Poetry Archives

A continuing selection of classic and contemporary poems.

Marianne Moore

Under a splintered mast,
Torn from the ship and cast
Near her hull,
“A stumbling shepherd found
Embedded in the ground,
A sea-gull
“Of lapis lazuli,
A scarab of the sea,
With wings spread—
“Curling its coral feet,
Parting its beak to greet
Men long dead.

Online text © 1998-2008 Poetry X. All rights reserved.
From Observations | The Dial Press, 1924
Reprinted by permission of the author.

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Tags, sometimes called “folksonomies,” are words that describe or categorize a poem, like “20th century modernism” or “Italian sonnet”. Tags can help you find poems that have something in common, based on how other people classify them.

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