Famous Swell Poems by Famous Poets

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

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A Song To David

...t sit'st upon a throne, 
With harp of high majestic tone, 
 To praise the King of kings; 
And voice of heav'n-ascending swell, 
Which, while its deeper notes excell, 
 Clear, as a clarion, rings: 

 II 
To bless each valley, grove and coast, 
And charm the cherubs to the post 
 Of gratitude in throngs; 
To keep the days on Zion's mount, 
And send the year to his account, 
 With dances and with songs: 

 III 
O Servant of God's holiest charge, 
The minister of praise at large,...Read more of this...
by Smart, Christopher


Beowulf (Modern English)

...last work in the world. (ll 2702b-11a)

At that moment the wound began, made before
by the earth-dragon, to burn and swell—
he discovered at once that a deadly malice
welled within his breast, a poison inside his body.
Then the nobleman went, wise-thinking,
to take a seat beside the wall, looking upon
the work of giants. How the stone arches,
fixed with pillars, would hold up that earth-hall
from within forever. Then thane beyond good
with his hands laved the famou...Read more of this...
by Anonymous,

Beowulf (Old English)

...r of the king was last,
of his work in the world. The wound began,
which that dragon-of-earth had erst inflicted,
to swell and smart; and soon he found
in his breast was boiling, baleful and deep,
pain of poison. The prince walked on,
wise in his thought, to the wall of rock;
then sat, and stared at the structure of giants,
where arch of stone and steadfast column
upheld forever that hall in earth.
Yet here must the hand of the henchman peerless
lave with water his...Read more of this...
by Anonymous,

Bridal Ballad

...my command, 
And I am happy now. 
And my lord he loves me well; 
But, when first he breathed his vow, 
I felt my bosom swell- 
For the words rang as a knell, 
And the voice seemed his who fell 
In the battle down the dell, 
And who is happy now. 

But he spoke to re-assure me, 
And he kissed my pallid brow, 
While a reverie came o'er me, 
And to the church-yard bore me, 
And I sighed to him before me, 
Thinking him dead D'Elormie, 
"Oh, I am happy now!" 

And thus the words ...Read more of this...
by Poe, Edgar Allan

Bright Star, Would I Were Steadfast As Thou Art

...till steadfast, still unchangeable,
 Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
 Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever—or else swoon to death....Read more of this...
by Keats, John


Comus

...cumbered, and the winged air darked with plumes,
The herds would over-multitude their lords;
The sea o'erfraught would swell, and the unsought diamonds
Would so emblaze the forehead of the deep,
And so bestud with stars, that they below
Would grow inured to light, and come at last
To gaze upon the sun with shameless brows.
List, Lady; be not coy, and be not cozened
With that same vaunted name, Virginity.
Beauty is Nature's coin; must not be hoarded,
But must be current; and ...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Custer

...s breast, 
But, as he led his army to the crest, 
Above the wigwams, ready for the charge
He felt the heart within him, swelling large
With human pity, as an infant's wail
Shrilled once again above the wintry gale.
Then hosts of murdered children seemed to rise; 
And shame his halting thought with sad accusing eyes, 



XV.
And urge him on to action. Stern of brow
The just avenger, and the General now, 
He gives the silent signal to the band
Which, all impatient, waits for hi...Read more of this...
by Wilcox, Ella Wheeler

Endymion: Book IV

...h Summer, golden store
In Autumn's sickle, Winter frosty hoar,
Join dance with shadowy Hours; while still the blast,
In swells unmitigated, still doth last
To sway their floating morris. "Whose is this?
Whose bugle?" he inquires: they smile--"O Dis!
Why is this mortal here? Dost thou not know
Its mistress' lips? Not thou?--'Tis Dian's: lo!
She rises crescented!" He looks, 'tis she,
His very goddess: good-bye earth, and sea,
And air, and pains, and care, and suffering;
Good-by...Read more of this...
by Keats, John

Eviradnus

...burdened age 
 Tires of your Highnesses, that soil its page, 
 And of your villanies—and this is why 
 You now must swell the stream that passes by 
 Of refuse filth. Oh, horrid scene to show 
 Of these young men and that young girl just now! 
 Oh! can you really be of human kind 
 Breathing pure air of heaven? Do we find 
 That you are men? Oh, no! for when you laid 
 Foul lips upon the mouth of sleeping maid, 
 You seemed but ghouls that had come furtively 
 Fro...Read more of this...
by Hugo, Victor

Hyperion

...g in unpractised hands
Scorches and burns our once serene domain.
O aching time! O moments big as years!
All as ye pass swell out the monstrous truth,
And press it so upon our weary griefs
That unbelief has not a space to breathe.
Saturn, sleep on:---O thoughtless, why did I
Thus violate thy slumbrous solitude?
Why should I ope thy melancholy eyes?
Saturn, sleep on! while at thy feet I weep."

