Famous Tottering Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Tottering poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous tottering poems. These examples illustrate what a famous tottering poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Wilmot, John
...,
Were soon dashed back, and wrecked on the dull shore,
Broke of that little stock they had before!
How would a woman's tottering bark be tossed
Where stoutest ships, the men of wit, are lost?
When I reflect on this, I straight grow wise,
And my own self thus gravely I advise:
--Dear Artemesia, poetry's a snare;
Bedlam has many mansions; have a care.
Your muse diverts you, makes the reader sad:
Consider, too, 'twill be discreetly done
To make yourself the fiddle of the to...Read more of this...
by
Paterson, Andrew Barton
...--
And Spring-time I sing.
There is drought on the land, and the stock
Tumble down in their tracks
Or follow -- a tottering flock --
The scrub-cutter's axe.
While ever a creature survives
The axes shall swing;
We are fighting with fate for their lives --
And the combat I sing....Read more of this...
by
Robinson, Edwin Arlington
...not the rest?
Such are the words in you that I divine,
Such are the words of men.
So be it, and what then?
Poor, tottering counterfeit,
Are you a thing to tell me what is mine?
Grant we the demon sees
An inch beyond the line,
What comes of mine and thine?
A thousand here and there may shriek and freeze,
Or they may starve in fine.
The Old Physician has a crimson cure
For such as these,
And ages after ages will endure
The minims of it that are victories.Read more of this...
by
Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...f horses and men;
Then a phantom colony smoulder'd on the refluent estuary;
Lastly yonder yester-even, suddenly giddily tottering--
There was one who watch'd and told me--down their statue of Victory fell.
Lo their precious Roman bantling, lo the colony Camulodune,
Shall we teach it a Roman lesson? shall we care to be pitiful?
Shall we deal with it as an infant? shall we dandle it amorously?
`Hear Icenian, Catieuchlanian, hear Coritanian, Trinobant!
While I roved about ...Read more of this...
by
Keats, John
...t this joyous hour
But even now most miserable old,
I saw thee, and my blood no longer cold
Gave mighty pulses: in this tottering case
Grew a new heart, which at this moment plays
As dancingly as thine. Be not afraid,
For thou shalt hear this secret all display'd,
Now as we speed towards our joyous task."
So saying, this young soul in age's mask
Went forward with the Carian side by side:
Resuming quickly thus; while ocean's tide
Hung swollen at their backs, and jewe...Read more of this...
by
Tebb, Barry
...vender.
Yet in reality, things could hardly have been more different:
Watching our children grow from their first tottering steps,
Helping to tend them in sickness, learning the basics
Of the healer’s art, taking an old man to a ward,
Listening, listening to how many troubled lives
And to my own, perhaps; seeking to tease a meaning
Or find a thread in the jumbled maze of sorrows
Souls in their turbulence and grief have wandered through.
I even wrote a novel, ...Read more of this...
by
Tebb, Barry
...lging roof
Beams, bent like a bow above me.
This whole room has rushed to the world’s edge,
My fingers tip its tottering walls
Braced to hold definition, floorboards
Knotted tight against infinity’s axe, doors
Bolted to contain time and place in time and place together.
I cry ‘help’ as my world whirls,
Is loosed at the single eye of heaven....Read more of this...
by
von Goethe, Johann Wolfgang
...rd him, from the other side
He saw an aged woman glide;
The name she bears, Historia,
Mythologia, Fabula;
With footstep tottering and unstable
She dragg'd a large and wooden carved-table,
Where, with wide sleeves and human mien,
The Lord was catechizing seen;
Adam, Eve, Eden, the Serpent's seduction,
Gomorrah and Sodom's awful destruction,
The twelve illustrious women, too,
That mirror of honour brought to view;
All kinds of bloodthirstiness, murder, and sin,
The twelve wicke...Read more of this...
by
Hardy, Thomas
..."
"O memory, where is now my youth,
Who used to say that life was truth?"
"I saw him in a crumbled cot
Beneath a tottering tree;
That he as phantom lingers there
Is only known to me."
"O Memory, where is now my joy,
Who lived with me in sweet employ?"
"I saw him in gaunt gardens lone,
Where laughter used to be;
That he as phantom wanders there
Is known to none but me."
"O Memory, where is now my hope,
Who charged with deeds my skill and scope?" ...Read more of this...
by
Poe, Edgar Allan
...l Israfel
And the giddy stars (so legends tell)
Ceasing their hymns attend the spell
Of his voice all mute.
Tottering above
In her highest noon
The enamored moon
Blushes with love
While to listen the red levin
(With the rapid Pleiads even
Which were seven )
Pauses in Heaven.
And they say (the starry choir
And the other listening things)
That Israfeli's fire
Is owing to that lyre
By which he sits and sings-
The trembling living wire
Of those ...Read more of this...
by
Scott, Sir Walter
...y the beacon-light,
Our pilots had kept course aright;
As some proud column, though alone,
Thy strength had propp'd the tottering throne.
