Famous Swelling Poems by Famous Poets

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

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A Nocturnal Reverie

...oom more venerable shows
Some ancient fabric, awful in repose,
While sunburnt hills their swarthy looks conceal,
And swelling haycocks thicken up the vale:
When the loosed horse now, as his pasture leads,
Comes slowly grazing through th' adjoining meads,
Whose stealing pace, and lengthened shade we fear,
Till torn-up forage in his teeth we hear:
When nibbling sheep at large pursue their food,
And unmolested kine rechew the cud;
When curlews cry beneath the village w...Read more of this...
by Finch, Anne Kingsmill


A Song To David

...oicest flow'rs to hive. 

 LXXIV 
Sweeter in all the strains of love, 
The language of thy turtle dove, 
 Pair'd to thy swelling chord; 
Sweeter, with ev'ry grace endu'd, 
The glory of thy gratitude, 
 Respir'd unto the Lord. 

 LXXV 
Strong is the horse upon his speed; 
Strong in pursuit the rapid glede,
 Which makes at once his game: 
Strong the tall ostrich on the ground; 
Strong through the turbulent profound 
 Shoots xiphias to his aim.

 LXXVI 
Strong is the lion—like a...Read more of this...
by Smart, Christopher

As I Sat Alone by Blue Ontario's Shores

...menacing, arrogant one, that strode and advanced with his senseless scorn, bearing the
 murderous knife; 
—Lo! the wide swelling one, the braggart, that would yesterday do so much!
To-day a carrion dead and damn’d, the despised of all the earth! 
An offal rank, to the dunghill maggots spurn’d.) 

8
Others take finish, but the Republic is ever constructive, and ever keeps vista; 
Others adorn the past—but you, O days of the present, I adorn you! 
O days of the future, I believ...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt

Because I could not stop for Death

...ering and chill-- 
For only Gossamer, my Gown-- 
My Tippet--only Tulle-- 

We paused before a House that seemed 
A Swelling of the Ground-- 
The Roof was scarcely visible-- 
The Cornice--in the Ground-- 

Since then--'tis Centuries--and yet 
Feels shorter than the Day 
I first surmised the Horses' Heads 
Were toward Eternity-- ...Read more of this...
by Dickinson, Emily

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


Love

...Fear,  And partly 'twas a bashful Art  That I might rather feel than see    The Swelling of her Heart.   I calm'd her Tears; and she was calm,  And told her love with virgin Pride.  And so I won my Genevieve,    My bright and beauteous Bride! The MAD MOTHER.   Her eyes are wild, her head is bare,  The sun has burnt her coal-black hair, ...Read more of this...
by Wordsworth, William

Love

...face.

‘Twas partly love, and partly fear,
And partly ’twas a bashful art,
That I might rather feel, than see,
The swelling of her heart.

I calmed her fears, and she was calm,
And told her love with virgin pride;
And so I won my Genevieve,
My bright and beauteous Bride....Read more of this...
by Coleridge, Samuel Taylor

Mountains

...ng look 
Out across the hazy gloaming - out beyond the brawling brook! 
Over pathways leading skyward - over crag and swelling cone, 

Past long hillocks looking like to waves of ocean turned to stone; 
Yearning for a bliss unworldly, yearning for a brighter change, 
Yearning for the mystic Aidenn, built beyond this mountain range. 


Happy years, amongst these valleys, happy years have come and gone, 
And my youthful hopes and friendships withered with them one by ...Read more of this...
by Kendall, Henry

Paradise Lost: Book 04

...with eyes 
Of conjugal attraction unreproved, 
And meek surrender, half-embracing leaned 
On our first father; half her swelling breast 
Naked met his, under the flowing gold 
Of her loose tresses hid: he in delight 
Both of her beauty, and submissive charms, 
Smiled with superiour love, as Jupiter 
On Juno smiles, when he impregns the clouds 
That shed Mayflowers; and pressed her matron lip 
With kisses pure: Aside the Devil turned 
For envy; yet with jealous leer malign 
Ey...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Passage to India

...ok a challenge. 

