Famous Culminating Poems by Famous Poets

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

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O my heart! thou canst not penetrate the enigmatical

by Omar Khayyam
O my heart! thou canst not penetrate the enigmatical
secrets of the heavens; thou canst never reach the culminating
point to which intrepid sages have attained.
Be content, then, to organize a Paradise here below, in
making daily use of cup and wine, for wilt thou ever reach
that future Paradise? Thou never wilt....Read more of this...

Mystic Trumpeter The

by Walt Whitman
 1
HARK! some wild trumpeter—some strange musician, 
Hovering unseen in air, vibrates capricious tunes to-night. 

I hear thee, trumpeter—listening, alert, I catch thy notes, 
Now pouring, whirling like a tempest round me, 
Now low, subdued—now in the distance lost.

2
Come nearer, bodiless one—haply, in thee resounds 
Some dead composer—haply thy pensive life 
Was fill’d with aspirations high—unform’d ideals, 
Waves, oceans musical,...Read more of this...

Song of the Redwood-Tree

by Walt Whitman
 1
A CALIFORNIA song! 
A prophecy and indirection—a thought impalpable, to breathe, as air; 
A chorus of dryads, fading, departing—or hamadryads departing; 
A murmuring, fateful, giant voice, out of the earth and sky, 
Voice of a mighty dying tree in the Redwood forest dense.

Farewell, my brethren, 
Farewell, O earth and sky—farewell, ye neighboring waters; 
My time has ended, my term...Read more of this...

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