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Famous Ascendency Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry
...that I have any name for
Could have invaded and so mastered me 
With a slow tolerance that eventually 
Assumed a blind ascendency of custom 
That saw not even itself. When I came in, 
Often I’d find him strewn along my couch
Like an amorphous lizard with its clothes on, 
Reading a book and waiting for its dinner. 
His clothes were always odiously in order, 
Yet I should not have thought of him as clean— 
Not even if he had washed himself to death
Proving it. There was nothin...Read more of this...
by Robinson, Edwin Arlington



...scurity 
Was cloaked and lost amid the glimmering trees.
“Poor fool!” he murmured. “Or am I the fool? 
With all my fast ascendency in arms, 
That ominous clown is nearer to the King 
Than I am—yet; and God knows what he knows, 
And what his wits infer from what he sees
And feels and hears. I wonder what he knows 
Of Lancelot, or what I might know now, 
Could I have sunk myself to sound a fool 
To springe a friend.… No, I like not this day. 
There’s a cloud coming over Camelot...Read more of this...
by Robinson, Edwin Arlington
...TERDAM, 1645)


And there you are again, now as you are. 
Observe yourself as you discern yourself 
In your discredited ascendency; 
Without your velvet or your feathers now, 
Commend your new condition to your fate,
And your conviction to the sieves of time. 
Meanwhile appraise yourself, Rembrandt van Ryn, 
Now as you are—formerly more or less 
Distinguished in the civil scenery, 
And once a painter. There you are again,
Where you may see that you have on your shoulders 
No ...Read more of this...
by Robinson, Edwin Arlington
...it lurks that nameless spell,
Which speaks, itself unspeakable,
A spirit yet unquelled and high,
That claims and keeps ascendency;
And like the bird whose pinions quake,
But cannot fly the gazing snake,
Will others quail beneath his look,
Nor 'scape the glance they scarce can brook.
From him the half-affrighted friar
When met alone would fain retire,
As if that eye and bitter smile
Transferred to others fear and guile:
Not oft to smile descendeth he,
And when he doth 'tis sa...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)
...their bones, 
And yet by dint of slaughter toil and theft, 
And shrewdly sharpened stones,
Carved hard the way for his ascendency 
Through deserts of lost years? 
Why trouble him now who sees and hears 
No more than what his innocence requires, 
And therefore to no other height aspires
Than one at which he neither quails nor tires? 
He may do more by seeing what he sees 
Than others eager for iniquities; 
He may, by seeing all things for the best, 
Incite futurity to do the ...Read more of this...
by Robinson, Edwin Arlington



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Book: Reflection on the Important Things