9
The medieval navigators rise before me, 
The world of 1492, with its awaken’d enterprise;
Something swelling in humanity now like the sap of the earth in spring, 
The sunset splendor of chivalry declining. 

And who art thou, sad shade? 
Gigantic, visionary, thyself a visionary, 
With majestic limbs, and pious, beaming eyes,
Spreading around, with every look of thine, a golden world, 
Enhuing it with gorgeous hues. 

As the chief histrion, 
Down to the foo...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt

Poem of Joys

...r of the world, bound for all ports, 
A ship itself, (see indeed these sails I spread to the sun and air,) 
A swift and swelling ship, full of rich words—full of joys....Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt

Ravenna

...d Hun were seen.
Discrowned by man, deserted by the sea,
Thou sleepest, rocked in lonely misery!
No longer now upon thy swelling tide,
Pine-forest-like, thy myriad galleys ride!
For where the brass-beaked ships were wont to float,
The weary shepherd pipes his mournful note;
And the white sheep are free to come and go
Where Adria's purple waters used to flow.

O fair! O sad! O Queen uncomforted!
In ruined loveliness thou liest dead,
Alone of all thy sisters; for at last
Italia...Read more of this...
by Wilde, Oscar

Sea Dreams

...n heaven
Can make it fair: you do but bear the tide.
Had you ill dreams?' 

`O yes,' he said, `I dream'd
Of such a tide swelling toward the land,
And I from out the boundless outer deep
Swept with it to the shore, and enter'd one
Of those dark caves that run beneath the cliffs.
I thought the motion of the boundless deep
Bore through the cave, and I was heaved upon it
In darkness: then I saw one lovely star
Larger and larger. "What a world," I thought,
"To live in!" but in mov...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord

Song of Myself

...the night, and
 withdraws at the peep of the day, with stealthy tread, 
Leaving me baskets cover’d with white towels, swelling the house with their
 plenty, 
Shall I postpone my acceptation and realization, and scream at my eyes, 
That they turn from gazing after and down the road,
And forthwith cipher and show me a cent, 
Exactly the contents of one, and exactly the contents of two, and which is
 ahead? 

4
Trippers and askers surround me; 
People I meet—the effe...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt

Still I Rise

...istory's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise....Read more of this...
by Angelou, Maya

The Bells

...et the ear distinctly tells,
In the jangling,
And the wrangling,
How the danger sinks and swells,
By the sinking or the swelling in the anger of the bells-
Of the bells-
Of the bells, bells, bells,bells,
Bells, bells, bells-
In the clamor and the clangor of the bells!

IV

Hear the tolling of the bells-
Iron Bells!
What a world of solemn thought their monody compels!
In the silence of the night,
How we shiver with affright
At the melancholy menace of their tone!
For every sou...Read more of this...
by Poe, Edgar Allan

The Everlasting Mercy

...ey poured what seemed a running beck 
Of cold spring water down my neck; 
Jim with a lancet quick as flies 
Lowered the swelling round my eyes. 
They sluiced my legs and fanned my face 
Through all that blessed minute's grace; 
They gave my calves a thorough kneading, 
They salved my cuts and stopped the bleeding. 
A gulp of liquor dulled the pain, 
And then the flasks clinked again. 
Time! 

There was Bill as grim as death, 
He rushed, I clinched, to get more breath, 
And br...Read more of this...
by Masefield, John

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 Rape of the Lock

...o Day.

Sunk in Thalestris' Arms the Nymph he found,
Her Eyes dejected and her Hair unbound. 
Full o'er their Heads the swelling Bag he rent,
And all the Furies issued at the Vent.
Belinda burns with more than mortal Ire,
And fierce Thalestris fans the rising Fire.
O wretched Maid! she spread her hands, and cry'd,
(While Hampton's Ecchos, wretched Maid reply'd)
Was it for this you took such constant Care
The Bodkin, Comb, and Essence to prepare;
For this your Locks in Paper-D...Read more of this...
by Pope, Alexander

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

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