Best Famous Milestones Poems

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

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• All Famous Milestones Poems

Written by Stanley Kunitz | The Layers I have walked through many lives, some of them my own, and I am not who I was, though some principle of being abides, from which I struggle not to stray. When I look behind, as I am compelled to look before I can gather strength to proceed on my journey, I see the milestones dwindling toward the horizon and the slow fires trailing from the abandoned camp-sites, over which scavenger angels wheel on heavy wings. Oh, I have made myself a tribe out of my true affections, and my tribe is scattered! How shall the heart be reconciled to its feast of losses? In a rising wind the manic dust of my friends, those who fell along the way, bitterly stings my face. Yet I turn, I turn, exulting somewhat, with my will intact to go wherever I need to go, and every stone on the road precious to me. In my darkest night, when the moon was covered and I roamed through wreckage, a nimbus-clouded voice directed me: "Live in the layers, not on the litter." Though I lack the art to decipher it, no doubt the next chapter in my book of transformations is already written. I am not done with my changes.

Written by Joyce Kilmer | Roofs (For Amelia Josephine Burr) The road is wide and the stars are out and the breath of the night is sweet, And this is the time when wanderlust should seize upon my feet. But I'm glad to turn from the open road and the starlight on my face, And to leave the splendour of out-of-doors for a human dwelling place. I never have seen a vagabond who really liked to roam All up and down the streets of the world and not to have a home: The tramp who slept in your barn last night and left at break of day Will wander only until he finds another place to stay. A gypsy-man will sleep in his cart with canvas overhead; Or else he'll go into his tent when it is time for bed. He'll sit on the grass and take his ease so long as the sun is high, But when it is dark he wants a roof to keep away the sky. If you call a gypsy a vagabond, I think you do him wrong, For he never goes a-travelling but he takes his home along. And the only reason a road is good, as every wanderer knows, Is just because of the homes, the homes, the homes to which it goes. They say that life is a highway and its milestones are the years, And now and then there's a toll-gate where you buy your way with tears. It's a rough road and a steep road and it stretches broad and far, But at last it leads to a golden Town where golden Houses are.

Written by John Davidson | Song of a Train A monster taught To come to hand Amain, As swift as thought Across the land The train. The song it sings Has an iron sound; Its iron wings Like wheels go round. Crash under bridges, Flash over ridges, And vault the downs; The road is straight -- Nor stile, nor gate; For milestones -- towns! Voluminous, vanishing, white, The steam plume trails; Parallel streaks of light, THe polished rails. Oh, who can follow? The little swallow, The trout of the sky: But the sun Is outrun, And Time passed by. O'er bosky dens, By marsh and mead, Forest and fens Embodied speed Is clanked and hurled; O'er rivers and runnels; And into the earth And out again In death and birth That know no pain, For the whole round world Is a warren of railway tunnels. Hark! hark! hark! It screams and cleaves the dark; And the subterranean night Is gilt with smoky light. Then out again apace It runs its thundering race, The monster taught To come to hand Amain, That swift as thought Speeds through the land The train.

Written by Rudyard Kipling | As the Bell Clinks As I left the Halls at Lumley, rose the vision of a comely Maid last season worshipped dumbly, watched with fervor from afar; And I wondered idly, blindly, if the maid would greet me kindly. That was all -- the rest was settled by the clinking tonga-bar. Yea, my life and hers were coupled by the tonga coupling-bar. For my misty meditation, at the second changin-station, Suffered sudden dislocation, fled before the tuneless jar Of a Wagner obbligato, scherzo, doublehand staccato, Played on either pony's saddle by the clacking tonga-bar -- Played with human speech, I fancied, by the jigging, jolting bar. "She was sweet," thought I, "last season, but 'twere surely wild unreason Such tiny hope to freeze on as was offered by my Star, When she whispered, something sadly: 'I -- we feel your going badly!'" "And you let the chance escape you?" rapped the rattling tonga-bar. "What a chance and what an idiot!" clicked the vicious tonga-bar. Heart of man -- oh, heart of putty! Had I gone by Kakahutti, On the old Hill-road and rutty, I had 'scaped that fatal car. But his fortune each must bide by, so I watched the milestones slide by, To "You call on Her to-morrow!" -- fugue with cymbals by the bar -- You must call on Her to-morrow!" -- post-horn gallop by the bar. Yet a further stage my goal on -- we were whirling down to Solon, With a double lurch and roll on, best foot foremost, ganz und gar -- "She was very sweet," I hinted. "If a kiss had been imprinted?" -- "'Would ha' saved a world of trouble!" clashed the busy tonga-bar. "'Been accepted or rejected!" banged and clanged the tonga-bar. Then a notion wild and daring, 'spite the income tax's paring, And a hasty thought of sharing -- less than many incomes are, Made me put a question private, you can guess what I would drive at. "You must work the sum to prove it," clanked the careless tonga-bar. "Simple Rule of Two will prove it," litled back the tonga-bar. It was under Khyraghaut I muse. "Suppose the maid be haughty -- (There are lovers rich -- and roty) -- wait some wealthy Avatar? Answer monitor untiring, 'twixt the ponies twain perspiring!" "Faint heart never won fair lady," creaked the straining tonga-bar. "Can I tell you ere you ask Her?" pounded slow the tonga-bar. Last, the Tara Devi turning showed the lights of Simla burning, Lit my little lazy yearning to a fiercer flame by far. As below the Mall we jingled, through my very heart it tingled -- Did the iterated order of the threshing tonga-bar -- Truy your luck -- you can't do better!" twanged the loosened tongar-bar.

