Famous Aspire Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Aspire poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous aspire poems. These examples illustrate what a famous aspire poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Holmes, Oliver Wendell
...ht, "Oh, how sweet they do smell!"
Perhaps you will answer all needful conditions
For winning the laurels to which you aspire,
By docking the tails of the two prepositions
I' the style o' the bards you so greatly admire.
As for subjects of verse, they are only too plenty
For ringing the changes on metrical chimes;
A maiden, a moonbeam, a lover of twenty
Have filled that great basket with bushels of rhymes.
Let me show you a picture--'t is far from irrelevant--
By ...Read more of this...
by
Brackenridge, Hugh Henry
...
Nor stirs the multitude to dire revenge
With headlong violence, but soothes the soul
To harmony and peace, bids them aspire
With emulation and pure zeal of heart,
To that high glory in the world unseen,
And crown celestial, which pure virtue gives.
Thus eloquence and poesy divine
A nobler range of sentiment receive;
Life brought to view and immortality,
A recent world through which bold fancy roves,
And gives new magic to the pow'r of song;
For where the str...Read more of this...
by
Dryden, John
...
Desire of pow'r, on earth a vicious weed,
Yet, sprung from high, is of celestial seed:
In God 'tis glory: And when men aspire,
'Tis but a spark too much of heavenly fire.
Th' ambitious youth, too covetous of fame,
Too full of angel's metal in his frame;
Unwarily was led from virtue's ways;
Made drunk with honour, and debauch'd with praise.
Half loath, and half consenting to the ill,
(For loyal blood within him struggled still)
He thus repli'd.—And what pretence h...Read more of this...
by
Blake, William
...is done.
Where the Youth pined away with desire,
And the pale Virgin shrouded in snow:
Arise from their graves and aspire.
Where my Sun-flower wishes to go....Read more of this...
by
Sidney, Sir Philip
...rth with scorne recount my case,
But do not will me from my loue to flie.
I do not enuie Aristotless wit,
Nor do aspire to Cæsars bleeding fame;
Nor ought do care though some aboue me sit;
Nor hope, nor wish another course to frame
But that which once may win thy cruell hart:
Thou art my wit, and thou my vertue art.
LXV
Loue, by sure proofe I may call thee vnkind,
That giu'st no better ear to my iust cries;
Thou whom to me such good turnes should bind,
...Read more of this...
by
Milton, John
...ortal change, to her true servants
Amongst the enthroned gods on sainted seats.
Yet some there be that by due steps aspire
To lay their just hands on that golden key
That opes the palace of eternity.
To Such my errand is; and, but for such,
I would not soil these pure ambrosial weeds
With the rank vapours of this sin-worn mould.
But to my task. Neptune, besides the sway
Of every salt flood and each ebbing stream,
Took in by lot, 'twixt high and nether Jove,
I...Read more of this...
by
Bradstreet, Anne
...no winter and no night.
3
15 Then on a stately Oak I cast mine Eye,
16 Whose ruffling top the Clouds seem'd to aspire.
17 How long since thou wast in thine Infancy?
18 Thy strength and stature, more thy years admire,
19 Hath hundred winters past since thou wast born?
20 Or thousand since thou brakest thy shell of horn?
21 If so, all these as nought, Eternity doth scorn.
4
22 Then higher on the glistering Sun I gaz'd,
23 Whose beams was shaded by the leafy...Read more of this...
by
Poe, Edgar Allan
...discover
For the tears that drip all over;
Mountains toppling evermore
Into seas without a shore;
Seas that restlessly aspire,
Surging, unto skies of fire;
Lakes that endlessly outspread
Their lone waters- lone and dead,-
Their still waters- still and chilly
With the snows of the lolling lily.
By the lakes that thus outspread
Their lone waters, lone and dead,-
Their sad waters, sad and chilly
With the snows of the lolling lily,-
By the mountains- near the river
Murmurin...Read more of this...
by
Schiller, Friedrich von
...ainspring urge and guide
Our hearts to meet in love's eternal bond?
Linked to thine arm, O Raphael, by thy side
Might I aspire to reach to souls beyond
Our earth, and bid the bright ambition go
To that perfection which the angels know!
Happy, O happy--I have found thee--I
Have out of millions found thee, and embraced;
Thou, out of millions, mine!--Let earth and sky
Return to darkness, and the antique waste--
To chaos shocked, let warring atoms be,
Still shall each heart unto...Read more of this...
by
Wheatley, Phillis
...t gold,
But I reluctant leave the pleasing views,
Which Fancy dresses to delight the Muse;
Winter austere forbids me to aspire,
And northern tempests damp the rising fire;
They chill the tides of Fancy's flowing sea,
Cease then, my song, cease the unequal lay....Read more of this...
by
Milton, John
...er
Spirits odorous breathes: flowers and their fruit,
Man's nourishment, by gradual scale sublimed,
To vital spirits aspire, to animal,
To intellectual; give both life and sense,
Fancy and understanding; whence the soul
Reason receives, and reason is her being,
Discursive, or intuitive; discourse
Is oftest yours, the latter most is ours,
Differing but in degree, of kind the same.
