Famous Swarmed Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Zilpha Marsh

by Edgar Lee Masters
 At four o'clock in late October
I sat alone in the country school-house
Back from the road 'mid stricken fields,
And an eddy of wind blew leaves on the pane,
And crooned in the flue of the cannon-stove,
With its open door blurring the shadows
With the spectral glow of a dying fire.
In an idle mood I was running the planchette --
All at once my...Read more of this...

People Who Must

by Carl Sandburg
 I PAINTED on the roof of a skyscraper.
I painted a long while and called it a day’s work.
The people on a corner swarmed and the traffic cop’s whistle never let up all afternoon.
They were the same as bugs, many bugs on their way—
Those people on the go or at a standstill;
And the traffic cop a spot of blue, a...Read more of this...

Dream Song 105: As a kid I believed in democracy: I

by John Berryman
 As a kid I believed in democracy: I
'saw no alternative'-”teaching at The Big Place I ah
put it in practice:
we'd time for one long novel: to a vote-”
Gone with the Wind they voted: I crunched 'No'
and we sat down with War & Peace.

As a man I believed in democracy (nobody 
ever learns anything): only one lazy day
my assistant, called James...Read more of this...

First Love

by Stanley Kunitz
 At his incipient sun 
The ice of twenty winters broke, 
Crackling, in her eyes. 

Her mirroring, still mind, 
That held the world (made double) calm, 
Went fluid, and it ran. 

There was a stir of music, 
Mixed with flowers, in her blood; 
A swift impulsive balm 

From obscure roots; 
Gold bees of clinging light 
Swarmed in her brow. 

Her...Read more of this...

Growltigers Last Stand

by T S (Thomas Stearns) Eliot
 GROWLTIGER was a Bravo Cat, who lived upon a barge;
In fact he was the roughest cat that ever roamed at large.
From Gravesend up to Oxford he pursued his evil aims,
Rejoicing in his title of "The Terror of the Thames."

His manners and appearance did not calculate to please;
His coat was torn and seedy, he was baggy at the knees;
One ear...Read more of this...

Dream Song 121: Grief is fatiguing. He is out of it

by John Berryman
 Grief is fatiguing. He is out of it,
the whole humiliating Human round,
out of this & that.
He made a-many hearts go pit-a-pat
who now need never mind his nostril-hair
nor a critical error laid bare.

He endured fifty years. He was Randall Jarrell
and wrote a-many books & he wrote well.
Peace to the bearded corpse.
His last book was his best. His wives loved him.
He...Read more of this...

A Tribute to Henry M. Stanley

by William Topaz McGonagall
 Welcome, thrice welcome, to the city of Dundee,
The great African explorer Henry M Stanley,
Who went out to Africa its wild regions to explore,
And travelled o'er wild and lonely deserts, fatigued and footsore. 

And what he and his little band suffered will never be forgot,
Especially one in particular, Major Edmund Barttelot,
Alas! the brave heroic Officer by a savage was shot,
The...Read more of this...

Winter Night

by Boris Pasternak
 It snowed and snowed ,the whole world over,
Snow swept the world from end to end.
A candle burned on the table;
A candle burned.

As during summer midges swarm
To beat their wings against a flame
Out in the yard the snowflakes swarmed
To beat against the window pane

The blizzard sculptured on the glass
Designs of arrows and of whorls.
A candle burned on the table;
A candle...Read more of this...

The Burglar Of Babylon

by Elizabeth Bishop
 On the fair green hills of Rio
 There grows a fearful stain:
The poor who come to Rio
 And can't go home again.

On the hills a million people,
 A million sparrows, nest,
Like a confused migration
 That's had to light and rest,

Building its nests, or houses,
 Out of nothing at all, or air.
You'd think a breath would end them,
 They perch...Read more of this...

Domicilium

by Thomas Hardy
 It faces west, and round the back and sides 
High beeches, bending, hang a veil of boughs, 
And sweep against the roof. Wild honeysucks 
Climb on the walls, and seem to sprout a wish 
(If we may fancy wish of trees and plants) 
To overtop the apple trees hard-by.

Red roses, lilacs, variegated box 
Are there in plenty, and such...Read more of this...

Queen Hilda of Virland

by Henry Lawson
 PART I 
Queen Hilda rode along the lines, 
And she was young and fair; 
And forward on her shoulders fell 
The heavy braids of hair: 
No gold was ever dug from earth 
Like that burnished there – 
No sky so blue as were her eyes 
Had man seen anywhere. 

'Twas so her gay court poets sang, 
And we believed...Read more of this...

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