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Best Famous Prone Poems

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

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Written by W. E. B. Du Bois | Create an image from this poem

A Hymn to the Peoples

O Truce of God!
And primal meeting of the Sons of Man,
Foreshadowing the union of the World!
From all the ends of earth we come!
Old Night, the elder sister of the Day,
Mother of Dawn in the golden East,
Meets in the misty twilight with her brood,
Pale and black, tawny, red and brown,
The mighty human rainbow of the world,
Spanning its wilderness of storm.
Softly in sympathy the sunlight falls,
Rare is the radiance of the moon;
And on the darkest midnight blaze the stars—
The far-flown shadows of whose brilliance
Drop like a dream on the dim shores of Time,
Forecasting Days that are to these
As day to night.
So sit we all as one.
So, gloomed in tall and stone-swathed groves,
The Buddha walks with Christ!
And Al-Koran and Bible both be holy!
Almighty Word!
In this Thine awful sanctuary,
First and flame-haunted City of the Widened World,
Assoil us, Lord of Lands and Seas!
We are but weak and wayward men,
Distraught alike with hatred and vainglory;
Prone to despise the Soul that breathes within—
High visioned hordes that lie and steal and kill,
Sinning the sin each separate heart disclaims,
Clambering upon our riven, writhing selves,
Besieging Heaven by trampling men to Hell!
We be blood-guilty! Lo, our hands be red!
Not one may blame the other in this sin!
But here—here in the white Silence of the Dawn,
Before the Womb of Time,
With bowed hearts all flame and shame,
We face the birth-pangs of a world:
We hear the stifled cry of Nations all but born—
The wail of women ravished of their stunted brood!
We see the nakedness of Toil, the poverty of Wealth,
We know the Anarchy of Empire, and doleful Death of Life!
And hearing, seeing, knowing all, we cry:
Save us, World-Spirit, from our lesser selves!
Grant us that war and hatred cease,
Reveal our souls in every race and hue!
Help us, O Human God, in this Thy Truce,
To make Humanity divine!


Written by Anne Bronte | Create an image from this poem

Confidence

 Oppressed with sin and woe,
A burdened heart I bear,
Opposed by many a mighty foe:
But I will not despair.
With this polluted heart I dare to come to Thee, Holy and mighty as Thou art; For Thou wilt pardon me.
I feel that I am weak, And prone to every sin: But Thou who giv'st to those who seek, Wilt give me strength within.
Far as this earth may be From yonder starry skies; Remoter still am I from Thee: Yet Thou wilt not despise.
I need not fear my foes, I need not yield to care, I need not sink beneath my woes: For Thou wilt answer prayer.
In my Redeemer's name, I give myself to Thee; And all unworthy as I am My God will cherish me.
O make me wholly Thine! Thy love to me impart, And let Thy holy spirit shine For ever on my heart!
Written by Eugene Field | Create an image from this poem

Ballad of women i love

 Prudence Mears hath an old blue plate
Hid away in an oaken chest,
And a Franklin platter of ancient date
Beareth Amandy Baker's crest;
What times soever I've been their guest,
Says I to myself in an undertone:
"Of womenfolk, it must be confessed,
These do I love, and these alone.
" Well, again, in the Nutmeg State, Dorothy Pratt is richly blest With a relic of art and a land effete-- A pitcher of glass that's cut, not pressed.
And a Washington teapot is possessed Down in Pelham by Marthy Stone-- Think ye now that I say in jest "These do I love, and these alone?" Were Hepsy Higgins inclined to mate, Or Dorcas Eastman prone to invest In Cupid's bonds, they could find their fate In the bootless bard of Crockery Quest.
For they've heaps of trumpery--so have the rest Of those spinsters whose ware I'd like to own; You can see why I say with such certain zest, "These do I love, and these alone.
"
Written by Les Murray | Create an image from this poem