Now is the stately column broke,
The beacon-light is quench'd in smoke,
The trumpet's silver voice is still,
The warder silent on the hill!
O think, how to his latest day,
When Death, just hovering, claim'd his prey,
With Palinure's unalter'd mood
Firm at his dangerous post he stood;
Each call for needful rest repell'd,
With dying hand...Read more of this...
by
Robinson, Mary Darby
...many a clay-built cot lays low
Beneath the growing hills of snow,
Soon as the SHEPHERD's silv'ry head
Peeps from his tottering straw-roof'd shed,
To hail the glimm'ring glimpse of day,
With feeble steps he ventures forth
Chill'd by the bleak breath of the North,
And to the forest bends his way,
To gather from the frozen ground
Each branch the night-blast scatter'd round.
If in some bush o'erspread with snow
He hears thy moaning wail of woe,
A flush of warmth ...Read more of this...
by
Goldsmith, Oliver
...kept for show,
Ranged o'er the chimney, glistened in a row.
Vain transitory splendours! Could not all
Reprieve the tottering mansion from its fall!
Obscure it sinks, nor shall it more impart
An hour's importance to the poor man's heart;
Thither no more the peasant shall repair
To sweet oblivion of his daily care;
No more the farmer's news, the barber's tale,
No more the woodman's ballad shall prevail;
No more the smith his dusky brow shall clear,
Relax his ponderous stre...Read more of this...
by
Wilde, Oscar
...ch time we walk
alone,
Save for that fiery heart, that morning star
Of re-arisen England, whose clear eye
Saw from our tottering throne and waste of war
The grand Greek limbs of young Democracy
Rise mightily like Hesperus and bring
The great Republic! him at least thy love hath taught to sing,
And he hath been with thee at Thessaly,
And seen white Atalanta fleet of foot
In passionless and fierce virginity
Hunting the tusked boar, his honied lute
Hath pierced the cavern of t...Read more of this...
by
Lowell, Amy
...ive Grootver, sometime
A friend, my daughter for his lawful wife.' Now swear."
16
And Kurler swore, a palsied, tottering sound,
And traced his name, a shaking, wandering line.
Then dazed he sat there, speechless from his wound.
Grootver got up: "Fair voyage, the brigantine!"
He shuffled from the room, and left the house.
His footsteps wore to silence down the street.
At last the aged man began to rouse.
With help he once more gained his trembling ...Read more of this...
by
Holmes, Oliver Wendell
...t fretting,
Where all goes wrong, and nothing as it ought?
Old age, the graybeard! Well, indeed, I know him,--
Shrunk, tottering, bent, of aches and ills the prey;
In sermon, story, fable, picture, poem,
Oft have I met him from my earliest day:
In my old Aesop, toiling with his bundle,--
His load of sticks,-- politely asking Death,
Who comes when called for,-- would he lug or trundle
His fagot for him?-- he was scant of breath.
And sad "Ecclesiastes, or the Preacher,"-...Read more of this...
by
Scott, Sir Walter
...beck and will,
All silent there they stood and still.
Like the loose crags whose threatening mass
Lay tottering o'er the hollow pass,
As if an infant's touch could urge
Their headlong passage down the verge,
With step and weapon forward flung,
Upon the mountain-side they hung.
The Mountaineer cast glance of pride
Along Benledi's living side,
Then fixed his eye and sable brow
Full on Fitz-James: 'How say'st thou...Read more of this...
by
Taylor, Ann
...d upon the village green
First in every sport was seen.
Now, alas! I'm weak and low,
Cannot either work or play;
Tottering on my crutches, slow,
Thus I drag my weary way:
Now no longer dance and sing,
Gaily, in the merry ring.
Many sleepless nights I live,
Turning on my weary bed;
Softest pillows cannot give
Slumber to my aching head;
Constant anguish makes it fly
From my heavy, wakeful eye.
And, when morning beams return,
Still no comfort beams for ...Read more of this...
by
Hugo, Victor
..., and proud.
Thus is it with kings' children, for they wear
A shadowy circlet on their forehead fair;
Their tottering steps are towards a kingly chair.
Calmly she waits, and breathes her gathered flower
Till one shall cull for her imperial power.
Already her eye saith, "It is my right;"
Even love flows from her, mingled with affright.
If some one seeing her so fragile stand,
Were it to save her, should put forth his hand,
Ere he had made a ste...Read more of this...
by
Davies, William Henry
...While joy gave clouds the light of stars,
That beamed wher'er they looked;
And calves and lambs had tottering knees,
Excited, while they sucked;
While every bird enjoyed his song,
Without one thought of harm or wrong--
I turned my head and saw the wind,
Not far from where I stood,
Dragging the corn by her golden hair,
Into a dark and lonely wood....Read more of this...
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