn the old tenantry away;
How soon succeeding eyes begin
To look, not read. Rigidly they

Persisted, linked, through lengths and breadths
Of time. Snow fell, undated. Light
Each summer thronged the grass. A bright
Litter of birdcalls strewed the same
Bone-littered ground.Read more of this...
by Larkin, Philip
...: I, intent, adore;
And, O Melampus, reaching forth my hands
In adoration, cry aloud and soar
In spirit, high above the supine lands
And the low caves of mortal things, and flee
To the last fields of the universe untrod,
Where is no man, nor any earth, nor sea,
And the contented soul is all alone with God....Read more of this...
by Stevenson, Robert Louis
...r found, alas!Even her shade, nor of her feet a sign,Outwearied and supine,As one who midway sleeps, upon the grassThrew me, and there, accusing the brief ray,Of bitter tears I loosed the prison'd flood,To flow and fall, to them as seem'd it good.Ne'er vanish'd snow before the sun away,...Read more of this...
by Petrarch, Francesco
...And rigid ranks of iron--whence who dares
One step? Imagine further, line by line,
These warrior thousands on the field supine:--
So in that crystal place, in silent rows,
Poor lovers lay at rest from joys and woes.--
The stranger from the mountains, breathless, trac'd
Such thousands of shut eyes in order plac'd;
Such ranges of white feet, and patient lips
All ruddy,--for here death no blossom nips.
He mark'd their brows and foreheads; saw their hair
Put sleekly on on...Read more of this...
by Keats, John



...er name may slumber's bed become? 
Night's sepulchre, the universal home, 
Where weakness, strength, vice, virtue, sunk supine, 
Alike in naked helplessness recline; 
Glad for awhile to heave unconscious breath, 
Yet wake to wrestle with the dread of death, 
And shun, though day but dawn on ills increased, 
That sleep, the loveliest, since it dreams the least. 

____________ 

CANTO THE SECOND. 

I. 

Night wanes — the vapours round the mountains curl'd, 
Melt int...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)
...as mine)
Made Brown cast off the last restraints:
He smashed the “Is nots” into “Ain’ts”
And kicked both mood and tense supine.

Infinitives were Brown’s dislike—
(Brown, as I said, had ten good toes)
And he would pinch and shake and strike
Infinitives, or, with a pike,
Prod them and then laugh at their woes.

At length this Brown more cruel grew—
(Ten toes, all good ones, then had Brown)
And to his woodshed door he drew
A young infinitive and threw
The poor, meek cre...Read more of this...
by Butler, Ellis Parker
...round her flings
Warm gales and sunny show'rs that hang upon her wings. 

I'll seek thee in ITALIA's bow'rs, 
Where supine on beds of flow'rs
Melody's soul-touching throng
Strike the soft lute or trill the melting song: 
Where blithe FANCY, queen of pleasure,
Pours each rich luxuriant treasure. 
For thee I'll climb the breezy hill, 
While the balmy dews distill 
Odours from the budding thorn, 
Drop'd from the lust'rous lids of morn; 
Who, starting from her shad'wy bed...Read more of this...
by Robinson, Mary Darby
...All we were going strong last night this time,
the mots were flying & the frozen daiquiris
were downing, supine on the floor lay Lise
listening to Schubert grievous & sublime,
my head was frantic with a following rime:
it was a good evening, an evening to please,
I kissed her in the kitchen—ecstasies—
among so much good we tamped down the crime.

The weather's changing. This morning was cold,
as I made for the grove, without expectation,
some hundred So...Read more of this...
by Berryman, John
...I pressed.
Skyward I strained until I gained its dazzling silver crest;
And there I found, with all around a world supine and stark,
Swept clean of snow, a flat plateau, and on it lay--the Ark.

"Yes, there, I knew, by two and two the beasts did disembark,
And so in haste I ran and traced in letters on the Ark
My human name--Ben Smith's the same. And now I want to float
A syndicate to haul and freight to town that noble boat."

 I met him later in a bar and m...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William
...with fatigue, floating, and drifting,
and undulant in the orange glow. His senses flow towards 
her,
where she lies supine and dreaming. Seeming drowned in 
a golden halo.
The pungent smell of the geraniums is hard to bear.

