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Famous First Of All Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Kipling, Rudyard
...storic clay;
He that drew the longest bow
Ran his brother down, you know,
 As we run men down to-tday.

"Dowb," the first of all his race,
Met the Mammoth face to face
 On the lake or in the cave:
Stole the steadiest canoe,
Ate the quarry others slew,
 Died -- and took the finest grave.

When they scratched the reindeer-bone,
Some one made the sketch his own,
 Filched it from the artist -- then,
Even in those early days,
Won a simple Viceroy's praise
 Through the toil...Read more of this...



by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...urselves, 
Hold ye this Arthur for King Uther's son?' 

And Ulfius and Brastias answered, `Ay.' 
Then Bedivere, the first of all his knights 
Knighted by Arthur at his crowning, spake-- 
For bold in heart and act and word was he, 
Whenever slander breathed against the King-- 

`Sir, there be many rumours on this head: 
For there be those who hate him in their hearts, 
Call him baseborn, and since his ways are sweet, 
And theirs are bestial, hold him less than man: 
And th...Read more of this...

by Browning, Robert
...
Suppose I write what harms not, though he steal? 
I half resolve to tell thee, yet I blush, 
What set me off a-writing first of all. 
An itch I had, a sting to write, a tang! 
For, be it this town's barrenness--or else 
The Man had something in the look of him-- 
His case has struck me far more than 'tis worth. 
So, pardon if--(lest presently I lose 
In the great press of novelty at hand 
The care and pains this somehow stole from me) 
I bid thee take the thing while...Read more of this...

by Kipling, Rudyard
...oor heralds strove to tell? 

Ye know who use the Crystal Ball 
 (To peer by stealth on Doom), 
The Shade that, shaping first of all, 
 Prepares an empty room. 
 Then doth it pass 
 Like breath from glass,
But, on the extorted vision bowed intent, 
No man considers why It came or went.

Before the years reborn behold 
 Themselves with stranger eye, 
And the sport-making Gods of old,
 Like Samson slaying, die, 
 Many shall hear 
 The all-pregnant sphere, 
Bow to the bi...Read more of this...

by Browning, Robert
...e obvious human bliss,
To satisfy life's daily thirst
With a thing men seldom miss?

***.

Come back with me to the first of all,
Let us lean and love it over again,
Let us now forget and now recall,
Break the rosary in a pearly rain,
And gather what we let fall!

XXXI.

What did I say?---that a small bird sings
All day long, save when a brown pair
Of hawks from the wood float with wide wings
Strained to a bell: 'gainst noon-day glare
You count the streaks and rings.<...Read more of this...



by Wilcox, Ella Wheeler
...t afar-
It led me on to valleys filled with light, 
Where danced our noble chieftains slain in fight.
Black Kettle, first of all that host I knew, 
He whom the strong armed Custer foully slew.
And then a spirit took me by the hand, 
The Great Messiah King who comes to free the land.



XII.
'Suns were his eyes, a speaking tear his voice, 
.Whose rainbow sounds made listening hearts rejoice
And thus he spake: 'The red man's hour draws near
When all his lost...Read more of this...

by Kinnell, Galway
...an I try to express: 

that love is hard, 
that while many good things are easy, true love is not, 
because love is first of all a power, 
its own power, 
which continually must make its way forward, from night 
into day, from transcending union always forward into difficult day. 

And as the plane descends, it comes to me 
in the space 
where tears stream down across the stars, 
tears fallen on the actual earth 
where their shining is what we call spirit, 
...Read more of this...

by Campbell, Thomas
...favorite child of yore?
Or thought I, in thy father's house, when thou
Wert lightest-hearted on his festive floor,
And first of all his hospitable door
To meet and kiss me at my journey's end?
But where was I when Waldegrave was no more?
And thou didst pale thy gentle head extend
In woes, that ev'n the tribe of deserts was thy friend!"

He said--and strain'd unto his heart the boy;--
Far differently, the mute Oneyda took
His calumet of peace, and cup of joy;
As monumental br...Read more of this...

by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...and the ways 
Were filled with rapine, here and there a deed 
Of prowess done redressed a random wrong. 
But I was first of all the kings who drew 
The knighthood-errant of this realm and all 
The realms together under me, their Head, 
In that fair Order of my Table Round, 
A glorious company, the flower of men, 
To serve as model for the mighty world, 
And be the fair beginning of a time. 
I made them lay their hands in mine and swear 
To reverence the King, as if h...Read more of this...

by Alighieri, Dante
...Lucia, to all men's wrongs inimical - 
 Left her High Place, and crossed to where I sat 
 In speech with Rachel (of the first of all 
 God saved). "O Beatrice, Praise of God," 
 - So said she to me - "sitt'st thou here so slow 
 To aid him, once on earth that loved thee so 
 That all he left to serve thee? Hear'st thou not 
 The anguish of his plaint? and dost not see, 
 By that dark stream that never seeks a sea, 
 The death that threats him?" 
 None, as thus she
 said, ...Read more of this...

