Famous Wound Up Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Wound Up poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous wound up poems. These examples illustrate what a famous wound up poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
John Betjeman
In the licorice fields at Pontefract
My love and I did meet
And many a burdened licorice bush
Was blooming round our feet;
Red hair she had and golden skin,
Her sulky lips were shaped for sin,
Her sturdy legs were flannel-slack'd
The strongest legs in Pontefract.
The light and dangling licorice flowers
Gave off the sweetest smells;
From various black Victorian towers
The Sunday evening bells
Came pealing over dales...Read more of this...
by
Alec Derwent (A D) Hope
This was the gods' god,
The leashed divinity,
Divine divining rod
And Me within the me.
By mindlight tower and tree
Its shadow on the ground
Throw, and in darkness she
Whose weapon is her wound
Fends off the knife, the sword,
The Tiger and the Snake;
It stalks the virgin's bed
And bites her wide awake.
Her Bab-el-Mandeb...Read more of this...
by
Sir Walter Scott
TO mute and to material things
New life revolving summer brings;
The genial call dead Nature hears,
And in her glory reappears.
But oh, my Country's wintry state
What second spring shall renovate?
What powerful call shall bid arise
The buried warlike and the wise;
The mind that thought for Britain's weal,
The hand that grasp'd the victor steel?
The vernal sun new life bestows
Even on the meanest flower...Read more of this...
by
Friedrich von Schiller
Hark where the bells toll, chiming, dull and steady,
The clock's slow hand hath reached the appointed time.
Well, be it so--prepare, my soul is ready,
Companions of the grave--the rest for crime!
Now take, O world! my last farewell--receiving
My parting kisses--in these tears they dwell!
Sweet are thy poisons while we taste believing,
Now we are quits--heart-poisoner, fare-thee-well!
Farewell, ye suns that once to joy...Read more of this...
by
Louise Gluck
How vainly men themselves amaze
To win the Palm, the Oke, or Bayes;
And their uncessant Labours see
Crown'd from some single Herb or Tree,
Whose short and narrow verged Shade
Does prudently their Toyles upbraid;
While all Flow'rs and all Trees do close
To weave the Garlands of repose.
Fair quiet, have I found thee here,
And Innocence thy Sister dear!
Mistaken long, I sought you then
In busie...Read more of this...
by
James Thomson
Shall the great soul of Newton quit this earth,
To mingle with his stars; and every muse,
Astonish'd into silence, shun the weight
Of honours due to his illustrious name?
But what can man?--Even now the sons of light,
In strains high-warbled to seraphic lyre,
Hail his arrival on the coast of bliss.
Yet am not I deterr'd, though high the theme,
And sung to harps...Read more of this...
by
Dorothy Parker
In May my heart was breaking-
Oh, wide the wound, and deep!
And bitter it beat at waking,
And sore it split in sleep.
And when it came November,
I sought my heart, and sighed,
"Poor thing, do you remember?"
"What heart was that?" it cried....Read more of this...
by
Maya Angelou
The night has been long,
The wound has been deep,
The pit has been dark,
And the walls have been steep.
Under a dead blue sky on a distant beach,
I was dragged by my braids just beyond your reach.
Your hands were tied, your mouth was bound,
You couldn't even call out my name.
You were helpless and so was I,
But unfortunately throughout history
You've worn a badge...Read more of this...
by
Erica Jong
After the first astounding rush,
after the weeks at the lake,
the crystal, the clouds, the water lapping the rocks,
the snow breaking under our boots like skin,
& the long mornings in bed. . .
After the tangos in the kitchen,
& our eyes fixed on each other at dinner,
as if we would eat with our lids,
as if we would swallow each other. ....Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
Behold this little Bane --
The Boon of all alive --
As common as it is unknown
The name of it is Love --
To lack of it is Woe --
To own of it is Wound --
Not elsewhere -- if in Paradise
Its Tantamount be found --...Read more of this...
by
Victor Hugo
("Comme le matin rit sur les roses.")
{Bk. I. xii.}
The dawn is smiling on the dew that covers
The tearful roses—lo, the little lovers—
That kiss the buds and all the flutterings
In jasmine bloom, and privet, of white wings
That go and come, and fly, and peep, and hide
...Read more of this...
by
Robert Creeley
Window's tree trunk's predominant face
a single eye-leveled hole where limb's torn off
another larger contorts to swell growing in around
imploding wound beside a clutch of thin twigs
hold to one two three four five six dry twisted
yellowish brown leaves flat against the other
gray trees in back stick upright then the glimpse
of lighter still grayish sky behind the close
welted solid large trunk...Read more of this...
