Best Famous Demesne Poems

Here is a collection of the all-time best famous Demesne poems. This is a select list of the best famous Demesne poetry. Reading, writing, and enjoying famous Demesne poetry (as well as classical and contemporary poems) is a great past time. These top poems are the best examples of demesne poems.

Search and read the best famous Demesne poems, articles about Demesne poems, poetry blogs, or anything else Demesne poem related using the PoetrySoup search engine at the top of the page.

• All Famous Demesne Poems

Written by Walt Whitman | A Carol of Harvest for 1867 1 A SONG of the good green grass! A song no more of the city streets; A song of farms—a song of the soil of fields. A song with the smell of sun-dried hay, where the nimble pitchers handle the pitch-fork; A song tasting of new wheat, and of fresh-husk’d maize. 2 For the lands, and for these passionate days, and for myself, Now I awhile return to thee, O soil of Autumn fields, Reclining on thy breast, giving myself to thee, Answering the pulses of thy sane and equable heart, Tuning a verse for thee. O Earth, that hast no voice, confide to me a voice! O harvest of my lands! O boundless summer growths! O lavish, brown, parturient earth! O infinite, teeming womb! A verse to seek, to see, to narrate thee. 3 Ever upon this stage, Is acted God’s calm, annual drama, Gorgeous processions, songs of birds, Sunrise, that fullest feeds and freshens most the soul, The heaving sea, the waves upon the shore, the musical, strong waves, The woods, the stalwart trees, the slender, tapering trees, The flowers, the grass, the lilliput, countless armies of the grass, The heat, the showers, the measureless pasturages, The scenery of the snows, the winds’ free orchestra, The stretching, light-hung roof of clouds—the clear cerulean, and the bulging, silvery fringes, The high dilating stars, the placid, beckoning stars, The moving flocks and herds, the plains and emerald meadows, The shows of all the varied lands, and all the growths and products. 4 Fecund America! To-day, Thou art all over set in births and joys! Thou groan’st with riches! thy wealth clothes thee as with a swathing garment! Thou laughest loud with ache of great possessions! A myriad-twining life, like interlacing vines, binds all thy vast demesne! As some huge ship, freighted to water’s edge, thou ridest into port! As rain falls from the heaven, and vapors rise from earth, so have the precious values fallen upon thee, and risen out of thee! Thou envy of the globe! thou miracle! Thou, bathed, choked, swimming in plenty! Thou lucky Mistress of the tranquil barns! Thou Prairie Dame that sittest in the middle, and lookest out upon thy world, and lookest East, and lookest West! Dispensatress, that by a word givest a thousand miles—that giv’st a million farms, and missest nothing! Thou All-Acceptress—thou Hospitable—(thou only art hospitable, as God is hospitable. ) 5 When late I sang, sad was my voice; Sad were the shows around me, with deafening noises of hatred, and smoke of conflict; In the midst of the armies, the Heroes, I stood, Or pass’d with slow step through the wounded and dying. But now I sing not War, Nor the measur’d march of soldiers, nor the tents of camps, Nor the regiments hastily coming up, deploying in line of battle. No more the dead and wounded; No more the sad, unnatural shows of War. Ask’d room those flush’d immortal ranks? the first forth-stepping armies? Ask room, alas, the ghastly ranks—the armies dread that follow’d. 6 (Pass—pass, ye proud brigades! So handsome, dress’d in blue—with your tramping, sinewy legs; With your shoulders young and strong—with your knapsacks and your muskets; —How elate I stood and watch’d you, where, starting off, you march’d! Pass;—then rattle, drums, again! Scream, you steamers on the river, out of whistles loud and shrill, your salutes! For an army heaves in sight—O another gathering army! Swarming, trailing on the rear—O you dread, accruing army! O you regiments so piteous, with your mortal diarrhoea! with your fever! O my land’s maimed darlings! with the plenteous bloody bandage and the crutch! Lo! your pallid army follow’d!) 7 But on these days of brightness, On the far-stretching beauteous landscape, the roads and lanes, the high-piled farm-wagons, and the fruits and barns, Shall the dead intrude? Ah, the dead to me mar not—they fit well in Nature; They fit very well in the landscape, under the trees and grass, And along the edge of the sky, in the horizon’s far margin. Nor do I forget you, departed; Nor in winter or summer, my lost ones; But most, in the open air, as now, when my soul is rapt and at peace—like pleasing phantoms, Your dear memories, rising, glide silently by me. 8 I saw the day, the return of the Heroes; (Yet the Heroes never surpass’d, shall never return; Them, that day, I saw not. ) I saw the interminable Corps—I saw the processions of armies, I saw them approaching, defiling by, with divisions, Streaming northward, their work done, camping awhile in clusters of mighty camps. No holiday soldiers!—youthful, yet veterans; Worn, swart, handsome, strong, of the stock of homestead and workshop, Harden’d of many a long campaign and sweaty march, Inured on many a hard-fought, bloody field. 9 A pause—the armies wait; A million flush’d, embattled conquerors wait; The world, too, waits—then, soft as breaking night, and sure as dawn, They melt—they disappear. Exult, indeed, O lands! victorious lands! Not there your victory, on those red, shuddering fields; But here and hence your victory. Melt, melt away, ye armies! disperse, ye blue-clad soldiers! Resolve ye back again—give up, for good, your deadly arms; Other the arms, the fields henceforth for you, or South or North, or East or West, With saner wars—sweet wars—life-giving wars. 10 Loud, O my throat, and clear, O soul! The season of thanks, and the voice of full-yielding; The chant of joy and power for boundless fertility. All till’d and untill’d fields expand before me; I see the true arenas of my race—or first, or last, Man’s innocent and strong arenas. I see the Heroes at other toils; I see, well-wielded in their hands, the better weapons. 11 I see where America, Mother of All, Well-pleased, with full-spanning eye, gazes forth, dwells long, And counts the varied gathering of the products. Busy the far, the sunlit panorama; Prairie, orchard, and yellow grain of the North, Cotton and rice of the South, and Louisianian cane; Open, unseeded fallows, rich fields of clover and timothy, Kine and horses feeding, and droves of sheep and swine, And many a stately river flowing, and many a jocund brook, And healthy uplands with their herby-perfumed breezes, And the good green grass—that delicate miracle, the ever-recurring grass. 12 Toil on, Heroes! harvest the products! Not alone on those warlike fields, the Mother of All, With dilated form and lambent eyes, watch’d you. Toil on, Heroes! toil well! Handle the weapons well! The Mother of All—yet here, as ever, she watches you. Well-pleased, America, thou beholdest, Over the fields of the West, those crawling monsters, The human-divine inventions, the labor-saving implements: Beholdest, moving in every direction, imbued as with life, the revolving hay-rakes, The steam-power reaping-machines, and the horse-power machines, The engines, thrashers of grain, and cleaners of grain, well separating the straw—the nimble work of the patent pitch-fork; Beholdest the newer saw-mill, the southern cotton-gin, and the rice-cleanser. Beneath thy look, O Maternal, With these, and else, and with their own strong hands, the Heroes harvest. All gather, and all harvest; (Yet but for thee, O Powerful! not a scythe might swing, as now, in security; Not a maize-stalk dangle, as now, its silken tassels in peace. ) 13 Under Thee only they harvest—even but a wisp of hay, under thy great face, only; Harvest the wheat of Ohio, Illinois, Wisconsin—every barbed spear, under thee; Harvest the maize of Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee—each ear in its light-green sheath, Gather the hay to its myriad mows, in the odorous, tranquil barns, Oats to their bins—the white potato, the buckwheat of Michigan, to theirs; Gather the cotton in Mississippi or Alabama—dig and hoard the golden, the sweet potato of Georgia and the Carolinas, Clip the wool of California or Pennsylvania, Cut the flax in the Middle States, or hemp, or tobacco in the Borders, Pick the pea and the bean, or pull apples from the trees, or bunches of grapes from the vines, Or aught that ripens in all These States, or North or South, Under the beaming sun, and under Thee.

