Famous Walling Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Beowulf (Modern English)

...d.
They regretted but little that they ferried out
the precious treasures. The dragon they shoved,
the wyrm over the walling cliffs, letting the waves
take it, the flood embracing the guardian of the hoard.
Then was the wound gold loaded in a wagon,
all of it uncountable, the nobleman born as well,
the hoary battle-warrior, out to Whale’s Ness. (ll. 3120-36)

 

XLIII.

Then the Geatish people prepared a splendid pyre
for him upon the earth, hung with helmets
a...Read more of this...
by Anonymous,


Lines to a Don

...sort.
Dons English, worthy of the land;
Dons rooted; Dons that understand.
Good Dons perpetual that remain
A landmark, walling in the plain--
The horizon of my memories--
Like large and comfortable trees.


Don very much apart from these,
Thou scapegoat Don, thou Don devoted,
Don to thine own damnation quoted,
Perplexed to find thy trivial name
Reared in my verse to lasting shame.
Don dreadful, rasping Don and wearing,
Repulsive Don--Don past all bearing.
Don of the cold and...Read more of this...
by Belloc, Hilaire

Love in the Valley

...ittle fellow, mouth up and on tiptoe,
Said, "I will kiss you": she laughed and leaned her cheek.

Doves of the fir-wood walling high our red roof
Through the long noon coo, crooning through the coo.
Loose droop the leaves, and down the sleepy roadway
Sometimes pipes a chaffinch; loose droops the blue.
Cows flap a slow tail knee-deep in the river,
Breathless, given up to sun and gnat and fly.
Nowhere is she seen; and if I see her nowhere,
Lightning may come, straight rains and...Read more of this...
by Meredith, George

Mending Wall

...hbors?  Isn't it
Where there are cows?  But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offense.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down."  I could say "Elves" to him,
But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather
He said it for himself.  I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkn...Read more of this...
by Frost, Robert

The Irish Unionists farewell to Greta Hellastrom in 1922

...Stands my Swedish beauty where
Gusts of Irish rain are sweeping
Round the statue in the square;
Corner boys against the walling
Watch us furtively in vain,
And the Angelus is calling
Through Dungarvan in the rain.

Gales along the Commeragh Mountains,
Beating sleet on creaking signs,
Iron gutters turned to fountains,
And the windscreen laced with lines,
And the evening getting later,
And the ache - increased again,
As the distance grows the greater
From Dungarvan in the rain....Read more of this...
by Betjeman, John


The Smiles Of The Bathers

...night clock strikes, is hollow
 and old:
The pilot's relief on landing is no release.
These perfect and private things, walling us in, have imperfect and
 public endings--
Water and wind and flight, remembered words and the act of love
Are but interruptions. And the world, like a beast, impatient and
 quick,
Waits only for those who are dead. No death for you. You are
 involved....Read more of this...
by Kees, Weldon

The Soudan, The Sphinxes, The Cup, The Lamp

...a god he grasps, 
 He thrusts, to stiffen, in a narrow case, 
 Or cell, where struggling air-blasts constant moan; 
 Walling them round with huge, damp, slimy stone; 
 And (leaving mem'ry of bloodshed as drink, 
 And thoughts of crime as food) he stops each chink. 
 
 THE NINTH SPHINX. 
 
 Who would see Cleopatra on her bed? 
 Come in. The place is filled with fog like lead, 
 Which clammily has settled on the frame 
 Of her who was a burning, dazzling flame 
 To...Read more of this...
by Hugo, Victor

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