Famous Suspend Poems by Famous Poets

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

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A Dialogue Between the Resolved Soul And Created Pleasure

...uis'd.

Pleasure
Heark how Musick then prepares
For thy Stay these charming Aires ;
Which the posting Winds recall,
And suspend the Rivers Fall.

Soul
Had I but any time to lose,
On this I would it all dispose.
Cease Tempter. None can chain a mind
Whom this sweet Chordage cannot bind.

Chorus
Earth cannot shew so brave a Sight
As when a single Soul does fence
The Batteries of alluring Sense,
And Heaven views it with delight.
Then persevere: for still new Charges sound:
And if...Read more of this...
by Marvell, Andrew


A Dialogue Between the Resolved Soul And Created Pleasure

...uis'd.

Pleasure
Heark how Musick then prepares
For thy Stay these charming Aires ;
Which the posting Winds recall,
And suspend the Rivers Fall.

Soul
Had I but any time to lose,
On this I would it all dispose.
Cease Tempter. None can chain a mind
Whom this sweet Chordage cannot bind.

Chorus
Earth cannot shew so brave a Sight
As when a single Soul does fence
The Batteries of alluring Sense,
And Heaven views it with delight.
Then persevere: for still new Charges sound:
And if...Read more of this...
by Marvell, Andrew

Alastor: or the Spirit of Solitude

...ght phantasms, and deep noonday thought, 
Has shone within me, that serenely now
And moveless, as a long-forgotten lyre
Suspended in the solitary dome
Of some mysterious and deserted fane,
I wait thy breath, Great Parent, that my strain
May modulate with murmurs of the air,
And motions of the forests and the sea,
And voice of living beings, and woven hymns
Of night and day, and the deep heart of man.

There was a Poet whose untimely tomb 
No human hands with pious reverence r...Read more of this...
by Shelley, Percy Bysshe

By The Fire-Side

...and how much it is!
And the little less, and what worlds away!
How a sound shall quicken content to bliss,
Or a breath suspend the blood's best play,
And life be a proof of this!

XL.

Had she willed it, still had stood the screen
So slight, so sure, 'twixt my love and her:
I could fix her face with a guard between,
And find her soul as when friends confer,
Friends---lovers that might have been.

XLI.

For my heart had a touch of the woodland-time,
Wanting to sleep now over ...Read more of this...
by Browning, Robert

Crossing Brooklyn Ferry

...Mannahatta!—stand up, beautiful hills of Brooklyn!
Throb, baffled and curious brain! throw out questions and answers! 
Suspend here and everywhere, eternal float of solution! 
Gaze, loving and thirsting eyes, in the house, or street, or public assembly! 
Sound out, voices of young men! loudly and musically call me by my nighest name! 
Live, old life! play the part that looks back on the actor or actress!
Play the old role, the role that is great or small, according as one ma...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt


First Anniversary

...still fall, and still the dragon's tail 
Swinges the volumes of its horrid flail. 
For the great justice that did first suspend 
The world by sin, does by the same extend. 
Hence that blest day still counterpos?d wastes, 
The ill delaying what the elected hastes; 
Hence landing nature to new seas is tossed, 
And good designs still with their authors lost. 

And thou, great Cromwell, for whose happy birth 
A mould was chosen out of better earth; 
Whose saint-like mother we did...Read more of this...
by Marvell, Andrew

Gerontion

..., when the sense has cooled,
With pungent sauces, multiply variety
In a wilderness of mirrors. What will the spider do,
Suspend its operations, will the weevil
Delay? De Bailhache, Fresca, Mrs. Cammel, whirled
Beyond the circuit of the shuddering Bear
In fractured atoms. Gull against the wind, in the windy straits
Of Belle Isle, or running on the Horn,
White feathers in the snow, the Gulf claims,
And an old man driven by the Trades
To a sleepy corner.

Tenants of the house,
T...Read more of this...
by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)

Music To Me Is Like Days

...amed Verstak). 
Music to me is like days 
I rarely catch who composed them 
if one's sublime I think God 
my life-signs suspend. I nod 
it's like both Stilton and cure 
from one harpsichord-hum: 
penicillium - 
then I miss the Köchel number. 
I scarcely know whose performance 
of a limpid autumn noon is superior 
I gather timbre outranks rhumba. 
I often can't tell days apart 
they are the consumers, not me 
in my head collectables decay 
I've half-heard every piece of music ...Read more of this...
by Murray, Les

My Lady

...of mine,
enjoying within myself
a happiness sublime.

    But now, at your solemn bidding,
this silence I herewith suspend,
for your summons unlocks in me
a respect no time can end.

    And, although loving your beauty
is a crime beyond repair,
rather the crime be chastised
than my fervor cease to dare.

    With this confession in hand,
I pray, be less stern with me.
Do not condemn to distress
one who fancied bliss so free.

    If you blame me for disres...Read more of this...
by Juana Inés de la Cruz, Sor

Ode to the Memory of Burns

...Soul of the Poet ! wheresoe'er,
Reclaimed from earth, thy genius plume
Her wings of immortality ;
Suspend thy harp in happier sphere,
And with thine influence illume
The gladness of our jubilee.

And fly like fiends from secret spell,
Discord and Strife, at Burn's name,
Exorcised by his memory ;
For he was chief of bards that swell
The heart with songs of social flame,
And high delicious revelry.

