Famous Divide Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Mare Rubrum

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
In Life's Red Sea with faith I plant my feet,
[Pg 111]And wait the sound of that sustaining word
Which long ago the men of Israel heard,
When Pharaoh's host behind them, fierce and fleet,
Raged on, consuming with revengeful heat.
Why are the barrier waters still unstirred?—
That struggling faith may die of hope deferred?
Is God not sitting in His ancient seat?
The billows...Read more of this...

Peter

by Marianne Moore
 Strong and slippery,
built for the midnight grass-party
confronted by four cats, he sleeps his time away--
the detached first claw on the foreleg corresponding
to the thumb, retracted to its tip; the small tuft of fronds
or katydid-legs above each eye numbering all units
in each group; the shadbones regularly set about the mouth
to droop or rise in unison like porcupine-quills.
He lets himself be...Read more of this...

Night

by Sidney Lanier
 HEART-HIDDEN from the outer things I rose;
The spirit woke anew in nightly birth
Unto the vastness where forever glows
 The star-soul of the earth.


There all alone in primal ecstasy,
Within her depths where revels never tire,
The olden Beauty shines: each thought of me
 Is veined through with its fire.


And all my thoughts are throngs of living souls;
They breathe in me, heart...Read more of this...

The Book of Urizen: Chapter VII

by William Blake
 1. They named the child Orc, he grew
Fed with milk of Enitharmon

2. Los awoke her; O sorrow & pain!
A tight'ning girdle grew,
Around his bosom. In sobbings 
He burst the girdle in twain,
But still another girdle
Opressd his bosom, In sobbings
Again he burst it. Again
Another girdle succeeds 
The girdle was form'd by day;
By night was burst in twain.

3. These falling down...Read more of this...

Banish Air from Air --

by Emily Dickinson
 Banish Air from Air --
Divide Light if you dare --
They'll meet
While Cubes in a Drop
Or Pellets of Shape
Fit
Films cannot annul
Odors return whole
Force Flame
And with a Blonde push
Over your impotence
Flits Steam....Read more of this...

Hymn 43 part 2

by Isaac Watts
 The Christian's treasure.

1 Cor. 3:21. 

How vast the treasure we possess!
How rich thy bounty, King of grace!
This world is ours, and worlds to come;
Earth is our lodge, and heav'n our home.

All things are ours: the gifts of God;
The purchase of a Savior's blood;
While the good Spirit shows us how
To use, and to improve them too.

If peace and plenty crown...Read more of this...

Houses

by A S J Tessimond
 People who are afraid of themselves
Multiply themselves into families
And so divide themselves
And so become less afraid.

People who might have to go out
Into clanging strangers' laughter,
Crowd under roofs, make compacts
To no more than smile at each other.

People who might meet their own faces
Or surprise their own voices in doorways
Build themselves rooms without mirrors
And live between walls without echoes.

People who might...Read more of this...

The Division Of The Earth

by Friedrich von Schiller
 "Take the world!" Zeus exclaimed from his throne in the skies
To the children of man--"take the world I now give;
It shall ever remain as your heirloom and prize,
So divide it as brothers, and happily live."

Then all who had hands sought their share to obtain,
The young and the aged made haste to appear;
The husbandman seized on the fruits of the...Read more of this...

To The Right Honourable The Lady Penelope Dowager Of The Late Vis-Count Bayning

by William Strode
 Great Lady,


Humble partners of like griefe
In bringing Comfort may deserve beliefe,
Because they Feele and Feyne not: Thus we say
Unto Ourselves, Lord Bayning, though away,
Is still of Christ-Church; somewhat out of sight,
As when he travel'd, or did bid good night,
And was not seen long after; now he stands
Remov'd in Worlds, as heretofore in Lands;
But is not lost. The spight of...Read more of this...

Psalm 74

by Isaac Watts
 The church pleading with God under sore persecutions.

Will God for ever cast us off?
His wrath for ever smoke
Against the people of his love,
His little chosen flock?

Think of the tribes so dearly bought
With their Redeemer's blood;
Nor let thy Zion be forgot,
Where once thy glory stood.

Lift up thy feet and march in haste,
Aloud our ruin calls;
See what a wide and fearful...Read more of this...

Rugby Chapel

by Matthew Arnold
 Coldly, sadly descends
The autumn-evening. The field
Strewn with its dank yellow drifts
Of wither'd leaves, and the elms,
Fade into dimness apace,
Silent;--hardly a shout
From a few boys late at their play!
The lights come out in the street,
In the school-room windows;--but cold,
Solemn, unlighted, austere,
Through the gathering darkness, arise
The chapel-walls, in whose bound
Thou, my father! art laid.

There thou dost lie, in the gloom
Of the...Read more of this...

The Rape of the Lock: Canto 1

by Alexander Pope
 Nolueram, Belinda, tuos violare capillos;
Sedjuvat, hoc precibus me tribuisse tuis.
(Martial, Epigrams 12.84)
What dire offence from am'rous causes springs, 
What mighty contests rise from trivial things,
I sing--This verse to Caryl, Muse! is due:
This, ev'n Belinda may vouchsafe to view:
Slight is the subject, but not so the praise,
If she inspire, and he approve my lays.
Say what strange motive, Goddess! could compel
A...Read more of this...