Written by Thomas Hardy | The Sick God I In days when men had joy of war, A God of Battles sped each mortal jar; The peoples pledged him heart and hand, From Israel's land to isles afar. II His crimson form, with clang and chime, Flashed on each murk and murderous meeting-time, And kings invoked, for rape and raid, His fearsome aid in rune and rhyme. III On bruise and blood-hole, scar and seam, On blade and bolt, he flung his fulgid beam: His haloes rayed the very gore, And corpses wore his glory-gleam. IV Often an early King or Queen, And storied hero onward, knew his sheen; 'Twas glimpsed by Wolfe, by Ney anon, And Nelson on his blue demesne. V But new light spread. That god's gold nimb And blazon have waned dimmer and more dim; Even his flushed form begins to fade, Till but a shade is left of him. VI That modern meditation broke His spell, that penmen's pleadings dealt a stroke, Say some; and some that crimes too dire Did much to mire his crimson cloak. VII Yea, seeds of crescive sympathy Were sown by those more excellent than he, Long known, though long contemned till then - The gods of men in amity. VIII Souls have grown seers, and thought out-brings The mournful many-sidedness of things With foes as friends, enfeebling ires And fury-fires by gaingivings! IX He scarce impassions champions now; They do and dare, but tensely--pale of brow; And would they fain uplift the arm Of that faint form they know not how. X Yet wars arise, though zest grows cold; Wherefore, at whiles, as 'twere in ancient mould He looms, bepatched with paint and lath; But never hath he seemed the old! XI Let men rejoice, let men deplore. The lurid Deity of heretofore Succumbs to one of saner nod; The Battle-god is god no more.

