End-Stopped Line Examples

In poetry, an end-stopped line is a line that ends naturally--where a sentence or phrase should end. An end-stopped line will end with a comma, a period, or a colon. This is in contrast to an enjambment, which is when a phrase or thought continues from one line of poetry to the next--not ending when the line ends.

From Keats' "Bright Star":

Bright Star, would I were as stedfast as thou art-

Not in lone splendor hung aloft the night,

And watching, with eternal lids apart,

Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite...

Sonnet 18 by Shakespeare:

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate.

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And summer's lease hath all too short a date

From Sonnet by Dante Alighieri:

Ye ladies, walking past me piteous-eyed,

Who is the lady that lies prostrate here?

Can this be even she my heart holds dear?

Nay, if it be so, speak, and nothing hide.

From "Remember" by Christina Rossetti:

Remember me when I am gone away,

Gone far away into the silent land;

When you can no more hold me by the hand,

Nor I half turn to go, yet turning stay.