He pushes against her knees, and brushes his lips across her languid 
hands.
His lips are hot and speechless. He woos her, quivering, 
and the room
is filled with shadows, for the sun has set. But she 
only understands
the ways...Read more of this...
by Lowell, Amy
...y colours spread, 
Beneath the shelter of a ROSE 
A BUTTERFLY had sought repose; 
Faint, with the sultry beams of day, 
Supine the beauteous insect lay. 

A BEE, impatient to devour
The nectar sweets of ev'ry flow'r, 
Returning to her golden store, 
A weight of fragrant treasure bore; 
With envious eye, she mark'd the shade, 
Where the poor BUTTERFLY was laid, 
And resting on the bending spray, 
Thus murmur'd forth her drony lay:­ 

"Thou empty thing, whose merit lies 
In...Read more of this...
by Robinson, Mary Darby
...he honey'd middle of the night,
 If ceremonies due they did aright;
 As, supperless to bed they must retire,
 And couch supine their beauties, lily white;
 Nor look behind, nor sideways, but require
Of Heaven with upward eyes for all that they desire.

 Full of this whim was thoughtful Madeline:
 The music, yearning like a God in pain,
 She scarcely heard: her maiden eyes divine,
 Fix'd on the floor, saw many a sweeping train
 Pass by--she heeded not at all: in vain
 Came...Read more of this...
by Keats, John
..."Trams and dusty trees.
  Highbury bore me. Richmond and Kew
  Undid me. By Richmond I raised my knees
  Supine on the floor of a narrow canoe."

  "My feet are at Moorgate, and my heart
  Under my feet. After the event
  He wept. He promised 'a new start'.
  I made no comment. What should I resent?"
  "On Margate Sands.                                                      300
  I can connect
  Nothing with nothing.
  The br...Read more of this...
by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
...e came to a pool of mud,
 And some hogs were rolling there.
Then in he plunged with gleeful cries,
 And down he lay supine;
For they had no mud in paradise,
 And they likewise had no swine.

The Junior God forgot himself;
 He squelched mud through his toes;
With the careless joy of a wanton boy
 His reckless laughter rose.
Till, tired at last, in a brook close by,
 He washed off every stain;
Then softly up to the radiant sky
 He rose, a god again.

The Junior ...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William
...>
Beyond the ilex shadow glares the sun,
Scorching against the blue flame of the sky.
Brown lily-pads lie heavy and supine
Within a granite basin, under one
The bronze-gold glimmer of a carp; and I
Reach out my hand and pluck a nectarine....Read more of this...
by Lowell, Amy
...how the blossoms fade
In the sun's caress; then crosses where
The shadow shelters a carven chair.
Within its curve, supine she lies,
And wearily closes her tired eyes.
The minstrel beseeches his silver strings,
And holding the lady spellbound, sings: --
Down the road to Avignon,
The long, long road to Avignon,
Across the bridge to Avignon,
One morning in the spring.
Clouds sail over the distant trees,
Petals are shaken down by the breeze,
They fall on the terrace ...Read more of this...
by Lowell, Amy
...ey, to that eminence,
By merit raised in ribaldry and guile,
And to the assembled rebels thus he spake:
"Whether to lie supine and let a clique
Cold-blooded, scheming, hungry, singing psalms,
Devour our substance, wreck our banks and drain
Our little hoards for hazards on the price
Of wheat or pork, or yet to cower beneath
The shadow of a spire upreared to curb
A breed of lackeys and to serve the bank
Coadjutor in greed, that is the question.
Shall we have music and the j...Read more of this...
by Masters, Edgar Lee
...wretch that nearest us? what wretch 
Is that with eyebrows white and slanting brow? 
Listen! him yonder who, bound down supine, 
Shrinks yelling from that sword there, engine-hung. 
He too amongst my ancestors! I hate 
The despot, but the dastard I despise. 
Was he our countryman?' 
'Alas, O king! 
Iberia bore him, but the breed accurst 
Inclement winds blew blighting from north-east.' 
'He was a warrior then, nor fear'd the gods?' 
'Gebir, he fear'd the demons, n...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)
...leialala
"Trams and dusty trees.
Highbury bore me. Richmond and Kew
Undid me. By Richmond I raised my knees
Supine on the floor of a narrow canoe."
"My feet are at Moorgate, and my heart
Under my feet. After the event
He wept. He promised 'a new start'.
I made no comment. What should I resent?"
"On Margate Sands. 
I can connect
Nothing with nothing.
The broken fingernails of dirty hands.
My people humble people who expect
Nothing.Read more of this...
by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry