Famous Commencing Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Phantasmagoria CANTO VI ( Dyscomfyture )

by Lewis Carroll
 As one who strives a hill to climb,
Who never climbed before:
Who finds it, in a little time,
Grow every moment less sublime,
And votes the thing a bore: 

Yet, having once begun to try,
Dares not desert his quest,
But, climbing, ever keeps his eye
On one small hut against the sky
Wherein he hopes to rest: 

Who climbs till nerve and force are spent,
With...Read more of this...

Mount Bukaroo

by Henry Lawson
 Only one old post is standing -- 
Solid yet, but only one -- 
Where the milking, and the branding, 
And the slaughtering were done. 
Later years have brought dejection, 
Care, and sorrow; but we knew 
Happy days on that selection 
Underneath old Bukaroo. 

Then the light of day commencing 
Found us at the gully's head, 
Splitting timber for the...Read more of this...

A Broadway Pageant

by Walt Whitman
 1
OVER the western sea, hither from Niphon come, 
Courteous, the swart-cheek’d two-sworded envoys, 
Leaning back in their open barouches, bare-headed, impassive, 
Ride to-day through Manhattan. 

Libertad!
I do not know whether others behold what I behold, 
In the procession, along with the nobles of Asia, the errand-bearers, 
Bringing up the rear, hovering above, around, or in the ranks marching; 
But...Read more of this...

The Fury Of Sunrises

by Anne Sexton
 Darkness 
as black as your eyelid, 
poketricks of stars, 
the yellow mouth, 
the smell of a stranger, 
dawn coming up, 
dark blue, 
no stars, 
the smell of a love, 
warmer now 
as authenic as soap, 
wave after wave 
of lightness 
and the birds in their chains 
going mad with throat noises, 
the birds in their tracks 
yelling into their...Read more of this...

The Three Glorious Days

by Victor Hugo
 ("Frères, vous avez vos journées.") 
 
 {I., July, 1830.} 


 Youth of France, sons of the bold, 
 Your oak-leaf victor-wreaths behold! 
 Our civic-laurels—honored dead! 
 So bright your triumphs in life's morn, 
 Your maiden-standards hacked and torn, 
 On Austerlitz might lustre shed. 
 
 All that your fathers did re-done— 
 A people's rights...Read more of this...

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