Written by William Butler Yeats | Three Songs To The One Burden I The Roaring Tinker if you like, But Mannion is my name, And I beat up the common sort And think it is no shame. The common breeds the common, A lout begets a lout, So when I take on half a score I knock their heads about. From mountain to mountain ride the fierce horsemen. All Mannions come from Manannan, Though rich on every shore He never lay behind four walls He had such character, Nor ever made an iron red Nor soldered pot or pan; His roaring and his ranting Best please a wandering man. From mountain to mountain ride the fierce horsemen. Could Crazy Jane put off old age And ranting time renew, Could that old god rise up again We'd drink a can or two, And out and lay our leadership On country and on town, Throw likely couples into bed And knock the others down. From mountain to mountain ride the fierce horsemen. II My name is Henry Middleton, I have a small demesne, A small forgotten house that's set On a storm-bitten green. I scrub its floors and make my bed, I cook and change my plate, The post and garden-boy alone Have keys to my old gate. From mountain to mountain ride the fierce horsemen. Though I have locked my gate on them, I pity all the young, I know what devil's trade they learn From those they live among, Their drink, their pitch-and-toss by day, Their robbery by night; The wisdom of the people's gone, How can the young go straight? From mountain to mountain ride the fierce horsemen. When every Sunday afternoon On the Green Lands I walk And wear a coat in fashion. Memories of the talk Of henwives and of ***** old men Brace me and make me strong; There's not a pilot on the perch Knows I have lived so long. From mountain to mountain ride the fierce horsemen. III Come gather round me, players all: Come praise Nineteen-Sixteen, Those from the pit and gallery Or from the painted scene That fought in the Post Office Or round the City Hall, praise every man that came again, Praise every man that fell. From mountain to mountain ride the fierce horsemen. Who was the first man shot that day? The player Connolly, Close to the City Hall he died; Catriage and voice had he; He lacked those years that go with skill, But later might have been A famous, a brilliant figure Before the painted scene. From mountain to mountain ride the fierce horsemen. Some had no thought of victory But had gone out to die That Ireland's mind be greater, Her heart mount up on high; And yet who knows what's yet to come? For patrick pearse had said That in every generation Must Ireland's blood be shed. From mountain to mountain ride the fierce horsemen.

