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Famous Close At Hand Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Creeley, Robert
...oth,
locked in the mind as when it first began.


12)

Inside I am the other of a self,
who feels a presence always close at hand,

one side or the other, knows another one
unlocks the door and quickly enters in.

Either as or, we live a common person.
Two is still one. It cannot live apart.


13)

Oh, weep for me --
all from whom life has stolen

hopes of a happiness stored
in gold's ubiquitous pattern,

in tinkle of commodious, enduring money,
else the b...Read more of this...



by Holmes, Oliver Wendell
...LE I ask; my wants are few;
I only wish a hut of stone,
(A very plain brown stone will do,)
That I may call my own;
And close at hand is such a one,
In yonder street that fronts the sun.

Plain food is quite enough for me;
Three courses are as good as ten;--
If Nature can subsist on three,
Thank Heaven for three. Amen!
I always thought cold victual nice;--
My choice would be vanilla-ice.

I care not much for gold or land;--
Give me a mortgage here and there,--
Som...Read more of this...

by Paterson, Andrew Barton
...he name of the Queen lay down your arms, 
Now, Dun and Gilbert, stand!" 

Then Gilbert reached for his rifle true 
That close at hand he kept; 
He pointed straight at the voice, and drew, 
But never a flash outleapt, 
For the water ran from the rifle breech -- 
It was drenched while the outlaws slept. 

Then he dropped the piece with a bitter oath, 
And he turned to his comrade Dunn: 
"We are sold," he said, "we are dead men both! -- 
Still, there may be a chance for one;...Read more of this...

by Paterson, Andrew Barton
...uld you make it a tea-garden, and on Sundays have a band 
Where the "blokes" might take their "donahs", with a "public" close at hand? 
You had better stick to Sydney and make merry with the "push", 
For the bush will never suit you, and you'll never suit the bush....Read more of this...

by Brown, Thomas Edward
...e land, my land, 
You cannot see, and yet the land is there— 
My land, my land, through murky air— 
I did not say ’twas close at hand— 
But—land, ho! land. 

Dost hear the bells of my sweet land, 
Dost hear the kine, dost hear the merry birds? 
No voice, ’tis true, no spoken words, 
No tongue that thou may’st understand— 
Yet is it land, ho! land. 

It’s clad in purple mist, my land, 
In regal robe it is apparell?d, 
A crown is set upon its head, 
And on its breast a ...Read more of this...



by Allingham, William
..., where Collins felt a fire 
Touch his sad lips; thatched Felpham roofs are these, 
Where happy Blake found heaven more close at hand. 

Goodwood and Arundel possess their lords, 
Successive in the towers and groves, which stay; 
These two poor men, by some right of their own, 
Possessed the earth and sea, the sun and moon, 
The inner sweet of life; and put in words 
A personal force that doth not pass away....Read more of this...

by Whittier, John Greenleaf
...de meet, 
Between the andirons' straddling feet, 
The mug of cider simmered slow, 
The apples sputtered in a row, 
And, close at hand, the basket stood 
With nuts from brown October's wood. 

What matter how the night behaved? 
What matter how the north-wind raved? 
Blow high, blow low, not all its snow 
Could quench our hearth-fire's ruddy glow. 
O Time and Change! -- with hair as gray 
As was my sire's that winter day, 
How strange it seems with so much gone, 
Of li...Read more of this...

by von Goethe, Johann Wolfgang
...SOUND, sweet song, from some far land,
Sighing softly close at hand,

Now of joy, and now of woe!

Stars are wont to glimmer so.

Sooner thus will good unfold;
Children young and children old
Gladly hear thy numbers flow.

1820.*
-----

* In the cases in which the date is marked thus 
(*), it signifies the original date of publication--the year of 
composition not being known. In other cases, th...Read more of this...

by Wilde, Oscar
...and,
The watchers watched him as he slept,
And could not understand
How one could sleep so sweet a sleep
With a hangman close at hand.

But there is no sleep when men must weep
Who never yet have wept:
So we - the fool, the fraud, the knave -
That endless vigil kept,
And through each brain on hands of pain
Another's terror crept.

