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Famous Warp Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Shakespeare, William
...olly. 

Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky,
Thou dost not bite so nigh
As benefits forgot:
Though thou the waters warp,
Thy sting is not so sharp
As friend remember'd not.
Heigh-ho! sing heigh-ho! unto the green holly:
Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly:
Then, heigh-ho! the holly!
This life is most jolly. 
...Read more of this...



by Hughes, Langston
...the fight is not yet won,
Don't be weary, soldier!
The plan and the pattern is here,
Woven from the beginning
Into the warp and woof of America:
 ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL.
 NO MAN IS GOOD ENOUGH
 TO GOVERN ANOTHER MAN
 WITHOUT HIS CONSENT.
 BETTER DIE FREE,
 THAN TO LIVE SLAVES.
Who said those things? Americans!
Who owns those words? America!
Who is America? You, me!
We are America!
To the enemy who would conquer us from without,
We say, NO!
To the enemy who wou...Read more of this...

by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
...uande to the heyghe dece, dut he no wothe,
Haylsed he neuer one, bot heyghe he ouer loked.
The fyrst word that he warp, "Wher is," he sayd,
"The gouernour of this gyng? Gladly I wolde
Se that segg in syyght, and with hymself speke
raysoun."
To knyyghtez he kest his yyghe,
And reled hym vp and doun;
He stemmed, and con studie
Quo walt ther most renoun.
Ther watz lokyng on lenthe the lude to beholde,
For vch mon had meruayle quat hit mene myyght
That a h...Read more of this...

by Lanier, Sidney
...thy downward countenance stares
Blank on the blank-faced marsh, and thou
Mindest of dark affairs;
Thy substance seems a warp of cares;
Like late wounds run the wrinkles on thy brow.

Well may'st thou pause, and gloom, and stare,
A visible conscience: I arraign
Thee, criminal Cloud, of rare
Contempts on Mercy, Right, and Prayer, --
Of murders, arsons, thefts, -- of nameless stain.

(Yet though life's logic grow as gray
As thou, my soul's not in eclipse.)
Cold Cloud...Read more of this...

by St Vincent Millay, Edna
...ld move,—and you be stiff and still!
That I could speak,—and you perforce be dumb!
I think our heart-strings were, like warp and woof
In some firm fabric, woven in and out;
Your golden filaments in fair design
Across my duller fibre. And to-day
The shining strip is rent; the exquisite
Fine pattern is destroyed; part of your heart
Aches in my breast; part of my heart lies chilled
In the damp earth with you. I have been tom
In two, and suffer for the rest of me.
Wha...Read more of this...



by Smart, Christopher
...isdom and providence have contrived to attract observation and to escape it. 

Let Heman bless with the Spider, his warp and his woof, his subtlety and industry, which are good. 

Let Chalcol praise with the Beetle, whose life is precious in the sight of God, tho his appearance is against him. 

Let Darda with a Leech bless the Name of the Physician of body and soul. 

Let Mahol praise the Maker of Earth and Sea with the Otter, whom God has given to dive and t...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...no land for tyrants but their graves! 
Such is their cry — some watchword for the fight 
Must vindicate the wrong, and warp the right; 
Religion — freedom — vengeance — what you will, 
A word's enough to raise mankind to kill; 
Some factious phrase by cunning caught and spread, 
That guilt may reign, and wolves and worms be fed! 

IX. 

Throughout that clime the feudal chiefs had gain'd 
Such sway, their infant monarch hardly reign'd; 
Now was the hour for faction's rebe...Read more of this...

by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...a last embrace. 

Cursed be the social wants that sin against the strength of youth!
Cursed be the social lies that warp us from the living truth! 

Cursed be the sickly forms that err from honest Nature's rule!
Cursed be the gold that gilds the straiten'd forehead of the fool! 

Well--'t is well that I should bluster!--Hadst thou less unworthy proved--
Would to God--for I had loved thee more than ever wife was loved. 

Am I mad, that I should cherish that which bears...Read more of this...

by St Vincent Millay, Edna
...d as well;
I thought of Heaven and I sought her there;
Above nor under ground
Is Silence to be found,
That was the very warp and woof of you,
Lovely before your songs began and after they were through!
Oh, say if on this hill
Somewhere your sister's body lies in death,
So I may follow there, and make a wreath
Of my locked hands, that on her quiet breast
Shall lie till age has withered them!

 (Ah, sweetly from the rest
I see
Turn and consider me
Compassionate Euterpe!)
"There...Read more of this...

by Lowell, Amy
...ice walked between the drifts
Of blooming cherry-trees, and watched the rifts
Of clouds drawn through the river's azure warp.

