Famous Welter Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Beowulf (Old English)

...his dear life first
on the brink he yields ere he brave the plunge
to hide his head: ’tis no happy place!
Thence the welter of waters washes up
wan to welkin when winds bestir
evil storms, and air grows dusk,
and the heavens weep. Now is help once more
with thee alone! The land thou knowst not,
place of fear, where thou findest out
that sin-flecked being. Seek if thou dare!
I will reward thee, for waging this fight,
with ancient treasure, as erst I did,
with windi...Read more of this...
by Anonymous,


De Profundis

...- 
Points in my path when the dark might have stolen on me, artless, 
unrueing - 
Ere I had learnt that the world was a welter of futile doing: 
Such had been times when I well might have passed, and the ending 
have come! 

Say, on the noon when the half-sunny hours told that April was nigh, 
And I upgathered and cast forth the snow from the crocus-border, 
Fashioned and furbished the soil into a summer-seeming order, 
Glowing in gladsome faith that I quickened the year ther...Read more of this...
by Hardy, Thomas

From Arcades

...g for Lycidas? he knew 
Himself to sing, and build the lofty rhyme. 
He must not flote upon his watry bear 
Unwept, and welter to the parching wind, 
Without the meed of som melodious tear. 
 Begin, then, Sisters of the sacred well, 
That from beneath the seat of Jove doth spring, 
Begin, and somwhat loudly sweep the string. 
Hence with denial vain, and coy excuse, 
So may som gentle Muse 
With lucky words favour my destin'd Urn, 
And as he passes turn, 
And bid fair peace be...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

he and the hilltown

...gs glow with centuries of nous
as though the wisest grape best pours from this decanter
both tempered peace and passion welter in its throes
and fountain sprays refract what such life knows

so with the man – whose innerness the world at large
shuts out or rushes past (its own deep rifts demanding)
but to himself (in that dark realm where he’s in charge)
with all his senses geared to sapience longstanding
there’s not a day goes by without his flairs expanding
in every passage...Read more of this...
by Gregory, Rg

Hugh Selwyn Mauberly (Part I)

...ing in it.

X. 

Beneath the sagging roof
The stylist has taken shelter,
Unpaid, uncelebrated,
At last from the world's welter

Nature receives him,
With a placid and uneducated mistress
He exercises his talents
And the soil meets his distress.

The haven from sophistications and contentions
Leaks through its thatch;
He offers succulent cooking;
The door has a creaking latch.

XI. 

"Conservatrix of Milésien"
Habits of mind and feeling,
Possibly. But in Ealing
With the most b...Read more of this...
by Pound, Ezra


Lycidas

...for Lycidas? he knew
Himself to sing, and build the lofty rhyme.
He must not float upon his watery bier
Unwept, and welter to the parching wind,
Without the meed of some melodious tear.
 Begin, then, Sisters of the sacred well
That from beneath the seat of Jove doth spring;
Begin, and somewhat loudly sweep the string.
Hence with denial vain and coy excuse:
So may some gentle Muse
With lucky words favour my destined urn,
And as he passes turn,
And bid fair peace b...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Metro North

...s worth

of actuality--
 I knew what moved
 was an arm,

the arm of the (man
 or woman?) in the center
 of that hapless welter

in layer upon layer
 of coats blankets scarves
 until the form

constituted one more
 gray unreadable;
 whoever

was lifting a hammer,
 and bringing it down
 again, tapping at

what work
 I couldn't say;
 whoever, under

the great exhausted dome
 of winter light,
 which the steep

and steel surfaces of the city
 made both more soft
 and more severe,
...Read more of this...
by Doty, Mark

Mountain Life

...summer dusk the valley lies 
With far-flung shadow veil; 
A cloud-sea laps the precipice 
Before the evening gale: 
The welter of the cloud-waves grey 
Cuts off from keenest sight 
The glacier, looking out by day 
O'er all the district, far away, 
And crowned with golden light. 

But o'er the smouldering cloud-wrack's flow, 
Where gold and amber kiss, 
Stands up the archipelago, 
A home of shining peace. 
The mountain eagle seems to sail 
A ship far seen at even; 
And over al...Read more of this...
by Ibsen, Henrik

Old Woman

...rehead
And drowsily look on the walls and sidewalks.

