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Famous Tolls Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Sexton, Anne
...g,
Yes, sir! Yes, sir! It's one for my dame,
your sample cases branded with my father's name,

your itinerary open,
its tolls ticking and greedy,
its highways built up like new loves, raw and speedy....Read more of this...



by Hood, Thomas
...ach drags six more heavy souls, 
But no glad urchins shout, no trumpets bray, 
The carriage makes a halt, the gate-bell tolls, 
And little boys walk in as dull and mum 
As six new scholars to the Deaf and Dumb!...Read more of this...

by Gray, Thomas
...The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
The lowing herd wind slowly o'er the lea,
The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness and to me.

Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight,
And all the air a solemn stillness holds,
Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight,
And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds;

Save th...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...er’s knife, with a half-pull’d scabbard. 

This face owes to the sexton his dismalest fee; 
An unceasing death-bell tolls there. 

3
Those then are really men—the bosses and tufts of the great round globe! 

Features of my equals, would you trick me with your creas’d and cadaverous march?
Well, you cannot trick me. 

I see your rounded, never-erased flow; 
I see neath the rims of your haggard and mean disguises. 

Splay and twist as you like—poke with the tang...Read more of this...

by Donne, John
...re.
Each man's death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee....Read more of this...



by Moody, William Vaughn
...sails, make haste! 

But thou, vast outbound ship of souls, 
What harbor town for thee? 
What shapes, when thy arriving tolls, 
Shall crowd the banks to see? 
Shall all the happy shipmates then 
Stand singing brotherly? 
Or shall a haggard ruthless few 
Warp her over and bring her to, 
While the many broken souls of men 
Fester down in the slaver's pen 
And nothing to say or do?...Read more of this...

by Lanier, Sidney
...s are throngs of living souls;
They breathe in me, heart unto heart allied;
Their joy undimmed, though when the morning tolls
 The planets may divide....Read more of this...

by Joyce, James
...muted, dim,
Raised when she has and shaken
Her thurible.

And long and loud,
To night's nave upsoaring,
A starknell tolls
As the bleak incense surges, cloud on cloud,
Voidward from the adoring
Waste of souls....Read more of this...

by Raleigh, Sir Walter
...ee, tell?
It is that fountain and that well
Where pleasure and repentance dwell;
It is, perhaps, the sauncing bell
That tolls all into heaven or hell;
And this is Love, as I hear tell.

Yet what is Love, I prithee, say?
It is a work on holiday,
It is December matched with May,
When lusty bloods in fresh array
Hear ten months after of the play;
And this is Love, as I hear say.

Yet what is Love, good shepherd, sain?
It is a sunshine mixed with rain,
It is a toothache o...Read more of this...

by Thomas, Dylan
...e told,
Curlews aloud in the congered waves
 Work at their ways to death,
And the rhymer in the long tongued room,
 Who tolls his birthday bell,
Toils towards the ambush of his wounds;
 Herons, steeple stemmed, bless.

 In the thistledown fall,
He sings towards anguish; finches fly
 In the claw tracks of hawks
On a seizing sky; small fishes glide
 Through wynds and shells of drowned
Ship towns to pastures of otters. He
 In his slant, racking house
And the hewn coils o...Read more of this...

by Arnold, Matthew
...er-horse have burst
Upon their caravan; or greedy kings,
In the wall'd cities the way passes through,
Crush'd them with tolls; or fever-airs,
On some great river's marge,
Mown them down, far from home.
They see the Heroes
Near harbour;--but they share
Their lives, and former violent toil in Thebes,
Seven-gated Thebes, or Troy;
Or where the echoing oars
Of Argo first
Startled the unknown sea.
The old Silenus
Came, lolling in the sunshine,
From the dewy forest-coverts,
...Read more of this...

by Lowell, Amy
...me go." "My child,"
And the old tones were very mild,
"I have no wish to barter souls;
My traffic does not ask such tolls.
I am no devil; is there one?
Surely the age of fear is gone.
We live within a daylight world
Lit by the sun, where winds unfurled
Sweep clouds to scatter pattering rain,
And then blow back the sun again.
I sell my fancies, or my swords,
To those who care far more for words,
Ideas, of which they are the sign,
Than any other life-design....Read more of this...