Written by Robert Browning | Any Wife To Any Husband I My love, this is the bitterest, that thou Who art all truth and who dost love me now As thine eyes say, as thy voice breaks to say— Shouldst love so truly and couldst love me still A whole long life through, had but love its will, Would death that leads me from thee brook delay! II I have but to be by thee, and thy hand Would never let mine go, thy heart withstand The beating of my heart to reach its place. When should I look for thee and feel thee gone? When cry for the old comfort and find none? Never, I know! Thy soul is in thy face. III Oh, I should fade—'tis willed so! might I save, Galdly I would, whatever beauty gave Joy to thy sense, for that was precious too. It is not to be granted. But the soul Whence the love comes, all ravage leaves that whole; Vainly the flesh fades—soul makes all things new. IV And 'twould not be because my eye grew dim Thou couldst not find the love there, thanks to Him Who never is dishonoured in the spark He gave us from his fire of fires, and bade Remember whence it sprang nor be afraid While that burns on, though all the rest grow dark. V So, how thou wouldst be perfect, white and clean Outside as inside, soul and soul's demesne Alike, this body given to show it by! Oh, three-parts through the worst of life's abyss, What plaudits from the next world after this, Couldst thou repeat a stroke and gain the sky! VI And is it not the bitterer to think That, disengage our hands and thou wilt sink Although thy love was love in very deed? I know that nature! Pass a festive day Thou dost not throw its relic-flower away Nor bid its music's loitering echo speed. VII Thou let'st the stranger's glove lie where it fell; If old things remain old things all is well, For thou art grateful as becomes man best: And hadst thou only heard me play one tune, Or viewed me from a window, not so soon With thee would such things fade as with the rest. VIII I seem to see! we meet and part: 'tis brief: The book I opened keeps a folded leaf, The very chair I sat on, breaks the rank; That is a portrait of me on the wall— Three lines, my face comes at so slight a call; And for all this, one little hour's to thank. IX But now, because the hour through years was fixed, Because our inmost beings met amd mixed, Because thou once hast loved me—wilt thou dare Say to thy soul and Who may list beside, "Therefore she is immortally my bride, Chance cannot change that love, nor time impair. X "So, what if in the dusk of life that's left, I, a tired traveller, of my sun bereft, Look from my path when, mimicking the same, The fire-fly glimpses past me, come and gone? - Where was it till the sunset? where anon It will be at the sunrise! what's to blame?" XI Is it so helpful to thee? canst thou take The mimic up, nor, for the true thing's sake, Put gently by such efforts at at beam? Is the remainder of the way so long Thou need'st the little solace, thou the strong? Watch out thy watch, let weak ones doze and dream! XII "—Ah, but the fresher faces! Is it true," Thou'lt ask, "some eyes are beautiful and new? Some hair,—how can one choose but grasp such wealth? And if a man would press his lips to lips Fresh as the wilding hedge-rose-cup there slips The dew-drop out of, must it be by stealth? XIII "It cannot change the love kept still for Her, Much more than, such a picture to prefer Passing a day with, to a room's bare side. The painted form takes nothing she possessed, Yet while the Titian's Venus lies at rest A man looks. Once more, what is there to chide?" XIV So must I see, from where I sit and watch, My own self sell myself, my hand attach Its warrant to the very thefts from me— Thy singleness of soul that made me proud, Thy purity of heart I loved aloud, Thy man's truth I was bold to bid God see! XV Love so, then, if thou wilt! Give all thou canst Away to the new faces—disentranced— (Say it and think it) obdurate no more, Re-issue looks and words from the old mint— Pass them afresh, no matter whose the print Image and superscription once they bore! XVI Re-coin thyself and give it them to spend,— It all comes to the same thing at the end, Since mine thou wast, mine art, and mine shalt be, Faithful or faithless, sealing up the sum Or lavish of my treasure, thou must come Back to the heart's place here I keep for thee! XVII Only, why should it be with stain at all? Why must I, 'twixt the leaves of coronal, Put any kiss of pardon on thy brow? Why need the other women know so much And talk together, "Such the look and such The smile he used to love with, then as now!" XVIII Might I die last and shew thee! Should I find Such hardship in the few years left behind, If free to take and light my lamp, and go Into thy tomb, and shut the door and sit Seeing thy face on those four sides of it The better that they are so blank, I know! XIX Why, time was what I wanted, to turn o'er Within my mind each look, get more and more By heart each word, too much to learn at first, And join thee all the fitter for the pause 'Neath the low door-way's lintel. That were cause For lingering, though thou called'st, If I durst! XX And yet thou art the nobler of us two. What dare I dream of, that thou canst not do, Outstripping my ten small steps with one stride? I'll say then, here's a trial and a task— Is it to bear?—if easy, I'll not ask— Though love fail, I can trust on in thy pride. XXI Pride?—when those eyes forestall the life behind The death I have to go through!—when I find, Now that I want thy help most, all of thee! What did I fear? Thy love shall hold me fast Until the little minute's sleep is past And I wake saved. —And yet, it will not be!

Written by William Butler Yeats | Coole Park And Ballylee 1931 Under my window-ledge the waters race, Otters below and moor-hens on the top, Run for a mile undimmed in Heaven's face Then darkening through 'dark' Raftery's 'cellar' drop, Run underground, rise in a rocky place In Coole demesne, and there to finish up Spread to a lake and drop into a hole. What's water but the generated soul? Upon the border of that lake's a wood Now all dry sticks under a wintry sun, And in a copse of beeches there I stood, For Nature's pulled her tragic buskin on And all the rant's a mirror of my mood: At sudden thunder of the mounting swan I turned about and looked where branches break The glittering reaches of the flooded lake. Another emblem there! That stormy white But seems a concentration of the sky; And, like the soul, it sails into the sight And in the morning's gone, no man knows why; And is so lovely that it sets to right What knowledge or its lack had set awry, So atrogantly pure, a child might think It can be murdered with a spot of ink. Sound of a stick upon the floor, a sound From somebody that toils from chair to chair; Beloved books that famous hands have bound, Old marble heads, old pictures everywhere; Great rooms where travelled men and children found Content or joy; a last inheritor Where none has reigned that lacked a name and fame Or out of folly into folly came. A spot whereon the founders lived and died Seemed once more dear than life; ancestral trees, Or gardens rich in memory glorified Marriages, alliances and families, And every bride's ambition satisfied. Where fashion or mere fantasy decrees We shift about - all that great glory spent - Like some poor Arab tribesman and his tent. We were the last romantics - chose for theme Traditional sanctity and loveliness; Whatever's written in what poets name The book of the people; whatever most can bless The mind of man or elevate a rhyme; But all is changed, that high horse riderless, Though mounted in that saddle Homer rode Where the swan drifts upon a darkening flood.

