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Best Famous Passiveness Poems

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

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EXPOSTULATION AND REPLY

  "Why, William, on that old grey stone,
  Thus for the length of half a day,
  Why, William, sit you thus alone,
  And dream your time away?"

  "Where are your books? that light bequeath'd
  To beings else forlorn and blind!
  Up! Up! and drink the spirit breath'd
  From dead men to their kind.
"

  "You look round on your mother earth,
  As if she for no purpose bore you;
  As if you were her first-born birth,
  And none had lived before you!"

  One morning thus, by Esthwaite lake,
  When life was sweet, I knew not why,
  To me my good friend Matthew spake,
  And thus I made reply.

  "The eye it cannot chuse but see,
  We cannot bid the ear be still;
  Our bodies feel, where'er they be,
  Against, or with our will.
"

  "Nor less I deem that there are powers
  Which of themselves our minds impress,
  That we can feed this mind of ours
  In a wise passiveness.
"

  "Think you, mid all this mighty sum
  Of things for ever speaking,
  That nothing of itself will come,
  But we must still be seeking?"

  "—Then ask not wherefore, here, alone,
  Conversing as I may,
  I sit upon this old grey stone,
  And dream my time away.
"

Written by Thomas Hardy |

The Subalterns

 I

"Poor wanderer," said the leaden sky,
 "I fain would lighten thee,
But there are laws in force on high
 Which say it must not be.
"

 II

--"I would not freeze thee, shorn one," cried
 The North, "knew I but how
To warm my breath, to slack my stride;
 But I am ruled as thou.
"

 III

--"To-morrow I attack thee, wight,"
 Said Sickness.
 "Yet I swear
I bear thy little ark no spite,
 But am bid enter there.
"

 IV

--"Come hither, Son," I heard Death say;
 "I did not will a grave
Should end thy pilgrimage to-day,
 But I, too, am a slave!"

 V

We smiled upon each other then,
 And life to me had less
Of that fell look it wore ere when 
 They owned their passiveness.