Alas! it is a fearful thing
To feel another's guilt!
For, right within, the sword of Sin
Pierced to its poisoned hilt,
And as molten lead w...Read more of this...

by Hugo, Victor
...
 Whose is that voice profound 
 Which mourns the swallowed land, 
 With moans, 
 Or groans, 
 New threats of ruin close at hand? 
 It is Triton—the storm to scorn 
 Who doth wind his sonorous horn. 
 
 How thick the rain to-night! 
 And all along the coast 
 The sky shows naught of light 
 Is it a storm, my host? 
 Too soon 
 The boon 
 Of pleasant weather will be lost 
 Yes, 'tis Triton, etc. 
 
 Are seamen on that speck 
 Afar in deepening dark? 
 Is th...Read more of this...

by Chesterton, G K
...r driven forth 
Out of an inn to roam; 
In the place where she was homeless 
All men are at home. 
The crazy stable close at hand, 
With shaking timber and shifting sand, 
Grew a stronger thing to abide and stand 
Than the square stones of Rome. 

For men are homesick in their homes, 
And strangers under the sun, 
And they lay on their heads in a foreign land 
Whenever the day is done. 
Here we have battle and blazing eyes, 
And chance and honour and high surprise...Read more of this...

by Chaucer, Geoffrey
...er slept, he mighte not awake:
And thus he fled as fast as ever he may.
The night was short, and *faste by the day *close at hand was
That needes cast he must himself to hide*. the day during which
And to a grove faste there beside he must cast about, or contrive,
With dreadful foot then stalked Palamon. to conceal himself.*
For shortly this was his opinion,
That in the grove he would him hide all day,
And in the night then would he take his way
To Thebes-ward...Read more of this...

by Paterson, Andrew Barton
...re's always in man some gift to show, some power he can command, 
And mine is the Gift that I always know when a pub is close at hand; 
I can pick them out on the London streets, though most of their pubs are *****, 
Such solid-looking and swell retreats, with never a sign of beer. 

In the march of the boys through Palestine when the noontide fervour glowed, 
Over the desert in thirsty line our sunburnt squadrons rode. 
They looked at the desert lone and drear, stone...Read more of this...

by Paterson, Andrew Barton
...e sky-high." 

The speech comes on -- beneath the stand 
The people push and surge and eddy 
But Brown waits calmly close at hand 
With all his apparatus ready; 
And while the speaker loudly cries, 
"Of ages all, this is the boss age!" 
Brown hits him square between the eyes, 
Exclaiming, "What's the price of sausage?" 

He aimed the victuals in his face, 
As though he thought poor Jones a glutton. 
And Jones was covered with disgrace -- 
Disgrace and shame, and beef ...Read more of this...

by Carroll, Lewis
...y;
No birds were flying overhead—
   There were no birds to fly.

The Walrus and the Carpenter
   Were walking close at hand;
They wept like anything to see
   Such quantities of sand.
"If this were only cleared away,"
   They said, "it would be grand!"

"If seven maids with seven mops
   Swept it for half a year,
Do you suppose," the Walrus said,
   "That they could get it clear?"
"I doubt it," said the Carpenter,
   And shed a bitter tear.

"O ...Read more of this...

by Miller, Alice Duer
...d quarrel 
 And question what to give; 
But lovers in wartime 
 Better understand 
The fullness of living, 
 With death close at hand. 

XXIV 
My father wrote me a letter— 
My father, scholarly, indolent, strong, 
Teaching Greek better 
Than high-school students repay— 
Teaching Greek in the winter, but all summer long 
Sailing a yawl in Narragansett Bay; 
Happier perhaps when I was away, 
Free of an anxious daughter, 
He could sail blue water 
Day after day, 
Beyond Bren...Read more of this...

by Killigrew, Anne
...nd Triumphant in the Queen? 
How dares its Ulcerous Face appear, 
When Heavenly Beauty is so near? 
But so when God was close at hand, 
And the bright Cloud did threatning stand
(In sight of Israel ) on the Tent, 
They on in their Rebellion went. 

 O that I once so happy were, 
To find a nearer Shelter there! 
Till then poor Dove, I wandering fly
Between the Deluge and the Skie: 

Till then I Mourn, but do not sing, 
And oft shall plunge my wearied wing: 
If her bless'd ...Read more of this...

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