Wonder not then, what God for you saw good
If I refuse not, but convert, as you
T...Read more of this...
by
Milton, John
...eft
Ridiculous, and the work Confusion named.
Whereto thus Adam, fatherly displeased.
O execrable son! so to aspire
Above his brethren; to himself assuming
Authority usurped, from God not given:
He gave us only over beast, fish, fowl,
Dominion absolute; that right we hold
By his donation; but man over men
He made not lord; such title to himself
Reserving, human left from human free.
But this usurper his encroachment proud
Stays not on Man; to God his t...Read more of this...
by
Spenser, Edmund
...sly,
Gathered in one up to the heavens to spire,
Eftsoons consum'd to fall down feebily:
So whilom did this Monarchy aspire
As waves, as wind, as fire spread over all,
Till it by fatal doom adown did fall.
17
So long as Jove's great bird did make his flight,
Bearing the fire with which heaven doth us fray,
Heaven had not fear of that presumptuous might,
With which the Giants did the Gods assay.
But all so soon, as scorching Sun had brent
His wings, whic...Read more of this...
by
Byron, George (Lord)
...ghten half thy poverty;
Do all but close thy dying eye,
For that I could not live to try;
To these alone my thoughts aspire:
More can I do? or thou require?
But, Selim, thou must answer why
We need so much of mystery?
The cause I cannot dream nor tell,
But be it, since thou say'st 'tis well;
Yet what thou mean'st by 'arms' and 'friends,'
Beyond my weaker sense extends.
I mean that Giaffir should have heard
The very vow I plighted thee;
His wrath would not rev...Read more of this...
by
Swinburne, Algernon Charles
...each a brand to pile into the pyre
That shall burn up thy foemen, and set free
The flame whence thy sun-shadowing wings aspire?
Love of our life, what more than men are we,
That this our breath for thy sake should expire,
For whom to joyous death
Glad gods might yield their breath,
Great gods drop down from heaven to serve for hire?
We are but men, are we,
And thou art Italy;
What shall we do for thee with our desire?
What gift shall we deserve to give?
How shall we die to do...Read more of this...
by
Bradstreet, Anne
...d Ox, and my exuberous Cow,
4.62 My fleeced Ewe, and ever farrowing Sow.
4.63 To greater things I never did aspire,
4.64 My dunghill thoughts or hopes could reach no higher.
4.65 If to be rich, or great, it was my fate.
4.66 How was I broil'd with envy, and with hate?
4.67 Greater than was the great'st was my desire,
4.68 And greater still, did set my heart on fire.
4.69 If honour was the point to which I steer'd,
4.70 To ru...Read more of this...
by
Bridges, Robert Seymour
...r'd on thee, by night my heart on fire--
Letting my number'd moments run away--
Nor e'en 'twixt night and day to heaven aspire:
So true it is that what the eye seeth not
But slow is loved, and loved is soon forgot.
36
O my life's mischief, once my love's delight,
That drew'st a mortgage on my heart's estate,
Whose baneful clause is never out of date,
Nor can avenging time restore my right:
Whom first to lose sounded that note of spite,
Whereto my doleful days were tuned...Read more of this...
by
Blake, William
...uld frame thy fearful symmetry?
In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?
And what shoulder, and what art,
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? and what dread feet?
What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?
When the stars threw down their...Read more of this...
by
Harrison, Tony
...de in the name of love for peace's sake.
Aspirations, ****! Folk on t'fucking dole
'ave got about as much scope to aspire
above the **** they're dumped in, ****, as coal
aspires to be chucked on t'fucking fire.
'OK, forget the aspirations. Look, I know
United's losing gets you fans incensed
and how far the HARP inside you makes you go
but all these Vs: against! against! against!
Ah'll tell yer then what really riles a bloke.
It's reading on their graves t...Read more of this...
by
Swift, Jonathan
...in our hearts divide.
Give others riches, power, and station,
'Tis all on me an usurpation.
I have no title to aspire;
Yet, when you sink, I seem the higher.
In Pope I cannot read a line,
But with a sigh I wish it mine;
When he can in one couplet fix
More sense than I can do in six;
It gives me such a jealous fit,
I cry "Pox take him and his wit!"
I grieve to be outdone by Gay
In my own hum'rous biting way.
Arbuthnot is no more my friend,
Who dares to irony p...Read more of this...
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