Famous Durable Poems by Famous Poets

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

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A Hymn Of Heavenly Beauty

...h of his avengeful threat
That sits upon the righteous throne on high;
His throne is built upon eternity,
More firm and durable than steel or brass,
Or the hard diamond, which them both doth pass.

His sceptre is the rod of righteousness,
With which he bruiseth all his foes to dust,
And the great Dragon strongly doth repress,
Under the rigour of his judgement just;
His seat is truth, to which the faithful trust,
From whence proceed her beams so pure and bright
That all about ...Read more of this...
by Spenser, Edmund


An Hymn Of Heavenly Beauty

...h of his avengeful threat
That sits upon the righteous throne on high;
His throne is built upon eternity,
More firm and durable than steel or brass,
Or the hard diamond, which them both doth pass.

His sceptre is the rod of righteousness,
With which he bruiseth all his foes to dust,
And the great Dragon strongly doth repress,
Under the rigour of his judgement just;
His seat is truth, to which the faithful trust,
From whence proceed her beams so pure and bright
That all about ...Read more of this...
by Spenser, Edmund

And Yet The Books

...e are, ” they said, even as their pages
Were being torn out, or a buzzing flame
Licked away their letters. So much more durable
Than we are, whose frail warmth
Cools down with memory, disperses, perishes.
I imagine the earth when I am no more:
Nothing happens, no loss, it’s still a strange pageant,
Women’s dresses, dewy lilacs, a song in the valley.
Yet the books will be there on the shelves, well born,
Derived from people, but also from radiance, heights....Read more of this...
by Milosz, Czeslaw

Ave atque Vale (In memory of Charles Baudelaire)

...elp for these things; none to mend, 
 And none to mar; not all our songs, O friend, 
Will make death clear or make life durable. 
 Howbeit with rose and ivy and wild vine 
 And with wild notes about this dust of thine 
At least I fill the place where white dreams dwell 
 And wreathe an unseen shrine. 

Sleep; and if life was bitter to thee, pardon, 
 If sweet, give thanks; thou hast no more to live; 
 And to give thanks is good, and to forgive. 
Out of the mystic and the mour...Read more of this...
by Swinburne, Algernon Charles

Busy Heart The

...homing wings;
And Song's nobility, and Wisdom holy,
That live, we dead. I would think of a thousand things,
Lovely and durable, and taste them slowly,
One after one, like tasting a sweet food.
I have need to busy my heart with quietude....Read more of this...
by Brooke, Rupert


Electra On Azalea Path

...f innocence
I lay dreaming your epic, image by image.
Nobody died or withered on that stage.
Everything took place in a durable whiteness.
The day I woke, I woke on Churchyard Hill.
I found your name, I found your bones and all
Enlisted in a cramped necropolis
your speckled stone skewed by an iron fence.

In this charity ward, this poorhouse, where the dead
Crowd foot to foot, head to head, no flower
Breaks the soil. This is Azalea path.
A field of burdock opens to the south....Read more of this...
by Plath, Sylvia

Hugh Selwyn Mauberly (Part I)

...I await The Lady Valentine's commands,

Knowing my coat has never been
Of precisely the fashion
To stimulate, in her,
A durable passion;

Doubtful, somewhat, of the value
Of well-gowned approbation
Of literary effort,
But never of The Lady Valentine's vocation:

Poetry, her border of ideas,
The edge, uncertain, but a means of blending
With other strata
Where the lower and higher have ending;

A hook to catch the Lady Jane's attention,
A modulation toward the theatre,
Also, in...Read more of this...
by Pound, Ezra

I Loved Thee Atthis in the Long Ago

...y voice,
And the superb magnificence of love,—
The loneliness that saddens solitude,
And the sweet speech that makes it durable,—
The bitter longing and the keen desire,
The sweet companionship through quiet days
In the slow ample beauty of the world,
And the unutterable glad release
Within the temple of the holy night.
O Atthis, how I loved thee long ago
In that fair perished summer by the sea!...Read more of this...
by Carman, Bliss

Paradise Lost: Book 05

...ow rests 
Upon her center poised; when on a day 
(For time, though in eternity, applied 
To motion, measures all things durable 
By present, past, and future,) on such day 
As Heaven's great year brings forth, the empyreal host 
Of Angels by imperial summons called, 
Innumerable before the Almighty's throne 
Forthwith, from all the ends of Heaven, appeared 
Under their Hierarchs in orders bright: 
Ten thousand thousand ensigns high advanced, 
Standards and gonfalons 'twixt va...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Paradise Lost: Book 10

...to the outside bare 
Of this round world: With pins of adamant 
And chains they made all fast, too fast they made 
And durable! And now in little space 
The confines met of empyrean Heaven, 
And of this World; and, on the left hand, Hell 
With long reach interposed; three several ways 
In sight, to each of these three places led. 
And now their way to Earth they had descried, 
To Paradise first tending; when, behold! 
Satan, in likeness of an Angel bright, 
Betwixt the Centa...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

The Busy Heart

...oming wings; 
And Song’s nobility, and Wisdom holy,
That live, we dead. I would think of a thousand things, 
Lovely and durable, and taste them slowly, 
One after one, like tasting a sweet food. 
I have need to busy my heart with quietude....Read more of this...
by Brooke, Rupert

The Seafarer

...s laud beyond them remain 'mid the English,
Aye, for ever, a lasting life's-blast,
Delight mid the doughty.
Days little durable,
And all arrogance of earthen riches,
There come now no kings nor Cæsars
Nor gold-giving lords like those gone.
Howe'er in mirth most magnified,
Whoe'er lived in life most lordliest,
Drear all this excellence, delights undurable!
Waneth the watch, but the world holdeth.
Tomb hideth trouble. The blade is layed low.
Earthly glory ageth and seareth.
No ...Read more of this...
by Pound, Ezra

Trusty as the stars

...Trusty as the stars
Who quit their shining working
Prompt as when I lit them
In Genesis' new house,
Durable as dawn
Whose antiquated blossom
Makes a world's suspense
Perish and rejoice....Read more of this...
by Dickinson, Emily

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