The headlight finds the way
And life is gone from the wet and the welter--
Only an old woman, bloated, disheveled and bleared.
Far-wandered waif of other days,
Huddles for sleep in a doorway,
Homeless....Read more of this...
by Sandburg, Carl

Stretcher Case

...
‘If I were dead,’ he mused, ‘there’d be no thinking— 
Only some plunging underworld of sinking,
And hueless, shifting welter where I’d drown.’ 

Then he remembered that his name was Brown. 

But was he back in Blighty? Slow he turned, 
Till in his heart thanksgiving leapt and burned. 
There shone the blue serene, the prosperous land,
Trees, cows and hedges; skipping these, he scanned 
Large, friendly names, that change not with the year, 
Lung Tonic, Mustard, Liver Pills an...Read more of this...
by Sassoon, Siegfried

The Doomed Ship

...f that strife bygone 
Clouds all the hope or horror that may be. 

Thus, Sorrow, are we sitting side by side 
Amid this welter of the grey despair, 
Nor have we images of foul or fair 
To vex, save of thy kissed face of a bride, 
Thy scornful face of tears when I was tried, 
And failed neath pain I was not made to bear....Read more of this...
by Morris, William

The Healers

...ness 
That overflows all, 
To his spirit erect in the thunder 
When all his forts fall, —

This light, in the tiger-mad welter, 
They serve and they save. 
What song shall be worthy to sing of them —
Braver than the brave?...Read more of this...
by Binyon, Laurence

The Height of Land

...of Hudson Bay,
Glimmering all night
In the cold arctic light;
On the other hand
The crowded southern land
With all the welter of the lives of men.
But here is peace, and again
That Something comes by flashes
Deeper than peace, -- a spell
Golden and inappellable
That gives the inarticulate part
Of our strange being one moment of release
That seems more native than the touch of time,
And we must answer in chime;
Though yet no man may tell
The secret of that spell
Golden and in...Read more of this...
by Scott, Duncan Campbell

The Holy Grail

...ht I spied 
A dying fire of madness in his eyes-- 
"O King, my friend, if friend of thine I be, 
Happier are those that welter in their sin, 
Swine in the mud, that cannot see for slime, 
Slime of the ditch: but in me lived a sin 
So strange, of such a kind, that all of pure, 
Noble, and knightly in me twined and clung 
Round that one sin, until the wholesome flower 
And poisonous grew together, each as each, 
Not to be plucked asunder; and when thy knights 
Sware, I sware wi...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord

The Planet On The Table

...his poems.
They were of a remembered time
Or of something seen that he liked.

Other makings of the sun
Were waste and welter
And the ripe shrub writhed.

His self and the sun were one
And his poems, although makings of his self,
Were no less makings of the sun.

It was not important that they survive.
What mattered was that they should bear
Some lineament or character,

Some affluence, if only half-perceived,
In the poverty of their words,
Of the planet of which they were p...Read more of this...
by Stevens, Wallace

The Silent Shearer

...Kid," said he, 
"That hunted 'em all to shelter? 
The One-round Finisher -- that was me, 
When I fought as the Champion Welter. 

"And this Barcoo bloke on his back reclines 
For being a bit too clever, 
For snakes and wombats and porcupines 
Are nothing to me whatever. 

"But the golden rule that I've had to learn 
In the ring, and for years I've tried it, 
Is only to talk when it comes your turn, 
And never to talk outside it."...Read more of this...
by Paterson, Andrew Barton

Tri-Colour

...blossom and bough and blade.
See the bright horror of it! It's roaring out of the skies,
 And the whole red world is a-welter. . . . Oh God! I'm afraid! I'm afraid!

Cornflowers, you say, just cornflowers, gemming the golden grain;
 Ah no! You can't deceive me. Can't I believe my eyes?
Look! It's the dead, my comrades, stark on the dreadful plain,
 All in their dark-blue blouses, staring up at the skies.
Comrades of canteen laughter, dumb in the yellow wheat.
 See how they s...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William

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