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Famous Tangles Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Whitman, Walt
...him to offset the growth of pine, cedar, hemlock, live-oak, locust,
 chestnut, hickory, cottonwood, orange, magnolia, 
Tangles as tangled in him as any cane-brake or swamp, 
He likening sides and peaks of mountains, forests coated with northern transparent ice,
Off him pasturage, sweet and natural as savanna, upland, prairie, 
Through him flights, whirls, screams, answering those of the fish-hawk, mocking-bird,
 night-heron, and eagle; 
His spirit surrounding his country’s s...Read more of this...



by Masters, Edgar Lee
...
With some of the down of him floating near, 
And fell like a plummet into the grass. 
I tramped about, parting the tangles, 
Till I saw a splash of blood on a stump, 
And the quail lying close to the rotton roots. 
I reached my hand, but saw no brier, 
But something pricked and stung and numbed it. 
And then, in a second, I spied the rattler-- 
The shutters wide in his yellow eyes, 
The head of him arched, sunk back in the rings of him, 
A circle of filth, the co...Read more of this...

by Wilde, Oscar
...tars founder, and the land was like a dream,

When as he gazed into the watery glass
And through his brown hair's curly tangles scanned
His own wan face, a shadow seemed to pass
Across the mirror, and a little hand
Stole into his, and warm lips timidly
Brushed his pale cheeks, and breathed their secret forth into a
sigh.

Then turned he round his weary eyes and saw,
And ever nigher still their faces came,
And nigher ever did their young mouths draw
Until they seemed one p...Read more of this...

by Khayyam, Omar
...pbearer, bring my wine-cup, let me grasp it!
Bring that delicious darling, let me grasp it!
That pleasing chain which tangles in its coils
Wise men and fools together, let me grasp it!...Read more of this...

by Howells, William Dean
...TOSSING his mane of snows in wildest eddies and tangles, 
 Lion-like March cometh in, hoarse, with tempestuous breath, 
Through all the moaning chimneys, and 'thwart all the hollows and 
 angles 
 Round the shuddering house, threating of winter and death. 

But in my heart I feel the life of the wood and the meadow 
 Thrilling the pulses that own kindred with fibres that lift 
Bud and blade to the sun...Read more of this...



by Milton, John
...meditate the thankles Muse, 
Were it not better don as others use, 
To sport with Amaryllis in the shade, 
Or with the tangles of Neaera's hair? 
Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise 
(That last infirmity of Noble mind) 
To scorn delights, and live laborious dayes; 
But the fair Guerdon when we hope to find, 
And think to burst out into sudden blaze, 
Comes the blind Fury with th'abhorred shears, 
And slits the thin spun life. But not the praise, 
Phoebus re...Read more of this...

by Wilde, Oscar
...the waves show their teeth in the flying breeze.

Her gold hair fell on the wall of gold
Like the delicate gossamer tangles spun
On the burnished disk of the marigold,
Or the sunflower turning to meet the sun
When the gloom of the dark blue night is done,
And the spear of the lily is aureoled.

And her sweet red lips on these lips of mine
Burned like the ruby fire set
In the swinging lamp of a crimson shrine,
Or the bleeding wounds of the pomegranate,
Or the heart of ...Read more of this...

by Wilde, Oscar
...metimes about the painted kiosk
The mimic soldiers strut and stride,
Sometimes the blue-eyed brigands hide
In the bleak tangles of the bosk.

And sometimes, while the old nurse cons
Her book, they steal across the square,
And launch their paper navies where
Huge Triton writhes in greenish bronze.

And now in mimic flight they flee,
And now they rush, a boisterous band -
And, tiny hand on tiny hand,
Climb up the black and leafless tree.

Ah! cruel tree! if I were y...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...ditate the thankless Muse?
Were it not better done, as others use,
To sport with Amaryllis in the shade,
Or with the tangles of Neaera's hair?
Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise
(That last infirmity of noble mind)
To scorn delights and live laborious days;
But, the fair guerdon when we hope to find,
And think to burst out into sudden blaze,
Comes the blind Fury with the abhorred shears,
And slits the thin-spun life. RBut not the praise,"
Phoebus ...Read more of this...

by Graham, Jorie
...holders in their books, their corridors,
 resplendent memories of royal rooms now filtered up — by smoke, by

must — it tangles up into a weave,
 tied up with votive offerings — laws, electricity — 
what the speakers let loose from their tiny eternity,
 what the empty streets held up as offering 
when only a bit of wind
 litigated in the sycamores,

oh and the flapping drafts unfinished thoughts
 raked out of air, 
and the leaves clawing their way after deep sleep set in,
 an...Read more of this...

by Wylie, Elinor
...ocks are shorn for sorrow 
Of love which may not be; 
Tomorrow and tomorrow 
Are plotting cruelty.