Travels With John Hunter

 We who travel between worlds 
lose our muscle and bone.
I was wheeling a barrow of earth when agony bayoneted me.
I could not sit, or lie down, or stand, in Casualty.
Stomach-calming clay caked my lips, I turned yellow as the moon and slid inside a CAT-scan wheel in a hospital where I met no one so much was my liver now my dire preoccupation.
I was sped down a road.
of treetops and fishing-rod lightpoles towards the three persons of God and the three persons of John Hunter Hospital.
Who said We might lose this one.
Twenty days or to the heat-death of the Universe have the same duration: vaguely half a hour.
I awoke giggling over a joke about Paul Kruger in Johannesburg and missed the white court stockings I half remembered from my prone still voyage beyond flesh and bone.
I asked my friend who got new lungs How long were you crazy, coming back? Five days, he said.
Violent and mad.
Fictive Afrikaner police were at him, not unworldly Oom Paul Kruger.
Valerie, who had sat the twenty days beside me, now gently told me tales of my time-warp.
The operative canyon stretched, stapled, with dry roseate walls down my belly.
Seaweed gel plugged views of my pluck and offal.
The only poet whose liver damage hadn't been self-inflicted, grinned my agent.
A momentarily holed bowel had released flora who live in us and will eat us when we stop feeding them the earth.
I had, it did seem, rehearsed the private office of the grave, ceased excreting, made corpse gases all while liana'd in tubes and overseen by cockpit instruments that beeped or struck up Beethoven's Fifth at behests of fluid.
I also hear when I lay lipless and far away I was anointed first by a mild metaphoric church then by the Church of no metaphors.
Now I said, signing a Dutch contract in a hand I couldn't recognise, let's go and eat Chinese soup and drive to Lake Macquarie.
Was I not renewed as we are in Heaven? In fact I could hardly endure Earth gravity, and stayed weak and cranky till the soup came, squid and vegetables, pure Yang.
And was sane thereafter.
It seemed I'd also travelled in a Spring-in-Winter love-barque of cards, of flowers and phone calls and letters, concern I'd never dreamed was there when black kelp boiled in my head.
I'd awoken amid my State funeral, nevermore to eat my liver or feed it to the Black Dog, depression which the three Johns Hunter seem to have killed with their scalpels: it hasn't found its way home, where I now dodder and mend in thanks for devotion, for the ambulance this time, for the hospital fork lift, for pethidine, and this face of deity: not the foreknowledge of death but the project of seeing conscious life rescued from death defines and will atone for the human.
Written by Lucy Maud Montgomery | Create an image from this poem

The Watchman

 My Claudia, it is long since we have met, 
So kissed, so held each other heart to heart! 
I thought to greet thee as a conqueror comes, 
Bearing the trophies of his prowess home, 
But Jove hath willed it should be otherwise­
Jove, say I? Nay, some mightier stranger-god 
Who thus hath laid his heavy hand on me, 
No victor, Claudia, but a broken man 
Who seeks to hide his weakness in thy love.
How beautiful thou art! The years have brought An added splendor to thy loveliness, With passion of dark eye and lip rose-red Struggling between its dimple and its pride.
And yet there is somewhat that glooms between Thy love and mine; come, girdle me about With thy true arms, and pillow on thy breast This aching and bewildered head of mine; Here, where the fountain glitters in the sun Among the saffron lilies, I will tell­ If so that words will answer my desire­ The shameful fate that hath befallen me.
Down in Jerusalem they slew a man, Or god­it may be that he was a god­ Those mad, wild Jews whom Pontius Pilate rules.
Thou knowest Pilate, Claudia­ -- a vain man, Too weak to govern such a howling horde As those same Jews.
This man they crucified.
I knew nought of him­had not heard his name Until the day they dragged him to his death; Then all tongues wagged about him and his deeds; Some said that he had claimed to be their King, Some that he had blasphemed their deity 'Twas certain he was poor and meanly born, No warrior he, nor hero; and he taught Doctrines that surely would upset the world; And so they killed him to be rid of him­ Wise, very wise, if he were only man, Not quite so wise if he were half a god! I know that strange things happened when he died­ There was a darkness and an agony, And some were vastly frightened­not so I! What cared I if that mob of reeking Jews Had brought a nameless curse upon their heads ? I had no part in that blood-guiltiness.
At least he died; and some few friends of his­ I think he had not very many friends­ Took him and laid him in a garden tomb.
A watch was set about the sepulchre, Lest these, his friends, should hide him and proclaim That he had risen as he had fore-told.
Laugh not, my Claudia.
I laughed when I heard The prophecy.
I would I had not laughed! I, Maximus, was chosen for the guard With all my trusty fellows.
Pilate knew I was a man who had no foolish heart Of softness all unworthy of a man! My eyes had looked upon a tortured slave As on a beetle crushed beneath my tread; I gloried in the splendid strife of war, Lusting for conquest; I had won the praise Of our stern general on a scarlet field; Red in my veins the warrior passion ran, For I had sprung from heroes, Roman born! That second night we watched before the tomb; My men were merry; on the velvet turf, Bestarred with early blossoms of the Spring, They diced with jest and laughter; all around The moonlight washed us like a silver lake, Save where that silent, sealéd sepulchre Was hung with shadow as a purple pall.
A faint wind stirred among the olive boughs­ Methinks I hear the sighing of that wind In all sounds since, it was so dumbly sad; But as the night wore on it died away And all was deadly stillness; Claudia, That stillness was most awful, as if some Great heart had broken and so ceased to beat! I thought of many things, but found no joy In any thought, even the thought of thee; The moon waned in the west and sickly grew Her light sucked from her in the breaking dawn­ Never was dawn so welcome as that pale, Faint glimmer in the cloudless, brooding sky! Claudia, how may I tell what came to pass? I have been mocked at when I told the tale For a crazed dreamer punished by the gods Because he slept on guard; but mock not thou! I could not bear it if thy lips should mock The vision dread of that Judean morn.
Sudden the pallid east was all aflame With radiance that beat upon our eyes As from noonday sun; and then we saw Two shapes that were as the immortal gods Standing before the tomb; around me fell My men as dead; but I, though through my veins Ran a cold tremor never known before, Withstood the shock and saw one shining shape Roll back the stone; the whole world seemed ablaze, And through the garden came a rushing wind Thundering a paeon as of victory.
Then that dead man came forth! Oh, Claudia, If thou coulds't but have seen the face of him! Never was such a conqueror! Yet no pride Was in it­nought but love and tenderness, Such as we Romans scoff at; and his eyes Bespake him royal.
Oh, my Claudia, Surely he was no Jew but very god! Then he looked full upon me.
I had borne Much staunchly, but that look I could not bear! What man may front a god and live? I fell Prone, as if stricken by a thunderbolt; And, though I died not, somewhat of me died That made me man.
When my long stupor passed I was no longer Maximus­I was A weakling with a piteous woman-soul, All strength and pride, joy and ambition gone­ My Claudia, dare I tell thee what foul curse Is mine because I looked upon a god? I care no more for glory; all desire For conquest and for strife is gone from me, All eagerness for war; I only care To help and heal bruised beings, and to give Some comfort to the weak and suffering.
I cannot even hate those Jews; my lips Speak harshly of them, but within my heart I feel a strange compassion; and I love All creatures, to the vilest of the slaves Who seem to me as brothers! Claudia, Scorn me not for this weakness; it will pass­ Surely 'twill pass in time and I shall be Maximus strong and valiant once again, Forgetting that slain god! and yet­and yet­ He looked as one who could not be forgot!


Written by Emma Lazarus | Create an image from this poem

In the Jewish Synagogue at Newport

 Here, where the noises of the busy town, 
The ocean's plunge and roar can enter not,
We stand and gaze around with tearful awe,
And muse upon the consecrated spot.
No signs of life are here: the very prayers Inscribed around are in a language dead; The light of the "perpetual lamp" is spent That an undying radiance was to shed.
What prayers were in this temple offered up, Wrung from sad hearts that knew no joy on earth, By these lone exiles of a thousand years, From the fair sunrise land that gave them birth! How as we gaze, in this new world of light, Upon this relic of the days of old, The present vanishes, and tropic bloom And Eastern towns and temples we behold.
Again we see the patriarch with his flocks, The purple seas, the hot blue sky o'erhead, The slaves of Egypt, -- omens, mysteries, -- Dark fleeing hosts by flaming angels led.
A wondrous light upon a sky-kissed mount, A man who reads Jehovah's written law, 'Midst blinding glory and effulgence rare, Unto a people prone with reverent awe.
The pride of luxury's barbaric pomp, In the rich court of royal Solomon -- Alas! we wake: one scene alone remains, -- The exiles by the streams of Babylon.
Our softened voices send us back again But mournful echoes through the empty hall: Our footsteps have a strange unnatural sound, And with unwonted gentleness they fall.
The weary ones, the sad, the suffering, All found their comfort in the holy place, And children's gladness and men's gratitude 'Took voice and mingled in the chant of praise.
The funeral and the marriage, now, alas! We know not which is sadder to recall; For youth and happiness have followed age, And green grass lieth gently over all.
Nathless the sacred shrine is holy yet, With its lone floors where reverent feet once trod.
Take off your shoes as by the burning bush, Before the mystery of death and God.
Written by Anne Bradstreet | Create an image from this poem

The Vanity of All Worldly Things

 As he said vanity, so vain say I,
Oh! Vanity, O vain all under sky;
Where is the man can say, "Lo, I have found
On brittle earth a consolation sound"?
What isn't in honor to be set on high?
No, they like beasts and sons of men shall die,
And whilst they live, how oft doth turn their fate;
He's now a captive that was king of late.
What isn't in wealth great treasures to obtain? No, that's but labor, anxious care, and pain.
He heaps up riches, and he heaps up sorrow, It's his today, but who's his heir tomorrow? What then? Content in pleasures canst thou find? More vain than all, that's but to grasp the wind.
The sensual senses for a time they pleasure, Meanwhile the conscience rage, who shall appease? What isn't in beauty? No that's but a snare, They're foul enough today, that once were fair.
What is't in flow'ring youth, or manly age? The first is prone to vice, the last to rage.
Where is it then, in wisdom, learning, arts? Sure if on earth, it must be in those parts; Yet these the wisest man of men did find But vanity, vexation of the mind.
And he that know the most doth still bemoan He knows not all that here is to be known.
What is it then? To do as stoics tell, Nor laugh, nor weep, let things go ill or well? Such stoics are but stocks, such teaching vain, While man is man, he shall have ease or pain.
If not in honor, beauty, age, nor treasure, Nor yet in learning, wisdom, youth, nor pleasure, Where shall I climb, sound, seek, search, or find That summum bonum which may stay my mind? There is a path no vulture's eye hath seen, Where lion fierce, nor lion's whelps have been, Which leads unto that living crystal fount, Who drinks thereof, the world doth naught account.
The depth and sea have said " 'tis not in me," With pearl and gold it shall not valued be.
For sapphire, onyx, topaz who would change; It's hid from eyes of men, they count it strange.
Death and destruction the fame hath heard, But where and what it is, from heaven's declared; It brings to honor which shall ne'er decay, It stores with wealth which time can't wear away.
It yieldeth pleasures far beyond conceit, And truly beautifies without deceit.
Nor strength, nor wisdom, nor fresh youth shall fade, Nor death shall see, but are immortal made.
This pearl of price, this tree of life, this spring, Who is possessed of shall reign a king.
Nor change of state nor cares shall ever see, But wear his crown unto eternity.
This satiates the soul, this stays the mind, And all the rest, but vanity we find.
Written by Les Murray | Create an image from this poem

