Famous Advance Poems by Famous Poets

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

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A Lovers Complaint

...ou, my origin and ender;
For these, of force, must your oblations be,
Since I their altar, you enpatron me.

''O, then, advance of yours that phraseless hand,
Whose white weighs down the airy scale of praise;
Take all these similes to your own command,
Hallow'd with sighs that burning lungs did raise;
What me your minister, for you obeys,
Works under you; and to your audit comes
Their distract parcels in combined sums.

''Lo, this device was sent me from a nun,
Or sister sanc...Read more of this...
by Shakespeare, William


A Song To David

...of causes, first 
In station, fountain, whence the burst 
 Of light, and blaze of day; 
Whence bold attempt, and brave advance, 
Have motion, life, and ordinance 
 And heav'n itself its stay. 

 XXXII 
Gamma supports the glorious arch 
On which angelic legions march, 
 And is with sapphires pav'd; 
Thence the fleet clouds are sent adrift, 
And thence the painted folds, that lift 
 The crimson veil, are wav'd. 

 XXXIII 
Eta with living sculpture breathes, 
With verdant carvi...Read more of this...
by Smart, Christopher

An Essay On Criticism

...r and now darker Days)
Regard not then if Wit be Old or New,
But blame the False, and value still the True.

Some ne'er advance a Judgment of their own,
But catch the spreading Notion of the Town;
They reason and conclude by Precedent,
And own stale Nonsense which they ne'er invent.
Some judge of Authors' Names, not Works, and then
Nor praise nor blame the Writings, but the Men.
Of all this Servile Herd the worst is He
That in proud Dulness joins with Quality,
A constant Crit...Read more of this...
by Pope, Alexander

As I Sat Alone by Blue Ontario's Shores

...n the neck of the menacing one, the scorner, utterly crush’d beneath
 you; 
The menacing, arrogant one, that strode and advanced with his senseless scorn, bearing the
 murderous knife; 
—Lo! the wide swelling one, the braggart, that would yesterday do so much!
To-day a carrion dead and damn’d, the despised of all the earth! 
An offal rank, to the dunghill maggots spurn’d.) 

8
Others take finish, but the Republic is ever constructive, and ever keeps vista; 
Others adorn the p...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt

Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie

...ngs of ill, unseen and that cannot be compassed.
As, at the tramp of a horse's hoof on the turf of the prairies,
Far in advance are closed the leaves of the shrinking mimosa,
So, at the hoof-beats of fate, with sad forebodings of evil,
Shrinks and closes the heart, ere the stroke of doom has attained it.
But Evangeline's heart was sustained by a vision, that faintly
Floated before her eyes, and beckoned her on through the moonlight.
It was the thought of her brain that assume...Read more of this...
by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth


Eviradnus

...bdues, 
 Shall fall upon their heads, these forms will stand 
 The grades confronting—one on either hand. 
 While in advance beyond, with haughty head— 
 As if commander of this squadron dread— 
 All waiting signal of the Judgment Day, 
 In stone was seen in olden sculptors' way 
 Charlemagne the King, who on the earth had found 
 Only twelve knights to grace his Table Round. 
 
 The crests were an assembly of strange things, 
 Of horrors such as nightmare only bri...Read more of this...
by Hugo, Victor

Hyperion

...blind, and stifle up my pomp.---
Fall!---No, by Tellus and her briny robes!
Over the fiery frontier of my realms
I will advance a terrible right arm
Shall scare that infant thunderer, rebel Jove,
And bid old Saturn take his throne again."---
He spake, and ceas'd, the while a heavier threat
Held struggle with his throat but came not forth;
For as in theatres of crowded men
Hubbub increases more they call out "Hush!"
So at Hyperion's words the phantoms pale
Bestirr'd themselves...Read more of this...
by Keats, John

Paradise Lost: Book 02

...sdainful look thus first began:-- 
 "Whence and what art thou, execrable Shape, 
That dar'st, though grim and terrible, advance 
Thy miscreated front athwart my way 
To yonder gates? Through them I mean to pass, 
That be assured, without leave asked of thee. 
Retire; or taste thy folly, and learn by proof, 
Hell-born, not to contend with Spirits of Heaven." 
 To whom the Goblin, full of wrath, replied:-- 
"Art thou that traitor Angel? art thou he, 
Who first broke peace in He...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Paradise Lost: Book 05

...hether to deck with clouds the uncoloured sky, 
Or wet the thirsty earth with falling showers, 
Rising or falling still advance his praise. 
His praise, ye Winds, that from four quarters blow, 
Breathe soft or loud; and, wave your tops, ye Pines, 
With every plant, in sign of worship wave. 
Fountains, and ye that warble, as ye flow, 
Melodious murmurs, warbling tune his praise. 
Join voices, all ye living Souls: Ye Birds, 
That singing up to Heaven-gate ascend, 
Bear on your ...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Paradise Lost: Book 09

...spent of old now failed 
More Angels to create, if they at least 
Are his created, or, to spite us more, 
Determined to advance into our room 
A creature formed of earth, and him endow, 
Exalted from so base original, 
With heavenly spoils, our spoils: What he decreed, 
He effected; Man he made, and for him built 
Magnificent this world, and earth his seat, 
Him lord pronounced; and, O indignity! 
Subjected to his service angel-wings, 
And flaming ministers to watch and tend ...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Paradise Lost: Book 10

