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Famous Distant Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Shakespeare, William
...e, desires to know
In brief the grounds and motives of her woe.

So slides he down upon his grained bat,
And comely-distant sits he by her side;
When he again desires her, being sat,
Her grievance with his hearing to divide:
If that from him there may be aught applied
Which may her suffering ecstasy assuage,
'Tis promised in the charity of age.

'Father,' she says, 'though in me you behold
The injury of many a blasting hour,
Let it not tell your judgment I am old;
Not...Read more of this...



by Dickinson, Emily
...took the Flag today
Can tell the definition
So clear of Victory

As he defeated—dying—
On whose forbidden ear
The distant strains of triumph
Burst agonized and clear!

84

Her breast is fit for pearls,
But I was not a "Diver"—
Her brow is fit for thrones
But I have not a crest.
Her heart is fit for home—
I—a Sparrow—build there
Sweet of twigs and twine
My perennial nest.

211

Come slowly—Eden!
Lips unused to Thee—
Bashful—sip thy Jessamines—
...Read more of this...

by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...Love in Acadie, home of the happy.



PART THE FIRST

I

In the Acadian land, on the shores of the Basin of Minas,
Distant, secluded, still, the little village of Grand-Pre
Lay in the fruitful valley. Vast meadows stretched to the eastward,
Giving the village its name, and pasture to flocks without number.
Dikes, that the hands of the farmers had raised with labor incessant,
Shut out the turbulent tides; but at stated seasons the flood-gates
Opened, and welcomed ...Read more of this...

by Angelou, Maya
...

The caged bird sings
with fearful trill
of the things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill 
for the caged bird
sings of freedom

The free bird thinks of another breeze
and the trade winds soft through the sighing trees
and the fat worms waiting on a dawn-bright lawn
and he names the sky his own.

But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams
his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream
his wings are clipped and his feet are...Read more of this...

by Alighieri, Dante
...SAY, while yet from that tower's base afar, 
 We saw two flames of sudden signal rise, 
 And further, like a small and distant star, 
 A beacon answered. 
 "What before us lies? 
 Who signals our approach, and who replies?" 
 I asked, and answered he who all things knew, 
 "Already, if the swamp's dank fumes permit, 
 The outcome of their beacon shows in view, 
 Severing the liquid filth." 
 No shaft can slit 
 Impalpable air, from any corded bow, 
 As came that craf...Read more of this...



by Angelou, Maya
...d ages.
But today, the Rock cries out to us, clearly, forcefully,
Come, you may stand upon my
Back and face your distant destiny,
But seek no haven in my shadow.
I will give you no hiding place down here.
You, created only a little lower than
The angels, have crouched too long in
The bruising darkness,
Have lain too long
Face down in ignorance.
Your mouths spelling words
Armed for slaughter.
The rock cries out today, you may stand on me,
But ...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...seems to me more than all the print I have read in my life. 

My tread scares the wood-drake and wood-duck, on my distant and day-long ramble;

They rise together—they slowly circle around. 

I believe in those wing’d purposes,
And acknowledge red, yellow, white, playing within me, 
And consider green and violet, and the tufted crown, intentional; 
And do not call the tortoise unworthy because she is not something else; 
And the jay in the woods never studie...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...f the cities! you strong curbs at the edges! 
You ferries! you planks and posts of wharves! you timber-lined sides! you distant ships!
You rows of houses! you window-pierc’d façades! you roofs! 
You porches and entrances! you copings and iron guards! 
You windows whose transparent shells might expose so much! 
You doors and ascending steps! you arches! 
You gray stones of interminable pavements! you trodden crossings!
From all that has been near you, I believe you have impar...Read more of this...

by Chesterton, G K
...of the palms and the purple moons,
Or the cry of the frost and foam,
Swept ever around an inmost place,
And the din of distant race on race
Cried and replied round Rome.

And there was death on the Emperor
And night upon the Pope:
And Alfred, hiding in deep grass,
Hardened his heart with hope.

A sea-folk blinder than the sea
Broke all about his land,
But Alfred up against them bare
And gripped the ground and grasped the air,
Staggered, and strove to stand.

