Famous Arrears Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Arrears poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous arrears poems. These examples illustrate what a famous arrears poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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...leave all that to you.
Whether it was an evil chance alone,
Or some invidious juggling of the stars,
Or some accrued arrears of ancestors
Who throve on debts that I was here to pay,
Or sins within me that I knew not of,
Or just a foretaste of what waits in hell
For those of us who cannot love a worm,—
Whatever it was, or whence or why it was,
One day there came a stranger to the school.
And having had one mordacious glimpse of him
That filled my eyes and was to fill ...Read more of this...
by
Robinson, Edwin Arlington
...me yet. He thought of jewelled hilts
For daggers in plaid socks; of smart salutes;
And care of arms; and leave; and pay arrears;
Esprit de corps; and hints for young recruits.
And soon, he was drafted out with drums and cheers.
Some cheered him home, but not as crowds cheer Goal.
Only a solemn man who brought him fruits
Thanked him; and then inquired about his soul.
Now, he will spend a few sick years in Institutes,
And do what things the rules consider wise,
And take whatev...Read more of this...
by
Owen, Wilfred
...ough long represt, can never be destroy’d;
Here too could rise at last, murdering and extatic;
Here too demanding full arrears of vengeance.
4
Hence I sign this salute over the sea,
And I do not deny that terrible red birth and baptism,
But remember the little voice that I heard wailing—and wait with perfect trust, no
matter
how long;
And from to-day, sad and cogent, I maintain the bequeath’d cause, as for all lands,
And I send these words to Paris with my love,
And ...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...angry nations fret and roar,
That they can slay the saints no more
On wings of vengeance flies our God,
To pay the long arrears of blood.
Now must the rising dead appear;
Now the decisive sentence hear;
Now the dear martyrs of the Lord
Receive an infinite reward....Read more of this...
by
Watts, Isaac
...you and me the covering hush we shun.
Well hated, better loved, he played and lost,
And left us; and we smile at his arrears;
And who are we to know what it all cost,
Or what we may have wrung from him, the buyer?
The pageant of his failure-laden years
Told ruin of high price. The place was higher.
III—REQUIESCAT
We never knew the sorrow or the pain
Within him, for he seemed as one asleep—
Until he faced us with a dying leap,
And with a blast of paramount, profane...Read more of this...
by
Robinson, Edwin Arlington
...Yes, it was like you to forget,
And cancel in the welcome of your smile
My deep arrears of debt,
And with the putting forth of both your hands
To sweep away the bars my folly set
Between us -- bitter thoughts, and harsh demands,
And reckless deeds that seemed untrue
To love, when all the while
My heart was aching through and through
For you, sweet heart, and only you.
Yet, as I turned to come to you again,
I thought there must be ...Read more of this...
by
Dyke, Henry Van
...you compress,
With even your most impenetrable fears,
A placid and a proper consciousness
Of anxious angels over my arrears.
“I see them there against me in a book
As large as hope, in ink that shines by night
Surely I see; but now I’d rather look
At you, and you are not a pleasant sight.
“Forbear, forgive. Ten years are on my soul,
And on my conscience. I’ve an incubus:
My one distinction, and a parlous toll
To glory; but hope lives on clamorous.
“’Twas hope, ...Read more of this...
by
Robinson, Edwin Arlington
...st.
No! let me taste the whole of it, fare like my peers
The heroes of old,
Bear the brunt, in a minute pay glad life's arrears
Of pain, darkness and cold.
For sudden the worst turns the best to the brave,
The black minute's at end,
And the elements' rage, the fiend-voices that rave,
Shall dwindle, shall blend,
Shall change, shall become first a peace out of pain,
Then a light, then thy breast,
O thou soul of my soul! I shall clasp thee again,
And with God be the rest!...Read more of this...
by
Browning, Robert
...stood by with a brooding eye, and gnashed his teeth and swore.
When thieves and thugs fall out and fight there's fell arrears to pay;
And soon or late sin meets its fate, and so it fell one day
That Claw-fingered Kitty and Windy Ike fanged up like dogs at bay.
"The skin is mine, all mine," she cried; "I did the deed alone."
"It's share and share with a guilt-yoked pair", he hissed in a pregnant tone;
And so they snarled like malamutes over a mildewed bone.
And so they fou...Read more of this...
by
Service, Robert William
...our vitals to the clay that is our feet.
You may serve us if you must, and you shall have your wage of ashes,—
Though arrears due thereafter may be hard for you to meet.
“You may swear that we are solid, you may say that we are strong,
But we know that we are neither and we say that you are wrong;
You may find an easy worship in acclaiming our indulgence,
But your large admiration of us now is not for long.
“If your doom is to adore us with a doubt that’s never still,...Read more of this...
by
Robinson, Edwin Arlington
...ems to me somehow that God himself
Scans with a close reproach what I have done,
Counts with an unphrased patience my arrears,
And fathoms my unprofitable thoughts....Read more of this...
by
Robinson, Edwin Arlington
...n
Defeated and defied.
Since then a crafty score of years
Have come, and they have gone;
But Vickery counts no lost arrears:
He lingers and lives on.
Blue in the west the mountain stands,
Familiar as a face.
Blue, but Vickery knows what sands
Are golden at its base.
He dreams and lives upon the day
When he shall walk with kings.
Vickery smiles—and well he may.
The life-caged linnet sings.
Vickery thinks the time will come
To go for what is his;
But hovering, u...Read more of this...
by
Robinson, Edwin Arlington
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