Famous Aim Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Aim poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous aim poems. These examples illustrate what a famous aim poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Shakespeare, William
...e, and, nowhere fix'd,
The mind and sight distractedly commix'd.
Her hair, nor loose nor tied in formal plat,
Proclaim'd in her a careless hand of pride
For some, untuck'd, descended her sheaved hat,
Hanging her pale and pined cheek beside;
Some in her threaden fillet still did bide,
And true to bondage would not break from thence,
Though slackly braided in loose negligence.
A thousand favours from a maund she drew
Of amber, crystal, and of beaded jet,
Which one by ...Read more of this...
by
Brackenridge, Hugh Henry
...nce towards the burning line.
These men deserve our song, and those who still,
With industry severe, and steady aim
Diffuse the light in this late dreary land,
In whose lone wastes and solitudes forlorn,
Death long sat brooding with his raven wing.
Who many 'a structure of great fame have rais'd,
College, and school, upon th' Atlantic coast,
Or inland town, through ev'ry province wide,
Which rising up like pyramids of fire,
Give light and glory to the west...Read more of this...
by
Gibran, Kahlil
...elf-preservation the first law of Nature? Why, then, does Greed urge you to self-sacrifice in order only to achieve his aim in hurting your brothers? Beware, my brother, of the leader who says, "Love of existence obliges us to deprive the people of their rights!" I say unto you but this: protecting others' rights is the noblest and most beautiful human act; if my existence requires that I kill others, then death is more honorable to me, and if I cannot find someone to kill me...Read more of this...
by
Smart, Christopher
...nd med'cine to the soul,
Which for translation pants.
LXV
For ADORATION, beyond match,
The scholar bullfinch aims to catch
The soft flute's iv'ry touch;
And, careless on the hazel spray,
The daring redbreast keeps at bay
The damsel's greedy clutch.
LXVI
For ADORATION in the skies,
The Lord's philosopher espies
The Dog, the Ram, and Rose;
The planet's ring, Orion's sword;
Nor is his greatness less ador'd
In the vile worm that glows.
LXVII...Read more of this...
by
Wilcox, Ella Wheeler
...r man,
Dear to the heart of each American.
Sound forth his praise from sea to listening sea-
Greece her Achilles claimed, immortal Custer, we.
II.
Intrepid are earth's heroes now as when
The gods came down to measure strength with men.
Let danger threaten or let duty call,
And self surrenders to the needs of all;
Incurs vast perils, or, to save those dear,
Embraces death without one sigh or tear.
Life's martyrs still the endless drama play
Though no ...Read more of this...
by
Hugo, Victor
...meal he passed to the degree
Of Prince and Margrave; nor could ever he
Be thought brave knight, or she—if woman claim
The rank—be reckoned of unblemished fame
Till they had breathed the air of ages gone,
The funeral odors, in the nest alone
Of its dead masters. Ancient was the race;
To trace the upward stem of proud Lusace
Gives one a vertigo; descended they
From ancestor of Attila, men say;
Their race to him—through Pagans—they hark back;
Bec...Read more of this...
by
Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
...h the disturbance of the spring
And creatures of the summer heat,
And snowdrops writhing under feet
And hollyhocks that aim too high
Red into grey and tumble down
Late roses filled with early snow?
Thunder rolled by the rolling stars
Simulates triumphal cars
Deployed in constellated wars
Scorpion fights against the Sun
Until the Sun and Moon go down
Comets weep and Leonids fly
Hunt the heavens and the plains
Whirled in a vortex that shall bring
The world to that destructive f...Read more of this...
by
Kipling, Rudyard
...talk too wise;
If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same:.
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build'em up with worn-out tools;
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk ...Read more of this...
by
Alighieri, Dante
...lung them here. -
Chased forth from Heaven, lest else its beauties end
The pure perfection of their stainless claim,
Out-herded from the shining gate they came,
Where the deep hells refused them, lest the lost
Boast something baser than themselves."
And I,
"Master, what grievance hath their failure cost,
That through the lamentable dark they cry?"
He answered, "Briefly at a thing not worth
We glance, and pass forgetful. Hope in death
They h...Read more of this...
by
Byron, George (Lord)
...rame,
Another chief consoled his destined bride,
The young forgot him, and the old had died;
"Yet doth he live!" exclaims the impatient heir,
And sighs for sables which he must not wear.
A hundred scutcheons deck with gloomy grace
The Laras' last and longest dwelling-place;
But one is absent from the mouldering file,
That now were welcome to that Gothic pile.
IV.
He comes at last in sudden loneliness,
And whence they know not, why they need not guess;...Read more of this...
by
Marvell, Andrew
...draw our luxury in plumes.
