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Famous Tacking Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Hardy, Thomas
...eace, brought in by that Man Crucified,
Was ruled to be inept, and set aside?

And what of logic or of truth appears
In tacking 'Anno Domini' to the years?
Near twenty-hundred livened thus have hied,
But tarries yet the Cause for which He died."...Read more of this...



by Whitman, Walt
...eck-place. 

For, as on the alert, O steersman, you mind the bell’s admonition, 
The bows turn,—the freighted ship, tacking, speeds away under her gray sails, 
The beautiful and noble ship, with all her precious wealth, speeds away gaily and safe. 

But O the ship, the immortal ship! O ship aboard the ship!
O ship of the body—ship of the soul—voyaging, voyaging, voyaging....Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
..., emulous waves, 
Toward that whirling current, laughing and buoyant, with curves, 
Where the great Vessel, sailing and tacking, displaced the surface; 
Larger and smaller waves, in the spread of the ocean, yearnfully flowing; 
The wake of the Sea-Ship, after she passes—flashing and frolicsome, under the sun,
A motley procession, with many a fleck of foam, and many fragments, 
Following the stately and rapid Ship—in the wake following....Read more of this...

by Belieu, Erin
...
fruit the crows stole, ferrying seed

for miles ... No. It was a broken hedge,
not beautiful, sunlight tacking
its leafy gut in loose sutures. Lacking
imagination, you'll take the pledge

to remember - not the sexy, new
idea of history, each moment
swamped in legend, liable to judgment
and erosion; still, an appealing view,

to draft our lives, a series of vignettes
where endings could be substituted -
your father, unconvoluted
by desire, not grown bonsai...Read more of this...

by Masters, Edgar Lee
...And I would arise at midnight and go to the shop,
Where belated travelers would hear me hammering
Sepulchral boards and tacking satin.
And often I wondered who would go with me
To the distant land, our names the theme
For talk, in the same week, for I've observed
Two always go together.
Chase Henry was paired with Edith Conant;
And Jonathan Somers with Willie Metcalf;
And Editor Hamblin with Francis Turner,
When he prayed to live longer than Editor Whedon;
And Thomas ...Read more of this...



by Graham, Jorie
...own the alleyway,
nervous little theme pushing itself along,
braiding, rehearsing,
constantly incomplete so turning and tacking -- 
oh what is there to finish? -- his robes made
 rustic by the reddish swirl,
which grows darker towards the end of the
avenue of course,
one hand on his chest,
one flung out to the side as he dances,
 taps, sings,
on his scuttling toes, now humming a little,
now closing his eyes as he twirls, growing smaller,
why does the sun rise? remember me alw...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...or up in the bush, or with fishermen off
 Newfoundland; 
At home in the fleet of ice-boats, sailing with the rest and tacking; 
At home on the hills of Vermont, or in the woods of Maine, or the Texan ranch; 
Comrade of Californians—comrade of free north-westerners, (loving their big
 proportions;) 
Comrade of raftsmen and coalmen—comrade of all who shake hands and welcome
 to drink and meat;
A learner with the simplest, a teacher of the thoughtfullest; 
A novice begi...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...nd the globe; 
For it, the entire star-myriads roll through the sky.

In spiral roads, by long detours, 
(As a much-tacking ship upon the sea,) 
For it, the partial to the permanent flowing, 
For it, the Real to the Ideal tends. 

For it, the mystic evolution;
Not the right only justified—what we call evil also justified. 

Forth from their masks, no matter what, 
From the huge, festering trunk—from craft and guile and tears, 
Health to emerge, and joy—joy univers...Read more of this...

by Levine, Philip
...f November, lunch boxes 
under our arms, tight fists pocketed, 
out the door and down the front stoop, 
heads bent low, tacking into the wind....Read more of this...

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