Famous Symbolic Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Symbolic poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous symbolic poems. These examples illustrate what a famous symbolic poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Ginsberg, Allen
...hydrotherapy psycho-
therapy occupational therapy pingpong &
amnesia,
who in humorless protest overturned only one symbolic
pingpong table, resting briefly in catatonia,
returning years later truly bald except for a wig of
blood, and tears and fingers, to the visible mad
man doom of the wards of the madtowns of the
East,
Pilgrim State's Rockland's and Greystone's foetid
halls, bickering with the echoes of the soul, rock-
ing and rolling in the midnight soli...Read more of this...
by
Service, Robert William
...arket place;
I shrink, and no one cares a damn
Though tears corrode my face.
The hollows of my cheeks they track,
Symbolic of vain hope;
My hands are grimed because I lack
The price of soap.
Only a rhymer! How my breeks
Let in the Winter wind;
One of my shoes obscenely leaks,
My coat is safety pinned.
Although my neb drips bead on bead,
No handkerchief have I;
My lips are blue, but none have heed
My songs to buy.
Only a rhymer,--just a chiel
Spewed f...Read more of this...
by
Delville, Jean
...Becalmed the profane noise of the crowd.
Toward the risen Moon, the symbolic Bronzes
Curve, in the blue night, their antique nudity
In the sphinx-like majesty of attitudes.
A dream of incense symphonies the lustral Lake,
Enchanted by the sidereal presence of Swans,
Elegiacally swooning their silver-pale lines,
Beneath the sacred music of astral infinitude.
Drunken with silence, the aching lawns
Grow languid in th...Read more of this...
by
Gluck, Louise
...ct
I'm looking for courage, for some evidence
my life will change, though
it takes forever, checking
each clump for the symbolic
leaf, and soon the summer is ending, already
the leaves turning, always the sick trees
going first, the dying turning
brilliant yellow, while a few dark birds perform
their curfew of music. You want to see my hands?
As empty now as at the first note.
Or was the point always
to continue without a sign?...Read more of this...
by
Yeats, William Butler
...ancient bridge, and a more ancient tower,
A farmhouse that is sheltered by its wall,
An acre of stony ground,
Where the symbolic rose can break in flower,
Old ragged elms, old thorns innumerable,
The sound of the rain or sound
Of every wind that blows;
The stilted water-hen
Crossing Stream again
Scared by the splashing of a dozen cows;
A winding stair, a chamber arched with stone,
A grey stone fireplace with an open hearth,
A candle and written page.
Il Penseroso's Plato...Read more of this...
by
Untermeyer, Louis
...hmerz ... I remember,
Once when I stood with Hegel at a window,
I, being full of bubbling youth and coffee,
Spoke in symbolic tropes about the stars.
Something I said about "those high
Abodes of all the blest" provoked his temper.
"Abodes? The stars?" He froze me with a sneer,
"A light eruption on the firmament."
"But," cried romantic I, "is there no sphere
Where virtue is rewarded when we die?"
And Hegel mocked, "A very pleasant whim.
So you demand a bonus since y...Read more of this...
by
Aiken, Conrad
...fall,
Now note by singing note, now chord by chord,
Repeating phrases with a kind of pleasure . . .
Was it symbolic of the woman's weakness
That she could neither break it—nor conclude?
It paused . . . and wandered . . . paused again; while she,
Perplexed and tired, half told me I must go,—
Half asked me if I thought I ought to go . . .
Well, April passed with many other evenings,
Evenings like this, with later suns and warmer...Read more of this...
by
Aiken, Conrad
...fall,
Now note by singing note, now chord by chord,
Repeating phrases with a kind of pleasure . . .
Was it symbolic of the woman's weakness
That she could neither break it—nor conclude?
It paused . . . and wandered . . . paused again; while she,
Perplexed and tired, half told me I must go,—
Half asked me if I thought I ought to go . . .
Well, April passed with many other evenings,
Evenings like this, with later suns and warmer...Read more of this...
by
Gregory, Rg
...(in china it is symbolic
of darkness and the new moon)
in your night's hollow
the tiger stalks
black grasses have licked
it into nothingness
hooked by moon
i hover on your hollow's lip
i feel the smell of fire
the leap of a bright cat-fur
my eye is dumb
asking to be devoured
i am trembled over
(a bag of fear-bones)
there is a whoosh of flame
streaking but static at
you...Read more of this...
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