Famous Drive Poems by Famous Poets

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

See also:

Avons Harvest

...een a forage of his own affairs, 
The quest, however golden the reward, 
Was irksome—and as Avon suddenly 
And soon was driven to let me see, was needless.
It seemed an age ago that we were there 
One evening in the room that in the days 
When they could laugh he called the Library. 
“He calls it that, you understand,” she said, 
“Because the dictionary always lives here.
He’s not a man of books, yet he can read, 
And write. He learned it all at school.”—He smiled, 
And answe...Read more of this...
by Robinson, Edwin Arlington


Beowulf (Modern English)

...e’s Ness
as a memorial to my people, so that the sea-farers
will call it afterwards Beowulf’s Barrow,
when the ships drive from afar out of the darkened flood.” (ll. 2802-08)

The bold-minded prince pulled off his golden torque
from around his neck, giving it to his thane,
the young spear-soldier, and his gold-spangled helmet,
rings and his byrnie, ordering him to use them well:
“You are final remnant of our clan, the Wægmundings—
the way of the world has swept them...Read more of this...
by Anonymous,

Beowulf (Old English)

....
On kin of Cain was the killing avenged
by sovran God for slaughtered Abel.
Ill fared his feud, {1f} and far was he driven,
for the slaughter’s sake, from sight of men.
Of Cain awoke all that woful breed,
Etins {1g} and elves and evil-spirits,
as well as the giants that warred with God
weary while: but their wage was paid them!



II

WENT he forth to find at fall of night
that haughty house, and heed wherever
the Ring-Danes, outrevelled, to rest had gone.
F...Read more of this...
by Anonymous,

Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie

...med into houses.
After your houses are built, and your fields are yellow with harvests,
No King George of England shall drive you away from your homesteads,
Burning your dwellings and barns, and stealing your farms and your cattle."
Speaking these words, he blew a wrathful cloud from his nostrils,
While his huge, brown hand came thundering down on the table,
So that the guests all started; and...Read more of this...
by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth

Fear

...Fear of seeing a police car pull into the drive.
Fear of falling asleep at night.
Fear of not falling asleep.
Fear of the past rising up.
Fear of the present taking flight.
Fear of the telephone that rings in the dead of night.
Fear of electrical storms.
Fear of the cleaning woman who has a spot on her cheek!
Fear of dogs I've been told won't bite.
Fear of anxiety!
Fear of having to identify the bod...Read more of this...
by Carver, Raymond


Humanitad

...oon will your queen in daisy-flowered smock
And crown of flower-de-luce trip down the lea,
Soon will the lazy shepherds drive their flock
Back to the pasture by the pool, and soon
Through the green leaves will float the hum of murmuring bees at
noon.

Soon will the glade be bright with bellamour,
The flower which wantons love, and those sweet nuns
Vale-lilies in their snowy vestiture
Will tell their beaded pearls, and carnations
With mitred dusky leaves will scent the wind,
A...Read more of this...
by Wilde, Oscar

Hyperion

...ght thereof; for 'tis the eternal law
That first in beauty should be first in might:
Yea, by that law, another race may drive
Our conquerors to mourn as we do now.
Have ye beheld the young God of the seas,
My dispossessor? Have ye seen his face?
Have ye beheld his chariot, foam'd along
By noble winged creatures he hath made?
I saw him on the calmed waters scud,
With such a glow of beauty in his eyes,
That it enforc'd me to bid sad farewell
To all my empire: farewell sad I too...Read more of this...
by Keats, John

Inferno (English)

...nus and Nisus died in strife. His chase 
 He shall not cease, nor any cowering-place 
 Her fear shall find her, till he drive her back, 
 From city to city exiled, from wrack to wrack 
 Slain out of life, to find the native hell 
 Whence envy loosed her. 
 For thyself were
 well 
 To follow where I lead, and thou shalt see 
 The spirits in pain, and hear the hopeless woe, 
 The unending cries, of those whose only plea 
 Is judgment, that the second death to be 
 Fall quickly....Read more of this...
by Alighieri, Dante