The New Hieroglyphics

 In the World language, sometimes called
Airport Road, a thinks balloon with a gondola
under it is a symbol for speculation.
Thumbs down to ear and tongue: World can be written and read, even painted but not spoken.
People use their own words.
Latin letters are in it for names, for e.
g.
OK and H2S O4, for musical notes, but mostly it's diagrams: skirt-figure, trousered figure have escaped their toilet doors.
I (that is, saya, Ego, watashji wa) am two eyes without pupils; those aren't seen when you look out through them.
You has both pupils, we has one, and one blank.
Good is thumbs up, thumb and finger zipping lips is confidential.
Evil is three-cornered snake eyes.
The effort is always to make the symbols obvious: the bolt of electricity, winged stethoscope of course for flying doctor.
Prams under fire? Soviet film industry.
Pictographs also shouldn't be too culture-bound: A heart circled and crossed out surely isn't.
For red, betel spit lost out to ace of diamonds.
Black is the ace of spades.
The kind of spades reads Union boss, the two is feeble effort.
If is the shorthand Libra sing , the scales.
Spare literal pictures render most nouns and verbs and computers can draw them faster than Pharaoh's scribes.
A bordello prospectus is as explicit as the action, but everywhere there's sunflower talk, i.
e.
metaphor, as we've seen.
A figure riding a skyhook bearing food in one hand is the pictograph for grace, two animals in a book read Nature, two books Inside an animal, instinct.
Rice in bowl with chopsticks denotes food.
Figure 1 lying prone equals other.
Most emotions are mini-faces, and the speech balloon is ubiquitous.
A bull inside one is dialect for placards inside one.
Sun and moon together inside one is poetry.
Sun and moon over palette, over shoes etc are all art forms — but above a cracked heart and champagne glass? Riddle that and you're starting to think in World, whose grammar is Chinese-terse and fluid.
Who needs the square- equals-diamond book, the dictionary,to know figures led by strings to their genitals mean fashion? just as a skirt beneath a circle meanas demure or ao similar circle shouldering two arrows is macho.
All peoples are at times cat in water with this language but it does promote international bird on shoulder.
This foretaste now lays its knife and fork parallel.
Written by Robert Browning | Create an image from this poem

Aix In Provence

 Christ God who savest man, save most
Of men Count Gismond who saved me!
Count Gauthier, when he chose his post,
Chose time and place and company
To suit it; when he struck at length
My honour, 'twas with all his strength.
II.
And doubtlessly ere he could draw All points to one, he must have schemed! That miserable morning saw Few half so happy as I seemed, While being dressed in queen's array To give our tourney prize away.
III.
I thought they loved me, did me grace To please themselves; 'twas all their deed; God makes, or fair or foul, our face; If showing mine so caused to bleed My cousins' hearts, they should have dropped A word, and straight the play had stopped.
IV.
They, too, so beauteous! Each a queen By virtue of her brow and breast; Not needing to be crowned, I mean, As I do.
E'en when I was dressed, Had either of them spoke, instead Of glancing sideways with still head! V.
But no: they let me laugh, and sing My birthday song quite through, adjust The last rose in my garland, fling A last look on the mirror, trust My arms to each an arm of theirs, And so descend the castle-stairs--- VI.
And come out on the morning-troop Of merry friends who kissed my cheek, And called me queen, and made me stoop Under the canopy---(a streak That pierced it, of the outside sun, Powdered with gold its gloom's soft dun)--- VII.
And they could let me take my state And foolish throne amid applause Of all come there to celebrate My queen's-day---Oh I think the cause Of much was, they forgot no crowd Makes up for parents in their shroud! VIII.
However that be, all eyes were bent Upon me, when my cousins cast Theirs down; 'twas time I should present The victor's crown, but .
.
.
there, 'twill last No long time .
.
.
the old mist again Blinds me as then it did.
How vain! IX, See! Gismond's at the gate, in talk With his two boys: I can proceed.
Well, at that moment, who should stalk Forth boldly---to my face, indeed--- But Gauthier, and he thundered ``Stay!'' And all stayed.
``Bring no crowns, I say! X.
``Bring torches! Wind the penance-sheet ``About her! Let her shun the chaste, ``Or lay herself before their feet! ``Shall she whose body I embraced ``A night long, queen it in the day? ``For honour's sake no crowns, I say!'' XI.
I? What I answered? As I live, I never fancied such a thing As answer possible to give.
What says the body when they spring Some monstrous torture-engine's whole Strength on it? No more says the soul.
XII.
Till out strode Gismond; then I knew That I was saved.
I never met His face before, but, at first view, I felt quite sure that God had set Himself to Satan; who would spend A minute's mistrust on the end? XIII.
He strode to Gauthier, in his throat Gave him the lie, then struck his mouth With one back-handed blow that wrote In blood men's verdict there.
North, South, East, West, I looked.
The lie was dead, And damned, and truth stood up instead.
XIV.
This glads me most, that I enjoyed The heart of the joy, with my content In watching Gismond unalloyed By any doubt of the event: God took that on him---I was bid Watch Gismond for my part: I did.
XV.
Did I not watch him while he let His armourer just brace his greaves, Rivet his hauberk, on the fret The while! His foot .
.
.
my memory leaves No least stamp out, nor how anon He pulled his ringing gauntlets on.
XVI.
And e'en before the trumpet's sound Was finished, prone lay the false knight, Prone as his lie, upon the ground: Gismond flew at him, used no sleight O' the sword, but open-breasted drove, Cleaving till out the truth he clove.
XVII.
Which done, he dragged him to my feet And said ``Here die, but end thy breath ``In full confession, lest thou fleet ``From my first, to God's second death! ``Say, hast thou lied?'' And, ``I have lied ``To God and her,'' he said, and died.
XVIII.
Then Gismond, kneeling to me, asked ---What safe my heart holds, though no word Could I repeat now, if I tasked My powers forever, to a third Dear even as you are.
Pass the rest Until I sank upon his breast.
XIX.
Over my head his arm he flung Against the world; and scarce I felt His sword (that dripped by me and swung) A little shifted in its belt: For he began to say the while How South our home lay many a mile.
XX.
So 'mid the shouting multitude We two walked forth to never more Return.
My cousins have pursued Their life, untroubled as before I vexed them.
Gauthier's dwelling-place God lighten! May his soul find grace! XXI.
Our elder boy has got the clear Great brow; tho' when his brother's black Full eye slows scorn, it .
.
.
Gismond here? And have you brought my tercel*1 back? I just was telling Adela How many birds it struck since May.
*1 A male of the peregrine falcon.
Written by Emile Verhaeren | Create an image from this poem

