Some Samples of Blank Verse
from "Birches"
When I see birches bend to left
and right
Across the lines of straighter
darker trees,
I like to think some boy's been
swinging them.
But swinging doesn't bend them
down to stay
As ice-storms do. Often you
must have seen them
Loaded with ice a sunny winter
morning
After a rain. They click
upon themselves
As the breeze rises, and turn many-colored
As the stir cracks and crazes their
enamel.
Soon the sun's warmth makes them
shed crystal shells
Shattering and avalanching on the
snow-crust--
Such heaps of broken glass to sweep
away
You'd think the inner dome of heaven
had fallen.
--Robert Frost
from MacBeth
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow
Creeps in this petty pace from
day to day
To the last syllable of recorded
time,
and all our yesterdays have lighted
fools
the way to dusty death. Out,
out brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a
poor player
That struts and frets his hour
upon the stage
And then is heard no more.
It is a tale
told by an idiot, full of sound
and fury,
Signifying nothing.
--Shakespeare
from "The Lady in Kicking Horse River"
Not my hands but green across you
now.
Green tons hold you down, and ten
bass curve
teasing in your hair. Summer
slime
will pile deep on your breast.
Four months of ice
will keep you firm. I hope
each spring
to find you tangled in those pads
pulled not quite lose by the spillway
pour,
stars in dead reflection off your
teeth.
--Richard Hugo
back to Poetry
of Rock, Form and Poetry