by Sandburg, Carl
...THE SHALE and water thrown together so-so first of all,
Then a potter’s hand on the wheel and his fingers shaping the jug; out of the mud a mouth and a handle;
Slimpsy, loose and ready to fall at a touch, fire plays on it, slow fire coaxing all the water out of the shale mix.
Dipped in glaze more fire plays on it till a molasses lava runs in waves, rises and retreats, a varnish of volcanoes....Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...e Earth's green Cape and verdant Isles 
Hesperian sets, my signal to depart. 
Be strong, live happy, and love! But, first of all, 
Him, whom to love is to obey, and keep 
His great command; take heed lest passion sway 
Thy judgement to do aught, which else free will 
Would not admit: thine, and of all thy sons, 
The weal or woe in thee is placed; beware! 
I in thy persevering shall rejoice, 
And all the Blest: Stand fast;to stand or fall 
Free in thine own arbitrement it ...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...ms, impious condition.
But I endure the time, till which expired
Thou hast permission on me. It is written,
The first of all commandments, 'Thou shalt worship
The Lord thy God, and only Him shalt serve.'
And dar'st thou to the Son of God propound
To worship thee, accursed? now more accursed
For this attempt, bolder than that on Eve, 
And more blasphemous; which expect to rue.
The kingdoms of the world to thee were given!
Permitted rather, and by thee usurped;
...Read more of this...

by Brautigan, Richard
...co, or Winchester, Virginia.

 I saw him inventing a new spinning lure for trout fishing

in America. I saw him first of all working with his imagina-

tion, then with metal and color and hooks, trying a little of

this and a little of that, and then adding motion and then tak-

ing it away and then coming back again with a different motion,

and in the end the lure was invented.

 He called his bosses in. They looked at the lure and all

fainted. Alone, s...Read more of this...

by Bonnefoy, Yves
...tead of reading
 I want you to listen: to this frail
 Voice like that of letters eaten by grass.

Lend an ear, hear first of all the happy bee
Foraging in our almost rubbed-out names.
 It flits between two sprays of leaves,
Carrying the sound of branches that are real
 To those that filigree the still unseen.

Then know an even fainter sound, and let it be
 The endless murmuring of all our shades.
Their whisper rises from beneath the stones
 To fuse into a sin...Read more of this...

by Browning, Robert
...o the presence together,
While I in the balcony watched the weather.

XV.

And now, what took place at the very first of all,
I cannot tell, as I never could learn it:
Jacynth constantly wished a curse to fall
On that little head of hers and burn it
If she knew how she came to drop so soundly
Asleep of a sudden and there continue
The whole time sleeping as profoundly
As one of the boars my father would pin you
'Twixt the eyes where life holds garrison,
---Jacynth forg...Read more of this...

by Kipling, Rudyard
...hangels, so the legends tell,
Raphael, Gabriel, Michael, Azrael,
Being first of those to whom the Power was shown
Stood first of all the Host before The Throne,
And, when the Charges were allotted, burst
Tumultuous-winged from out the assembly first.
Zeal was their spur that bade them strictly heed
Their own high judgment on their lightest deed.
Zeal was their spur that, when relief was given,
Urged them unwearied to new toils in Heaven; 
For Honour's sake perfecting ...Read more of this...

by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
...oliday games;
You may think at first I'm as mad as a hatter
When I tell you, a cat must have THREE DIFFERENT NAMES.
First of all, there's the name that the family use daily,
Such as Peter, Augustus, Alonzo or James,
Such as Victor or Jonathan, George or Bill Bailey--
All of them sensible everyday names.
There are fancier names if you think they sound sweeter,
Some for the gentlemen, some for the dames:
Such as Plato, Admetus, Electra, Demeter--
But all of them sensibl...Read more of this...

by Schiller, Friedrich von
...ed troop of immortals,
In the bright circle divine making their festal abode;
Granting glorious gifts, they appear: and first of all, Ceres
Offers the gift of the plough, Hermes the anchor brings next,
Bacchus the grape, and Minerva the verdant olive-tree's branches,
Even his charger of war brings there Poseidon as well.
Mother Cybele yokes to the pole of her chariot the lions,
And through the wide-open door comes as a citizen in.
Sacred stones! 'Tis from ye that proc...Read more of this...

by Trumbull, John
...the arguments of gibbets,
And for a villain's quick conversion,
A pillory can outpreach a parson.


To thee, Eliza, first of all,
But with no friendly voice I call.
Advance with all thine airs sublime,
Thou remnant left of ancient time!
Poor mimic of thy former days,
Vain shade of beauty, once in blaze!
We view thee, must'ring forth to arms
The veteran relics of thy charms;
The artful leer, the rolling eye,
The trip genteel, the heaving sigh,
The labour'd smile, of fo...Read more of this...

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