He b...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...stined lord is come too late: 
He sees not — ne'er shall see — thy face! 
Can he not hear 
The loud Wul-wulleh warn his distant ear? [41] 
Thy handmaids weeping at the gate, 
The Koran-chanters of the hymn of fate, 
The silent slaves with folded arms that wait, 
Sighs in the hall, and shrieks upon the gale, 
Tell him thy tale! 
Thou didst not view thy Selim fall! 
That fearful moment when he left the cave 
Thy heart grew chill: 
He was thy hope — thy joy — thy love — thine al...Read more of this...

by Wordsworth, William
...nbsp;And Betty's husband's at the wood,  Where by the week he doth abide,  A woodman in the distant vale;  There's none to help poor Susan Gale,  What must be done? what will betide?   And Betty from the lane has fetched  Her pony, that is mild and good,  Whether he be in joy or pain,  Feeding at will along the lane,  Or bringing faggots from th...Read more of this...

by Scott, Sir Walter
...t moon should lave
     Her forehead in the silver wave,
     How solemn on the ear would come
     The holy matins' distant hum,
     While the deep peal's commanding tone
     Should wake, in yonder islet lone,
     A sainted hermit from his cell,
     To drop a bead with every knell!
     And bugle, lute, and bell, and all,
     Should each bewildered stranger call
     To friendly feast and lighted hall.
     XVI.

     'Blithe were it then to wander here!
 ...Read more of this...

by Blake, William
...nd not many stones throw from
us appeard and sunk again the scaly fold of a monstrous serpent.
at last to the east, distant about three degrees appeard a fiery
crest above the waves slowly it reared like a ridge of golden
rocks till we discoverd two globes of crimson fire. from which
the sea fled away in clouds of smoke, and now we saw, it was the
head of Leviathan. his forehead was divided into streaks of green
& purple like those on a tygers forehead: soon we sa...Read more of this...

by Poe, Edgar Allan
...vil! 
By that Heaven that bends above us, by that God we both adore, 
Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn, 
It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore: 
Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore!" 95 
Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore." 

"Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!" I shrieked, upstarting: 
"Get thee back into the tempest and the Night's Plutonian shore! 
Leave no black plume as a toke...Read more of this...

by Thomson, James
...and the Hinges creak. 

THEN, too, they say, thro' all the burthen'd Air,
Long Groans are heard, shrill Sounds, and distant Sighs,
That, murmur'd by the Demon of the Night,
Warn the devoted Wretch of Woe, and Death!
Wild Uproar lords it wide: the Clouds commixt, 
With Stars, swift-gliding, sweep along the Sky.
All Nature reels. -- But hark! the Almighty speaks:
Instant, the chidden Storm begins to pant,
And dies, at once, into a noiseless Calm.

AS yet, 'tis M...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...urs — as a peacock's tail, 
Or sunset streaming through a Gothic skylight 
In some old abbey, or a trout not stale, 
Or distant lightning on the horizon by night, 
Or a fresh rainbow, or a grand review 
Of thirty regiments in red, green, and blue. 

LXII 

Then he address'd himself to Satan: 'Why — 
My good old friend, for such I deem you, though 
Our different parties make us fight so shy, 
I ne'er mistake you for a personal foe; 
Our difference is political, and I 
Trus...Read more of this...

by Schiller, Friedrich von
...s are waiting,
That to the foreigner's land carry the produce of home;
Others gladly approach with the treasures of far-distant regions,
High on the mast's lofty head flutters the garland of mirth.
See how yon markets, those centres of life and of gladness, are swarming!
Strange confusion of tongues sounds in the wondering ear.
On to the pile the wealth of the earth is heaped by the merchant,
All that the sun's scorching rays bring forth on Africa's soil,
All that Ara...Read more of this...

by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
...ter the agony in stony places
The shouting and the crying
Prison and palace and reverberation
Of thunder of spring over distant mountains
He who was living is now dead
We who were living are now dying
With a little patience 
Here is no water but only rock
Rock and no water and the sandy road
The road winding above among the mountains
Which are mountains of rock without water
If there were water we should stop and drink
Amongst the rock one cannot stop or think
Sweat is dry an...Read more of this...

by Miller, Alice Duer
...papers came;
John, flicking them over to find a score,
Spoke for the first time a certain name—
The name of a town in a distant land
Etched on our hearts by a murderer's hand.

Mother and son exchanged a glance, 
A curious glance of strength and dread. 
I thought: what matter to them if Franz 
Ferdinand dies? One of them said: 
This might be serious.' 'Yes, you're right.' 
The other answered, 'It really might.' 

XIX 
Dear John: I'm going home. I write...Read more of this...

by Akhmatova, Anna
....

And all day the ringing did not quiet
Over the expanse of ploughed up soil,
Here most powerfully from Jonah
Distant Laurel belltowers do recoil.

I am trimming on the lilac bushes
Branches, that are now in full flower;
Ramparts of the ancient fortifying
Two old monks are slowly walking over.

Dear world, understood and corporeal,
For me, one unseeing, set alive.
Heal this soul of mine, the King of Heaven,
With the icy comfort of not love....Read more of this...

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Book: Reflection on the Important Things