Get Your Premium Membership

Famous Bases Poems by Famous Poets

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

See also:

by Sidney, Sir Philip
...to write, as for to lie and grone.
O Stella deare, how much thy powre hath wrought,
That hast my mind (now of the basest) brought
My still-kept course, while others sleepe, to mone!
Alas, if from the height of Vertues throne
Thou canst vouchsafe the influence of a thought
Vpon a wretch that long thy grace hath sought,
Weigh then how I by thee am ouerthrowne,
And then thinke thus: although thy beautie be
Made manifest by such a victorie,
Yet noble conquerours do ...Read more of this...



by Browning, Robert
..., 
Head-doubts, heart-doubts, doubts at my fingers' ends, 
Doubts in the trivial work of every day, 
Doubts at the very bases of my soul 
In the grand moments when she probes herself-- 
If finally I have a life to show, 
The thing I did, brought out in evidence 


Against the thing done to me underground 
By hell and all its brood, for aught I know? 
I say, whence sprang this? shows it faith or doubt? 
All's doubt in me; where's break of faith in this? 
It is the idea, the fe...Read more of this...

by Jeffers, Robinson
...up the Kaweah valley above the 
 Moro rock, the mountain redwoods
Like red towers on the slopes of snow; about their 
 bases grew a bushery of Christmas green,
Firs and pines to be monuments for pilgrimage
In Europe; I remembered the Swiss forests, the dark 
 robes of Pilatus, no trunk like these there;
But these are underwood; they are only a shrubbery 
 about the boles of the trees.

 Our people are clever and masterful;
They have powers in the mass, they accomplish ma...Read more of this...

by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...xcalibur,
Wrought by the lonely maiden of the Lake.
Nine years she wrought it, sitting in the deeps
Upon the hidden bases of the hills.'
So might some old man speak in the aftertime
To all the people, winning reverence.
But now much honour and much fame were lost."


So spake he, clouded with his own conceit,
And hid Excalibur the second time,
And so strode back slow to the wounded King.


Then spoke King Arthur, breathing heavily:
"What is it thou hast se...Read more of this...

by Rilke, Rainer Maria
...e earth and rock
The secret oils that drive the grass.

In the beginning was the word, the word
That from the solid bases of the light
Abstracted all the letters of the void;
And from the cloudy bases of the breath
The word flowed up, translating to the heart
First characters of birth and death.

In the beginning was the secret brain.
The brain was celled and soldered in the thought
Before the pitch was forking to a sun;
Before the veins were shaking in their siev...Read more of this...



by Bishop, Elizabeth
...eding for miles on either side
into a flushed, still sky
are overhanging pale blue cliffs
hundreds of feet high,

their bases fretted by little arches,
the entrances to caves
running in along the level of a bay
masked by perfect waves.

On the middle of that quiet floor
sits a fleet of small black ships,
square-rigged, sails furled, motionless,
their spars like burnt match-sticks.

And high above them, over the tall cliffs'
semi-translucent ranks,
are scribbled hundre...Read more of this...

by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...d, Excalibur,
Wrought by the lonely maiden of the Lake;
Nine years she wrought it, sitting in the deeps
Upon the hidden bases of the hills.'
So might some old man speak in the aftertime
To all the people, winning reverence.
But now much honour and much fame were lost." 

So spake he, clouded with his own conceit,
And hid Excalibur the second time,
And so strode back slow to the wounded King. 

Then spoke King Arthur, breathing heavily:
"What is it thou hast se...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...; or to describe races and games, 
Or tilting furniture, imblazon'd shields, 
Impresses quaint, caparisons and steeds, 
Bases and tinsel trappings, gorgeous knights 
At joust and tournament; then marshall'd feast 
Serv'd up in hall with sewers and seneshals; 
The skill of artifice or office mean, 
Not that which justly gives heroick name 
To person, or to poem. Me, of these 
Nor skill'd nor studious, higher argument 
Remains; sufficient of itself to raise 
That name, unle...Read more of this...

by Brautigan, Richard
...n-

overs and he was gobbling them down like a turkey. It was

probably a more valid protest than picketing missile bases.

 The baby played in the sandbox. She had on a red dress

and the Catholic church was towering up behind her red dress.

There was a brick john between her dress and the church. It

was there by no accident. Ladies to the left and gents to the

right.

 A red dress, I thought. Wasn't the woman who set John

Dillinger up for...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...with you. 

I have run through what any river or strait of the globe has run through;
I have taken my stand on the bases of peninsulas, and on the high embedded rocks, to cry
 thence. 

Salut au monde! 
What cities the light or warmth penetrates, I penetrate those cities myself; 
All islands to which birds wing their way, I wing my way myself. 