...scendent seat the Saints among, 
To those bright Orders uttered thus his voice. 
See, with what heat these dogs of Hell advance 
To waste and havock yonder world, which I 
So fair and good created; and had still 
Kept in that state, had not the folly of Man 
Let in these wasteful furies, who impute 
Folly to me; so doth the Prince of Hell 
And his adherents, that with so much ease 
I suffer them to enter and possess 
A place so heavenly; and, conniving, seem 
To gratify my sc...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Poem of Joys

...ow much one can stand! 
To look strife, torture, prison, popular odium, death, face to face! 
To mount the scaffold! to advance to the muzzles of guns with perfect nonchalance! 
To be indeed a God!

18
O, to sail to sea in a ship! 
To leave this steady, unendurable land! 
To leave the tiresome sameness of the streets, the sidewalks and the houses; 
To leave you, O you solid motionless land, and entering a ship, 
To sail, and sail, and sail!

19
O to have my life henceforth a ...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt

Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror

...ficantly; that is, enough to make the point
That the soul is a captive, treated humanely, kept
In suspension, unable to advance much farther
Than your look as it intercepts the picture.
Pope Clement and his court were "stupefied"
By it, according to Vasari, and promised a commission
That never materialized. The soul has to stay where it is,
Even though restless, hearing raindrops at the pane,
The sighing of autumn leaves thrashed by the wind,
Longing to be free, outside, but ...Read more of this...
by Ashbery, John

Snowbound a Winter Idyl

...g wrong assail; 
All chains from limb and spirit strike, 
Uplift the black and white alike; 
Scatter before their swift advance 
The darkness and the ignorance, 
The pride, the lust, the squalid sloth, 
Which nurtured Treason's monstrous growth, 
Made murder pastime, and the hell 
Of prison-torture possible; 
The cruel lie of caste refute, 
Old forms remould, and substitute 
For Slavery's lash the freeman's will, 
For blind routine, wise-handed skill; 
A school-house plant on...Read more of this...
by Whittier, John Greenleaf

Song of Myself

...e is now.

Urge, and urge, and urge; 
Always the procreant urge of the world. 

Out of the dimness opposite equals advance—always substance and increase,
 always sex; 
Always a knit of identity—always distinction—always a breed of life. 

To elaborate is no avail—learn’d and unlearn’d feel that it is
 so.

Sure as the most certain sure, plumb in the uprights, well entretied, braced in
 the beams, 
Stout as a horse, affectionate, haughty, electrical, 
I and this...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt

Song of the Broad-Axe

...r of personality, just or unjust. 

4
Muscle and pluck forever! 
What invigorates life, invigorates death,
And the dead advance as much as the living advance, 
And the future is no more uncertain than the present, 
And the roughness of the earth and of man encloses as much as the delicatesse of the earth
 and
 of
 man, 
And nothing endures but personal qualities. 
What do you think endures?
Do you think the great city endures? 
Or a teeming manufacturing state? or a prepared ...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt

The Ballad of the White Horse

...hat stood beside the sea."

Centre and right the Wessex guard
Grew pale for doubt and fear,
And the flank failed at the advance,
For the death-light on the wizard lance--
The star of the evil spear.

"Stand like an oak," cried Marcus,
"Stand like a Roman wall!
Eldred the Good is fallen--
Are you too good to fall?

"When we were wan and bloodless
He gave you ale enow;
The pirates deal with him as dung,
God! are you bloodless now?"

"Grip, Wulf and Gorlias, grip the ash!
Slaves...Read more of this...
by Chesterton, G K

The Lady of the Lake

...O. might I live to see thee grace,
     In Scotland's court, thy birthright place,
     To see my favorite's step advance
     The lightest in the courtly dance,
     The cause of every gallant's sigh,
     And leading star of every eye,
     And theme of every minstrel's art,
     The Lady of the Bleeding Heart!'
     XI.

     'Fair dreams are these,' the maiden cried,—
     Light was her accent, yet she sighed,—
     'Yet is this mossy rock to me
     Wort...Read more of this...
by Scott, Sir Walter

The Triumph of Life

...
The million with fierce song and maniac dance
Raging around; such seemed the jubilee
As when to greet some conqueror's advance
Imperial Rome poured forth her living sea
From senatehouse & prison & theatre
When Freedom left those who upon the free
Had bound a yoke which soon they stooped to bear.
Nor wanted here the true similitude
Of a triumphal pageant, for where'er
The chariot rolled a captive multitude
Was driven; althose who had grown old in power
Or misery,--all who hav...Read more of this...
by Shelley, Percy Bysshe

The Vision of Judgment

...s, if I remember, king of France; 
That head of his, which could not keep a crown 
On earth, yet ventured in my face to advance 
A claim to those of martyrs — like my own: 
If I had had my sword, as I had once 
When I cut ears off, I had cut him down; 
But having but my keys, and not my brand, 
I only knock'd his head from out his hand. 

XX 

'And then he set up such a headless howl, 
That all the saints came out and took him in; 
And there he sits by St. Paul, cheek by jowl...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)

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