Famous Boldly Poems by Famous Poets

These are examples of famous Boldly poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous boldly poems. These examples illustrate what a famous boldly poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).

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The House Of Clouds

by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
 I would build a cloudy House
For my thoughts to live in;
When for earth too fancy-loose
And too low for Heaven!
Hush! I talk my dream aloud---
I build it bright to see,---
I build it on the moonlit cloud,
To which I looked with thee.

Cloud-walls of the morning's grey,
Faced with amber column,---
Crowned with crimson cupola
From a sunset solemn!
May mists, for the casements, fetch,
Pale and...Read more of this...

The Alien Boy

by Mary Darby Robinson
 'Twas on a Mountain, near the Western Main
An ALIEN dwelt. A solitary Hut
Built on a jutting crag, o'erhung with weeds,
Mark'd the poor Exile's home. Full ten long years
The melancholy wretch had liv'd unseen
By all, save HENRY, a lov'd, little Son
The partner of his sorrows. On the day
When Persecution, in the sainted guise
Of Liberty, spread wide its venom'd pow'r,
The brave,...Read more of this...

t of the Fifth Scene in the Second Act of Athalia

by Anne Kingsmill Finch
 Enter, as in the Temple of Jerusalem,
ATHALIA, MATHAN, ABNER

[Mathan]
WHY, to our Wonder, in this Place is seen, 
Thus discompos'd, and alter'd, Juda's Queen? 
May we demand, what Terrors seize your Breast, 
Or, why your Steps are to this House addrest, 
Where your unguarded Person stands expos'd 
To secret Foes, within its Walls inclos'd? 
Can it be thought that you...Read more of this...

Aix In Provence

by Robert Browning
 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...Read more of this...

Men Are Heavens Piers

by Robert Louis Stevenson
 MEN are Heaven's piers; they evermore
Unwearying bear the skyey floor;
Man's theatre they bear with ease,
Unfrowning cariatides!
I, for my wife, the sun uphold,
Or, dozing, strike the seasons cold.
She, on her side, in fairy-wise
Deals in diviner mysteries,
By spells to make the fuel burn
And keep the parlour warm, to turn
Water to wine, and stones to bread,
By her unconquered hero-head.
A naked Adam, naked...Read more of this...

Let us, in our love and ardour

by Emile Verhaeren
Let us, in our love and ardour, let us live so boldly our finest thoughts that they interweave in harmony with the supreme ecstasy and perfect fervour.
Because in our kindred souls something more holy than we and purer and greater awakens, let us clasp hands to worship it through ourselves.
It matters not that we have only cries or tears to...Read more of this...

The Man From Snowy River

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 There was movement at the station, for the word has passed around
That the colt from old Regret had got away,
And had joined the wild bush horses—he was worth a thousand pound,
So all the cracks had gathered to the fray.
All the tried and noted riders from the stations near and far
Had mustered at the homestead overnight,
For the bushmen love hard...Read more of this...

The Battle of Atbara

by William Topaz McGonagall
 Ye Sons of Great Britain, pray list to me,
And I'll tell ye of a great victory.
Where the British defeated the Dervishes, without delay,
At the Battle of Atbara, without dismay. 

The attack took place, 'twas on the 8th of April, in the early morning dawn,
And the British behaved manfully to a man;
And Mahmud's front was raked fearfully, before the assault...Read more of this...

A Riddle Song

by Walt Whitman
 THAT which eludes this verse and any verse, 
Unheard by sharpest ear, unform’d in clearest eye or cunningest mind, 
Nor lore nor fame, nor happiness nor wealth, 
And yet the pulse of every heart and life throughout the world incessantly, 
Which you and I and all pursuing ever ever miss,
Open but still a secret, the real of the real,...Read more of this...

The Black Lace Fan My Mother Gave Me

by Eavan Boland
 It was the first gift he ever gave her,
buying it for five five francs in the Galeries
in pre-war Paris. It was stifling.
A starless drought made the nights stormy.

They stayed in the city for the summer.
The met in cafes. She was always early.
He was late. That evening he was later.
They wrapped the fan. He looked at his watch.

She looked down...Read more of this...

The Terrible Abstractions

by Vernon Scannell
 The naked hunter's fist, bunched round his spear, 
Was tight and wet inside with sweat of fear; 
He heard behind him what the hunted hear. 

The silence in the undergrowth crept near; 
Its mischief tickled in his nervous ear 
And he became the prey, the quivering deer. 

The naked hunter feared the threat he knew: 
Being hunted, caught, then...Read more of this...

General William Booth Enters into Heaven

by Vachel Lindsay
 [To be sung to the tune of The Blood of the Lamb with indicated instrument] 


I 

[Bass drum beaten loudly.]

Booth led boldly with his big bass drum --
(Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?)
The Saints smiled gravely and they said: "He's come."
(Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?)
Walking lepers followed, rank on rank,
Lurching bravoes from...Read more of this...

Nadowessian Death-Lament

by Friedrich von Schiller
 See, he sitteth on his mat
Sitteth there upright,
With the grace with which he sat
While he saw the light.

Where is now the sturdy gripe,--
Where the breath sedate,
That so lately whiffed the pipe
Toward the Spirit great?

Where the bright and falcon eye,
That the reindeer's tread
On the waving grass could spy,
Thick with dewdrops spread?

Where the limbs that used to dart
Swifter through the snow
Than...Read more of this...

Lead Soldiers

by Amy Lowell
 The nursery fire burns brightly, crackling in cheerful 
little explosions
and trails of sparks up the back of the chimney. Miniature 
rockets
peppering the black bricks with golden stars, as though a gala
flamed a night of victorious wars.
The nodding mandarin on the bookcase moves his 
head forward and back, slowly,
and looks into the air with his blue-green eyes. He stares 
into...Read more of this...

Doors of Daring

by Henry Van Dyke
 The mountains that enfold the vale
With walls of granite, steep and high,
Invite the fearless foot to scale
Their stairway toward the sky. 

The restless, deep, dividing sea
That flows and foams from shore to shore,
Calls to its sunburned chivalry,
"Push out, set sail, explore!" 

And all the bars at which we fret, 
That seem to prison and control, 
Are but the doors...Read more of this...

Poor Little Children

by Victor Hugo
 ("La femelle! elle est morte.") 
 
 {Bk. I. xiii., Jersey, February, 1853.} 


 Mother birdie stiff and cold, 
 Puss has hushed the other's singing; 
 Winds go whistling o'er the wold,— 
 Empty nest in sport a-flinging. 
 Poor little birdies! 
 
 Faithless shepherd strayed afar, 
 Playful dog the gadflies catching; 
 Wolves bound boldly...Read more of this...

Alexandreis

by Anne Killigrew
 I Sing the Man that never Equal knew, 
Whose Mighty Arms all Asia did subdue, 
Whose Conquests through the spacious World do ring, 
That City-Raser, King-destroying King, 
Who o're the Warlike Macedons did Reign, 
And worthily the Name of Great did gain. 
This is the Prince (if Fame you will believe,
To ancient Story any credit give.) 
Who when the...Read more of this...

Change

by Barry Tebb
 As milled silver I was welcome

In every gutter, tinkling over cobbles

I rang the truth loudly on solid-oak counters

And tills tolled for me clear as bells.



Boldly I gave myself to many,

Slipped from moist palm to pocket,

Pirouetting without points, jingling

With dull coppers and important keys.



First I was lost in a hundred

Children’s essays, found myself

With pearls in secret pockets,

Counterfeit and shiny.

Then I...Read more of this...

Passion And Love

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
A maiden wept and, as a comforter,
Came one who cried, "I love thee," and he seized
Her in his arms and kissed her with hot breath,
That dried the tears upon her flaming cheeks.
While evermore his boldly blazing eye
Burned into hers; but she uncomforted
Shrank from his arms and only wept the more.
Then one came and gazed mutely in her face
With wide and...Read more of this...

Mazies Ghost

by Robert William Service
 In London City I evade
For charming Burlington Arcade -
For thee in youth I met a maid
 By name of Mazie,
Who lost no time in telling me
The Ritz put up a topping tea,
But having only shillings three
 My smile was hazy.

:Instead," said I, "it might be sport
To take a bus to Hampton Court,"
(Her manner, I remarked, was short,)
 But she...Read more of this...

To Sydney

by Robert Louis Stevenson
 NOT thine where marble-still and white
Old statues share the tempered light
And mock the uneven modern flight,
But in the stream
Of daily sorrow and delight
To seek a theme.

I too, O friend, have steeled my heart
Boldly to choose the better part,
To leave the beaten ways of art,
And wholly free
To dare, beyond the scanty chart,
The deeper sea.

All vain restrictions left behind,
Frail bark! I...Read more of this...

Trilogy of Passion: II. ELEGY

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 When man had ceased to utter his lament,

 A god then let me tell my tale of sorrow.

WHAT hope of once more meeting is there now
In the still-closed blossoms of this day?
Both heaven and hell thrown open seest thou;
What wav'ring thoughts within the bosom play
No longer doubt! Descending from the sky,
She lifts thee in her arms to realms on...Read more of this...

A prayer to the Wind

by Thomas Carew
 Go thou gentle whispering wind,
Bear this sigh; and if thou find
Where my cruel fair doth rest,
Cast it in her snowy breast,
So, enflam'd by my desire,
It may set her heart a-fire.
Those sweet kisses thou shalt gain,
Will reward thee for thy pain:
Boldly light upon her lip,
There suck odours, and thence skip
To her bosom; lastly fall
Down, and wander over all:
Range about those...Read more of this...

The Triumph Of Love

by Friedrich von Schiller
 By love are blest the gods on high,
Frail man becomes a deity
When love to him is given;
'Tis love that makes the heavens shine
With hues more radiant, more divine,
And turns dull earth to heaven!

In Pyrrha's rear (so poets sang
In ages past and gone),
The world from rocky fragments sprang--
Mankind from lifeless stone.

Their soul was but a thing of night,
Like stone and...Read more of this...

Lochinvar

by Sir Walter Scott
Oh! young Lochinvar is come out of the west,
Through all the wide Border his steed was the best;
And save his good broadsword he weapons had none.
He rode all unarmed and he rode all alone.
So faithful in love and so dauntless in war,
There never was knight like the young Lochinvar. 

He stayed not for brake and he stopped not for stone,
He...Read more of this...

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