Toward all,
I raise high the perpendicular hand—I make the signal, 
To remain after me in sight forever, 
For all the h...Read more of this...

by Shakespeare, William
...Were 't aught to me I bore the canopy,
With my extern the outward honouring,
Or laid great bases for eternity,
Which prove more short than waste or ruining?
Have I not seen dwellers on form and favour
Lose all, and more, by paying too much rent,
For compound sweet forgoing simple savour,
Pitiful thrivers, in their gazing spent?
No, let me be obsequious in thy heart,
And take thou my oblation, poor but free,
Which is not mix'd with seconds, knows n...Read more of this...

by Bryant, William Cullen
...d dazzling light 
Were but an element they loved. Bright clouds, 
Motionless pillars of the brazen heaven;-- 
Their bases on the mountains--their white tops 
Shining in the far ether--fire the air 
With a reflected radiance, and make turn 
The gazer's eye away. For me, I lie 
Languidly in the shade, where the thick turf, 
Yet virgin from the kisses of the sun, 
Retains some freshness, and I woo the wind 
That still delays its coming. Why so slow, 
Gentle and volub...Read more of this...

by Benet, Stephen Vincent
...s defile my skull. 
The new king's praises fill the land. 
He clings to precept, simple, dull; 
HIS pyramids on bases stand. 
But -- Lord, how usual!...Read more of this...

by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...is well."
A huge crag-platform, smooth as burnish'd brass
I chose. The ranged ramparts bright
From level meadow-bases of deep grass
Suddenly scaled the light.
Thereon I built it firm. Of ledge or shelf
The rock rose clear, or winding stair.
My soul would live alone unto herself
In her high palace there.

And "while the world runs round and round," I said,
"Reign thou apart, a quiet king,
Still as, while Saturn whirls, his steadfast shade
Sleeps on his ...Read more of this...

by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...libur, 
Wrought by the lonely maiden of the Lake. 
Nine years she wrought it, sitting in the deeps 
Upon the hidden bases of the hills." 
So might some old man speak in the aftertime 
To all the people, winning reverence. 
But now much honour and much fame were lost.' 

So spake he, clouded with his own conceit, 
And hid Excalibur the second time, 
And so strode back slow to the wounded King. 

Then spoke King Arthur, breathing heavily: 
'What is it thou h...Read more of this...

by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...
Then stept a buxom hostess forth, and sailed, 
Full-blown, before us into rooms which gave 
Upon a pillared porch, the bases lost 
In laurel: her we asked of that and this, 
And who were tutors. 'Lady Blanche' she said, 
'And Lady Psyche.' 'Which was prettiest, 
Best-natured?' 'Lady Psyche.' 'Hers are we,' 
One voice, we cried; and I sat down and wrote, 
In such a hand as when a field of corn 
Bows all its ears before the roaring East; 

'Three ladies of the Nort...Read more of this...

by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...ed 
With music in the growing breeze of Time, 
The tops shall strike from star to star, the fangs 
Shall move the stony bases of the world. 

'And now, O maids, behold our sanctuary 
Is violate, our laws broken: fear we not 
To break them more in their behoof, whose arms 
Championed our cause and won it with a day 
Blanched in our annals, and perpetual feast, 
When dames and heroines of the golden year 
Shall strip a hundred hollows bare of Spring, 
To rain an April of ov...Read more of this...

by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...oll'd
With music in the growing breeze of Time,
The tops shall strike from star to star, the fangs
Shall move the stony bases of the world....Read more of this...

by Laurence Dunbar, Paul
...when he give out "charity" ole Hiram could n't spell it.
But laffin' 's ketchin' an' it throwed some others off their bases,
An' folks 'u'd miss the very word that seemed to fit their cases.
Why, fickle little Jessie Lee come near the house upsettin'
By puttin' in a double "kay" to spell the word "coquettin'."
An' when it come to Cyrus Jones, it tickled me all over—
Him settin' up to Mandy Smith an' got sot down on "lover."[Pg 45...Read more of this...

by Lanier, Sidney
...of prickly burs,
And smoothnesses of downs and furs
Of eiders and of minevers;
All limpid honeys that do lie
At stamen-bases, nor deny
The humming-birds' fine roguery,
Bee-thighs, nor any butterfly;
All gracious curves of slender wings,
Bark-mottlings, fibre-spiralings,
Fern-wavings and leaf-flickerings;
Each dial-marked leaf and flower-bell
Wherewith in every lonesome dell
Time to himself his hours doth tell;
All tree-sounds, rustlings of pine-cones,
Wind-sighings, doves' m...Read more of this...

Dont forget to view our wonderful member Bases poems.


Book: Shattered Sighs