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Famous Tighter Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Burns, Robert
...y,
And ev’ry new cork is a new spring of joy;
In the bands of old friendship and kindred so set,
And the bands grew the tighter the more they were wet.


Gay Pleasure ran riot as bumpers ran o’er:
Bright Phoebus ne’er witness’d so joyous a core,
And vow’d that to leave them he was quite forlorn,
Till Cynthia hinted he’d see them next morn.


Six bottles a-piece had well wore out the night,
When gallant Sir Robert, to finish the fight,
Turn’d o’er in one bumper a bottl...Read more of this...



by Dickinson, Emily
...they know me;
I feel for them a transport
Of cordiality;

But never met this fellow,
Attended or alone,
Without a tighter breathing,
And zero at the bone....Read more of this...

by Lowell, Amy
...gains upon the shore, where poppies glow
And sandflies dance their little lives away.
The sucking waves retard, and tighter clinch
The weeds about him, but the land-winds blow,
And in the sky there blooms the sun of May....Read more of this...

by Dickinson, Emily
...her a music
As Bumble bee of June.

Today is far from Childhood—
But up and down the hills
I held her hand the tighter—
Which shortened all the miles—

And still her hum
The years among,
Deceives the Butterfly;
Still in her Eye
The Violets lie
Mouldered this many May.

I spilt the dew—
But took the morn—
I chose this single star
From out the wide night's numbers—
Sue—forevermore!

67

Success is counted sweetest
By those who ne'er succeed.
...Read more of this...

by Service, Robert William
...was bare and dark as death,
And each ferocious fighter
Could hear his fierce opponent's breath
And clutched his pistol tighter.
The Gaston fired - the bullet hissed
On its destructive mission . . .
"Thank God!" said John Bull. "He has missed."
The Frenchman cried: "Perdition!"

Then silence followed like a spell,
And as the Briton sought to
Reply he wondered where the hell
His Gallic foe had got to.

And then he thought: "I'll mercy show,
Since Ha...Read more of this...



by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...w of ash-tree, 
On the sand one end he rested, 
With his knee he pressed the middle, 
Stretched the faithful bow-string tighter, 
Took an arrow, jasperheaded, 
Shot it at the Shining Wigwam, 
Sent it singing as a herald, 
As a bearer of his message, 
Of his challenge loud and lofty: 
"Come forth from your lodge, Pearl-Feather! 
Hiawatha waits your coming!"
Straightway from the Shining Wigwam 
Came the mighty Megissogwon, 
Tall of stature, broad of shoulder, 
Dark and terrible...Read more of this...

by Dickinson, Emily
...Like Time's insidious wrinkle
On a beloved Face
We clutch the Grace the tighter
Though we resent the crease

The Frost himself so comely
Dishevels every prime
Asserting from his Prism
That none can punish him...Read more of this...

by Dickinson, Emily
...to her a music
As Bumble bee of June.

Today is far from Childhood --
But up and down the hills
I held her hand the tighter --
Which shortened all the miles --

And still her hum
The years among,
Deceives the Butterfly;
Still in her Eye
The Violets lie
Mouldered this many May.

I spilt the dew --
But took the morn --
I chose this single star
From out the wide night's numbers --
Sue - forevermore!...Read more of this...

by Service, Robert William
...ils in his wind-pipe nestle,
 And he tries to gouge, but I bite his hand.
And he tries to squeal, but I squeeze him tighter:
 "Now," I say, "I can kill you fine;
But tell me first, you Teutonic blighter!
 Have you any children?" He answers: "Nein."

Nine! Well, I cannot kill such a father,
 So I tie his hands and I leave him there.
Do I finish my little job? Well, rather;
 And I get home safe with some light to spare.
Heigh-ho! by day it's just prosy duty,
 Do...Read more of this...

by Benet, Stephen Vincent
...lls, 
To fall in wreck, her task undone, 
Yet somehow striving toward the sun. 
So, as he slept, his hands clenched tighter, 
Shut in the old way of the fighter, 
His feet curled up to grip the ground, 
His muscles tautened for a bound; 
And though he felt, and felt alone, 
Strange brightness stirred him to the bone, 
Cravings to rise -- till deeper sleep 
Buried the hope, the call, the leap; 
A wind puffed out his mind's faint spark. 
He was absorbed into the dark.Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...to men and women from the wild woods, and from the pond-side, 
Breast-sorrel and pinks of love—fingers that wind around tighter than vines, 
Gushes from the throats of birds, hid in the foliage of trees, as the sun is risen; 
Breezes of land and love—breezes set from living shores out to you on the living
 sea—to
 you, O sailors!
Frost-mellow’d berries, and Third-month twigs, offer’d fresh to young persons
 wandering
 out in the fields when the winter breaks up, 
Love-buds, p...Read more of this...

by Lowell, Amy
...Two! -- One! Two! -- 
clump the heavy boots. The cry hurtles
against the sky.
Each man pulls his belt a little tighter, and shifts 
his gun
to make it lighter. Each man thinks of a woman, and slaps 
out a curse
at the eagle. The sword jumps in the hot sky, and the 
worm crawls on
to the battle, stubbornly.
This is the war of wars, from eye to tail the serpent 
has one cause:
PEACE!...Read more of this...

by Verhaeren, Emile
...;
Doing but that which must be done.
Each fishes for himself alone.


And this one gathers in his net,
Drawing it tighter yet,
His freight of petty misery;
And that one drags up recklessly
Diseases from their slimy bed;
While others still their meshes spread
Out to the sorrows that drift by
Threateningly nigh;
And the last hauls aboard with force
The wreckage dark of his remorse.



The river, round its corners bending,
And with the dyke-heads intertwined.
...Read more of this...

by Cullen, Countee
...uths of wrongs the childish vision fails
To see; too great a cost this birth entails.
I strangle in this yoke drawn tighter than
The worth of bearing it, just to be man.
I am not brave enough to pay the price
In full; I lack the strength to sacrifice
I who have burned my hands upon a star,
And climbed high hills at dawn to view the far
Illimitable wonderments of earth,
For whom all cups have dripped the wine of mirth,
For whom the sea has strained her honeyed throat
T...Read more of this...

by Larkin, Philip
...ss so huge and wholly farcical;
 The women shared
The secret like a happy funeral;
While girls, gripping their handbags tighter, stared
At a religious wounding. Free at last,
And loaded with the sum of all they saw,
We hurried towards London, shuffling gouts of steam.
Now fields were building-plots, and poplars cast
Long shadows over major roads, and for
Some fifty minutes, that in time would seem

Just long enough to settle hats and say 
 I nearly died,
A dozen marri...Read more of this...

by Larkin, Philip
...all match, perhaps, or a pit,
All moving the same way. After a while
A second wall closes on our right,
Pressing us tighter. We are now shut in
Like pigs down a concrete passage. When I lift
My head, I see the walls have killed the sun,
And light is cold. Now a giant whitewashed D
Comes on the second wall, but much too high
For them to recognise: I await the E,
Watch it approach and pass. By now
We have ceased walking and travel
Like water through sewers, ...Read more of this...

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