Famous Thick Poems by Famous Poets

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

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A poem on divine revelation

...hill reflects a purer ray, 
Than when Aurora paints his woods in gold, 
Or when the sun first in the orient sky, 
Sets thick with gems the dewy mountain's brow. 


The earth perceives a sov'reign virtue shed 
And from each cave, and midnight haunt retires 
Dark superstition, with her vot'ries skill'd, 
In potent charm, or spell of magic pow'r; 
In augury, by voice, or flight of birds, 
Or boding sign at morn, or noon, or eve, 
Portent and prodigy and omen dire. 
Each oracle ...Read more of this...
by Brackenridge, Hugh Henry


Beowulf (Modern English)

...der the earth. (ll. 1345-61a)

“It is not far from here, measured out by miles,
that that lake stands, over it hangs thick-barked trees,
fast with their roots, overshadowing the water.
There one can see every night a malevolent wonder:
fire in the water. None of the sons of men who live,
though wise, can sound out that lake bottom.
Although the heath-stepper is harried by hounds,
the stag with strong horns may seek a forested security,
fearfully put to flight—he wou...Read more of this...
by Anonymous,

Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie

...want, had hoarded their honey
Till the hives overflowed; and the Indian bunters asserted
Cold would the winter be, for thick was the fur of the foxes.
Such was the advent of autumn. Then followed that beautiful season,
Called by the pious Acadian peasants the Summer of All-Saints!
Filled was the air with a dreamy and magical light; and the landscape
Lay as if new-created in all the freshness of childhood.
Peace seemed to reign upon earth, and the restless heart of the ocean
...Read more of this...
by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth

Hyperion

...of all lay Themis, at the feet
Of Ops the queen; all clouded round from sight,
No shape distinguishable, more than when
Thick night confounds the pine-tops with the clouds:
And many else whose names may not be told.
For when the Muse's wings are air-ward spread,
Who shall delay her flight? And she must chaunt
Of Saturn, and his guide, who now had climb'd
With damp and slippery footing from a depth
More horrid still. Above a sombre cliff
Their heads appear'd, and up their stat...Read more of this...
by Keats, John

Inferno (English)

..., 
 Outcries perpetual of recruited pain, 
 Sounds of strange tongues, and angers that remain 
 Vengeless for ever, the thick and clamorous crowd 
 Of discords pressed, that needs I wept to hear, 
 First hearing. There, with reach of hands anear, 
 And voices passion-hoarse, or shrilled with fright, 
 The tumult of the everlasting night, 
 As sand that dances in continual wind, 
 Turns on itself for ever. 
 And I, my head 
 Begirt with movements, and my ears bedinned 
 With o...Read more of this...
by Alighieri, Dante


New Hampshire

...t's the other. And the two have been
Yokefellows in the sap yoke from of old
In many Marches. And they lie like wedges,
Thick end to thin end and thin end to thick end,
And are a figure of the way the strong
Of mind and strong of arm should fit together,
One thick where one is thin and vice versa.


New Hampshire raises the Connecticut  

In a trout hatchery near Canada,
But soon divides the river with Vermont.
Both are delightful states for their absurdly
Small towns—Lost Na...Read more of this...
by Frost, Robert

Song of Myself

...l; 
Her father and his friends sat near, cross-legged and dumbly smoking—they
 had moccasins to their feet, and large thick blankets hanging from their
 shoulders; 
On a bank lounged the trapper—he was drest mostly in skins—his
 luxuriant beard and curls protected his neck—he held his bride by the hand;

She had long eyelashes—her head was bare—her coarse straight locks
 descended upon her voluptuous limbs and reach’d to her feet.

The runaway slave came to my house...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt

The Ballad of the White Horse

...erleon.

For the man dwelt in a lost land
Of boulders and broken men,
In a great grey cave far off to the south
Where a thick green forest stopped the mouth,
Giving darkness in his den.

And the man was come like a shadow,
From the shadow of Druid trees,
Where Usk, with mighty murmurings,
Past Caerleon of the fallen kings,
Goes out to ghostly seas.

Last of a race in ruin--
He spoke the speech of the Gaels;
His kin were in holy Ireland,
Or up in the crags of Wales.

But his s...Read more of this...
by Chesterton, G K

The Dungeon

... And he is lean and he is sick,  His dwindled body's half awry,  His ancles they are swoln and thick;  His legs are thin and dry.  When he was young he little knew  'Of husbandry or tillage;  And now he's forced to work, though weak,  —The weakest in the village.   He all the country could outrun,  Could leave both man and horse behind;  And often, ere the race was ...Read more of this...
by Wordsworth, William

The Holy Grail

...and lower, and where the long 
Rich galleries, lady-laden, weighed the necks 
Of dragons clinging to the crazy walls, 
Thicker than drops from thunder, showers of flowers 
Fell as we past; and men and boys astride 
On wyvern, lion, dragon, griffin, swan, 
At all the corners, named us each by name, 
Calling, "God speed!" but in the ways below 
The knights and ladies wept, and rich and poor 
Wept, and the King himself could hardly speak 
For grief, and all in middle street the...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord

The Knights Tale

...a sotel* garland for her head, *subtle, well-arranged
And as an angel heavenly she sung.
The greate tower, that was so thick and strong,
Which of the castle was the chief dungeon
(Where as these knightes weren in prison,
Of which I tolde you, and telle shall),
Was even joinant* to the garden wall, *adjoining
There as this Emily had her playing.