Let It Enfold You

...her in the,
forehead,
got down the stairway,
got outside,
got into my marvelous
car,
fixed the seatbelt,
backed out the
drive.
feeling warm to
the fingertips,
down to my
foot on the gas
pedal,
I entered the world
once
more,
drove down the 
hill
past the houses
full and emptey
of
people,
i saw the mailman,
honked,
he waved
back
at me....Read more of this...
by Bukowski, Charles

Paradise Lost: Book 02

...h may find 
To our destruction, if there be in Hell 
Fear to be worse destroyed! What can be worse 
Than to dwell here, driven out from bliss, condemned 
In this abhorred deep to utter woe! 
Where pain of unextinguishable fire 
Must exercise us without hope of end 
The vassals of his anger, when the scourge 
Inexorably, and the torturing hour, 
Calls us to penance? More destroyed than thus, 
We should be quite abolished, and expire. 
What fear we then? what doubt we to incens...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

The Ballad of the White Horse

...ke a small dark cloud
Drifts far; it is an eyeless crowd,
Where the tortured trumpets scream aloud
And the dense arrows drive.

Lady, by one light only
We look from Alfred's eyes,
We know he saw athwart the wreck
The sign that hangs about your neck,
Where One more than Melchizedek
Is dead and never dies.

Therefore I bring these rhymes to you
Who brought the cross to me,
Since on you flaming without flaw
I saw the sign that Guthrum saw
When he let break his ships of awe,
And ...Read more of this...
by Chesterton, G K

The Break Away

...inhabiting
their short life in the earth,
name it gentle,
gentle as old friends waving so long at the window,
or in the drive,
name it gentle as maple wings singing
themselves upon the pond outside,
as sensuous as the mother-yellow in the pond,
that night that it was ours,
when our bodies floated and bumped
in moon water and the cicadas
called out like tongues.

Let such as this
be resurrected in all men
whenever they mold their days and nights
as when for twenty-five days an...Read more of this...
by Sexton, Anne

The Dance Of Death

...e, 
That is most dear to me, tall skeleton! 

Come you to trouble with your potent sneer 
The feast of Life! or are you driven here, 
To Pleasure's Sabbath, by dead lusts that stir 
And goad your moving corpse on with a spur? 

Or do you hope, when sing the violins, 
And the pale candle-flame lights up our sins, 
To drive some mocking nightmare far apart, 
And cool the flame hell lighted in your heart? 

Fathomless well of fault and foolishness! 
Eternal alembic of antique di...Read more of this...
by Baudelaire, Charles

The Everlasting Mercy

...truth, O strength, O gleaming share, 
O patient eyes that watch the goal, 
O ploughman of the sinner's soul. 
O Jesus, drive the coulter deep 
To plough my living man from sleep.

Slow up the hill the plough team plod, 
Old Callow at the task of God, 
Helped by man's wit, helped by the brute, 
Turning a stubborn clay to fruit, 
His eyes forever on some sign 
To help him plough a perfect line. 
At top of rise the plough team stopped, 
The fore-horse bent his head and cropped....Read more of this...
by Masefield, John

The Knights Tale

...t,
That is to say, that whether he or thou
May with his hundred, as I spake of now,
Slay his contrary, or out of listes drive,
Him shall I given Emily to wive,
To whom that fortune gives so fair a grace.
The listes shall I make here in this place.
*And God so wisly on my soule rue*, *may God as surely have
As I shall even judge be and true. mercy on my soul*
Ye shall none other ende with me maken
Than one of you shalle be dead or taken.
And if you thinketh this is well y-said...Read more of this...
by Chaucer, Geoffrey

The Lady of the Lake

...th,
     And, disobedient to my call,
     Wailed loud through Bothwell's bannered hall.
     Ere Douglases, to ruin driven,
     Were exiled from their native heaven.—
     O! if yet worse mishap and woe
     My master's house must undergo,
     Or aught but weal to Ellen fair
     Brood in these accents of despair,
     No future bard, sad Harp! shall fling
     Triumph or rapture from thy string;
     One short, one final strain shall flow,
     Fraught with un...Read more of this...
by Scott, Sir Walter

The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

...on the bleached bones
Red clay brought forth.

Till the villain left the paths of ease,
To walk in perilous paths, and drive
The just man into barren climes.

Now the sneaking serpent walks
In mild humility.
And the just man rages in the wilds
Where lions roam.