Resolution And Independence

by William Wordsworth
 I 

There was a roaring in the wind all night; 
The rain came heavily and fell in floods; 
But now the sun is rising calm and bright; 
The birds are singing in the distant woods; 
Over his own sweet voice the Stock-dove broods; 
The Jay makes answer as the Magpie chatters; 
And all the air is filled with pleasant...Read more of this...

Another (II)

by Anne Bradstreet
 As loving hind that (hartless) wants her deer, 
Scuds through the woods and fern with hark'ning ear, 
Perplext, in every bush and nook doth pry, 
Her dearest deer, might answer ear or eye; 
So doth my anxious soul, which now doth miss 
A dearer dear (far dearer heart) than this. 
Still wait with doubts, and hopes, and failing eye,...Read more of this...

Alexanders Feast; Or The Power Of Music

by John Dryden
 'Twas at the royal feast for Persia won
By Philip's warlike son— 
Aloft in awful state
The godlike hero sate
On his imperial throne;
His valiant peers were placed around,
Their brows with roses and with myrtles bound
(So should desert in arms be crowned);
The lovely Thais by his side
Sate like a blooming eastern bride
In flower of youth and beauty's pride:— 
Happy, happy, happy pair!
None...Read more of this...

The Lily In A Crystal

by Robert Herrick
 You have beheld a smiling rose
When virgins' hands have drawn
O'er it a cobweb-lawn:
And here, you see, this lily shows,
Tomb'd in a crystal stone,
More fair in this transparent case
Than when it grew alone,
And had but single grace.

You see how cream but naked is,
Nor dances in the eye
Without a strawberry;
Or some fine tincture, like to this,
Which draws the sight thereto,
More by...Read more of this...

Hymn 70

by Isaac Watts
 Christ inviting, and the church answering the invitation.

SS 2:14-17. 

[Hark! the Redeemer from on high
Sweetly invites his fav'rites nigh;
From caves of darkness and of doubt,
He gently speaks, and calls us out.

"My dove, who hidest in the rock,
Thine heart almost with sorrow broke,
Lift up thy face, forget thy fear,
And let thy voice delight mine ear.

"Thy voice to me sounds ever...Read more of this...

An Horatian Ode Upon Cromwells Return from Ireland

by Andrew Marvell
 The forward youth that would appear 
Must now forsake his Muses dear, 
Nor in the shadows sing 
His numbers languishing. 
'Tis time to leave the books in dust, 
And oil th' unused armour's rust, 
Removing from the wall 
The corslet of the hall. 
So restless Cromwell could not cease 
In the inglorious arts of peace, 
But through advent'rous war...Read more of this...

To the Ladies

by Lady Mary Chudleigh
 WIFE and servant are the same,
But only differ in the name : 
For when that fatal knot is ty'd, 
Which nothing, nothing can divide : 
When she the word obey has said, 
And man by law supreme has made, 
Then all that's kind is laid aside, 
And nothing left but state and pride : 
Fierce as an eastern prince...Read more of this...

Ode to W. H. Channing

by Ralph Waldo Emerson
Though loath to grieve
The evil time's sole patriot,
I cannot leave
My honied thought
For the priest's cant,
Or statesman's rant.

If I refuse
My study for their politique,
Which at the best is trick,
The angry Muse
Puts confusion in my brain.

But who is he that prates
Of the culture of mankind,
Of better arts and life?
Go, blindworm, go,
Behold the famous States
Harrying Mexico
With rifle and with knife!

Or who, with accent...Read more of this...

The Rape of the Lock: Canto 3

by Alexander Pope
 Close by those meads, for ever crown'd with flow'rs, 
Where Thames with pride surveys his rising tow'rs,
There stands a structure of majestic frame,
Which from the neighb'ring Hampton takes its name.
Here Britain's statesmen oft the fall foredoom
Of foreign tyrants and of nymphs at home;
Here thou, great Anna! whom three realms obey,
Dost sometimes counsel take--and sometimes tea.
Hither the heroes and the...Read more of this...

A Cowboy's Prayer

by Badger Clark
(_Written for Mother_)


  Oh Lord. I've never lived where churches grow.
    I love creation better as it stood
  That day You finished it so long ago
    And looked upon Your work and called it good.
  I know that others find You in the light
    That's sifted down through...Read more of this...

While The Bannock Bakes

by Robert William Service
 Light up your pipe again, old chum, and sit awhile with me;
I've got to watch the bannock bake -- how restful is the air!
You'd little think that we were somewhere north of Sixty-three,
Though where I don't exactly know, and don't precisely care.
The man-size mountains palisade us round on every side;
The river is a-flop with fish, and ripples silver-clear;
The midnight...Read more of this...

End of Another Home Holiday

by D. H. Lawrence
I

When shall I see the half moon sink again
Behind the black sycamore at the end of the garden?
When will the scent of the dim, white phlox
Creep up the wall to me, and in at my open window?

Why is it, the long slow stroke of the midnight bell,
    (Will it never finish the twelve?)
Falls again and again on...Read more of this...

Dance-Hall Girls

by Robert William Service
 Where are the dames I used to know
In Dawson in the days of yore?
Alas, it's fifty years ago,
And most, I guess, have "gone before."
The swinging scythe is swift to mow
Alike the gallant and the fair;
And even I, with gouty toe,
Am glad to fill a rocking chair.

Ah me, I fear each gaysome girl
Who in champagne I used to toast,
or cozen...Read more of this...

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