Bright was the sun, and clear that morrowning,
And Palamon, this woful prisoner,
As was his wont, by leave of his gaoler,
Was r...Read more of this...
by Chaucer, Geoffrey

The Lady of the Lake

...A moment gazed adown the dale,
     A moment snuffed the tainted gale,
     A moment listened to the cry,
     That thickened as the chase drew nigh;
     Then, as the headmost foes appeared,
     With one brave bound the copse he cleared,
     And, stretching forward free and far,
     Sought the wild heaths of Uam-Var.
     III.

     Yelled on the view the opening pack;
     Rock, glen, and cavern paid them back;
     To many a mingled sound at once
     The ...Read more of this...
by Scott, Sir Walter

The Most Beautiful Woman In Town

...s then that
Cass took off her high -necked dress and I saw it- the ugly jagged scar across her throat.
It was large and thick. 
"God damn you, woman," I said from the bed, "god damn you, what have you
done?
"I tried it with a broken bottle one night. Don't you like me any more? Am I still
beautiful?" 
I pulled her down on the bed and kissed her. She pushed away and laughed, "Some
men pay me ten and I undress and they don't want to do it. I keep the ten. It's very
funny." 
"Ye...Read more of this...
by Bukowski, Charles

The Seasons: Winter

...onscious Peace, and Vertue pure,
Sacred, substantial, never-fading Bliss! 

LO! from the livid East, or piercing North,
Thick Clouds ascend, in whose capacious Womb,
A vapoury Deluge lies, to Snow congeal'd:
Heavy, they roll their fleecy World along;
And the Sky saddens with th'impending Storm. 
Thro' the hush'd Air, the whitening Shower descends,
At first, thin-wavering; till, at last, the Flakes
Fall broad, and wide, and fast, dimming the Day,
With a continual Flow. See! su...Read more of this...
by Thomson, James

The Three Voices

...ess toppling from the height,
The feathery train of granite Night? 

"Shall he, grown gray among his peers,
Through the thick curtain of his tears
Catch glimpses of his earlier years, 

"And hear the sounds he knew of yore,
Old shufflings on the sanded floor,
Old knuckles tapping at the door? 

"Yet still before him as he flies
One pallid form shall ever rise,
And, bodying forth in glassy eyes 

"The vision of a vanished good,
Low peering through the tangled wood,
Shall freez...Read more of this...
by Carroll, Lewis

The Triumph of Life

...s in that trance of wondrous thought I lay
This was the tenour of my waking dream.
Methought I sate beside a public way
Thick strewn with summer dust, & a great stream
Of people there was hurrying to & fro
Numerous as gnats upon the evening gleam,
All hastening onward, yet none seemed to know
Whither he went, or whence he came, or why
He made one of the multitude, yet so
Was borne amid the crowd as through the sky
One of the million leaves of summer's bier.--
Old age & youth,...Read more of this...
by Shelley, Percy Bysshe

The Vision of Judgment

...
Good Mrs. Malaprop); then you might deem 
That he was not even one; now many rays 
Were flashing round him; and now a thick steam 
Hid him from sight — like fogs on London days: 
Now Burke, now Tooke he grew to people's fancies, 
And certes often like Sir Philip Francis. 

LXXX 

I've an hypothesis — 'tis quite my own; 
I never let it out till now, for fear 
Of doing people harm about the throne, 
And injuring some minister or peer, 
On whom the stigma might perhaps be blow...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)

The White Cliffs

...mother-in-Iaw, as far as I could see,
Felt no such impulse, though she was always in pain, 
An, as the winter fogs grew thick,
Took to walking with a stick,
Heavily.
Those bubble-like eyes grew black 
Whenever she rose from a chair—
Rose and fell back,
Unable to bear
The sure agonizing
Torture of rising.
Her hands, those competent bony hands,
Grew gnarled and old,
But never ceased to obey the commands
Of her will— only finding new hold
Of bandage and needle and pen.
And not f...Read more of this...
by Miller, Alice Duer

Three Women

...ve tried to be blind in love, like other women,
Blind in my bed, with my dear blind sweet one,
Not looking, through the thick dark, for the face of another.

I did not look. But still the face was there,
The face of the unborn one that loved its perfections,
The face of the dead one that could only be perfect
In its easy peace, could only keep holy so.
And then there were other faces. The faces of nations,
Governments, parliaments, societies,
The faceless faces of important m...Read more of this...
by Plath, Sylvia

White Flock

...nd
Are fallow and warm.

And I, being sick, hear calling,
The noise of golden wings
From dense and low clouds
And thick underbrush.

"It's time to fly, it's time to fly,
Over the field and river.
For you already cannot sing
And wipe a tear from a cheek
With a weakened arm."



x x x

I will quietly in the churchyard
Sleep on wooden boards in the sun,
On the Sunday as guest to mother
You will come, my dear one --
Through the river over the mountain
Can...Read more of this...
by Akhmatova, Anna

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