And Love's own strain to him was given,
To warble all its...Read more of this...
by Campbell, Thomas

On The Death Of J. C. An Infant

...."
Shall not th' intelligence your grief restrain,
And turn the mournful to the cheerful strain?
Cease your complaints, suspend each rising sigh,
Cease to accuse the Ruler of the sky.
Parents, no more indulge the falling tear:
Let Faith to heav'n's refulgent domes repair,
There see your infant, like a seraph glow:
What charms celestial in his numbers flow
Melodious, while the foul-enchanting strain
Dwells on his tongue, and fills th' ethereal plain?
Enough--for ever cease you...Read more of this...
by Wheatley, Phillis

Paradise Lost: Book 06

...est, 
Equal in their creation they were formed, 
Save what sin hath impaired; which yet hath wrought 
Insensibly, for I suspend their doom; 
Whence in perpetual fight they needs must last 
Endless, and no solution will be found: 
War wearied hath performed what war can do, 
And to disordered rage let loose the reins 
With mountains, as with weapons, armed; which makes 
Wild work in Heaven, and dangerous to the main. 
Two days are therefore past, the third is thine; 
For thee ...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Phyllis

...of mine,
enjoying within myself
a happiness sublime.

    But now, at your solemn bidding,
this silence I herewith suspend,
for your summons unlocks in me
a respect no time can end.

    And, although loving your beauty
is a crime beyond repair,
rather the crime be chastised
than my fervor cease to dare.

    With this confession in hand,
I pray, be less stern with me.
Do not condemn to distress
one who fancied bliss so free.

    If you blame me for disres...Read more of this...
by Juana Inés de la Cruz, Sor

The Dungeon

...m)  I hurried with him to our orchard plot,  And he beholds the moon, and hush'd at once  Suspends his sobs, and laughs most silently,  While his fair eyes that swam with undropt tears  Did glitter in the yellow moon-beam! Well—  It is a father's tale. But if that Heaven  Should give me life, his childhood shall grow up  Familiar with these songs, that with the night  He may associate Jo...Read more of this...
by Wordsworth, William

The Emigrants: Book I

...ature's commoners, the land
That boasts such general plenty: if the sight
Of wide-extended misery softens yours
Awhile, suspend your murmurs!--here behold
The strange vicissitudes of fate--while thus
The exil'd Nobles, from their country driven,
Whose richest luxuries were their's, must feel
More poignant anguish, than the lowest poor,
Who, born to indigence, have learn'd to brave
Rigid Adversity's depressing breath!--
Ah! rather Fortune's worthless favourites!
Who feed on En...Read more of this...
by Turner Smith, Charlotte

The First Anniversary Of The Government Under O.C

...rs still fall, and still the Dragons Tail
Swinges the Volumes of its horrid Flail.
For the great Justice that did first suspend
The World by Sin, does by the same extend.
Hence that blest Day still counterpoysed wastes,
The ill delaying, what th'Elected hastes;
Hence landing Nature to new Seas it tost,
And good Designes still with their Authors lost.
And thou, great Cromwell, for whose happy birth
A Mold was chosen out of better Earth;
Whose Saint-like Mother we did lately se...Read more of this...
by Marvell, Andrew

The Lake

...ice I cherished
Gave utterance to these words:

“I beg you, sublime hours, pause in your headlong flight,
And time, suspend your race;
Allow us to savor the fugitive delights
Of our happiest days.

“So many souls down here in agony implore you
‘Fly fast!’ For them, flow on.
Carry off with their days their worry and their sorrow;
Forget the happy ones.

“Just a few more moments, I ask — in vain, for time
Eludes me and takes flight.
I tell the night to pass more ...Read more of this...
by de Lamartine, Alphonse

To the Honourable T. H. Esq; on the Death of his Daughter

...e raging tortures of your heart,
Still the wild tempest of tumultuous grief,
And pour the heav'nly nectar of relief:
Suspend the sigh, dear Sir, and check the groan,
Divinely bright your daughter's Virtues shone:
How free from scornful pride her gentle mind,
Which ne'er its aid to indigence declin'd!
Expanding free, it sought the means to prove
Unfailing charity, unbounded love!

She unreluctant flies to see no more
Her dear-lov'd parents on earth's dusky shore:
I...Read more of this...
by Wheatley, Phillis

Two Lyrics From Kilroys Carnival: A Masque

...d--
Until you are shamed again no more! 
I'll kiss you until your body and soul
 the mind in the body being fulfilled--
Suspend their dread and civil war!"

II Song

Under the yellow sea
Who comes and looks with me
For the daughters of music, the fountains of poetry?
Both have soared forth from the unending waters
Where all things still are seeds and far from flowers
And since they remain chained to the sea's powers
May wilt to nonentity or loll and arise to comedy
Or thrown ...Read more of this...
by Schwartz, Delmore

Upon Appleton House to My Lord Fairfax

...easure 'tis to hedge
My Temples here with heavy sedge;
Abandoning my lazy Side,
Stretcht as a Bank unto the Tide;
Or to suspend my sliding Foot
On the Osiers undermined Root,
And in its Branches tough to hang,
While at my Lines the Fishes twang!

But now away my Hooks, my Quills,
And Angles, idle Utensils.
The Young Maria walks to night:
Hide trifling Youth thy Pleasures slight.
'Twere shame that such judicious Eyes
Should with such Toyes a Man surprize;
She that already is t...Read more of this...
by Marvell, Andrew

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