Famous Winding Poems by Famous Poets

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

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A Dialogue Of Self And Soul

...My Soul. I summon to the winding ancient stair;
Set all your mind upon the steep ascent,
Upon the broken, crumbling battlement,
Upon the breathless starlit air,
"Upon the star that marks the hidden pole;
Fix every wandering thought upon
That quarter where all thought is done:
Who can distinguish darkness from the soul

My Self. The consecretes blade upon my knees
Is Sato's ancient b...Read more of this...
by Yeats, William Butler


Alastor: or the Spirit of Solitude

...e bitumen lakes
On black bare pointed islets ever beat
With sluggish surge, or where the secret caves,
Rugged and dark, winding among the springs
Of fire and poison, inaccessible
To avarice or pride, their starry domes 
Of diamond and of gold expand above
Numberless and immeasurable halls,
Frequent with crystal column, and clear shrines
Of pearl, and thrones radiant with chrysolite.
Nor had that scene of ampler majesty
Than gems or gold, the varying roof of heaven
And the gre...Read more of this...
by Shelley, Percy Bysshe

Beowulf (Modern English)

...onor, until it carries again whichever beloved man,
of your right-performing troop, across the deep currents
the wood winding-necked, unto Wederish marches,
as it is given to escape, unharmed, the battle-rush.” (ll.286-300)

So they turned themselves to go. Their float awaited them
in its mooring, swaying on the sea, fast at anchor,
the broad-bosomed boat. Helmets shone boar-fashioned
over cheek-guards, adorned with gold,
flecked and fire-hardened—the masked man,
wa...Read more of this...
by Anonymous,

Beowulf (Old English)

...arred ship by shore of ocean
faithfully watching till once again
it waft o’er the waters those well-loved thanes,
-- winding-neck’d wood, -- to Weders’ bounds,
heroes such as the hest of fate
shall succor and save from the shock of war.”
They bent them to march, -- the boat lay still,
fettered by cable and fast at anchor,
broad-bosomed ship. -- Then shone the boars {4b}
over the cheek-guard; chased with gold,
keen and gleaming, guard it kept
o’er the man of war, as...Read more of this...
by Anonymous,

Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie

...s to the sea-shore,
Pausing and looking back to gaze once more on their dwellings,
Ere they were shut from sight by the winding road and the woodland.
Close at their sides their children ran, and urged on the oxen,
While in their little hands they clasped some fragments of playthings.

Thus to the Gaspereau's mouth they hurried; and there on the sea-beach
Piled in confusion lay the household goods of the peasants.
All day long between the shore and the ships did the boats ply...Read more of this...
by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth


Music

...her,--
In at the death, every hunter!
Now on the breeze the mort is borne
In the long, clear note of the hunting-horn,
Winding merrily, over and over,--
Come, come, come!
Home again, Ranger! home again, Rover!
Turn again, home!


VII

DANCE-MUSIC

Now let the sleep-tune blend with the play-tune,
Weaving the mystical spell of the dance;
Lighten the deep tune, soften the gay tune,
Mingle a tempo that turns in a trance.
Half of it sighing, half of it smiling,
Smoothly it swings...Read more of this...
by Dyke, Henry Van

Ode to a Nightingale

...rry Fays 
But here there is no light, 
Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown 
Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways. 40 

I cannot see what flowers are at my feet, 
Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs, 
But, in embalm¨¨d darkness, guess each sweet 
Wherewith the seasonable month endows 
The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild; 45 
White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine; 
Fast-fading violets cover'd up in leaves; 
And mid-May...Read more of this...
by Keats, John

Paradise Lost: Book 04

...ern gate of Paradise 
Levelled his evening rays: It was a rock 
Of alabaster, piled up to the clouds, 
Conspicuous far, winding with one ascent 
Accessible from earth, one entrance high; 
The rest was craggy cliff, that overhung 
Still as it rose, impossible to climb. 
Betwixt these rocky pillars Gabriel sat, 
Chief of the angelick guards, awaiting night; 
About him exercised heroick games 
The unarmed youth of Heaven, but nigh at hand 
Celestial armoury, shields, helms, and ...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Passage to India

...the same,) 
I see over my own continent the Pacific Railroad, surmounting every barrier;
I see continual trains of cars winding along the Platte, carrying freight and passengers; 
I hear the locomotives rushing and roaring, and the shrill steam-whistle, 
I hear the echoes reverberate through the grandest scenery in the world; 
I cross the Laramie plains—I note the rocks in grotesque shapes—the buttes; 
I see the plentiful larkspur and wild onions—the barren, colorless, sage-d...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt

Snowbound a Winter Idyl

...nd dream and sign and marvel told 
To sleepy listeners as they lay 
Stretched idly on the salted hay, 
Adrift along the winding shores, 
When favoring breezes deigned to blow 
The square sail of the gundelow 
And idle lay the useless oars. 

