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Famous Veer Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Gordon, Adam Lindsay
...garlands glad 
At the falling of the year?’ 
‘Child! can I tell where the garlands go? 
Can I say where the lost leaves veer 
On the brown-burnt banks, when the wild winds blow, 
When they drift through the dead-wood drear? 
Girl! when the garlands of next year glow, 
You may gather again, my dear— 
But I go where the last year’s lost leaves go 
At the falling of the year.’...Read more of this...



by Swinburne, Algernon Charles
...Fire and wild light of hope and doubt and fear,
Wind of swift change, and clouds and hours that veer
As the storm shifts of the tempestuous year;
Cry wellaway, but well befall the right.

Hope sits yet hiding her war-wearied eyes,
Doubt sets her forehead earthward and denies,
But fear brought hand to hand with danger dies,
Dies and is burnt up in the fire of fight.

Hearts bruised with loss and eaten through with shame
Turn at the time's touch ...Read more of this...

by Carman, Bliss
...an of the sea's dirge, 
Its plangor and surge; 
The awful biting sough 
Of drifted snows along some arctic bluff, 
That veer and luff, 


And have the vacant boding human cry, 
As they go by;— 
Is it a banished soul 
Dredging the dark like a distracted mole 
Under a knoll? 


Like some invisible henchman old and gray, 
Day after day 
I hear it come and go, 
With stealthy swift unmeaning to and fro, 
Muttering low, 


Ceaseless and daft and terrible and blind, 
Like a lost min...Read more of this...

by Tebb, Barry
...love



II

I cannot join in a poem

The interstices of clouds

I watched a lapwing

Hover in the air

Glide in an arc

Veer from the sheer cliff



III

Who shall I meet

On this journey to eternity?

Alone and yet not alone

The dust of immortality

Lies in strangers’ eyes

Girls in all the beauty

Of their youth, old men with sticks

No one afraid of anyone

‘No strangers here

Just friends we have yet to meet



IV

‘Angels Fine English Lace’

This was the post office

In...Read more of this...

by Swinburne, Algernon Charles
...alled of hope and pride,
Fall ere the sunrise from our side.
Fresh lights and rumours of fresh fames
That shift and veer by night like flames,
Shouts and blown trumpets, ghosts that glide
Calling, and hail them by dead names,
Fears, angers, memories, dreams divide
Spirit from spirit, and wear out
Strong hearts of men with hope and doubt.

Till time beget and sorrow bear
The soul-sick eyeless child despair,
That comes among us, mad and blind,
With counsels of a broken ...Read more of this...



by Rossetti, Christina
...nder or of some who groan. 
They own no drawings each of other’s strength, 
Nor vibrate in a visible sympathy, 
Nor veer along their courses each toward 
Yet are their orbits pitch’d in harmony 
Of one dear heaven, across whose depth and length 
Mayhap they talk together without speech....Read more of this...

by Moody, William Vaughn
...churns bright. 
Now hid, now looming clear, 
On the face of the dangerous blue 
The star fleets tack and wheel and veer, 
But on, but on does the old earth steer 
As if her port she knew. 

God, dear God! Does she know her port, 
Though she goes so far about? 
Or blind astray, does she make her sport 
To brazen and chance it out? 
I watched when her captains passed: 
She were better captainless. 
Men in the cabin, before the mast, 
But some were reckless and some...Read more of this...

by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...ain in midsummer snows,
And all the purple slopes of mountain flowers
Pass under white, till the warm hour returns
With veer of wind, and all are flowers again;
So dame and damsel cast the simple white,
And glowing in all colours, the live grass,
Rose-campion, bluebell, kingcup, poppy, glanced
About the revels, and with mirth so loud
Beyond all use, that, half-amazed, the Queen,
And wroth at Tristram and the lawless jousts,
Brake up their sports, then slowly to her bower
Part...Read more of this...

by Alighieri, Dante
...d pitying past restraint, I said, 
 "Poet, those next that on the wind appear 
 So light, and constant as they drive or veer 
 Are parted never, I fain would speak." 

 And he, - 
 "Conjure them by their love, and thou shalt see 
 Their flight come hither." 
 And when the swerving blast 
 Most nearly bent, I called them as they passed, 
 "O wearied souls, come downward, if the Power 
 That drives allow ye, for one restful hour." 
 As doves, desirous of their nest ...Read more of this...

by Carman, Bliss
...s, anger, fear. 
But deeper than all these 
Love muses, yearns, and sees, 
And is the self that does not change nor veer. 

