Famous Tumbled Poems by Famous Poets

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

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75. Halloween

...fley’d an’ eerie:
Till presently he hears a squeak,
 An’ then a grane an’ gruntle;
He by his shouther gae a keek,
 An’ tumbled wi’ a wintle
 Out-owre that night.


He roar’d a horrid murder-shout,
 In dreadfu’ desperation!
An’ young an’ auld come rinnin out,
 An’ hear the sad narration:
He swoor ’twas hilchin Jean M’Craw,
 Or crouchie Merran Humphie—
Till stop! she trotted thro’ them a’;
 And wha was it but grumphie
 Asteer that night!


Meg fain wad to the barn gaen,
 To wi...Read more of this...
by Burns, Robert


Gareth And Lynette

...he quieted, but three 
Fled through the pines; and Gareth loosed the stone 
From off his neck, then in the mere beside 
Tumbled it; oilily bubbled up the mere. 
Last, Gareth loosed his bonds and on free feet 
Set him, a stalwart Baron, Arthur's friend. 

'Well that ye came, or else these caitiff rogues 
Had wreaked themselves on me; good cause is theirs 
To hate me, for my wont hath ever been 
To catch my thief, and then like vermin here 
Drown him, and with a stone about his...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord

Goblin Market

...il,
One tramped at a rat's pace,
One crawled like a snail,
One like a wombat prowled obtuse and furry,
One like a ratel tumbled hurry-scurry.
Lizzie heard a voice like voice of doves
Cooing all together:
They sounded kind and full of loves
In the pleasant weather.

Laura stretched her gleaming neck
Like a rush-imbedded swan,
Like a lily from the beck,
Like a moonlit poplar branch,
Like a vessel at the launch
When its last restraint is gone.

Backwards up the mossy glen
Turned...Read more of this...
by Rossetti, Christina

Hyperion

...d the Goddesses!
There is sad feud among ye, and rebellion
Of son against his sire. I saw him fall,
I saw my first-born tumbled from his throne!
To me his arms were spread, to me his voice
Found way from forth the thunders round his head!
Pale wox I, and in vapours hid my face.
Art thou, too, near such doom? vague fear there is:
For I have seen my sons most unlike Gods.
Divine ye were created, and divine
In sad demeanour, solemn, undisturb'd,
Unruffled, like high Gods, ye liv...Read more of this...
by Keats, John

Sea Dreams

...of glass
Wreck'd on a reef of visionary gold.' 

`Nay,' said the kindly wife to comfort him,
`You raised your arm, you tumbled down and broke
The glass with little Margaret's medicine it it;
And, breaking that, you made and broke your dream:
A trifle makes a dream, a trifle breaks.' 

`No trifle,' groan'd the husband; `yesterday
I met him suddenly in the street, and ask'd
That which I ask'd the woman in my dream.
Like her, he shook his head. "Show me the books!"
He dodged me...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord


The Ballad Of Caseys Billy-Goat

...d homeward it was in the early morning,
But Shamus followed faithfully, a yard behind his back;
Then Casey slipped and stumbled, and without the slightest warning
like a lump of lead he tumbled - right across the railroad track.

And there he lay, serenely, and defied the powers to budge him,
Reposing like a baby, with his head upon the rail;
But Shamus seemed unhappy, and from time to time would nudge him,
Though his prods to protestation were without the least avail.
Then t...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William

The Ballad of the Kings Mercy

...die."

They stoned him till the stones were piled above him on the plain,
And those the labouring limbs displaced they tumbled back again.

One watched beside the dreary mound that veiled the battered thing,
And him the King with laughter called the Herald of the King.

It was upon the second night, the night of Ramazan,
The watcher leaning earthward heard the message of Yar Khan.
From shattered breast through shrivelled lips broke forth the rattling breath,
"Creature of God...Read more of this...
by Kipling, Rudyard

The Great Adventure of Max Breuck

...rs smeared and jumbled, but by dint
Of straining every nerve to meet the worst,
He read it, and into his pounding brain
Tumbled a horror. Like a roaring sea
Foreboding shipwreck, came the message plain:
"This is two years ago! What of Christine?"
He fled the cellar, in his agony
Running to outstrip Fate, and save his holy shrine.

58
The darkened buildings echoed to his feet
Clap-clapping on the pavement as he ran.
Across moon-misted squares clamoured his fleet
And terror-win...Read more of this...
by Lowell, Amy

The House Of Dust: Complete (Long)

...separate ways through life and death.


VIII.

The white fog creeps from the cold sea over the city,
Over the pale grey tumbled towers,—
And settles among the roofs, the pale grey walls.
Along damp sinuous streets it crawls,
Curls like a dream among the motionless trees
And seems to freeze.

The fog slips ghostlike into a thousand rooms,
Whirls over sleeping faces,
Spins in an atomy dance round misty street lamps;
And blows in cloudy waves over open spaces . . .

And one from...Read more of this...
by Aiken, Conrad

The Last Tournament

...pion-worm that twists in hell, 
And stings itself to everlasting death, 
To hang whatever knight of thine I fought 
And tumbled. Art thou King? --Look to thy life!' 

He ended: Arthur knew the voice; the face 
Wellnigh was helmet-hidden, and the name 
Went wandering somewhere darkling in his mind. 
And Arthur deigned not use of word or sword, 
But let the drunkard, as he stretched from horse 
To strike him, overbalancing his bulk, 
Down from the causeway heavily to the swamp ...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord

The Lay of a Golden Goose

...ught to fly." 