Or if to score out our compendious fame,
With Hooke, then, through the microscope take aim,
Where, like the new Comptroller, all men laugh
To see a tall louse brandish the white staff.
Else shalt thou oft thy guiltless pencil curse,
Stamp on thy palette, not perhaps the worse.
The painter so, long having vexed his cloth--
Of his hound's mouth to feign the raging froth--
His desperate pencil at the work did dart:
His anger reach...Read more of this...
by
Milton, John
...To set himself in glory above his peers,
He trusted to have equalled the Most High,
If he opposed, and with ambitious aim
Against the throne and monarchy of God,
Raised impious war in Heaven and battle proud,
With vain attempt. Him the Almighty Power
Hurled headlong flaming from th' ethereal sky,
With hideous ruin and combustion, down
To bottomless perdition, there to dwell
In adamantine chains and penal fire,
Who durst defy th' Omnipotent to arms.
Nine ti...Read more of this...
by
Milton, John
...y from each inferior; but who here
Will envy whom the highest place exposes
Foremost to stand against the Thunderer's aim
Your bulwark, and condemns to greatest share
Of endless pain? Where there is, then, no good
For which to strive, no strife can grow up there
From faction: for none sure will claim in Hell
Precedence; none whose portion is so small
Of present pain that with ambitious mind
Will covet more! With this advantage, then,
To union, and firm faith, and fi...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...chiev’d,
(The seas all cross’d, weather’d the capes, the voyage done,)
Surrounded, copest, frontest God, yieldest, the aim attain’d,
As, fill’d with friendship, love complete, the Elder Brother found,
The Younger melts in fondness in his arms.
12
Passage to more than India!
Are thy wings plumed indeed for such far flights?
O Soul, voyagest thou indeed on voyages like these?
Disportest thou on waters such as these?
Soundest below the Sanscrit and the Vedas?
Then h...Read more of this...
by
Schiller, Friedrich von
...tuneful strains.
The wondering savages soon came
To view the new creation's plan
"Behold!"--the joyous crowds exclaim,--
"Behold, all this is done by man!"
With jocund and more social aim
The minstrel's lyre their awe awoke,
Telling of Titans, and of giant's frays
And lion-slayers, turning, as he spoke,
Even into heroes those who heard his lays.
For the first time the soul feels joy,
By raptures blessed that calmer are,
That only greet it from afar,
That passions wi...Read more of this...
by
Lowell, Amy
...ntroduce myself?
Heinrich Marohl of Munich. And your name?"
Charlotta told him. And the artful elf
Promptly exclaimed about her husband's fame.
So Lotta, half-unwilling, slowly came
To conversation with him. When she went
Into the house, she found the evening spent.
Theodore arrived quite wearied out and teased,
With all excitement in him burned away.
It had gone well, he said, the audience pleased,
And he had played his very best to-day,
But afterward...Read more of this...
by
Bridges, Robert Seymour
...e uséd means to win so pure acquist,
And of my trembling fear that might have misst
Thro' very care the gold at which I aim'd;
And am as happy but to hear thee named,
As are those gentle souls by angels kisst
In pictures seen leaving their marble cist
To go before the throne of grace unblamed.
Nor surer am I water hath the skill
To quench my thirst, or that my strength is freed
In delicate ordination as I will,
Than that to be myself is all I need
For thee to be most min...Read more of this...
by
Dryden, John
...choking up his way;
They took, but not rewarded, his advice;
Villain and wit exact a double price.
Power was his aim; but thrown from that pretence,
The wretch turned loyal in his own defence,
And malice reconciled him to his Prince.
Him in the anguish of his soul he served,
Rewarded faster still than he deserved.
Behold him now exalted into trust,
His counsels oft convenient, seldom just;
Even in the most sincere advice he gave
He had a grudging still ...Read more of this...
by
Thomson, James
...
Stretch their long Voyage to the woodland Glade:
Where, wheeling with uncertain Flight, they mock
The nimble Fowler's Aim. -- Now Nature droops;
Languish the living Herbs, with pale Decay:
And all the various Family of Flowers
Their sunny Robes resign. The falling Fruits,
Thro' the still Night, forsake the Parent-Bough,
That, in the first, grey, Glances of the Dawn,
Looks wild, and wonders at the wintry Waste.
THE Year, yet pleasing, but declining fast,
Soft, ...Read more of this...
by
Schiller, Friedrich von
...aning,--
'Tis this uniform plan points out the Ruler to me.
Brightly the glittering domes in far-away distance proclaim him.
Out of the kernel of rocks rises the city's high wall.
Into the desert without, the fauns of the forest are driven,
But by devotion is lent life more sublime to the stone.
Man is brought into nearer union with man, and around him
Closer, more actively wakes, swifter moves in him the world.
See! the emulous forces in fiery conflict ar...Read more of this...
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