by
Francesco Petrarch
SONNET CLXII. Di dì in dì vo cangiando il viso e 'l pelo. HIS WOUNDS CAN BE HEALED ONLY BY PITY OR DEATH. I alter day by day in hair and mien,Yet shun not the old dangerous baits and dear,Nor sever from the laurel, limed and green,Which nor the scorching sun, nor...Read more of this...
by
William Butler Yeats
Were you but lying cold and dead,
And lights were paling out of the West,
You would come hither, and bend your head,
And I would lay my head on your breast;
And you would murmur tender words,
Forgiving me, because you were dead:
Nor would you rise and hasten away,
Though you have the will of the wild birds,
But know your hair was bound and...Read more of this...
by
Edna St. Vincent Millay
Here is a wound that never will heal, I know,
Being wrought not of a dearness and a death,
But of a love turned ashes and the breath
Gone out of beauty; never again will grow
The grass on that scarred acre, though I sow
Young seed there yearly and the sky bequeath
Its friendly weathers down, far Underneath
Shall be such bitterness of an old...Read more of this...
by
Vachel Lindsay
I. THEIR BASIC SAVAGERY
Fat black bucks in a wine-barrel room,
Barrel-house kings, with feet unstable,
Sagged and reeled and pounded on the table,
A deep rolling bass.
Pounded on the table,
Beat an empty barrel with the handle of a broom,
Hard as they were able,
Boom, boom, BOOM,
With a silk umbrella and the handle of a broom,
Boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, BOOM.
THEN I had religion, THEN...Read more of this...
by
Sir Philip Sidney
My true-love hath my heart, and I have his,
By just exchange, one for the other giv'n.
I hold his dear, and mine he cannot miss;
There never was a better bargain driv'n.
His heart in me keeps me and him in one,
My heart in him his thoughts and senses guides;
He loves my heart, for once it was his own;
I cherish his, because...Read more of this...
by
Eleanor Wilner
It was a pure white cloud that hung there
in the blue, or a jellyfish on a waveless
sea, suspended high above us; we were
the creatures in the weeds below.
It seemed so effortless in its suspense,
perfectly out of time and out of place
like the ghost of moon in the sky
of a brilliant afternoon.
After a while it seemed to grow, and...Read more of this...
by
Isaac Watts
The description of Christ the beloved.
SS 5:9-16.
The wond'ring world inquires to know
Why I should love my Jesus so:
What are his charms," say they, "above
The objects of a mortal love?"
Yes! my Beloved, to my sight
Shows a sweet mixture, red and white:
All human beauties, all divine,
In my Beloved meet and shine.
White is his soul, from blemish free;
Red with the blood...Read more of this...
by
George Herbert
O day most calm, most bright
The fruit of this, the next world's bud,
Th'endorsement of supreme delight,
Writ by a friend, and with his blood;
The couch of time; care's balm and bay:
The week were dark, but for thy light:
Thy torch doth show the way.
The other days and thou
Make up one man; whose face...Read more of this...
by
Isaac Watts
v.1-13,20,21
C. M.
A prayer of the afflicted.
Hear me, O God, nor hide thy face;
But answer, lest I die;
Hast thou not built a throne of grace
To hear when sinners cry?
My days are wasted like the smoke
Dissolving in the air;
My strength is dried, my heart is broke,
And sinking in despair.
My spirits flag like with'ring grass
Burnt with excessive heat;
In secret groans my...Read more of this...
by
Francesco Petrarch
SONNET CCIII. L' alto signor, dinanzi a cui non vale. HIS SORROW FOR THE ILLNESS OF LAURA INCREASES, NOT LESSENS, HIS FLAME. The sovereign Lord, 'gainst whom of no availConcealment, or resistance is, or flight,My mind had kindled to a new delightBy his own amorous and ardent ail:[Pg 213]Read more of this...
by
Adelaide Crapsey
If it
Were lighter touch
Than petal of flower resting
On grass, oh still too heavy it were,
Too heavy!...Read more of this...
by
R S Thomas
My father is dead.
I who am look at him
who is not, as once he
went looking for me
in the woman who was.
There are pictures
of the two of them, no
need of a third, hand
in hand, hearts willing
to be one but not three.
What does it mean
life? I am here I am
there. Look! Suddenly
the young tool in their hands
for hurting one another.
And...Read more of this...
by
Mary Darby Robinson
DAME DOWSON, was a granny grey,
Who, three score years and ten,
Had pass'd her busy hours away,
In talking of the Men !
They were her theme, at home, abroad,
At wake, and by the winter fire,
Whether it froze, or blew, or thaw'd,
In sunshine or in shade, her ire
Was never calm'd; for still she made
Scandal her pleasure--and her trade!
A Grand-daughter DAME DOWSON had--
As...Read more of this...
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