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Famous Shouldering Poems by Famous Poets

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

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...a woman with her head flung between her naked knees, and her head held there listening to the sea, the great naked sea shouldering a load of salt.

And the blue pansy mouth sang to the sea:
 Mother of God, I’m so little a thing,
 Let me sing longer,
 Only a little longer.

And the sea shouldered its salt in long gray combers hauling new shapes on the beach sand....Read more of this...
by Sandburg, Carl



...ls for a coat lapel … painting on a slab of night sky a Christ face … slipping new brass keys into rusty iron locks and shouldering till at last the door gives and we are in a new room … forever and ever violet petals, slabs, the Christ face, brass keys and new rooms.

are we near or far?… is there anything else?… who comes back?… and why does love ask nothing and give all? and why is love rare as a tailed comet shaking guesses out of men at telescopes ten feet long? why ...Read more of this...
by Sandburg, Carl
...at time through the heart and through the brain
God hath transfixed us,--we, so moved before,
Attain to a calm. Ay, shouldering weights of pain,
We anchor in deep waters, safe from shore,
And hear submissive o'er the stormy main
God's chartered judgments walk for evermore....Read more of this...
by Browning, Elizabeth Barrett
...oodland men
Whatever wisdom they let fall
Men since have won Fear nought at all.

So from the holly brake he strode
Shouldering the while his hunter's load,
A new slain roe; but there arose
To meet him half a score of those
Whom in fair words he greeted well.

Now was he clad in a sheep's fell 
And at his back his quiver hung,
His woodknife on his thigh: unstrung
His bow he held in a staff's stead.
An oaken wreath was round his head
From whence his crispy locks of...Read more of this...
by Morris, William
...mild loss of bearing in the small of the back,
the grammar, so strict, of the two exact shoulders —
and the law of the shouldering —
and the chill allowed to skitter up through,
and those crucial spots where the fit cannot be perfect — 
oh skirted loosening aswarm with lessenings,
with the mild pallors of unaccomplishment,
flaps night-air collects in,
folds... But the night does not annul its belief in,
the night preserves its love for, this one narrowing of infi...Read more of this...
by Graham, Jorie



...hedge 
A hare sits looking down a leaf-lapped furrow
There's an old plough upside-down on a weedy ridge
And someone is shouldering home a saddle-harrow.
Out of that childhood country what fools climb
To fight with tyrants Love and Life and Time?...Read more of this...
by Herbert, George
...he watching for that early birth
When, just as the soil tarnishes with weed,
The sturdy seedling with arched body comes
Shouldering its way and shedding the earth crumbs....Read more of this...
by Frost, Robert
...r-men are laying the floor—the tinners are tinning the
 roof—the masons are calling for mortar; 
In single file, each shouldering his hod, pass onward the laborers; 
Seasons pursuing each other, the indescribable crowd is gather’d—it is
 the Fourth of Seventh-month—(What salutes of cannon and small arms!) 
Seasons pursuing each other, the plougher ploughs, the mower mows, and the
 winter-grain falls in the ground; 
Off on the lakes the pike-fisher watches and waits by ...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt
...ng folk you knew
Lined under Egbert's Stone.

"Though I be in the dust ere then,
I know where you will be."
And shouldering suddenly his spear
He faded like some elfin fear,
Where the tall pines ran up, tier on tier
Tree overtoppling tree.

He shouldered his spear at morning
And laughed to lay it on,
But he leaned on his spear as on a staff,
With might and little mood to laugh,
Or ever he sighted chick or calf
Of Colan of Caerleon.

For the man dwelt in a lost...Read more of this...
by Chesterton, G K
...the groom --
 The Choosers of the Slain!

Offshore where sea and skyline blend
 In rain, the daylight dies;
The sullen, shouldering sweels attend
 Night and our sacrifice.
Adown the stricken capes no flare --
 No mark on spit or bar, --
Birdled and desperate we dare
 The blindfold game of war.

Nearer the up-flung beams that spell
 The council of our foes;
Clearer the barking guns that tell
 Their scattered flank to close.
Sheer to the trap they crowd their way
 F...Read more of this...
by Kipling, Rudyard
...old staff courier on his bicycle. 
One looks at him and wonders does he say, 
I lean out and I let my shadow fall 

Shouldering the picture that we call the world 
And there is darkness? Does he say such things? 
Or is there merely silence in his head? 
Or other voices which the silence rings? 

Such a fine skull and forehead, broad and flat, 
The eyes opaque and slightly animal. 
I can come closer to a starving cat, 
I can read hunger in its eyes and feel 

In the ir...Read more of this...
by Levine, Philip
...ad:
In thesun the slagheap slept.

Down the lane came men in pitboots
Coughing oath-edged talk and pipe-smoke 
Shouldering off the freshened silence.

One chased after rabbits; lost them;
Came back with a nest of lark's eggs;
Showed them; lodged them in the grasses.

SO they passed in beards and moleskins 
Fathers brothers nicknames laughter 
Through the tall gates standing open.

At noon there came a tremor; cows
Stopped chewing for a second; ...Read more of this...
by Larkin, Philip
...s frown,
          That serried grove of lances brown
               At once lay levelled low;
          And closely shouldering side to side,
          The bristling ranks the onset bide.—"
          "We'll quell the savage mountaineer,
               As their Tinchel cows the game!
          They come as fleet as forest deer,
               We'll drive them back as tame."
     XVIII.

     'Bearing before them in their course
     The relics of the archer force,...Read more of this...
by Scott, Sir Walter
...res

led by strings to their genitals mean fashion?
just as a skirt beneath a circle meanas demure
or ao similar circle shouldering two arrows is macho.

All peoples are at times cat in water with this language
but it does promote international bird on shoulder.
This foretaste now lays its knife and fork parallel....Read more of this...
by Murray, Les
...and pain, not uncontent to die 

That Lancaster on Lune may stand secure. 
He faced me, reeling in his weariness, 
Shouldering his load of planks, so hard to bear. 
I say that He was Christ, who wrought to bless 
All groping things with freedom bright as air, 
And with His mercy washed and made them fair. 
Then the flame sank, and all grew black as pitch, 
While we began to struggle along the ditch; 
And someone flung his burden in the muck, 
Mumbling: 'O Christ ...Read more of this...
by Sassoon, Siegfried
...innias that mildew 
will never wilt, roses weighing down 
a bush never touched by black spot, 
brave little fruit trees shouldering up 
their spotless ornaments of glass fruit: 

I lie on the couch under a blanket 
of seed catalogs ordering far 
too much. Sleet slides down 
the windows, a wind edged 
with ice knifes through every crack. 
Lie to me, sweet garden-mongers: 
I want to believe every promise, 
to trust in five pound tomatoes 
and dahlias brighter than the s...Read more of this...
by Piercy, Marge

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