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Best Famous Widest Poems

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

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Written by Ezra Pound | Create an image from this poem

The Seafarer

 (From the early Anglo-Saxon text) 

May I for my own self song's truth reckon,
Journey's jargon, how I in harsh days
Hardship endured oft.
Bitter breast-cares have I abided, Known on my keel many a care's hold, And dire sea-surge, and there I oft spent Narrow nightwatch nigh the ship's head While she tossed close to cliffs.
Coldly afflicted, My feet were by frost benumbed.
Chill its chains are; chafing sighs Hew my heart round and hunger begot Mere-weary mood.
Lest man know not That he on dry land loveliest liveth, List how I, care-wretched, on ice-cold sea, Weathered the winter, wretched outcast Deprived of my kinsmen; Hung with hard ice-flakes, where hail-scur flew, There I heard naught save the harsh sea And ice-cold wave, at whiles the swan cries, Did for my games the gannet's clamour, Sea-fowls, loudness was for me laughter, The mews' singing all my mead-drink.
Storms, on the stone-cliffs beaten, fell on the stern In icy feathers; full oft the eagle screamed With spray on his pinion.
Not any protector May make merry man faring needy.
This he little believes, who aye in winsome life Abides 'mid burghers some heavy business, Wealthy and wine-flushed, how I weary oft Must bide above brine.
Neareth nightshade, snoweth from north, Frost froze the land, hail fell on earth then Corn of the coldest.
Nathless there knocketh now The heart's thought that I on high streams The salt-wavy tumult traverse alone.
Moaneth alway my mind's lust That I fare forth, that I afar hence Seek out a foreign fastness.
For this there's no mood-lofty man over earth's midst, Not though he be given his good, but will have in his youth greed; Nor his deed to the daring, nor his king to the faithful But shall have his sorrow for sea-fare Whatever his lord will.
He hath not heart for harping, nor in ring-having Nor winsomeness to wife, nor world's delight Nor any whit else save the wave's slash, Yet longing comes upon him to fare forth on the water.
Bosque taketh blossom, cometh beauty of berries, Fields to fairness, land fares brisker, All this admonisheth man eager of mood, The heart turns to travel so that he then thinks On flood-ways to be far departing.
Cuckoo calleth with gloomy crying, He singeth summerward, bodeth sorrow, The bitter heart's blood.
Burgher knows not -- He the prosperous man -- what some perform Where wandering them widest draweth.
So that but now my heart burst from my breast-lock, My mood 'mid the mere-flood, Over the whale's acre, would wander wide.
On earth's shelter cometh oft to me, Eager and ready, the crying lone-flyer, Whets for the whale-path the heart irresistibly, O'er tracks of ocean; seeing that anyhow My lord deems to me this dead life On loan and on land, I believe not That any earth-weal eternal standeth Save there be somewhat calamitous That, ere a man's tide go, turn it to twain.
Disease or oldness or sword-hate Beats out the breath from doom-gripped body.
And for this, every earl whatever, for those speaking after -- Laud of the living, boasteth some last word, That he will work ere he pass onward, Frame on the fair earth 'gainst foes his malice, Daring ado, .
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So that all men shall honour him after And his laud beyond them remain 'mid the English, Aye, for ever, a lasting life's-blast, Delight mid the doughty.
Days little durable, And all arrogance of earthen riches, There come now no kings nor Cæsars Nor gold-giving lords like those gone.
Howe'er in mirth most magnified, Whoe'er lived in life most lordliest, Drear all this excellence, delights undurable! Waneth the watch, but the world holdeth.
Tomb hideth trouble.
The blade is layed low.
Earthly glory ageth and seareth.
No man at all going the earth's gait, But age fares against him, his face paleth, Grey-haired he groaneth, knows gone companions, Lordly men are to earth o'ergiven, Nor may he then the flesh-cover, whose life ceaseth, Nor eat the sweet nor feel the sorry, Nor stir hand nor think in mid heart, And though he strew the grave with gold, His born brothers, their buried bodies Be an unlikely treasure hoard.


Written by Rudyard Kipling | Create an image from this poem

The Press

 "The Village That Voted the Earth Was Flat"-- A Diversity of Creatures
The Soldier may forget his Sword,
 The Sailorman the Sea,
The Mason may forget the Word
 And the Priest his Litany:
The Maid may forget both jewel and gem,
 And the Bride her wedding-dress--
But the Jew shall forget Jerusalem
 Ere we forget the Press!

Who once hath stood through the loaded hour
 Ere, roaring like the gale,
The Harrild and the Hoe devour
 Their league-long paper-bale,
And has lit his pipe in the morning calm
 That follows the midnight stress--
He hath sold his heart to the old Black Art
 We call the daily Press.
Who once hath dealt in the widest game That all of a man can play, No later love, no larger fame Will lure him long away.
As the war-horse snuffeth the battle afar, The entered Soul, no less, He saith: "Ha! Ha!" where the trumpets are And the thunders of the Press! Canst thou number the days that we fulfill, Or the Times that we bring forth? Canst thou send the lightnings to do thy will, And cause them reign on earth? Hast thou given a peacock goodly wings, To please his foolishness? Sit down at the heart of men and things, Companion of the Press! The Pope may launch his Interdict, The Union its decree, But the bubble is blown and the bubble is pricked By Us and such as We.
Remember the battle and stand aside While Thrones and Powers confess That King over all the children of pride Is the Press--the Press--the Press!
Written by Henry Lawson | Create an image from this poem

On the Wallaby

 Now the tent poles are rotting, the camp fires are dead, 
And the possums may gambol in trees overhead; 
I am humping my bluey far out on the land, 
And the prints of my bluchers sink deep in the sand: 
I am out on the wallaby humping my drum, 
And I came by the tracks where the sundowners come.
It is nor'-west and west o'er the ranges and far To the plains where the cattle and sheep stations are, With the sky for my roof and the grass for my bunk, And a calico bag for my damper and junk; And scarcely a comrade my memory reveals, Save the spiritless dingo in tow of my heels.
But I think of the honest old light of my home When the stars hang in clusters like lamps from the dome, And I think of the hearth where the dark shadows fall, When my camp fire is built on the widest of all; But I'm following Fate, for I know she knows best, I follow, she leads, and it's nor'-west by west.
When my tent is all torn and my blankets are damp, And the rising flood waters flow fast by the camp, When the cold water rises in jets from the floor, I lie in my bunk and I list to the roar, And I think how to-morrow my footsteps will lag When I tramp 'neath the weight of a rain-sodden swag.
Though the way of the swagman is mostly up-hill, There are joys to be found on the wallaby still.
When the day has gone by with its tramp or its toil, And your camp-fire you light, and your billy you boil, There is comfort and peace in the bowl of your clay Or the yarn of a mate who is tramping that way.
But beware of the town -- there is poison for years In the pleasure you find in the depths of long beers; For the bushman gets bushed in the streets of a town, Where he loses his friends when his cheque is knocked down; He is right till his pockets are empty, and then -- He can hump his old bluey up country again.
Written by Philip Larkin | Create an image from this poem

Wires

 The widest prairies have electric fences, 
For though old cattle know they must not stray 
Young steers are always scenting purer water 
Not here but anywhere.
Beyond the wires Leads them to blunder up against the wires Whose muscle-shredding violence gives no quarter.
Young steers become old cattle from that day, Electric limits to their widest senses.
Written by Henry Lawson | Create an image from this poem

How the Land was Won

 The future was dark and the past was dead 
As they gazed on the sea once more – 
But a nation was born when the immigrants said 
"Good-bye!" as they stepped ashore! 
In their loneliness they were parted thus 
Because of the work to do, 
A wild wide land to be won for us 
By hearts and hands so few.
The darkest land 'neath a blue sky's dome, And the widest waste on earth; The strangest scenes and the least like home In the lands of our fathers' birth; The loneliest land in the wide world then, And away on the furthest seas, A land most barren of life for men – And they won it by twos and threes! With God, or a dog, to watch, they slept By the camp-fires' ghastly glow, Where the scrubs were dark as the blacks that crept With "nulla" and spear held low; Death was hidden amongst the trees, And bare on the glaring sand They fought and perished by twos and threes – And that's how they won the land! It was two that failed by the dry creek bed, While one reeled on alone – The dust of Australia's greatest dead With the dust of the desert blown! Gaunt cheek-bones cracking the parchment skin That scorched in the blazing sun, Black lips that broke in a ghastly grin – And that's how the land was won! Starvation and toil on the tracks they went, And death by the lonely way; The childbirth under the tilt or tent, The childbirth under the dray! The childbirth out in the desolate hut With a half-wild gin for nurse – That's how the first were born to bear The brunt of the first man's curse! They toiled and they fought through the shame of it – Through wilderness, flood, and drought; They worked, in the struggles of early days, Their sons' salvation out.
The white girl-wife in the hut alone, The men on the boundless run, The miseries suffered, unvoiced, unknown – And that's how the land was won.
No armchair rest for the old folk then – But, ruined by blight and drought, They blazed the tracks to the camps again In the big scrubs further out.
The worn haft, wet with a father's sweat, Gripped hard by the eldest son, The boy's back formed to the hump of toil – And that's how the land was won! And beyond Up Country, beyond Out Back, And the rainless belt, they ride, The currency lad and the ne'er-do-well And the black sheep, side by side; In wheeling horizons of endless haze That disk through the Great North-west, They ride for ever by twos and by threes – And that's how they win the rest.


