Famous First Step Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous First Step 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 step poems. These examples illustrate what a famous first step poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Kipling, Rudyard
...answer now--the men are falling fast.
The guns begin to thunder, and the drums begin to beat.
(If you take the first step, you will take the last!)
"How far is St. Helena from the field of Austerlitz?"
You couldn't hear me if I told--so loud the cannons roar.
But not so far for people who are living by their wits.
("Gay go up" means "Gay go down" the wide world o'er!)
"How far is St. Helena from the Emperor of France."
I cannot see-- I cannot te...Read more of this...
by
Morris, William
...heads low hung,
To see the mighty corner bow unstrung.
Then smiling did he turn to leave the place,
But with his first step some new fleeting thought
A shadow cast across his sun-burnt face;
I think the golden net that April brought
From some warm world his wavering soul had caught;
For, sunk in vague sweet longing, did he go
Betwixt the trees with doubtful steps and slow.
Yet howsoever slow he went, at last
The trees grew sparser, and the wood was done;
Where...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...BEGINNING my studies, the first step pleas’d me so much,
The mere fact, consciousness—these forms—the power of motion,
The least insect or animal—the senses—eyesight—love;
The first step, I say, aw’d me and pleas’d me so much,
I have hardly gone, and hardly wish’d to go, any farther,
But stop and loiter all the time, to sing it in extatic songs....Read more of this...
by
Browning, Robert
...ze on sacred things!
I trust nor hand nor eye nor heart nor brain
To stop betimes: they all get drunk alike.
The first step, I am master not to take.
You'd find the cutting-process to your taste
As much as leaving growths of lies unpruned,
Nor see more danger in it,--you retort.
Your taste's worth mine; but my taste proves more wise
When we consider that the steadfast hold
On the extreme end of the chain of faith
Gives all the advantage, makes the diffe...Read more of this...
by
Sexton, Anne
...It is in the small things we see it.
The child's first step,
as awesome as an earthquake.
The first time you rode a bike,
wallowing up the sidewalk.
The first spanking when your heart
went on a journey all alone.
When they called you crybaby
or poor or fatty or crazy
and made you into an alien,
you drank their acid
and concealed it.
Later,
if you faced the death of bombs and bullets
you di...Read more of this...
by
Ashbery, John
...ut the others--and they in some way must know too--it would never occur to them to want to, even if they could take the first step of the terrible journey toward feeling somebody should act, that ends in utter confusion and hopelessness, east of the sun and west of the moon. So their comment is: "No comment." Meanwhile the whole history of probabilities is coming to life, starting in the upper left-hand corner, like a sail....Read more of this...
by
Marvell, Andrew
...ared.
The wondrous night the pensive King revolves,
And rising straight on Hyde's disgrace resolves.
At his first step, he Castlemaine does find,
Bennet, and Coventry, as 't were designed;
And they, not knowing, the same thing propose
Which his hid mind did in its depths enclose.
Through their feigned speech their secret hearts he knew:
To her own husband, Castlemaine untrue;
False to his master Bristol, Arlington;
And Coventry, falser than anyone,
Who...Read more of this...
by
Browning, Robert
...now, and shall be hereafter,
But what and where depend on life's minute?
Hails heavenly cheer or infernal laughter
Our first step out of the gulf or in it?
Shall Man, such step within his endeavour,
Man's face, have no more play and action
Than joy which is crystallized for ever,
Or grief, an eternal petrifaction?
XIX.
On which I conclude, that the early painters,
To cries of ``Greek Art and what more wish you?''---
Replied, ``To become now self-acquainters,
``And pain...Read more of this...
by
Ashbery, John
...xhausted world, but that wasn't
In the cards, because it couldn't have been
The point. Aping naturalness may be the first step
Toward achieving an inner calm
But it is the first step only, and often
Remains a frozen gesture of welcome etched
On the air materializing behind it,
A convention. And we have really
No time for these, except to use them
For kindling. The sooner they are burnt up
The better for the roles we have to play.
Therefore I beseech you, withd...Read more of this...
by
Cavafy, Constantine P
....
It's my single completed work.
I see, sadly, that the ladder
of Poetry is tall, extremely tall;
and from this first step I'm standing on now
I'll never climb any higher."
Theocritus retorted: "Words like that
are improper, blasphemous.
Just to be on the first step
should make you happy and proud.
To have reached this point is no small achievement:
what you've done already is a wonderful thing.
Even this first step
is a long way above the ordinary wor...Read more of this...
by
Rumi, Jalal ad-Din Muhammad
...">This is love: to fly to heaven, every moment to rend a hundred veils;
At first instance, to break away from breath –
first step, to renounce feet;
To disregard this world, to see only that which you yourself have seen I said, “Heart, congratulations on entering the circle of lovers,
“On gazing beyond the range of the eye,
on running into the alley of the breasts.”
Whence came this breath, O heart?
Whence came thi...Read more of this...
by
Frost, Robert
...weighing anything
So much as my not knowing anything-
My brother had been nearer right before.
I had not taken the first step in knowledge;
I had not learned to let go with the hands,
As still I have not learned to with the heart,
And have no wish to with the heart-nor need,
That I can see. The mind-is not the heart.
I may yet live, as I know others live,
To wish in vain to let go with the mind-
Of cares, at night, to sleep; but nothing tells me
That I need learn...Read more of this...
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