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Famous Footing Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry
...wide the tramping? 
Were the precedent dim ages debouching westward from Paradise so long?
Were the centuries steadily footing it that way, all the while unknown, for you, for
 reasons? 

They are justified—they are accomplish’d—they shall now be turn’d the other way also, to
 travel toward you thence; 
They shall now also march obediently eastward, for your sake, Libertad....Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt



...s the curse. Write.

Because yourselves are standing straight
In the state
Of Freedom's foremost acolyte,
Yet keep calm footing all the time
On writhing bond-slaves, -- for this crime
This is the curse. Write.

Because ye prosper in God's name,
With a claim
To honor in the old world's sight,
Yet do the fiend's work perfectly
In strangling martyrs, -- for this lie
This is the curse. Write.

Ye shall watch while kings conspire
Round the people's smouldering fire,
And, warm for ...Read more of this...
by Browning, Elizabeth Barrett
...A doubt if it be Us
Assists the staggering Mind
In an extremer Anguish
Until it footing find.

An Unreality is lent,
A merciful Mirage
That makes the living possible
While it suspends the lives....Read more of this...
by Dickinson, Emily
...the ground
In a light fantastic round.

 The Measure.

 Break off, break off! I feel the different pace
Of some chaste footing near about this ground.
Run to your shrouds within these brakes and trees;
Our number may affright. Some virgin sure
(For so I can distinguish by mine art)
Benighted in these woods! Now to my charms,
And to my wily trains: I shall ere long
Be well stocked with as fair a herd as grazed
About my mother Circe. Thus I hurl
My dazzling spells into the spo...Read more of this...
by Milton, John
...is done, 
 The Emp'ror pillages, usurping right 
 In war Teutonic, settled but by might. 
 The King in Jutland cynic footing gains, 
 The weak coerced, the while with cunning pains 
 The strong are duped. But 'tis a law they make 
 That their accord themselves should never break. 
 From Arctic seas to cities Transalpine, 
 Their hideous talons, curved for sure rapine, 
 Scrape o'er and o'er the mournful continent, 
 Their plans succeed, and each is well content. 
 ...Read more of this...
by Hugo, Victor



...legs in the grave

'Before you had those timber toes
Your love I did allow;
But then, you know, you stand upon
Another footing now.'

'O Nelly Gray! O Nelly Gray!
For all your jeering speeches,
At duty's call I left my legs
In Badajos's breaches.'

'Why, then,' said she, 'you've lost the feet
Of legs in war's alarms,
And now you cannot wear your shoes
Upon your feats of arms!'

'O false and fickle Nelly Gray!
I know why you refuse:
Though I've no feet, some other man
Is stan...Read more of this...
by Hood, Thomas
...th'eclipse, and rigg'd with curses dark, 
That sunk so low that sacred head of thine. 
 Next Camus, reverend Sire, went footing slow, 
His Mantle hairy, and his Bonnet sedge, 
Inwrought with figures dim, and on the edge 
Like to that sanguine flower inscrib'd with woe. 
Ah; Who hath reft (quoth he) my dearest pledge? 
Last came, and last did go, 
The Pilot of the Galilean lake, 
Two massy Keyes he bore of metals twain, 
(The Golden opes, the Iron shuts amain) 
He shook his Mi...Read more of this...
by Milton, John
...on of Lot and Bellicent, 
And tallest, Gareth, in a showerful spring 
Stared at the spate. A slender-shafted Pine 
Lost footing, fell, and so was whirled away. 
'How he went down,' said Gareth, 'as a false knight 
Or evil king before my lance if lance 
Were mine to use--O senseless cataract, 
Bearing all down in thy precipitancy-- 
And yet thou art but swollen with cold snows 
And mine is living blood: thou dost His will, 
The Maker's, and not knowest, and I that know, 
Have ...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...rejoice,
The Master-singer of their choice.

And now a maiden enter'd there,
With swelling breast, and body fair;
With footing firm she took her place,
And moved with stately, noble grace;
She did not walk in wanton mood,
Nor look around with glances lewd.

She held a measure in her hand,
Her girdle was a golden band,
A wreath of corn was on her head,
Her eye the day's bright lustre shed;
Her name is honest Industry,
Else, Justice, Magnanimity.

She enter'd with a kindly gre...Read more of this...
by von Goethe, Johann Wolfgang
...them heart;
I know the covert, for thence came I hither."
Thus brief; then with beseeching eyes she went
With backward footing through the shade a space:
He follow'd, and she turn'd to lead the way
Through aged boughs, that yielded like the mist
Which eagles cleave upmounting from their nest.