Our mother, while she turned her wheel 
Or run the new-knit stocking-heel, 
Told how the Indian hordes came down 
At midnight on Concheco town, 
And how her own great-uncle bore 
His cruel scalp-mark to fourscore. 
Recalling, in her fitti...Read more of this...
by Whittier, John Greenleaf

Song of Myself

...tickling genitals rub against me, it shall be you! 
Broad, muscular fields! branches of live oak! loving lounger in my winding
 paths! it shall be you! 
Hands I have taken—face I have kiss’d—mortal I have ever
 touch’d! it shall be you. 

I dote on myself—there is that lot of me, and all so luscious;
Each moment, and whatever happens, thrills me with joy. 

O I am wonderful! 
I cannot tell how my ankles bend, nor whence the cause of my faintest wish; 
Nor the cause...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt

Sunday Morning

...darkens among water-lights.
The pungent oranges and bright, green wings
Seem things in some procession of the dead,
Winding across wide water, without sound.
The day is like wide water, without sound,
Stilled for the passion of her dreaming feet
Over the seas, to silent Palestine,
Dominion of the blood and sepulchre.

2
Why should she give her bounty to the dead?
What is divinity if it can come
Only in silent shadows and in dreams?
Shall she not find in the comf...Read more of this...
by Stevens, Wallace

The Bride of Abydos

...d was leant upon his hand, 
His eye look'd o'er the dark blue water 
That swiftly glides and gently swells 
Between the winding Dardanelles; 
But yet he saw nor sea nor strand, 
Nor even his Pacha's turban'd band 
Mix in the game of mimic slaughter, 
Careering cleave the folded felt [13] 
With sabre stroke right sharply dealt; 
Nor mark'd the javelin-darting crowd, 
Nor heard their Ollahs wild and loud [14] — 
He thought but of old Giaffir's daughter! 

X. 

No word from Seli...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)

The Lady of the Lake

...g sun,
     One burnished sheet of living gold,
     Loch Katrine lay beneath him rolled,
     In all her length far winding lay,
     With promontory, creek, and bay,
     And islands that, empurpled bright,
     Floated amid the livelier light,
     And mountains that like giants stand
     To sentinel enchanted land.
     High on the south, huge Benvenue
     Down to the lake in masses threw
     Crags, knolls, and mounds, confusedly hurled,
     The fragments ...Read more of this...
by Scott, Sir Walter

The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

...urch & down into
the church vault at the end of which was a mill: thro' the mill 
we went, and came to a cave. down the winding cavern we groped
our tedious way till a void boundless as a nether sky appeard
beneath us & we held by the roots of trees and hung over this
immensity; but I said, if you please we will commit ourselves
to this void, and see whether providence is here also, if you
will not I will? but he answerd. do not presume O young-man but
as we here remain behol...Read more of this...
by Blake, William

The Shadow

...radesman; a nothing; driven
To madness by the sight of Heaven.
At other times he would take the things
He had made, and winding them on strings,
Hang garlands before her, and burn perfumes,
Chanting strangely, while the fumes
Wreathed and blotted the shadow face,
As with a cloudy, nacreous lace.
There were days when he wooed as a lover, sighed
In tenderness, spoke to his bride,
Urged her to patience, said his skill
Should break the spell. A man's sworn will
Could compass life...Read more of this...
by Lowell, Amy

The Triumph of Life

...image radiantly intense
"Burned on the waters of the well that glowed
Like gold, and threaded all the forest maze
With winding paths of emerald fire--there stood
"Amid the sun, as he amid the blaze
Of his own glory, on the vibrating
Floor of the fountain, paved with flashing rays,
"A shape all light, which with one hand did fling
Dew on the earth, as if she were the Dawn
Whose invisible rain forever seemed to sing
"A silver music on the mossy lawn,
And still before her on th...Read more of this...
by Shelley, Percy Bysshe

The Waste Land

...ving are now dying
With a little patience 
Here is no water but only rock
Rock and no water and the sandy road
The road winding above among the mountains
Which are mountains of rock without water
If there were water we should stop and drink
Amongst the rock one cannot stop or think
Sweat is dry and feet are in the sand
If there were only water amongst the rock
Dead mountain mouth of carious teeth that cannot spit
Here one can neither stand nor lie nor sit 
There is not even s...Read more of this...
by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)

The Witch Of Atlas

...rounded pyramid
Of icy crag cleaving the purple sky,
And caverns yawning round unfathomably.

The silver noon into that winding dell,
With slanted gleam athwart the forest-tops,
Tempered like golden evening, feebly fell;
A green and glowing light, like that which drops
From folded lilies in which glow-worms dwell
When Earth over her face Night's mantle wraps;
Between the severed mountains lay on high,
Over the stream, a narrow rift of sky.

And, ever as she went, the Image la...Read more of this...
by Shelley, Percy Bysshe

White Flock

...black fields around..
How sweet it would be with you underground!



x x x
The muse has left along narrow
And winding street,
And with large drops of dew
Were sprinkled her feet.

For long did I ask of her
To wait for winter with me,
But she said, "The grave is here,
How can you breathe, you see?"

I wanted to give her a dove
That is whiter than all the rest
But the bird herself flew above
After my graceful guest.

Looking at her I was silent,
I loved...Read more of this...
by Akhmatova, Anna

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