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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Sonnet CXCI

by Francesco Petrarch
SONNET CXCI. Aura, che quelle chiome bionde e crespe. HE ENVIES THE BREEZE WHICH SPORTS WITH HER, THE STREAM THAT FLOWS TOWARDS HER.  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...Read more of this...

Ophelia

by Elinor Wylie
 My locks 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...

Wirers

by Siegfried Sassoon
 ‘Pass it along, the wiring party’s going out’— 
And yawning sentries mumble, ‘Wirers going out.’ 
Unravelling; twisting; hammering stakes with muffled thud, 
They toil with stealthy haste and anger in their blood. 

The Boche sends up a flare. Black forms stand rigid there,
Stock-still like posts; then darkness, and the clumsy ghosts 
Stride hither and thither, whispering, tripped by clutching...Read more of this...

Cupbearer, bring my wine-cup, let me grasp it!

by Omar Khayyam
Cupbearer, 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...

Bert Kessler

by Edgar Lee Masters
 I winged my bird, 
Though he flew toward the setting sun; 
But just as the shot rang out, he soared 
Up and up through the splinters of golden light, 
Till he turned right over, feathers ruffled, 
With some of the down of him floating near, 
And fell like a plummet into the grass. 
I tramped about, parting the tangles,...Read more of this...

Panthea

by Oscar Wilde
 Nay, let us walk from fire unto fire,
From passionate pain to deadlier delight, -
I am too young to live without desire,
Too young art thou to waste this summer night
Asking those idle questions which of old
Man sought of seer and oracle, and no reply was told.

For, sweet, to feel is better than to know,
And wisdom is a childless heritage,
One pulse...Read more of this...

The Troops

by Siegfried Sassoon
 Dim, gradual thinning of the shapeless gloom 
Shudders to drizzling daybreak that reveals 
Disconsolate men who stamp their sodden boots 
And turn dulled, sunken faces to the sky 
Haggard and hopeless. They, who have beaten down
The stale despair of night, must now renew 
Their desolation in the truce of dawn, 
Murdering the livid hours that grope for peace. 

Yet...Read more of this...

Telling the Bees

by John Greenleaf Whittier
 Here is the place; right over the hill 
Runs the path I took; 
You can see the gap in the old wall still, 
And the stepping-stones in the shallow brook. 

There is the house, with the gate red-barred, 
And the poplars tall; 
And the barn's brown length, and the cattle-yard, 
And the white horns tossing above the wall. 

There...Read more of this...

Tamerlane

by Edgar Allan Poe
 Kind solace in a dying hour!
Such, father, is not (now) my theme-
I will not madly deem that power
Of Earth may shrive me of the sin
Unearthly pride hath revell'd in-
I have no time to dote or dream:
You call it hope- that fire of fire!
It is but agony of desire:
If I can hope- Oh God! I can-
Its fount is holier- more...Read more of this...

Lycidas

by John Milton
 In this Monody the author bewails a learned Friend, unfortunately
drowned in his passage from Chester on the Irish Seas, 1637;
and, by occasion, foretells the ruin of our corrupted Clergy, 
then in their height.


YET once more, O ye laurels, and once more,
Ye myrtles brown, with ivy never sere,
I come to pluck your berries harsh and crude,
And with forced fingers rude
Shatter...Read more of this...

To My Fairy Fancies

by Sarojini Naidu
 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...Read more of this...

Sonnet CLXV

by Francesco Petrarch
SONNET CLXV. L' aura soave ch' al sol spiega e vibra. HIS HEART LIES TANGLED IN HER HAIR.  The pleasant gale, that to the sun unplaitsAnd spreads the gold Love's fingers weave, and braidO'er her fine eyes, and all around her head,Fetters my heart, the wishful sigh creates:No nerve but thrills,...Read more of this...

Manteau Three

by Jorie Graham
 In the fairy tale the sky
 makes of itself a coat
because it needs you
 to put it 
on. How can it do this?
 It collects its motes. It condenses its sound-
track, all the pyrric escapes, the pilgrimages
 still unconsummated, 
the turreted thoughts of sky it slightly liquefies
 and droops, the hum of the yellowest day alive,

office-holders in their books,...Read more of this...

Earliest Spring

by William Dean Howells
 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...Read more of this...

In The Gold Room - A Harmony

by Oscar Wilde
 Her ivory hands on the ivory keys
Strayed in a fitful fantasy,
Like the silver gleam when the poplar trees
Rustle their pale-leaves listlessly,
Or the drifting foam of a restless sea
When 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...Read more of this...

Le Jardin Des Tuileries

by Oscar Wilde
 This winter air is keen and cold,
And keen and cold this winter sun,
But round my chair the children run
Like little things of dancing gold.

Sometimes 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...Read more of this...

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