II
Her little feet tapped softly down the path. Her 
soul was listless; even the morning breeze
Fluttering the trees and strewing a light swath Of fallen petals 
on the grass, could please
Her not at all. She brushed a hair aside With a 
swift move, and a half-angry frown.
She stopped to pull a daffodil or two, And 
held them to her go...Read more of this...

by Whittier, John Greenleaf
...skings and the apple-bees, 
The sleigh-rides and the summer sails, 
Weaving through all the poor details 
And homespuun warp of circumstance 
A golden woof-thread of romance. 
For well she kept her genial mood 
And simple faith of maidenhood; 
Before her still a cloud-land lay, 
The mirage loomed across her way; 
The morning dew, that dries so soon 
With others, glistened at her noon; 
Through years of toil and soil and care, 
From glossy tress to thin gray hair, 
All unp...Read more of this...

by Gray, Thomas
...ative land:
With me in dreadful harmony they join,
And weave with bloody hands the tissue of thy line.

"Weave, the warp! and weave, the woof!
The winding sheet of Edward's race:
Give ample room and verge enough
The characters of hell to trace.
Mark the year and mark the night
When Severn shall re-echo with affright
The shrieks of death, thro' Berkley's roof that ring,
Shrieks of an agonizing king!
She-wolf of France, with unrelenting fangs,
That tear'st the bowels of...Read more of this...

by Gray, Thomas
...epares!)
Iron-sleet of arrowy shower
Hurtles in the darkened air. 

Glittering lances are the loom,
Where the dusky warp we strain,
Weaving many a soldier's doom,
Orkney's woe and Randver's bane. 

See the grisly texture grow,
('Tis of human entrails made!)
And the weights that play below,
Each a gasping warrior's head. 

Shafts for shuttles, dipped in gore,
Shoot the trembling cords along.
Sword, that once a monarch bore,
Keep the tissue close and strong....Read more of this...

by Kipling, Rudyard
...hooks the crate,
 And the fall-rope whines through the sheave;
 It's "Gang-plank up and in," dear lass,
 It's "Hawsers warp her through!"
 And it's "All clear aft" on the old trail, our own trail, the out trail,
 We're backing down on the Long Trail -- the trail that is always new.

O the mutter overside, when the port-fog holds us tied,
 And the sirens hoot their dread,
When foot by foot we creep o'er the hueless, viewless deep
 To the sob of the questing lead!
 It's do...Read more of this...

by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...
And many more, which hastily subscribed, 
We entered on the boards: and 'Now,' she cried, 
'Ye are green wood, see ye warp not. Look, our hall! 
Our statues!--not of those that men desire, 
Sleek Odalisques, or oracles of mode, 
Nor stunted squaws of West or East; but she 
That taught the Sabine how to rule, and she 
The foundress of the Babylonian wall, 
The Carian Artemisia strong in war, 
The Rhodope, that built the pyramid, 
Clelia, Cornelia, with the Palmyrene 
Tha...Read more of this...

by Kipling, Rudyard
...ve their sleep),
 And Love can come and wake us when 'tis past.

Oh launch them down with music from the beach,
 Oh warp them out with garlands from the quays --
Most resolute -- a damsel unto each --
 New prows that seek the old Hesperides!
  (Foul weather!)
Though we know their voyage is vain, yet we see our path again
 In the saffroned bridesails scenting all the seas!
  (Foul weather!)...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...
They follow'd him, for he was brave, 
And great the spoil he got and gave; 
They crouch'd to him, for he had skill 
To warp and wield the vulgar will: 
But still his Christian origin 
With them was little less than sin. 
They envied even the faithless fame 
He earn'd beneath a Moslem name: 
Since he, their mightiest chief had been 
In youth, a bitter Nazarene. 
They did not know how pride can stoop, 
When baffled feelings withering droop; 
They did not know how hate ...Read more of this...

by Plath, Sylvia
...br>
His lids are like the lilac-flower
And soft as a moth, his breath.
I shall not let go.
There is no guile or warp in him. May he keep so.

SECOND VOICE:
There is the moon in the high window. It is over.
How winter fills my soul! And that chalk light
Laying its scales on the windows, the windows of empty offices,
Empty schoolrooms, empty churches. O so much emptiness!
There is this cessation. This terrible cessation of everything.
These b...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...
You are henceforth secure, whatever comes or goes. 

The threads that were spun are gather’d, the weft crosses the warp, the pattern is
 systematic. 

The preparations have every one been justified, 
The orchestra have sufficiently tuned their instruments—the baton has given the
 signal.

The guest that was coming—he waited long, for reasons—he is now housed, 
He is one of those who are beautiful and happy—he is one of those that to look upon
 and be
 with is eno...Read more of this...

by Murray, Les
...t unworldly Oom Paul Kruger. 
Valerie, who had sat the twenty days 
beside me, now gently told me tales 
of my time-warp. The operative canyon 

stretched, stapled, with dry roseate walls 
down my belly. Seaweed gel 
plugged views of my pluck and offal. 
The only poet whose liver 

damage hadn't been self-inflicted, 
grinned my agent. A momentarily 
holed bowel had released flora 
who live in us and will eat us 

when we stop feeding them the earth. 
I...Read more of this...

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