Famous Advancing Poems by Famous Poets

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

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A Cloud in Trousers

...s treading on its throat, 
it looked as if: 
in choirs of an archangel¡¯s chorale, 
god, who has been plundered, was advancing in 
wrath! 

But the street, squatting down, bawled: 
¡°Let¡¯s go and guzzle!¡± 

Krupps and Krupplets1 paint 
a bristling of menacing brows on the city, 
but in the mouth 
corpselets of dead words putrefy; 
and only two thrive and grow fat: 
¡°swine,¡± 
and another besides, 
apparently ¨C ¡°borsch.¡± 

Poets, 
soaked in plaints and...Read more of this...
by Mayakovsky, Vladimir


An Autumn Sunset

...
The sun in universal carnage sets,
And, halting higher,
The motionless storm-clouds mass their sullen threats,
Like an advancing mob in sword-points penned,
That, balked, yet stands at bay.
Mid-zenith hangs the fascinated day
In wind-lustrated hollows crystalline,
A wan Valkyrie whose wide pinions shine
Across the ensanguined ruins of the fray,
And in her hand swings high o'erhead,
Above the waste of war,
The silver torch-light of the evening star
Wherewith to search the fac...Read more of this...
by Wharton, Edith

As a Strong Bird on Pinions Free

...can I pierce the impenetrable blank of the future? 
I feel thy ominous greatness, evil as well as good; 
I watch thee, advancing, absorbing the present, transcending the past; 
I see thy light lighting and thy shadow shadowing, as if the entire globe; 
But I do not undertake to define thee—hardly to comprehend thee;
I but thee name—thee prophecy—as now! 
I merely thee ejaculate! 

Thee in thy future; 
Thee in thy only permanent life, career—thy own unloosen’d mind—thy soarin...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt

As I Sat Alone by Blue Ontario's Shores

...

Fear grace—Fear elegance, civilization, delicatesse, 
Fear the mellow sweet, the sucking of honey-juice; 
Beware the advancing mortal ripening of nature, 
Beware what precedes the decay of the ruggedness of states and men.

Ages, precedents, have long been accumulating undirected materials, 
America brings builders, and brings its own styles. 

The immortal poets of Asia and Europe have done their work, and pass’d to other
 spheres, 
A work remains, the work of surpassing ...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt

Beowulf (Modern English)

...uards, adorned with gold,
flecked and fire-hardened—the masked man,
war-minded held the life-warden. The men hurried
advancing in step, until they could perceive
the timbered hall, magnificent and gold-spangled—
it was the most famous house under the heavens
among all earth-dwellers—and inside waited the king.
Its rays of light blazed over a bevy of lands. (ll. 301-11)

Then the battle-brave soldier showed them
the bright house of heady men, so that they could
aim ...Read more of this...
by Anonymous,


Beowulf (Old English)

...his earth-walls. Yet after him came
with slaughter for Swedes the standards of Hygelac
o’er peaceful plains in pride advancing,
till Hrethelings fought in the fenced town. {39a}
Then Ongentheow with edge of sword,
the hoary-bearded, was held at bay,
and the folk-king there was forced to suffer
Eofor’s anger. In ire, at the king
Wulf Wonreding with weapon struck;
and the chieftain’s blood, for that blow, in streams
flowed ’neath his hair. No fear felt he,
stout old...Read more of this...
by Anonymous,

Casey At The Bat

...rattled in the dell; 

it pounded through on the mountain and recoiled upon the flat; 
for Casey, mighty Casey, was advancing to the bat. 

There was ease in Casey's manner as he stepped into his place, 
there was pride in Casey's bearing and a smile lit Casey's face. 

And when, responding to the cheers, he lightly doffed his hat, 
no stranger in the crowd could doubt t'was Casey at the bat. 

Ten thousand eyes were on him as he rubbed his hands with dirt. 
Five...Read more of this...
by Thayer, Ernest Lawrence

Custer

...ear the pair, indifferent to their ire.



LVI.
At last she lifts her lazy head and heeds
The clattering hoofs of swift advancing steeds.
Off to the herd with cumb'rous gait she runs 
And leaves the bulls to face the threatening guns.
No more for them the free life of the plains, 
Its mating pleasures and its warring pains.
Their quivering flesh shall feed unnumbered foes, 
Their tufted tails adorn the soldiers' saddle bows.



LVII.
Now into camp the conquering hosts advance...Read more of this...
by Wilcox, Ella Wheeler

Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie

...us, whatever mischances may happen!"
Smiling she spake these words; then suddenly paused, for her father
Saw she slowly advancing. Alas! how changed was his aspect!
Gone was the glow from his cheek, and the fire from his eye, and his footstep
Heavier seemed with the weight of the heavy heart in his bosom.
But with a smile and a sigh, she clasped his neck and embraced him,
Speaking words of endearment where words of comfort availed not.
Thus to the Gaspereau's mouth moved on t...Read more of this...
by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth

Ode to Winter

...n four the Seasons flew. 
First, in green apparel dancing, 
The young Spring smiled with angel grace; 
Rosy summer next advancing, 
Rushed into her sire's embrace:- 
Her blue-haired sire, who bade her keep 
For ever nearest to his smile, 
On Calpe's olive-shaded steep, 
On India's citron-covered isles: 
More remote and buxom-brown, 
The Queen of vintage bowed before his throne, 
A rich pomegranate gemmed her gown, 
A ripe sheaf bound her zone. 
But howling Winter fled afar, 
...Read more of this...
by Campbell, Thomas

Paradise Lost: Book 05

...Now Morn, her rosy steps in the eastern clime 
Advancing, sowed the earth with orient pearl, 
When Adam waked, so customed; for his sleep 
Was aery-light, from pure digestion bred, 
And temperate vapours bland, which the only sound 
Of leaves and fuming rills, Aurora's fan, 
Lightly dispersed, and the shrill matin song 
Of birds on every bough; so much the more 
His wonder was to find unwakened Eve 
With...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Song of Myself

...hine, or in the
 factory or mill; 
The nine months’ gone is in the parturition chamber, her faintness and
 pains are advancing; 
The paving-man leans on his two-handed rammer—the reporter’s lead
 flies swiftly over the note-book—the sign-painter is lettering with red and
 gold; 
The canal boy trots on the tow-path—the book-keeper counts at his
 desk—the shoemaker waxes his thread; 
The conductor beats time for the band, and all the performers follow him;
The child i...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt

Starting from Paumanok

...slatress, the openly-avow’d, 
The ever-tending, the finale of visible forms;
The satisfier, after due long-waiting, now advancing, 
Yes, here comes my mistress, the Soul. 

7The SOUL: 
Forever and forever—longer than soil is brown and solid—longer than
 water ebbs and flows. 

I will make the poems of materials, for I think they are to be the most
 spiritual poems;
And I will make the poems of my body and of mortality, 
For I think I shall then supply myself with the poems of...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt

The Artists

...heart, by new-born instincts moved,
That have in burning fights been fully proved,
Your circle of creation now expand.
Advancing man bears on his soaring pinions,
In gratitude, art with him in his flight,
And out of Nature's now-enriched dominions
New worlds of beauty issue forth to light.
The barriers upon knowledge are o'erthrown;
The spirit that, with pleasure soon matured,
Has in your easy triumphs been inured
To hasten through an artist-whole of graces,
Nature's more di...Read more of this...
by Schiller, Friedrich von

The Giaour

...may believe,
Who heard it first had cause to grieve.

Far, dark, along the blue sea glancing,
The shadows of the rocks advancing
Start on the fisher's eye like boat
Of island-pirate or Mainote;
And fearful for his light ca?que,
He shuns the near but doubtful creek:
Though worn and weary with his toil,
And cumbered with his scaly spoil,
Slowly, yet strongly, plies the oar,
Till Port Leone's safer shore
Receives him by the lovely light
That best becomes an Eastern night.


......Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)

The House Of Dust: Complete (Long)

...th, and build them again.


II.

One, from his high bright window in a tower,
Leans out, as evening falls,
And sees the advancing curtain of the shower
Splashing its silver on roofs and walls:
Sees how, swift as a shadow, it crosses the city,
And murmurs beyond far walls to the sea,
Leaving a glimmer of water in the dark canyons,
And silver falling from eave and tree.

One, from his high bright window, looking down,
Peers like a dreamer over the rain-bright town,
And thinks i...Read more of this...
by Aiken, Conrad

The Lady of the Lake

...ess resolutely uttered fell,
     The echoes could not catch the swell.
     'A stranger I,' the Huntsman said,
     Advancing from the hazel shade.
     The maid, alarmed, with hasty oar
     Pushed her light shallop from the shore,
     And when a space was gained between,
     Closer she drew her bosom's screen;—
     So forth the startled swan would swing,
     So turn to prune his ruffled wing.
     Then safe, though fluttered and amazed,
     She paused, and ...Read more of this...
by Scott, Sir Walter

The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

...forehead: soon we saw his mouth &
red gills hang just above the raging foam tinging the black deep
with beams of blood, advancing toward [PL 19] us with all the
fury of a spiritual existence.
My friend the Angel climb'd up from his station into the mill;
I remain'd alone, & then this appearance was no more, but I found
myself sitting on a pleasant bank beside a river by moon light
hearing a harper who sung to the harp. & his theme was, The man
who never alters his opinion is ...Read more of this...
by Blake, William

The Triumph Of Fame

...in sightAppear'd, like twinkling stars that gild the night.Three men I saw advancing up the vale,Mangled with ghastly wounds through plate and mail;Dentatus, long in standing fight renown'd,Sergius and Scæva oft with conquest crown'd;The triple terror of the hostile train,On whom the storm of battle broke in vain.Read more of this...
by Petrarch, Francesco

To the Memory of Mr. Oldham

...he slippery place,
While his young friend performed and won the race.
O early ripe! to thy abundant store
What could advancing age have added more?
It might (what nature never gives the young)
Have taught the numbers of thy native tongue.
But satire needs not those, and wit will shine
Through the harsh cadence of a rugged line:
A noble error, and but seldom made,
When poets are by too much force betrayed.
Thy generous fruits, though gathered ere their prime,
Still ...Read more of this...
by Dryden, John

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