by Poe, Edgar Allan
...rt a stone-
They are neither man nor woman-
They are neither brute nor human-
They are Ghouls:
And their king it is who tolls;
And he rolls, rolls, rolls,
Rolls
A paean from the bells!
And his merry bosom swells
With the paean of the bells!
And he dances, and he yells;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the paean of the bells-
Of the bells:
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the throbbing of the bells-
Of the bells, bells, bells-
To the...Read more of this...

by Scott, Duncan Campbell
...meshes of bright words.

A lemming stirs the fern and in the mosses
Eft-minded things feel the air change, and dawn
Tolls out from the dark belfries of the spruces.
How often in the autumn of the world
Shall the crystal shrine of dawning be rebuilt
With deeper meaning! Shall the poet then,
Wrapped in his mantle on the height of land,
Brood on the welter of the lives of men
And dream of his ideal hope and promise
In the blush sunrise? Shall he base his flight
Upon a mo...Read more of this...

by Aiken, Conrad
...I. COFFINS: INTERLUDE

Wind blows. Snow falls. The great clock in its tower
Ticks with reverberant coil and tolls the hour:
At the deep sudden stroke the pigeons fly . . .
The fine snow flutes the cracks between the flagstones.
We close our coats, and hurry, and...Read more of this...

by Aiken, Conrad
...Wind blows. Snow falls. The great clock in its tower
Ticks with reverberant coil and tolls the hour:
At the deep sudden stroke the pigeons fly . . .
The fine snow flutes the cracks between the flagstones.
We close our coats, and hurry, and search the sky.

We are like music, each voice of it pursuing
A golden separate dream, remote, persistent,
Climbing to fire, receding to hoarse despair.
What do you whisper, brother...Read more of this...

by Schiller, Friedrich von
...long.

Lovely, thither are they bringing.
With the virgin wreath, the bride!
To the love-feast clearly ringing,
Tolls the church-bell far and wide!
With that sweetest holiday,
Must the May of life depart;
With the cestus loosed--away
Flies illusion from the heart!
Yet love lingers lonely,
When passion is mute,
And the blossoms may only
Give way to the fruit.
The husband must enter
The hostile life,
With struggle and strife
To plant or to watch.
To snare or to ...Read more of this...

by Seeger, Alan
...omplains. 
Hopeless, abandoned, desolate, aghast, 
On modes of violent death he meditates. 
And the tower-clock tolls five, and he admits at last, 
She will not come, the woman that he waits. 


Through the stained rose the winter daylight dies, 
And all the tide of anguish unrepressed 
Swells in his throat and gathers in his eyes; 
He kneels and bows his head upon his breast, 
And feigns a prayer to hide his burning tears, 
While the satanic voice reiterates 
`To...Read more of this...

by Arnold, Matthew
...e burst
249 Upon their caravan; or greedy kings,
250 In the wall'd cities the way passes through,
251 Crush'd them with tolls; or fever-airs,
252 On some great river's marge,
253 Mown them down, far from home. 

254 They see the Heroes
255 Near harbour;--but they share
256 Their lives, and former violent toil in Thebes,
257 Seven-gated Thebes, or Troy;
258 Or where the echoing oars
259 Of Argo first
260 Startled the unknown sea. 

261 The old Silenus
262 Came, lolling...Read more of this...

by Southey, Robert
...r
Bids me lay by the lyre and go to morning prayer.

Oh how I hate the sound! it is the Knell,
That still a requiem tolls to Comfort's hour;
And loth am I, at Superstition's bell,
To quit or Morpheus or the Muses bower.
Better to lie and dose, than gape amain,
Hearing still mumbled o'er, the same eternal strain.

Thou tedious herald of more tedious prayers
Say hast thou ever summoned from his rest,
One being awakening to religious awe?
Or rous'd one pious transpor...Read more of this...

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Book: Reflection on the Important Things