In vain parental cacklings, 
In vain the cold sky's frown, 
Ambitious goosey tried to soar, 
But always tumbled down. 

The farmyard jeered at her attempts, 
The peacocks screamed, "Oh fie! 
You're only a domestic goose, 
So don't pretend to fly." 

Great cock-a-doodle from his perch 
Crowed daily loud and clear, 
"Stay in the puddle, foolish bird, 
That is your proper sphere," 

The ducks and hens said, one and all, 
In gossip by the pool, 
"Our children neve...Read more of this...
by Alcott, Louisa May

The Philosopher

...A golden stream - and one like blood;
And one like sapphire, seemed to be;
But, where they joined their triple flood
It tumbled in an inky sea. 

The spirit sent his dazzling gaze
Down through that ocean's gloomy night
Then, kindling all, with sudden blaze,
The glad deep sparkled wide and bright -
White as the sun, far, far more fair
Than its divided sources were!" 

"And even for that spirit, seer,
I've watched and sought my life - time long;
Sought him in heaven, hell, eart...Read more of this...
by Brontë, Emily

The Princess (part 2)

...made me wise? 
And learnt? I learnt more from her in a flash, 
Than in my brainpan were an empty hull, 
And every Muse tumbled a science in. 
A thousand hearts lie fallow in these halls, 
And round these halls a thousand baby loves 
Fly twanging headless arrows at the hearts, 
Whence follows many a vacant pang; but O 
With me, Sir, entered in the bigger boy, 
The Head of all the golden-shafted firm, 
The long-limbed lad that had a Psyche too; 
He cleft me through the stomach...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord

The Princess (part 4)

...ame, the crowd dividing clove 
An advent to the throne: and therebeside, 
Half-naked as if caught at once from bed 
And tumbled on the purple footcloth, lay 
The lily-shining child; and on the left, 
Bowed on her palms and folded up from wrong, 
Her round white shoulder shaken with her sobs, 
Melissa knelt; but Lady Blanche erect 
Stood up and spake, an affluent orator. 

'It was not thus, O Princess, in old days: 
You prized my counsel, lived upon my lips: 
I led you then to...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord

The Princess (part 6)

...tter smile, 
'Our laws are broken: let him enter too.' 
Then Violet, she that sang the mournful song, 
And had a cousin tumbled on the plain, 
Petitioned too for him. 'Ay so,' she said, 
'I stagger in the stream: I cannot keep 
My heart an eddy from the brawling hour: 
We break our laws with ease, but let it be.' 
'Ay so?' said Blanche: 'Amazed am I to her 
Your Highness: but your Highness breaks with ease 
The law your Highness did not make: 'twas I. 
I had been wedded wife,...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord

The Princess (prologue)

...Science; otherwhere 
Pure sport; a herd of boys with clamour bowled 
And stumped the wicket; babies rolled about 
Like tumbled fruit in grass; and men and maids 
Arranged a country dance, and flew through light 
And shadow, while the twangling violin 
Struck up with Soldier-laddie, and overhead 
The broad ambrosial aisles of lofty lime 
Made noise with bees and breeze from end to end. 

Strange was the sight and smacking of the time; 
And long we gazed, but satiated at lengt...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord

The Rape of the Lock

...ks inflame,
Or change Complexions at a losing Game; 
If e'er with airy Horns I planted Heads,
Or rumpled Petticoats, or tumbled Beds,
Or caus'd Suspicion when no Soul was rude,
Or discompos'd the Head-dress of a Prude,
Or e'er to costive Lap-Dog gave Disease,
Which not the Tears of brightest Eyes could ease:
Hear me, and touch Belinda with Chagrin;
That single Act gives half the World the Spleen.

The Goddess with a discontented Air
Seems to reject him, tho' she grants his Pr...Read more of this...
by Pope, Alexander

The Tower

...him drunk or sober through the dawn
From somewhere in the neighbouring cottages.
Caught by an old man's juggleries
He stumbled, tumbled, fumbled to and fro
And had but broken knees for hire
And horrible splendour of desire;
I thought it all out twenty years ago:

Good fellows shuffled cards in an old bawn;
And when that ancient ruffian's turn was on
He so bewitched the cards under his thumb
That all but the one card became
A pack of hounds and not a pack of cards,
And that h...Read more of this...
by Yeats, William Butler

The Waste Land

...ns and exhausted wells.
 In this decayed hole among the mountains
In the faint moonlight, the grass is singing
Over the tumbled graves, about the chapel
There is the empty chapel, only the wind's home.
It has no windows, and the door swings, 
Dry bones can harm no one.
Only a cock stood on the rooftree
Co co rico co co rico
In a flash of lightning. Then a damp gust
Bringing rain
 Ganga was sunken, and the limp leaves
Waited for rain, while the black clouds
Gathered far distan...Read more of this...
by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)

What The Thunder Said

...austed wells.

  In this decayed hole among the mountains
  In the faint moonlight, the grass is singing
  Over the tumbled graves, about the chapel
  There is the empty chapel, only the wind's home.
  It has no windows, and the door swings,                                 390
  Dry bones can harm no one.
  Only a cock stood on the rooftree
  Co co rico co co rico
  In a flash of lightning. Then a damp gust
  Bringing rain

  Ganga was sunken, and the limp leaves...Read more of this...
by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)

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