Written by James Whitcomb Riley | Create an image from this poem

Orlie Wilde

 A goddess, with a siren's grace,--
A sun-haired girl on a craggy place
Above a bay where fish-boats lay
Drifting about like birds of prey.
Wrought was she of a painter's dream,-- Wise only as are artists wise, My artist-friend, Rolf Herschkelhiem, With deep sad eyes of oversize, And face of melancholy guise.
I pressed him that he tell to me This masterpiece's history.
He turned--REturned--and thus beguiled Me with the tale of Orlie Wilde:-- "We artists live ideally: We breed our firmest facts of air; We make our own reality-- We dream a thing and it is so.
The fairest scenes we ever see Are mirages of memory; The sweetest thoughts we ever know We plagiarize from Long Ago: And as the girl on canvas there Is marvelously rare and fair, 'Tis only inasmuch as she Is dumb and may not speak to me!" He tapped me with his mahlstick--then The picture,--and went on again: "Orlie Wilde, the fisher's child-- I see her yet, as fair and mild As ever nursling summer day Dreamed on the bosom of the bay: For I was twenty then, and went Alone and long-haired--all content With promises of sounding name And fantasies of future fame, And thoughts that now my mind discards As editor a fledgling bard's.
"At evening once I chanced to go, With pencil and portfolio, Adown the street of silver sand That winds beneath this craggy land, To make a sketch of some old scurf Of driftage, nosing through the surf A splintered mast, with knarl and strand Of rigging-rope and tattered threads Of flag and streamer and of sail That fluttered idly in the gale Or whipped themselves to sadder shreds.
The while I wrought, half listlessly, On my dismantled subject, came A sea-bird, settling on the same With plaintive moan, as though that he Had lost his mate upon the sea; And--with my melancholy trend-- It brought dim dreams half understood-- It wrought upon my morbid mood,-- I thought of my own voyagings That had no end--that have no end.
-- And, like the sea-bird, I made moan That I was loveless and alone.
And when at last with weary wings It went upon its wanderings, With upturned face I watched its flight Until this picture met my sight: A goddess, with a siren's grace,-- A sun-haired girl on a craggy place Above a bay where fish-boats lay Drifting about like birds of prey.
"In airy poise she, gazing, stood A machless form of womanhood, That brought a thought that if for me Such eyes had sought across the sea, I could have swum the widest tide That ever mariner defied, And, at the shore, could on have gone To that high crag she stood upon, To there entreat and say, 'My Sweet, Behold thy servant at thy feet.
' And to my soul I said: 'Above, There stands the idol of thy love!' "In this rapt, awed, ecstatic state I gazed--till lo! I was aware A fisherman had joined her there-- A weary man, with halting gait, Who toiled beneath a basket's weight: Her father, as I guessed, for she Had run to meet him gleefully And ta'en his burden to herself, That perched upon her shoulder's shelf So lightly that she, tripping, neared A jutting crag and disappeared; But she left the echo of a song That thrills me yet, and will as long As I have being! .
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"Evenings came And went,--but each the same--the same: She watched above, and even so I stood there watching from below; Till, grown so bold at last, I sung,-- (What matter now the theme thereof!)-- It brought an answer from her tongue-- Faint as the murmur of a dove, Yet all the more the song of love.
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"I turned and looked upon the bay, With palm to forehead--eyes a-blur In the sea's smile--meant but for her!-- I saw the fish-boats far away In misty distance, lightly drawn In chalk-dots on the horizon-- Looked back at her, long, wistfully;-- And, pushing off an empty skiff, I beckoned her to quit the cliff And yield me her rare company Upon a little pleasure-cruise.
-- She stood, as loathful to refuse, To muse for full a moment's time,-- Then answered back in pantomime 'She feared some danger from the sea Were she discovered thus with me.
' I motioned then to ask her if I might not join her on the cliff And back again, with graceful wave Of lifted arm, she anwer gave 'She feared some danger from the sea.
' "Impatient, piqued, impetuous, I Sprang in the boat, and flung 'Good-by' From pouted mouth with angry hand, And madly pulled away from land With lusty stroke, despite that she Held out her hands entreatingly: And when far out, with covert eye I shoreward glanced, I saw her fly In reckless haste adown the crag, Her hair a-flutter like a flag Of gold that danced across the strand In little mists of silver sand.
All curious I, pausing, tried To fancy what it all implied,-- When suddenly I found my feet Were wet; and, underneath the seat On which I sat, I heard the sound Of gurgling waters, and I found The boat aleak alarmingly.
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I turned and looked upon the sea, Whose every wave seemed mocking me; I saw the fishers' sails once more-- In dimmer distance than before; I saw the sea-bird wheeling by, With foolish wish that _I_ could fly: I thought of firm earth, home and friends-- I thought of everything that tends To drive a man to frenzy and To wholly lose his own command; I thought of all my waywardness-- Thought of a mother's deep distress; Of youthful follies yet unpurged-- Sins, as the seas, about me surged-- Thought of the printer's ready pen To-morrow drowning me again;-- A million things without a name-- I thought of everything but--Fame.
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"A memory yet is in my mind, So keenly clear and sharp-defined, I picture every phase and line Of life and death, and neither mine,-- While some fair seraph, golden-haired, Bends over me,--with white arms bared, That strongly plait themselves about My drowning weight and lift me out-- With joy too great for words to state Or tongue to dare articulate! "And this seraphic ocean-child And heroine was Orlie Wilde: And thus it was I came to hear Her voice's music in my ear-- Ay, thus it was Fate paved the way That I walk desolate to-day!" .
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The artist paused and bowed his face Within his palms a little space, While reverently on his form I bent my gaze and marked a storm That shook his frame as wrathfully As some typhoon of agony, And fraught with sobs--the more profound For that peculiar laughing sound We hear when strong men weep.
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I leant With warmest sympathy--I bent To stroke with soothing hand his brow, He murmuring--"Tis over now!-- And shall I tie the silken thread Of my frail romance?" "Yes," I said.
-- He faintly smiled; and then, with brow In kneading palm, as one in dread-- His tasseled cap pushed from his head " 'Her voice's music,' I repeat," He said,--" 'twas sweet--O passing sweet!-- Though she herself, in uttering Its melody, proved not the thing Of loveliness my dreams made meet For me--there, yearning, at her feet-- Prone at her feet--a worshiper,-- For lo! she spake a tongue," moaned he, "Unknown to me;--unknown to me As mine to her--as mine to her.
"
Written by Adela Florence Cory Nicolson | Create an image from this poem

Malaria

   A little breeze blew over the sea,
       And it came from far away,
   Across the fields of millet and rice,
   All warm with sunshine and sweet with spice,
   It lifted his curls and kissed him thrice,
       As upon the deck he lay.

   It said, "Oh, idle upon the sea,
       Awake and with sleep have done,
   Haul up the widest sail of the prow,
   And come with me to the rice fields now,
   She longs, oh, how can I tell you how,
       To show you your first-born son!"
Written by Elizabeth Barrett Browning | Create an image from this poem

Sonnets from the Portuguese iii

GO from me.
Yet I feel that I shall stand Henceforward in thy shadow.
Nevermore Alone upon the threshold of my door Of individual life I shall command The uses of my soul nor lift my hand 5 Serenely in the sunshine as before Without the sense of that which I forbore¡ª Thy touch upon the palm.
The widest land Doom takes to part us leaves thy heart in mine With pulses that beat double.
What I do 10 And what I dream include thee as the wine Must taste of its own grapes.
And when I sue God for myself He hears that name of thine And sees within my eyes the tears of two.
Written by Elizabeth Barrett Browning | Create an image from this poem

Sonnet 06 - Go from me. Yet I feel that I shall stand

 Go from me.
Yet I feel that I shall stand Henceforward in thy shadow.
Nevermore Alone upon the threshold of my door Of individual life, I shall command The uses of my soul, nor lift my hand Serenely in the sunshine as before, Without the sense of that which I forbore— Thy touch upon the palm.
The widest land Doom takes to part us, leaves thy heart in mine With pulses that beat double.
What I do And what I dream include thee, as the wine Must taste of its own grapes.
And when I sue God for myself, He hears that name of thine, And sees within my eyes the tears of two.