 Meanwhile in other realms big tears were shed,
More sorrow like to this, and such like woe,
Too huge for mortal tongue or pen of scribe:
The Titans fierce, self-hid, or prison-bound,
...Read more of this...
by Keats, John
...world!
"I had you and I have you now no more."
There, there it dangles,—where's the little truth
That can for long keep footing under that
When its slack syllables tighten to a thought?
Here, let me write it down! I wish to see
Just how a thing like that will look on paper!

"I had you and I have you now no more."

O little words, how can you run so straight
Across the page, beneath the weight you bear?
How can you fall apart, whom such a theme
Has bound together, and hereaft...Read more of this...
by St. Vincent Millay, Edna
...pleasant morning, as he leant
Into the sun-rise, o'er the balustrade
Of the garden-terrace, towards him they bent
Their footing through the dews; and to him said,
"You seem there in the quiet of content,
"Lorenzo, and we are most loth to invade
"Calm speculation; but if you are wise,
"Bestride your steed while cold is in the skies.

XXIV.
"To-day we purpose, ay, this hour we mount
"To spur three leagues towards the Apennine;
"Come down, we pray thee, ere the hot sun count
"Hi...Read more of this...
by Keats, John
...e eclipse, and rigged with curses dark,
That sunk so low that sacred head of thine.
 Next, Camus, reverend sire, went footing slow,
His mantle hairy, and his bonnet sedge,
Inwrought with figures dim, and on the edge
Like to that sanguine flower inscribed with woe.
Ah! who hath reft," quoth he, Rmy dearest pledge?"
Last came, and last did go,
The Pilot of the Galilean Lake;
Two massy keys he bore of metals twain.
(The golden opes, the iron shuts amain).
He shook his...Read more of this...
by Milton, John
...bears all before it,
at one time silent as the air
and now as powerful as the wind."
"Treading chasms 
on the uncertain footing of a spear,"
forgetting that there is in woman
a quality of mind
which is an instinctive manifestation
is unsafe,
he goes on speaking
in a formal, customary strain
of "past states," the present state,
seals, promises, 
the evil one suffered,
the good one enjoys,
hell, heaven,
everything convenient
to promote one's joy."
There is in him a state of min...Read more of this...
by Moore, Marianne
...to find Queen
Mab and elf and fay.
Where e'er by streams, the moonlight gleams,
Or on a meadow softly beams,
There, footing round on dew-lit ground,
The fairy folk may all be found.
...Read more of this...
by Laurence Dunbar, Paul
...
oh tiny golden spore just filtering-in to touch the good idea,
which taking-form begins to twist,
coursing for bottom-footing, palpating for edge-hold, limit,
now finally about to
rise, about to go into the other room -- and yet
not having done so yet, not yet -- the
intake -- before the credo, before the plan -- 
right at the homesickness -- before this list you hold 
in your exhausted hand. Oh put it down....Read more of this...
by Graham, Jorie
...XIV.

     And now, to issue from the glen,
     No pathway meets the wanderer's ken,
     Unless he climb with footing nice
     A far-projecting precipice.
     The broom's tough roots his ladder made,
     The hazel saplings lent their aid;
     And thus an airy point he won,
     Where, gleaming with the setting sun,
     One burnished sheet of living gold,
     Loch Katrine lay beneath him rolled,
     In all her length far winding lay,
     With promont...Read more of this...
by Scott, Sir Walter
...profaned their lowly bed,
My breath came gaspingly and thick,
And my crush'd heart fell blind and sick. 

XII
I made a footing in the wall,
I was not there from to escape,
For I had buried one and all
Who loved me in a human shape;
And the whole earth would henceforth be
A wider prison unto me:
No child - no sire - no kin had I
No partner in my misery;
I thought of this, and I was glad,
For thought of them had made me mad;
But I was curious to ascend
To my barr'd windows, an...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)
...little cakes, and wine 
for the dark flight down oblivion. 

VI 

Piecemeal the body dies, and the timid soul 
has her footing washed away, as the dark flood rises. 

We are dying, we are dying, we are all of us dying 
and nothing will stay the death-flood rising within us 
and soon it will rise on the world, on the outside world. 

We are dying, we are dying, piecemeal our bodies are dying 
and our strength leaves us, 
and our soul cowers naked in the dark rain over the flo...Read more of this...
by Lawrence, D. H.
...rest,
The homely joys that gave to labor zest;
No more for him the merry banjo's sound,
Nor trip of lightsome dances footing round.
For him no more the lamp shall glow at eve,
Nor chubby children pluck him by the sleeve;
No more for him the master's eyes be bright,—
He has nor freedom's nor a slave's delight.
What, was it all for naught, those awful years
That drenched a groaning land with blood and tears?
Was it to leave this sly convenient hell,
That brother figh...Read more of this...
by Laurence Dunbar, Paul

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry