Famous Bred Poems by Famous Poets

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

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A poem on divine revelation

...hted land 
Now with new glory lighted up again. 
Then ruthless Turk and Saracen shall know 
The fallacies of him Medina bred, 
And whose vain tomb, in Mecca they adore. 
Then Jews shall view the great Messiah come, 
And each rent tribe in caravan by land, 
Or ship by sea, shall visit Palestine 
Thrice holy then, with vile Idolatry 
No more defil'd, altar on mountain head, 
Green shady hill, or idol of the grove. 
For there a light appears, with which compar'd, 
That was a twi...Read more of this...
by Brackenridge, Hugh Henry


An Essay On Criticism

...and not proud to know?
Unbiass'd, or by Favour or by Spite;
Not dully prepossest, nor blindly right;
Tho' Learn'd well-bred; and tho' well-bred, sincere;
Modestly bold, and Humanly severe?
Who to a Friend his Faults can freely show,
And gladly praise the Merit of a Foe?
Blest with a Taste exact, yet unconfin'd;
A Knowledge both of Books and Humankind;
Gen'rous Converse; a Sound exempt from Pride;
And Love to Praise, with Reason on his Side?

Such once were Criticks, such the...Read more of this...
by Pope, Alexander

As I Sat Alone by Blue Ontario's Shores

...Soul loves. 

6
Land of lands, and bards to corroborate!
Of them, standing among them, one lifts to the light his west-bred face, 
To him the hereditary countenance bequeath’d, both mother’s and father’s, 
His first parts substances, earth, water, animals, trees, 
Built of the common stock, having room for far and near, 
Used to dispense with other lands, incarnating this land,
Attracting it Body and Soul to himself, hanging on its neck with incomparable love, 
Plunging his ...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt

Endymion: Book IV

...e of solemn mood:--
Yet wast thou patient. Then sang forth the Nine,
Apollo's garland:--yet didst thou divine
Such home-bred glory, that they cry'd in vain,
"Come hither, Sister of the Island!" Plain
Spake fair Ausonia; and once more she spake
A higher summons:--still didst thou betake
Thee to thy native hopes. O thou hast won
A full accomplishment! The thing is done,
Which undone, these our latter days had risen
On barren souls. Great Muse, thou know'st what prison
Of flesh ...Read more of this...
by Keats, John

Eviradnus

...moke the cotter sees arise 
 From low-thatched but he traces cause of dread. 
 Thus rendering thanks that he is lowly bred, 
 Because from such none look for valorous deeds. 
 The peasant flies the Tower, although it leads 
 A noble knight to seek adventure there, 
 And, from his point of honor, dangers dare. 
 
 Thus very rarely passer-by is seen; 
 But—it might be with twenty years between, 
 Or haply less—at unfixed interval 
 There would a semblance be of festi...Read more of this...
by Hugo, Victor


Hyperion

...ooeth, and hath snowy wings
To wander wherewithal and find its joys?
We are such forest-trees, and our fair boughs
Have bred forth, not pale solitary doves,
But eagles golden-feather'd, who do tower
Above us in their beauty, and must reign
In right thereof; for 'tis the eternal law
That first in beauty should be first in might:
Yea, by that law, another race may drive
Our conquerors to mourn as we do now.
Have ye beheld the young God of the seas,
My dispossessor? Have ye seen...Read more of this...
by Keats, John

Inferno (English)

...hou!" 
 He answered, "Shade am I, 
 That once was man; beneath the Lombard sky, 
 In the late years of Julius born, and bred 
 In Mantua, till my youthful steps were led 
 To Rome, where yet the false gods lied to man; 
 And when the great Augustan age began, 
 I wrote the tale of Ilium burnt, and how 
 Anchises' son forth-pushed a venturous prow, 
 Seeking unknown seas. But in what mood art thou 
 To thus return to all the ills ye fled, 
 The while the mountain of thy hope a...Read more of this...
by Alighieri, Dante

Paradise Lost: Book 02

...
Tore through my entrails, that, with fear and pain 
Distorted, all my nether shape thus grew 
Transformed: but he my inbred enemy 
Forth issued, brandishing his fatal dart, 
Made to destroy. I fled, and cried out Death! 
Hell trembled at the hideous name, and sighed 
From all her caves, and back resounded Death! 
I fled; but he pursued (though more, it seems, 
Inflamed with lust than rage), and, swifter far, 
Me overtook, his mother, all dismayed, 
And, in embraces forcible ...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Paradise Lost: Book 05

...g, sowed the earth with orient pearl, 
When Adam waked, so customed; for his sleep 
Was aery-light, from pure digestion bred, 
And temperate vapours bland, which the only sound 
Of leaves and fuming rills, Aurora's fan, 
Lightly dispersed, and the shrill matin song 
Of birds on every bough; so much the more 
His wonder was to find unwakened Eve 
With tresses discomposed, and glowing cheek, 
As through unquiet rest: He, on his side 
Leaning half raised, with looks of cordial l...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Paradise Lost: Book 09

...arating vapour bland 
About their spirits had played, and inmost powers 
Made err, was now exhaled; and grosser sleep, 
Bred of unkindly fumes, with conscious dreams 
Incumbered, now had left them; up they rose 
As from unrest; and, each the other viewing, 
Soon found their eyes how opened, and their minds 
How darkened; innocence, that as a veil 
Had shadowed them from knowing ill, was gone; 
Just confidence, and native righteousness, 
And honour, from about them, naked left...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Sea Dreams

...A city clerk, but gently born and bred;
His wife, an unknown artist's orphan child--
One babe was theirs, a Margaret, three years old:
They, thinking that her clear germander eye
Droopt in the giant-factoried city-gloom,
Came, with a month's leave given them, to the sea:
For which his gains were dock'd, however small:
Small were his gains, and hard his work; besides,
Their slender household ...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord

The Ballad of the White Horse

...as trees walking the earth,
As witless and as tall,
Yet they took hold upon the heavens
And no help came at all.

They bred like birds in English woods,
They rooted like the rose,
When Alfred came to Athelney
To hide him from their bows

There was not English armour left,
Nor any English thing,
When Alfred came to Athelney
To be an English king.

For earthquake swallowing earthquake
Uprent the Wessex tree;
The whirlpool of the pagan sway
Had swirled his sires as sticks away
...Read more of this...
by Chesterton, G K

The Bride of Abydos

...et bower 
But those who watch the women's tower." 

IV. 

"Son of a slave" — the Pacha said — 
"From unbelieving mother bred, 
Vain were a father's hope to see 
Aught that beseems a man in thee. 
Thou, when thine arm should bend the bow, 
And hurl the dart, and curb the steed, 
Thou, Greek in soul if not in creed, 
Must pore where babbling waters flow, 
And watch unfolding roses blow. 
Would that yon orb, whose matin glow 
Thy listless eyes so much admire, 
Would lend thee so...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)

The Female Vagrant

...ss'ning more and more   My father was a good and pious man,  An honest man by honest parents bred,  And I believe that, soon as I began  To lisp, he made me kneel beside my bed,  And in his hearing there my prayers I said:  And afterwards, by my good father taught,  I read, and loved the books in which I read;  For books in every neighbouring house I sought,  And nothing to my min...Read more of this...
by Wordsworth, William

The Four Ages of Man

...wind, mine infancy did pain?
2.72 What tortures I, in breeding teeth sustain?
2.73 What crudities my cold stomach hath bred?
2.74 Whence vomits, worms, and flux have issued?
2.75 What breaches, knocks, and falls I daily have?
2.76 And some perhaps, I carry to my grave.
2.77 Sometimes in fire, sometimes in water fall:
2.78 Strangely preserv'd, yet mind it not at all.
2.79 At home, abroad, my danger's manifold
2.80 That wonder 'tis, my glass till now doth hold.
2.81 I've done:...Read more of this...
by Bradstreet, Anne

The Growth of Love

...We see but desolation thro' the gate,
And richest heirlooms all to ruin gone;
Because maybe some fancied shame or fear,
Bred of disease or melancholy fate,
Hath driven the owner from his rightful sphere
To wander nameless save to pity or hate: 
What is the wreck of all he hath in fief
When he that hath is wrecking? nought is fine
Unto the sick, nor doth it burden grief
That the house perish when the soul doth pine.
Thus I my state despise, slain by a sting
So slight 'twould n...Read more of this...
by Bridges, Robert Seymour

The Lady of the Lake

...r,
     Breathed deep to clear his laboring breast,
     And tossed aloft his bonnet crest,
     Then, like the high-bred colt when, freed,
     First he essays his fire and speed,
     He vanished, and o'er moor and moss
     Sped forward with the Fiery Cross.
     Suspended was the widow's tear
     While yet his footsteps she could hear;
     And when she marked the henchman's eye
     Wet with unwonted sympathy,
     'Kinsman,' she said, 'his race is run
     ...Read more of this...
by Scott, Sir Walter

The Man of Laws Tale

...o the serpent deep in hell y-bound!
O feigned woman, all that may confound
Virtue and innocence, through thy malice,
Is bred in thee, as nest of every vice!

O Satan envious! since thilke day
That thou wert chased from our heritage,
Well knowest thou to woman th' olde way.
Thou madest Eve to bring us in servage*: *bondage
Thou wilt fordo* this Christian marriage: *ruin
Thine instrument so (well-away the while!)
Mak'st thou of women when thou wilt beguile.

This Soudaness, who...Read more of this...
by Chaucer, Geoffrey

The Three Voices

...pirit stoop
To join the gormandising troup
Who find a solace in the soup? 

"Canst thou desire or pie or puff?
Thy well-bred manners were enough,
Without such gross material stuff." 

"Yet well-bred men," he faintly said,
"Are not willing to be fed:
Nor are they well without the bread." 

Her visage scorched him ere she spoke:
"There are," she said, "a kind of folk
Who have no horror of a joke. 

"Such wretches live: they take their share
Of common earth and common air:
We co...Read more of this...
by Carroll, Lewis

The White Cliffs

...Claridge's— white waistcoats, coats I know
Were built in Bond Street or in Savile Row—
So calm, so confident, so finely bred—
Young gods in tails— and this is what they said:
'Not your first visit to the States?' 'Oh no,
I'd been to Canada two years ago.'
Good God, I thought, have they not heard that we
Were those ***** colonists who would be free,
Who took our desperate chance, and fought and won
Under a colonist called Washington?

One does not lose one's birthright, it app...Read more of this...
by Miller, Alice Duer

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