Not love of self alone, 
Struggle for lair and bone, 
But self-denying love of mate and young, 
Love that is kind and wise, 
Knows trust and sacrifice, 
And croons the old dark universal tongue.… 

And who has understood 
Our brothers of the wood, 
Save he who puts off guile and every guise 
Of violence,—made truce 
With panther, bear, and mo...Read more of this...

by Service, Robert William
...who curse
And grovel in the grime;
My fingers were not formed, I fear,
To frame a pretty pen,
So please forgive me if I veer
From Virtue now and then.

For I would be the living voice,
Though raucous is its tone,
Of men who rarely may rejoice,
Yet barely ever moan:
The rovers of the raw-ribbed lands,
The lads of lowly worth,
The scallywags with scaley hands
Who weld the ends of earth....Read more of this...

by Clough, Arthur Hugh
...
And onward each rejoicing steered— 
Ah, neither blame, for neither willed,
Or wist, what first with dawn appeared!

To veer, how vain! On, onward strain,
Brave barks! In light, in darkness too,
Through winds and tides one compass guides— 
To that, and your own selves, be true.

But O blithe breeze! and O great seas,
Though ne'er, that earliset parting past,
On your wide plain they join again,
Together lead them home at last.

One port, methought, alike they sought,
O...Read more of this...

by Gregory, Rg
...bog

  once more the muffling mists enclose
  frederick in their vaporous throes
  forcing him with unseeing sway
  to veer from his intended way

  back they push and back
  make him fall
  stumble catch
  his foot become
  emmired snatch
  hopelessly at fog
  no grip slip further back
  into the sucking fingers of the bog
  into the slush

  squelching and splotch-
  ing the marsh
  gushes and gurgles
  engulfing foot leg
  chuckling suckles
  the heaving thigh
  the plush...Read more of this...

by Hopkins, Gerard Manley
...weeded landslips of the shore.

I walk my breezy belvedere
To watch the low or levant sun, 
I see the city pigeons veer, 
I mark the tower swallows run

Between the tower-top and the ground
Below me in the bearing air; 
Then find in the horizon-round
One spot and hunger to be there.

And then I hate the most that lore
That holds no promise of success; 
Then sweetest seems the houseless shore, 
Then free and kind the wilderness, 

Or ancient mounds that cover bones, 
...Read more of this...

by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...in midsummer snows, 
And all the purple slopes of mountain flowers 
Pass under white, till the warm hour returns 
With veer of wind, and all are flowers again; 
So dame and damsel cast the simple white, 
And glowing in all colours, the live grass, 
Rose-campion, bluebell, kingcup, poppy, glanced 
About the revels, and with mirth so loud 
Beyond all use, that, half-amazed, the Queen, 
And wroth at Tristram and the lawless jousts, 
Brake up their sports, then slowly to her bow...Read more of this...

by Kipling, Rudyard
...now of a secret vow
 You have made with an open foe! 


"That we must lie off a lightless coast
 And houl and back and veer
 At the will of the breed that have wrought us most
 For a year and a year and a year!


"There was never a shame in Christendie
 They laid not to our door--
And you say we must take the winter sea
 And sail with them once more?


"Look South! The gale is scarce o'erpast
 That stripped and laid us down,
When we stood forth but they stood fast
 And praye...Read more of this...

by Kipling, Rudyard
...the heat-cloud sucks the tempest, when the slivered pine-trees fall,
 When the blinding, blaring rain-squalls lash and veer,
Through the war-gongs of the thunder rings a voice more loud than all--
 It is Fear, O Little Hunter, it is Fear! 
Now the spates are banked and deep; now the footless boulders leap--
 Now the lightning shows each littlest leaf--rib clear--
But thy throat is shut and dried, and thy heart against thy side 
 Hammers: Fear, O Little Hunter--this is Fear!...Read more of this...

by Lawson, Henry
...rm. 

The hill is hiding the short black pier, 
As the last white signal's seen; 
The points run in, and the houses veer, 
And the great bluff stands between. 
So darkness swallows each far white speck 
On many a wharf and quay. 
The night comes down on a restless deck, -- 
Grim cliffs -- and -- The Open Sea!...Read more of this...

by Dyke, Henry Van
...shakes 
The quiet clusters of the bees
To powdery drift;
He tosses them away,
He drives them like spray;
He makes them veer and shift 
Around his blustering path. 
In clouds blindly whirling, 
In rings madly swirling, 
Full of crazy wrath, 
So furious and fast they fly
They blur the earth and blot the sky
In wild, white mirk.
They fill the air with frozen wings
And tiny, angry, icy stings;
They blind the eyes, and choke the breath, 
They dance a maddening dance of de...Read more of this...

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