THE WIND

Crossing the infinite length of the moorland,
Here comes the wind,
The wind with his trumpet that Heralds November;
Endless and infinite, crossing the downs,
Here comes the wind
That teareth himself and doth fiercely dismember;
Which heavy breaths turbulent smiting the towns,
The savage wind comes, the fierce wind of November!


Each bucket of iron at the wells of the farmyards,
Each bucket and pulley, it creaks and it wails;
By cisterns of farmyards, the pulleys and pails
They creak and they cry,
The whole of sad death in their melancholy.


The wind, it sends scudding dead leaves from the birches
Along o'er the water, the wind of November,
The savage, fierce wind;
The boughs of the trees for the birds' nests it searches,
To bite them and grind.
The wind, as though rasping down iron, grates past,
And, furious and fast, from afar combs the cold
And white avalanches of winter the old.
The savage wind combs them so furious and fast.
The wind of November.


From each miserable shed
The patched garret-windows wave wild overhead
Their foolish, poor tatters of paper and glass.
As the savage, fierce wind of November doth pass!
And there on its hill
Of dingy and dun-coloured turf, the black mill,
Swift up from below, through the empty air slashing,
Swift down from above, like a lightning-stroke flashing,
The black mill so sinister moweth the wind.
The savage, fierce wind of November!


The old, ragged thatches that squat round their steeple,
Are raised on their roof-poles, and fall with a clap,
In the wind the old thatches and pent-houses flap,
In the wind of November, so savage and hard.
The crosses—and they are the arms of dead people—
The crosses that stand in the narrow churchyard
Fall prone on the sod
Like some great flight of black, in the acre of God.


The wind of November!
Have you met him, the savage wind, do you remember?
Did he pass you so fleet,
—Where, yon at the cross, the three hundred roads meet—
With distressfulness panting, and wailing with cold?
Yea, he who breeds fears and puts all things to flight,
Did you see him, that night
When the moon he o'erthrew—when the villages, old
In their rot and decay, past endurance and spent,
Cried, wailing like beasts, 'neath the hurricane bent?


Here comes the wind howling, that heralds dark weather,
The wind blowing infinite over the heather.
The wind with his trumpet that heralds November!

Book: Shattered Sighs