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Famous Breathe Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Shakespeare, William
...he was, and thereof free;
Yet, if men moved him, was he such a storm
As oft 'twixt May and April is to see,
When winds breathe sweet, untidy though they be.
His rudeness so with his authorized youth
Did livery falseness in a pride of truth.

'Well could he ride, and often men would say
'That horse his mettle from his rider takes:
Proud of subjection, noble by the sway,
What rounds, what bounds, what course, what stop
he makes!'
And controversy hence a question takes,...Read more of this...



by Brackenridge, Hugh Henry
...rich and splendid throng conven'd 
From many a distant city and fair town, 
Or rural seat by shore or mountain-stream, 
Breathe joy and blessing to the human race, 
Give countenance to arts themselves have known, 
Inspire the love of heights themselves have reach'd, 
Of noble science to enlarge the mind, 
Of truth and virtue to adorn the soul, 
And make the human nature grow divine. 


Oh could the muse on this auspicious day 
Begin a song of more majestic sound, 
Or touc...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...of you, as well as peace, my suit is good, America—sadly I boast; 
Upon this breast has many a dying soldier lean’d, to breathe his last; 
This arm, this hand, this voice, have nourish’d, rais’d, restored, 
To life recalling many a prostrate form:)
—I am willing to wait to be understood by the growth of the taste of myself, 
I reject none, I permit all. 

(Say, O mother! have I not to your thought been faithful? 
Have I not, through life, kept you and yours before me?) 

...Read more of this...

by Wilde, Oscar
...did pass,
And with stout hands the warder closed the gates of polished brass.

Long time he lay and hardly dared to breathe,
And heard the cadenced drip of spilt-out wine,
And the rose-petals falling from the wreath
As the night breezes wandered through the shrine,
And seemed to be in some entranced swoon
Till through the open roof above the full and brimming moon

Flooded with sheeny waves the marble floor,
When from his nook up leapt the venturous lad,
And flinging wide...Read more of this...

by Wilde, Oscar
...lion's lair,
And now lies dead by that empyreal dome
Which overtops Valdarno hung in air
By Brunelleschi - O Melpomene
Breathe through thy melancholy pipe thy sweetest threnody!

Breathe through the tragic stops such melodies
That Joy's self may grow jealous, and the Nine
Forget awhile their discreet emperies,
Mourning for him who on Rome's lordliest shrine
Lit for men's lives the light of Marathon,
And bare to sun-forgotten fields the fire of the sun!

O guard him, guard hi...Read more of this...



by Keats, John
...s!
All as ye pass swell out the monstrous truth,
And press it so upon our weary griefs
That unbelief has not a space to breathe.
Saturn, sleep on:---O thoughtless, why did I
Thus violate thy slumbrous solitude?
Why should I ope thy melancholy eyes?
Saturn, sleep on! while at thy feet I weep."

 As when, upon a tranced summer-night,
Those green-rob'd senators of mighty woods,
Tall oaks, branch-charmed by the earnest stars,
Dream, and so dream all night without a stir,
...Read more of this...

by Kipling, Rudyard
...your winnings 
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss, 
And lose, and start again at your beginnings, 
And never breathe a word about your loss: 
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew 
To serve your turn long after they are gone, 
And so hold on when there is nothing in you 
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!" 

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, 
Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch, 
If neither foes nor loving fri...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...hat will not own the wound: 
All these seem'd his, and something more beneath 
Than glance could well reveal, or accent breathe. 
Ambition, glory, love, the common aim 
That some can conquer, and that all would claim, 
Within his breast appear'd no more to strive, 
Yet seem'd as lately they had been alive; 
And some deep feeling it were vain to trace 
At moments lighten'd o'er his livid face. 

VI. 

Not much he loved long question of the past, 
Nor told of wondro...Read more of this...

by Wordsworth, William
...sh'd with love and maiden shame;  And, like the murmur of a dream,    I heard her breathe my name.   Her Bosom heav'd—she stepp'd aside;  As conscious of my Look, she stepp'd—  Then suddenly with timorous eye    She fled to me and wept.   She half inclosed me with her arms,  She press'd me with a meek embrace;  And ben...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...
Beauty, which, whether waking or asleep, 
Shot forth peculiar graces; then with voice 
Mild, as when Zephyrus on Flora breathes, 
Her hand soft touching, whispered thus. Awake, 
My fairest, my espoused, my latest found, 
Heaven's last best gift, my ever new delight! 
Awake: The morning shines, and the fresh field 
Calls us; we lose the prime, to mark how spring 
Our tender plants, how blows the citron grove, 
What drops the myrrh, and what the balmy reed, 
How nature pai...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...t, waiting close the approach of morn. 
Now, when as sacred light began to dawn 
In Eden on the humid flowers, that breathed 
Their morning incense, when all things, that breathe, 
From the Earth's great altar send up silent praise 
To the Creator, and his nostrils fill 
With grateful smell, forth came the human pair, 
And joined their vocal worship to the quire 
Of creatures wanting voice; that done, partake 
The season prime for sweetest scents and airs: 
Then commune, ...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...gain, now, far out in the ocean, the wounded whale, settling, running to
 windward,
 tows me; 
—Again I see him rise to breathe—We row close again, 
I see a lance driven through his side, press’d deep, turn’d in the wound,
Again we back off—I see him settle again—the life is leaving him fast, 
As he rises, he spouts blood—I see him swim in circles narrower and narrower, swiftly
 cutting the water—I see him die; 
He gives one convulsive leap in the centre of the circle, and th...Read more of this...

by Frost, Robert
...en, and perhaps he’ll stay.”

“Before you drop the curtain—I’m reminded:
You recollect the boy who came out here
To breathe the air one winter—had a room
Down at the Averys’? Well, one sunny morning
After a downy storm, he passed our place
And found me banking up the house with snow.
And I was burrowing in deep for warmth,
Piling it well above the window-sills.
The snow against the window caught his eye.
‘Hey, that’s a pretty thought’—those were his words....Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...as of Death. 

Wonderful to depart; 
Wonderful to be here! 
The heart, to jet the all-alike and innocent blood! 
To breathe the air, how delicious!
To speak! to walk! to seize something by the hand! 
To prepare for sleep, for bed—to look on my rose-color’d flesh; 
To be conscious of my body, so satisfied, so large; 
To be this incredible God I am; 
To have gone forth among other Gods—these men and women I love.

Wonderful how I celebrate you and myself! 
How my though...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...ving a spear of summer grass.

Houses and rooms are full of perfumes—the shelves are crowded with
 perfumes; 
I breathe the fragrance myself, and know it and like it; 
The distillation would intoxicate me also, but I shall not let it. 

The atmosphere is not a perfume—it has no taste of the distillation—it
 is odorless; 
It is for my mouth forever—I am in love with it;
I will go to the bank by the wood, and become undisguised and naked; 
I am mad for it to ...Read more of this...

by Chesterton, G K
...hat lower,
From those few windows in the tower
That is the head of a man.

But who shall look from Alfred's hood
Or breathe his breath alive?
His century like a small dark cloud
Drifts far; it is an eyeless crowd,
Where the tortured trumpets scream aloud
And the dense arrows drive.

Lady, by one light only
We look from Alfred's eyes,
We know he saw athwart the wreck
The sign that hangs about your neck,
Where One more than Melchizedek
Is dead and never dies.

There...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...rn land — 
"He loved them once; may touch them yet 
If offer'd by Zuleika's hand." 
The childish thought was hardly breathed 
Before the Rose was pluck'd and wreathed; 
The next fond moment saw her seat 
Her fairy form at Selim's feet: 
"This rose to calm my brother's cares 
A message from the Bulbul bears; [17] 
It says to-night he will prolong 
For Selim's ear his sweetest song; 
And though his note is somewhat sad, 
He'll try for once a strain more glad, 
With some fai...Read more of this...

by Scott, Sir Walter
...ep ascent was won,
     High in his pathway hung the sun,
     And many a gallant, stayed perforce,
     Was fain to breathe his faltering horse,
     And of the trackers of the deer
     Scarce half the lessening pack was near;
     So shrewdly on the mountain-side
     Had the bold burst their mettle tried.
     V.

     The noble stag was pausing now
     Upon the mountain's southern brow,
     Where broad extended, far beneath,
     The varied realms of fair ...Read more of this...

by Shakur, Tupac
...law is wrong it
learned to walk with out having feet.
Funny it seems, but by keeping it's dreams,
it learned to breathe fresh air.
Long live the rose that grew from concrete
when no one else ever cared. ...Read more of this...

by Akhmatova, Anna
...her feet.

For long did I ask of her
To wait for winter with me,
But she said, "The grave is here,
How can you breathe, you see?"

I wanted to give her a dove
That is whiter than all the rest
But the bird herself flew above
After my graceful guest.

Looking at her I was silent,
I loved her alone
And like gates into her country
In the sky stood the dawn.



x x x

I have ceased and desisted from smiling
The frosty wind chills lips - say so l...Read more of this...

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