Famous Swerved Poems by Famous Poets

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

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A Birthday

by Aleister Crowley
 "Aug." 10, 1911.

Full moon to-night; and six and twenty years
Since my full moon first broke from angel spheres!
A year of infinite love unwearying ---
No circling seasons, but perennial spring!
A year of triumph trampling through defeat,
The first made holy and the last made sweet
By this same love; a year of wealth and woe,
Joy, poverty, health, sickness --- all one glow
In...Read more of this...

Thinking Ahead To Possible Options And A Worst-Case Scenario

by James Tate
 I swerved to avoid hitting a squirrel
in the center of the road and that's when
the deer came charging out of the forest
and forced me to hit the brakes for all I
was worth and I careened back to the other
side of the road just as a skunk came toddling
out of Mrs. Bancroft's front yard and I swung
back perhaps just grazing...Read more of this...

Thinking Ahead To Possible Options And A Worst-Case Scenario

by Edward Taylor
 I swerved to avoid hitting a squirrel
in the center of the road and that's when
the deer came charging out of the forest
and forced me to hit the brakes for all I
was worth and I careened back to the other
side of the road just as a skunk came toddling
out of Mrs. Bancroft's front yard and I swung
back perhaps just grazing...Read more of this...

The Death Of Kwasind

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
 Far and wide among the nations
Spread the name and fame of Kwasind;
No man dared to strive with Kwasind,
No man could compete with Kwasind.
But the mischievous Puk-Wudjies,
They the envious Little People,
They the fairies and the pygmies,
Plotted and conspired against him.
"If this hateful Kwasind," said they,
"If this great, outrageous fellow
Goes on thus a little longer,
Tearing everything he touches,
Rending everything to pieces,
Filling...Read more of this...

Rivera Honeymoon

by Robert William Service
 Beneath the trees I lounged at ease
And watched them speed the pace;
They swerved and swung, they clutched and clung,
They leapt in roaring chase;
The crowd was thrilled, a chap was killed:
It was a splendid race.

Two men, they say, went West that day,
But I knew only one;
Geranium-red his blood was spread
And blazoned in the sun;
A lighting crash . . . Lo!...Read more of this...

Canzone XIX

by Francesco Petrarch
CANZONE XIX. S' il dissi mai, ch' i' venga in odio a quella. HE VEHEMENTLY REBUTS THE CHARGE OF LOVING ANOTHER.  Perdie! I said it not,Nor never thought to do:As well as I, ye wotI have no power thereto.And if I did, the lotThat first did me enchainMay never...Read more of this...

The Ghosts

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
 Never stoops the soaring vulture
On his quarry in the desert,
On the sick or wounded bison,
But another vulture, watching
From his high aerial look-out,
Sees the downward plunge, and follows;
And a third pursues the second,
Coming from the invisible ether,
First a speck, and then a vulture,
Till the air is dark with pinions.
So disasters come not singly;
But as if they watched and waited,
Scanning one...Read more of this...

What Then?

by William Butler Yeats
 His chosen comrades thought at school
He must grow a famous man;
He thought the same and lived by rule,
All his twenties crammed with toil;
'What then?' sang Plato's ghost. 'What then?'

Everything he wrote was read,
After certain years he won
Sufficient money for his need,
Friends that have been friends indeed;
'What then?' sang Plato's ghost. ' What then?'

All his happier dreams came true -
A...Read more of this...

Peter Anderson And Co

by Henry Lawson
 He had offices in Sydney, not so many years ago, 
And his shingle bore the legend `Peter Anderson and Co.', 
But his real name was Careless, as the fellows understood -- 
And his relatives decided that he wasn't any good. 
'Twas their gentle tongues that blasted any `character' he had -- 
He was fond of beer and leisure --...Read more of this...

The Cheat Of Cupid; Or The Ungentle Guest

by Robert Herrick
 One silent night of late,
When every creature rested,
Came one unto my gate,
And knocking, me molested.

Who's that, said I, beats there,
And troubles thus the sleepy?
Cast off; said he, all fear,
And let not locks thus keep ye.

For I a boy am, who
By moonless nights have swerved;
And all with showers wet through,
And e'en with cold half starved.

I pitiful arose,
And soon a taper...Read more of this...

The Aisne

by Alan Seeger
 We first saw fire on the tragic slopes 
Where the flood-tide of France's early gain, 
Big with wrecked promise and abandoned hopes, 
Broke in a surf of blood along the Aisne. 


The charge her heroes left us, we assumed, 
What, dying, they reconquered, we preserved, 
In the chill trenches, harried, shelled, entombed, 
Winter came down on us, but no...Read more of this...

My Psalm

by John Greenleaf Whittier
I mourn no more my vanished years
    Beneath a tender rain,
    An April rain of smiles and tears,
    My heart is young again.

    The west-winds blow, and, singing low,
    I hear the glad streams run;
    The windows of my soul I throw
...Read more of this...

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