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Famous Far Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry
...’s and father’s, 
His first parts substances, earth, water, animals, trees, 
Built of the common stock, having room for far and near, 
Used to dispense with other lands, incarnating this land,
Attracting it Body and Soul to himself, hanging on its neck with incomparable love, 
Plunging his seminal muscle into its merits and demerits, 
Making its cities, beginnings, events, diversities, wars, vocal in him, 
Making its rivers, lakes, bays, embouchure in him, 
Mississippi with y...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt



...eds
one ought to flourish in every tribe everywhere. (ll. 20-25)

Then Scyld turned himself away at his given hour—
faring full of greatness—into the covenant of the Lord.
Then they brought him to the briny beach,
his beloved retainers, just as he himself had bidden
while he still wielded words, the benefactor of the Scyldings—
the first of the land, dear and old, had ruled them a long time. (ll. 26-31)

There in the harbor stood a ringed prow,
icy and outward-boun...Read more of this...
by Anonymous,
...end! 

I can see nothing before me. 
I wonder where lies thy path! 

By what dim shore of the ink-black river, 
by what far edge of the frowning forest, 
through what mazy depth of gloom art thou threading 
thy course to come to me, my friend?...Read more of this...
by Tagore, Rabindranath
...How far is it to Heaven?
As far as Death this way --
Of River or of Ridge beyond
Was no discovery.

How far is it to Hell?
As far as Death this way --
How far left hand the Sepulchre
Defies Topography....Read more of this...
by Dickinson, Emily
...ly cypress-gloom,
The little dust stored in the narrow urn,
The gentle XAIPE of the Attic tomb, -
Were not these better far than to return
To my old fitful restless malady,
Or spend my days within the voiceless cave of misery?

Nay! for perchance that poppy-crowned god
Is like the watcher by a sick man's bed
Who talks of sleep but gives it not; his rod
Hath lost its virtue, and, when all is said,
Death is too rude, too obvious a key
To solve one single secret in a life's phil...Read more of this...
by Wilde, Oscar



...BOOK I

 Deep in the shady sadness of a vale
Far sunken from the healthy breath of morn,
Far from the fiery noon, and eve's one star,
Sat gray-hair'd Saturn, quiet as a stone,
Still as the silence round about his lair;
Forest on forest hung above his head
Like cloud on cloud. No stir of air was there,
Not so much life as on a summer's day
Robs not one light seed from the feather'd grass,
But where the ...Read more of this...
by Keats, John
...CANTO I


 ONE night, when half my life behind me lay, 
 I wandered from the straight lost path afar. 
 Through the great dark was no releasing way; 
 Above that dark was no relieving star. 
 If yet that terrored night I think or say, 
 As death's cold hands its fears resuming are. 

 Gladly the dreads I felt, too dire to tell, 
 The hopeless, pathless, lightless hours forgot, 
 I turn my tale to that which next befell, 
 When the dawn opened, and the n...Read more of this...
by Alighieri, Dante
...  The sun has burnt her coal-black hair,  Her eye-brows have a rusty stain,  And she came far from over the main.  She has a baby on her arm,  Or else she were alone;  And underneath the hay-stack warm,  And on the green-wood stone,  She talked and sung the woods among;  And it was in the English tongue.   "Sweet babe! they say that I am mad,  But nay, my heart...Read more of this...
by Wordsworth, William
...
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”...Read more of this...
by Shelley, Percy Bysshe
...ss-beams, and seize the clover and timothy,
And roll head over heels, and tangle my hair full of wisps. 

10
Alone, far in the wilds and mountains, I hunt, 
Wandering, amazed at my own lightness and glee; 
In the late afternoon choosing a safe spot to pass the night, 
Kindling a fire and broiling the fresh-kill’d game;
Falling asleep on the gather’d leaves, with my dog and gun by my side. 

The Yankee clipper is under her sky-sails—she cuts the sparkle and scud; 
M...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt
...torms of seas, 
Sailors of many a ship, walkers of many a mile of land,
Habitués of many distant countries, habitués of far-distant dwellings, 
Trusters of men and women, observers of cities, solitary toilers, 
Pausers and contemplators of tufts, blossoms, shells of the shore, 
Dancers at wedding-dances, kissers of brides, tender helpers of children, bearers of
 children,

Soldiers of revolts, standers by gaping graves, lowerers down of coffins,
Journeyers over consecutive se...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt
...f a man.