Rintrah roars & shakes his fires in the burdend air;
Hungry clouds swag on the deep.
____________________________________________

PLATE 3

As a new heaven is begun, and it is now thirty-three years
since its advent:...Read more of this...
by Blake, William

The Most Beautiful Woman In Town

...drink. Then I looked at her. She had on a high- necked dress. I had
never seen her in one of those. And under each eye, driven in, were 2 pins with glass
heads. All you could see were the heads of the pins, but the pins were driven down into
her face. 
"God damn you, still trying to destroy your beauty, eh?" 
"No, it's the fad, you fool." 
"You're crazy." 
"I've missed you," she said. 
"Is there anybody else?"
"No there isn't anybody else. Just you. But I'm hustling. It costs...Read more of this...
by Bukowski, Charles

The Seasons: Winter

...nobler Theme in view --

FOR, see! where Winter comes, himself, confest,
Striding the gloomy Blast. First Rains obscure
Drive thro' the mingling Skies, with Tempest foul;
Beat on the Mountain's Brow, and shake the Woods, 
That, sounding, wave below. The dreary Plain
Lies overwhelm'd, and lost. The bellying Clouds
Combine, and deepening into Night, shut up
The Day's fair Face. The Wanderers of Heaven,
Each to his Home, retire; save those that love 
To take their Pastime in the...Read more of this...
by Thomson, James

The White Cliffs

...being insolent
To Lincoln and Seward over the Trent.
All very long ago, you'll say,
But whenever I go up Boston-way,
I drive through Concord—that neck of the wood, 
Where once the embattled farmers stood, 
And I think of Revere, and the old South Steeple, 
And I say, by heck, we're the only people 
Who licked them not only once, but twice. 
Never forget it-that's my advice. 
They have their points—they're honest and brave,
Loyal and sure—as sure as the grave; 
They make othe...Read more of this...
by Miller, Alice Duer

Dont forget to view our wonderful member Drive poems.

Get a Premium Membership
Get more exposure for your poetry and more features with a Premium Membership.
Book: Reflection on the Important Things

Member Area

My Admin
Profile and Settings
Edit My Poems
Edit My Quotes
Edit My Short Stories
Edit My Articles
My Comments Inboxes
My Comments Outboxes
Soup Mail
Poetry Contests
Contest Results/Status
Followers
Poems of Poets I Follow
Friend Builder

Soup Social

Poetry Forum
New/Upcoming Features
The Wall
Soup Facebook Page
Who is Online
Link to Us

Member Poems

Poems - Top 100 New
Poems - Top 100 All-Time
Poems - Best
Poems - by Topic
Poems - New (All)
Poems - New (PM)
Poems - New by Poet
Poems - Read
Poems - Unread

Member Poets

Poets - Best New
Poets - New
Poets - Top 100 Most Poems
Poets - Top 100 Most Poems Recent
Poets - Top 100 Community
Poets - Top 100 Contest

Famous Poems

Famous Poems - African American
Famous Poems - Best
Famous Poems - Classical
Famous Poems - English
Famous Poems - Haiku
Famous Poems - Love
Famous Poems - Short
Famous Poems - Top 100

Famous Poets

Famous Poets - Living
Famous Poets - Most Popular
Famous Poets - Top 100
Famous Poets - Best
Famous Poets - Women
Famous Poets - African American
Famous Poets - Beat
Famous Poets - Cinquain
Famous Poets - Classical
Famous Poets - English
Famous Poets - Haiku
Famous Poets - Hindi
Famous Poets - Jewish
Famous Poets - Love
Famous Poets - Metaphysical
Famous Poets - Modern
Famous Poets - Punjabi
Famous Poets - Romantic
Famous Poets - Spanish
Famous Poets - Suicidal
Famous Poets - Urdu
Famous Poets - War

Poetry Resources

Anagrams
Bible
Book Store
Character Counter
Cliché Finder
Poetry Clichés
Common Words
Copyright Information
Grammar
Grammar Checker
Homonym
Homophones
How to Write a Poem
Lyrics
Love Poem Generator
New Poetic Forms
Plagiarism Checker
Poetry Art
Publishing
Random Word Generator
Spell Checker
What is Good Poetry?
Word Counter