The winter wind tangles 
These ringlets half-grown, 
The sun sprays with spangles 
And rays like his own.

Oh, quieter and colder 
Is the stream; he will wait; 
When my curls touch my shoulder 
He will comb them straight....Read more of this...

by Wilde, Oscar
...were once a mass
Of quivering purple flecked with bars of gold,
Unsentient or of joy or misery,
And tossed in terrible tangles of some wild and wind-swept sea.

This hot hard flame with which our bodies burn
Will make some meadow blaze with daffodil,
Ay! and those argent breasts of thine will turn
To water-lilies; the brown fields men till
Will be more fruitful for our love to-night,
Nothing is lost in nature, all things live in Death's despite.

The boy's first kiss...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...lm: if thou accept 
My conduct, I can bring thee thither soon 
Lead then, said Eve. He, leading, swiftly rolled 
In tangles, and made intricate seem straight, 
To mischief swift. Hope elevates, and joy 
Brightens his crest; as when a wandering fire, 
Compact of unctuous vapour, which the night 
Condenses, and the cold environs round, 
Kindled through agitation to a flame, 
Which oft, they say, some evil Spirit attends, 
Hovering and blazing with delusive light, 
Misle...Read more of this...

by Petrarch, Francesco
...ay,And on those shoulders shine such wreaths of hair,Whose witching tangles my poor heart ensnare.But how this magic's wrought I cannot say;For twofold radiance doth my reason blind,And sweetness to excess palls and o'erpowers my mind. Nott.  <...Read more of this...

by Petrarch, Francesco
...PAN class=i2>Ye laughing gales, that sporting with my fair,The silky tangles of her locks unbraid;And down her breast their golden treasures spread;Then in fresh mazes weave her curling hair,You kiss those bright destructive eyes, that bearThe flaming darts by which my heart has bled;My trembling h...Read more of this...

by Poe, Edgar Allan
...agle eye-
How was it that Ambition crept,
Unseen, amid the revels there,
Till growing bold, he laughed and leapt
In the tangles of Love's very hair?...Read more of this...

by Whittier, John Greenleaf
...d the same brook sings of a year ago. 

There 's the same sweet clover-smell in the breeze; 
And the June sun warm 
Tangles his wings of fire in the trees, 
Setting, as then, over Fernside farm. 

I mind me how with a lover's care 
From my Sunday coat 
I brushed off the burrs, and smoothed my hair, 
And cooled at the brookside my brow and throat. 

Since we parted, a month had passed, -- 
To love, a year; 
Down through the beeches I looked at last 
On the little r...Read more of this...

by Sassoon, Siegfried
...Yet these, who cling to life with stubborn hands, 
Can grin through storms of death and find a gap
In the clawed, cruel tangles of his defence. 
They march from safety, and the bird-sung joy 
Of grass-green thickets, to the land where all 
Is ruin, and nothing blossoms but the sky 
That hastens over them where they endure 
Sad, smoking, flat horizons, reeking woods, 
And foundered trench-lines volleying doom for doom. 

O my brave brown companions, when your souls 
Fl...Read more of this...

by Naidu, Sarojini
...NAY, no longer I may hold you, 
In my spirit's soft caresses, 
Nor like lotus-leaves enfold you 
In the tangles of my tresses. 
Fairy fancies, fly away 
To the white cloud-wildernesses, 
Fly away!


Nay, no longer ye may linger 
With your laughter-lighted faces, 
Now I am a thought-worn singer 
In life's high and lonely places. 
Fairy fancies, fly away, 
To bright wind-inwoven spaces, 
Fly away!...Read more of this...

by Sassoon, Siegfried
...; then darkness, and the clumsy ghosts 
Stride hither and thither, whispering, tripped by clutching snare 
Of snags and tangles.
Ghastly dawn with vaporous coasts 
Gleams desolate along the sky, night’s misery ended. 

Young Hughes was badly hit; I heard him carried away,
Moaning at every lurch; no doubt he’ll die to-day. 
But we can say the front-line wire’s been safely mended....Read more of this...

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Book: Reflection on the Important Things