But who shall look from Alfred's hood
Or breathe his breath alive?
His century like 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 fl...Read more of this...
by Chesterton, G K
...e sweet moon on the horizon's verge,
The maid was on the eve of womanhood;
The boy had fewer summers, but his heart
Had far outgrown his years, and to his eye
There was but one beloved face on earth,
And that was shining on him; he had looked
Upon it till it could not pass away;
He had no breath, no being, but in hers:
She was his voice; he did not speak to her,
But trembled on her words; she was his sight,
For his eye followed hers, and saw with hers,
Which coloured all his ...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)
...ook:
For thou what ruthless death untimely took
Shalt now in better brotherhood restore,
And save my batter'd ship that far from shore
High on the dismal deep in tempest shook. 

So in despite of sorrow lately learn'd
I still hold true to truth since thou art true,
Nor wail the woe which thou to joy hast turn'd
Nor come the heavenly sun and bathing blue
To my life's need more splendid and unearn'd
Than hath thy gift outmatch'd desire and due. 

10
Winter was not unkind becaus...Read more of this...
by Bridges, Robert Seymour
...ell  What he has got upon his back.   So through the moonlight lanes they go,  And far into the moonlight dale,  And by the church, and o'er the down,  To bring a doctor from the town,  To comfort poor old Susan Gale.   And Betty, now at Susan's side,  Is in the middle of her story,  What comfort Johnny soon will bring,  With many a most diverting thing, &nbs...Read more of this...
by Wordsworth, William
...the shores so newly dried. 

He wondered at the waters clear,
The breeze that whispered in his ear,
The billows heaving far and near, 

And why he had so long preferred
To hang upon her every word:
"In truth," he said, "it was absurd." 


The Third Voice 


NOT long this transport held its place:
Within a little moment's space
Quick tears were raining down his face 

His heart stood still, aghast with fear;
A wordless voice, nor far nor near,
He seemed to hear and not to hear...Read more of this...
by Carroll, Lewis
...the insulting wind,
Limp in the dance & strain, with limbs decayed,
Seeking to reach the light which leaves them still
Farther behind & deeper in the shade.
But not the less with impotence of will
They wheel, though ghastly shadows interpose
Round them & round each other, and fulfill
Their work and to the dust whence they arose
Sink & corruption veils them as they lie
And frost in these performs what fire in those.
Struck to the heart by this sad pageantry,
Half to myself I ...Read more of this...
by Shelley, Percy Bysshe
...though no tyrant, one 
Who shielded tyrants, till each sense withdrawn 
Left him nor mental nor external sun: 
A better farmer ne'er brush'd dew from lawn, 
A worse king never left a realm undone! 
He died — but left his subjects still behind, 
One half as mad — and t'other no less blind. 

IX

He died! his death made no great stir on earth: 
His burial made some pomp; there was profusion 
Of velvet, gilding, brass, and no great dearth 
Of aught but tears — save those shed by...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)
...garden,
"Has it begun to sprout? Will it bloom this year?
"Or has the sudden frost disturbed its bed?
"Oh keep the Dog far hence, that's friend to men,
"Or with his nails he'll dig it up again!
"You! hypocrite lecteur! - mon semblable, - mon frere!"
II. A GAME OF CHESS
 The Chair she sat in, like a burnished throne,
Glowed on the marble, where the glass
Held up by standards wrought with fruited vines
From which a golden Cupidon peeped out 
(Another hid his eyes behind his wi...Read more of this...
by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
...trength flash
In your gorgeous eyes of blue?
Tall and elegant you have grown,
You sang songs, Madeira drank,
To the far-off Anatolia
You have driven your mine tank.

On the Malahov's kurgan
They shot an officer with a gun.
Less than a week for 20 years
He saw God's light with eyes so dear.



Prayer

Give me bitter years in malady
Breathlessness, sleeplessness, fever,
Both a friend and a child and mysterious
Gift take away forever --
Thus I pray after yo...Read more of this...
by Akhmatova, Anna

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Book: Reflection on the Important Things