 As when, upon a tranced summer-night,
Those green-rob'd senators of mighty woods,
...Read more of this...
by Keats, John

Lara

...ht wanes — the vapours round the mountains curl'd, 
Melt into morn, and Light awakes the world. 
Man has another day to swell the past, 
And lead him near to little, but his last; 
But mighty Nature bounds as from her birth, 
The sun is in the heavens, and life on earth; 
Flowers in the valley, splendour in the beam, 
Health on the gale, and freshness in the stream. 
Immortal man! behold her glories shine, 
And cry, exulting inly, "They are thine!" 
Gaze on, while yet thy gla...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)

Mending Wall

...Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun;
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs.  The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard t...Read more of this...
by Frost, Robert

Ravenna

...side!
Or Hylas mirrored in the perfect stream.

O idle heart! O fond Hellenic dream!
Ere long, with melancholy rise and swell,
The evening chimes, the convent's vesper bell,
Struck on mine ears amid the amorous flowers.
Alas! alas! these sweet and honied hours
Had whelmed my heart like some encroaching sea,
And drowned all thoughts of black Gethsemane.


VI.


O lone Ravenna! many a tale is told
Of thy great glories in the days of old:
Two thousand years have passed since tho...Read more of this...
by Wilde, Oscar

Sea Dreams

...es of men,
And how they mar this little by their feuds. 

But while the two were sleeping, a full tide
Rose with ground-swell, which, on the foremost rocks
Touching, upjetted in spirts of wild sea-smoke,
And scaled in sheets of wasteful foam, and fell
In vast sea-cataracts--ever and anon
Dead claps of thunder from within the cliffs
Heard thro' the living roar. At this the babe,
Their Margaret cradled near them, wail'd and woke
The mother, and the father suddenly cried,
`A wre...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord

The Dungeon

...re,  As he to you will-tell,  For still, the more he works, the more  His poor old ancles swell.  My gentle reader, I perceive  How patiently you've waited,  And I'm afraid that you expect  Some tale will be related.   O reader! had you in your mind  Such stores as silent thought can bring,  O gentle reader! you would find  A tale in every thing.  Wha...Read more of this...
by Wordsworth, William

The Lady of the Lake

...hey pressed,
     With drooping tail and humbled crest;
     But still the dingle's hollow throat
     Prolonged the swelling bugle-note.
     The owlets started from their dream,
     The eagles answered with their scream,
     Round and around the sounds were cast,
     Till echo seemed an answering blast;
     And on the Hunter tried his way,
     To join some comrades of the day,
     Yet often paused, so strange the road,
     So wondrous were the scenes it sh...Read more of this...
by Scott, Sir Walter

The Man Against the Sky

...is father and his mother; 
He may have been a captain of a host, 
Self-eloquent and ripe for prodigies, 
Doomed here to swell by dangerous degrees,
And then give up the ghost. 
Nahum’s great grasshoppers were such as these, 
Sun-scattered and soon lost. 

Whatever the dark road he may have taken, 
This man who stood on high
And faced alone the sky, 
Whatever drove or lured or guided him,— 
A vision answering a faith unshaken, 
An easy trust assumed of easy trials, 
A sick neg...Read more of this...
by Robinson, Edwin Arlington

The Seasons: Winter

...ng, but declining fast,
Soft, o'er the secret Soul, in gentle Gales, 
A Philosophic Melancholly breathes,
And bears the swelling Thought aloft to Heaven.
Then forming Fancy rouses to conceive,
What never mingled with the Vulgar's Dream:
Then wake the tender Pang, the pitying Tear, 
The Sigh for suffering Worth, the Wish prefer'd
For Humankind, the Joy to see them bless'd,
And all the Social Off-spring of the Heart!

OH! bear me then to high, embowering, Shades;
To twilight Gr...Read more of this...
by Thomson, James

The Vision of Judgment

...ers, 
Heralds, and relics of old Gothic manners, 

X 

Form'd a sepulchral melo-drame. Of all 
The fools who flack's to swell or see the show, 
Who cared about the corpse? The funeral 
Made the attraction, and the black the woe. 
There throbbed not there a thought which pierced the pall; 
And when the gorgeous coffin was laid low, 
It seamed the mockery of hell to fold 
The rottenness of eighty years in gold. 

XI 

So mix his body with the dust! It might 
Return to what it m...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)

The Waste Land

...Wallala leialala
 Elizabeth and Leicester
 Beating oars 
 The stern was formed
 A gilded shell
 Red and gold
 The brisk swell
 Rippled both shores
 Southwest wind
 Carried down stream
 The peal of bells
 White towers
 Weialala leia 
 Wallala 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...Read more of this...
by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)

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