Written by Vachel Lindsay | The Santa-Fe Trail (A Humoresque) I asked the old *****, "What is that bird that sings so well?" He answered: "That is the Rachel-Jane." "Hasn't it another name, lark, or thrush, or the like?" "No. Jus' Rachel-Jane." I. IN WHICH A RACING AUTO COMES FROM THE EAST This is the order of the music of the morning: — First, from the far East comes but a crooning. The crooning turns to a sunrise singing. Hark to the calm -horn, balm -horn, psalm -horn. Hark to the faint -horn, quaint -horn, saint -horn. . . . Hark to the pace -horn, chase -horn, race -horn. And the holy veil of the dawn has gone. Swiftly the brazen ear comes on. It burns in the East as the sunrise burns. I see great flashes where the far trail turns. Its eyes are lamps like the eyes of dragons. It drinks gasoline from big red flagons. Butting through the delicate mists of the morning, It comes like lightning, goes past roaring. It will hail all the wind-mills, taunting, ringing, Dodge the cyclones, Count the milestones, On through the ranges the prairie-dog tills— Scooting past the cattle on the thousand hills. . . . Ho for the tear-horn, scare-horn, dare-horn, Ho for the gay -horn, bark -horn, bay -horn. Ho for Kansas, land that restores us When houses choke us, and great books bore us! Sunrise Kansas, harvester's Kansas, A million men have found you before us. II. IN WHICH MANY AUTOS PASS WESTWARD I want live things in their pride to remain. I will not kill one grasshopper vain Though he eats a hole in my shirt like a door. I let him out, give him one chance more. Perhaps, while he gnaws my hat in his whim, Grasshopper lyrics occur to him. I am a tramp by the long trail's border, Given to squalor, rags and disorder. I nap and amble and yawn and look, Write fool-thoughts in my grubby book, Recite to the children, explore at my ease, Work when I work, beg when I please, Give crank-drawings, that make folks stare To the half-grown boys in the sunset glare, And get me a place to sleep in the hay At the end of a live-and-let-live day. I find in the stubble of the new-cut weeds A whisper and a feasting, all one needs: The whisper of the strawberries, white and red Here where the new-cut weeds lie dead. But I would not walk all alone till I die Without some life-drunk horns going by. Up round this apple-earth they come Blasting the whispers of the morning dumb:— Cars in a plain realistic row. And fair dreams fade When the raw horns blow. On each snapping pennant A big black name:— The careering city Whence each car came. They tour from Memphis, Atlanta, Savannah, Tallahassee and Texarkana. They tour from St. Louis, Columbus, Manistee, They tour from Peoria, Davenport, Kankakee. Cars from Concord, Niagara, Boston, Cars from Topeka, Emporia, and Austin. Cars from Chicago, Hannibal, Cairo. Cars from Alton, Oswego, Toledo. Cars from Buffalo, Kokomo, Delphi, Cars from Lodi, Carmi, Loami. Ho for Kansas, land that restores us When houses choke us, and great books bore us! While I watch the highroad And look at the sky, While I watch the clouds in amazing grandeur Roll their legions without rain Over the blistering Kansas plain— While I sit by the milestone And watch the sky, The United States Goes by. Listen to the iron-horns, ripping, racking. Listen to the quack-horns, slack and clacking. Way down the road, trilling like a toad, Here comes the dice -horn, here comes the vice -horn, Here comes the snarl -horn, brawl -horn, lewd -horn, Followed by the prude -horn, bleak and squeaking: — (Some of them from Kansas, some of themn from Kansas.) Here comes the hod -horn, plod -horn, sod -horn, Nevermore-to-roam -horn, loam -horn, home -horn. (Some of them from Kansas, some of them from Kansas.) Far away the Rachel-Jane Not defeated by the horns Sings amid a hedge of thorns:— "Love and life, Eternal youth— Sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet, Dew and glory, Love and truth, Sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet." WHILE SMOKE-BLACK FREIGHTS ON THE DOUBLE-TRACKED RAILROAD, DRIVEN AS THOUGH BY THE FOUL-FIEND'S OX-GOAD, SCREAMING TO THE WEST COAST, SCREAMING TO THE EAST, CARRY OFF A HARVEST, BRING BACK A FEAST, HARVESTING MACHINERY AND HARNESS FOR THE BEAST. THE HAND-CARS WHIZ, AND RATTLE ON THE RAILS, THE SUNLIGHT FLASHES ON THE TIN DINNER-PAILS. And then, in an instant, Ye modern men, Behold the procession once again, Listen to the iron-horns, ripping, racking, Listen to the wise -horn, desperate-to-advise horn, Listen to the fast -horn, kill -horn, blast -horn. . . . Far away the Rachel-Jane Not defeated by the horns Sings amid a hedge of thorns:— Love and life, Eternal youth, Sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet, Dew and glory, Love and truth. Sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet. The mufflers open on a score of cars With wonderful thunder, CRACK, CRACK, CRACK, CRACK-CRACK, CRACK-CRACK, CRACK-CRACK-CRACK, . . . Listen to the gold-horn . . . Old-horn . . . Cold-horn . . . And all of the tunes, till the night comes down On hay-stack, and ant-hill, and wind-bitten town. Then far in the west, as in the beginning, Dim in the distance, sweet in retreating, Hark to the faint-horn, quaint-horn, saint-horn, Hark to the calm-horn, balm-horn, psalm-horn. . . . They are hunting the goals that they understand:— San-Francisco and the brown sea-sand. My goal is the mystery the beggars win. I am caught in the web the night-winds spin. The edge of the wheat-ridge speaks to me. I talk with the leaves of the mulberry tree. And now I hear, as I sit all alone In the dusk, by another big Santa-Fe stone, The souls of the tall corn gathering round And the gay little souls of the grass in the ground. Listen to the tale the cotton-wood tells. Listen to the wind-mills, singing o'er the wells. Listen to the whistling flutes without price Of myriad prophets out of paradise. Harken to the wonder That the night-air carries. . . . Listen . . . to . . . the . . . whisper . . . Of . . . the . . . prairie . . . fairies Singing o'er the fairy plain:— "Sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet. Love and glory, Stars and rain, Sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet . . . . "

Written by W S Merwin | My Friends My friends without shields walk on the target It is late the windows are breaking My friends without shoes leave What they love Grief moves among them as a fire among Its bells My friends without clocks turn On the dial they turn They part My friends with names like gloves set out Bare handed as they have lived And nobody knows them It is they that lay the wreaths at the milestones it is their Cups that are found at the wells And are then chained up My friends without feet sit by the wall Nodding to the lame orchestra Brotherhood it says on the decorations My friend without eyes sits in the rain smiling With a nest of salt in his hand My friends without fathers or houses hear Doors opening in the darkness Whose halls announce Behold the smoke has come home My friends and I have in common The present a wax bell in a wax belfry This message telling of Metals this Hunger for the sake of hunger this owl in the heart And these hands one For asking one for applause My friends with nothing leave it behind In a box My friends without keys go out from the jails it is night They take the same road they miss Each other they invent the same banner in the dark They ask their way only of sentries too proud to breathe At dawn the stars on their flag will vanish The water will turn up their footprints and the day will rise Like a monument to my Friends the forgotten