Written by Thomas Hardy | The Church-Builder The church flings forth a battled shade Over the moon-blanched sward: The church; my gift; whereto I paid My all in hand and hoard; Lavished my gains With stintless pains To glorify the Lord. I squared the broad foundations in Of ashlared masonry; I moulded mullions thick and thin, Hewed fillet and ogee; I circleted Each sculptured head With nimb and canopy. I called in many a craftsmaster To fix emblazoned glass, To figure Cross and Sepulchure On dossal, boss, and brass. My gold all spent, My jewels went To gem the cups of Mass. I borrowed deep to carve the screen And raise the ivoried Rood; I parted with my small demesne To make my owings good. Heir-looms unpriced I sacrificed, Until debt-free I stood. So closed the task. "Deathless the Creed Here substanced!" said my soul: "I heard me bidden to this deed, And straight obeyed the call. Illume this fane, That not in vain I build it, Lord of all!" But, as it chanced me, then and there Did dire misfortunes burst; My home went waste for lack of care, My sons rebelled and curst; Till I confessed That aims the best Were looking like the worst. Enkindled by my votive work No burnng faith I find; The deeper thinkers sneer and smirk, And give my toil no mind; From nod and wink I read they think That I am fool and blind. My gift to God seems futile, quite; The world moves as erstwhile; And powerful Wrong on feeble Right Tramples in olden style. My faith burns down, I see no crown; But Cares, and Griefs, and Guile. So now, the remedy? Yea, this: I gently swing the door Here, of my fane--no soul to wis-- And cross the patterned floor To the rood-screen That stands between The nave and inner chore. The rich red windows dim the moon, But little light need I; I mount the prie-dieu, lately hewn From woods of rarest dye; Then from below My garment, so, I draw this cord, and tie One end thereof around the beam Midway 'twixt Cross and truss: I noose the nethermost extreme, And in ten seconds thus I journey hence-- To that land whence No rumour reaches us. Well: Here at morn they'll light on one Dangling in mockery Of what he spent his substance on Blindly and uselessly!. . . "He might," they'll say, "Have built, some way, A cheaper gallows-tree!"

Written by John Keats | On first looking into Chapmans Homer MUCH have I travell'd in the realms of gold And many goodly states and kingdoms seen; Round many western islands have I been Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold. Oft of one wide expanse had I been told 5 That deep-brow'd Homer ruled as his demesne: Yet did I never breathe its pure serene Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold: Then felt I like some watcher of the skies When a new planet swims into his ken; 10 Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes He stared at the Pacific¡ªand all his men Look'd at each other with a wild surmise¡ª Silent upon a peak in Darien.

Written by John Betjeman | The Irish Unionists farewell to Greta Hellastrom in 1922 Golden haired and golden hearted I would ever have you be, As you were when last we parted Smiling slow and sad at me. Oh! the fighting down of passion! Oh! the century-seeming pain- Parting in this off-hand fashion In Dungarvan in the rain. Slanting eyes of blue, unweeping Stands my Swedish beauty where Gusts of Irish rain are sweeping Round the statue in the square; Corner boys against the walling Watch us furtively in vain, And the Angelus is calling Through Dungarvan in the rain. Gales along the Commeragh Mountains, Beating sleet on creaking signs, Iron gutters turned to fountains, And the windscreen laced with lines, And the evening getting later, And the ache - increased again, As the distance grows the greater From Dungarvan in the rain. There is no one now to wonder What eccentric sits in state While the beech trees rock and thunder Round his gate-lodge and his gate. Gone - the ornamental plaster, Gone - the overgrown demesne And the car goes fast, and faster, From Dungarvan in the rain. Had I kissed and drawn you to me Had you yielded warm for cold, What a power had pounded through me As I stroked your streaming gold! You were right to keep us parted: Bound and parted we remain, Aching, if unbroken hearted - Oh! Dungarvan in the rain!