Famous Forth Poems by Famous Poets

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

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A Lovers Complaint

...n thou impressest, what are precepts worth
Of stale example? When thou wilt inflame,
How coldly those impediments stand forth
Of wealth, of filial fear, law, kindred, fame!
Love's arms are peace, 'gainst rule, 'gainst sense,
'gainst shame,
And sweetens, in the suffering pangs it bears,
The aloes of all forces, shocks, and fears.

''Now all these hearts that do on mine depend,
Feeling it break, with bleeding groans they pine;
And supplicant their sighs to you extend,
To leave ...Read more of this...
by Shakespeare, William


As I Sat Alone by Blue Ontario's Shores

...and me, 
Its endless gestations of new States are you and me, 
The war—that war so bloody and grim—the war I will henceforth forget—was
 you and
 me, 
Natural and artificial are you and me, 
Freedom, language, poems, employments, are you and me,
Past, present, future, are you and me. 

18
I swear I dare not shirk any part of myself, 
Not any part of America, good or bad, 
Not the promulgation of Liberty—not to cheer up slaves and horrify foreign despots, 
Not to build for th...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt

Beowulf (Modern English)

...lesser gifts did they furnish him,
than the wealth of their people, more than what they gave him,
when they sent him forth at the start,
alone over the waves, while still a baby. (ll. 43-46)

Nevertheless they set over him a golden standard,
high over his head, letting the seas bear him,
giving him to the spear-waves—their hearts grieving,
minds mourning. No man knows how to say truly,
among the hall-wise or heroes under heaven,
who took in those treasures. (ll. 47...Read more of this...
by Anonymous,

Hyperion

...the front of Saturn? Who had power
To make me desolate? Whence came the strength?
How was it nurtur'd to such bursting forth,
While Fate seem'd strangled in my nervous grasp?
But it is so; and I am smother'd up,
And buried from all godlike exercise
Of influence benign on planets pale,
Of admonitions to the winds and seas,
Of peaceful sway above man's harvesting,
And all those acts which Deity supreme
Doth ease its heart of love in.---I am gone
Away from my own bosom: I have ...Read more of this...
by Keats, John

Inferno (English)

...e gods lied to man; 
 And when the great Augustan age began, 
 I wrote the tale of Ilium burnt, and how 
 Anchises' son forth-pushed a venturous prow, 
 Seeking unknown seas. But in what mood art thou 
 To thus return to all the ills ye fled, 
 The while the mountain of thy hope ahead 
 Lifts into light, the source and cause of all 
 Delectable things that may to man befall?" 

 I answered, "Art thou then that Virgil, he 
 From whom all grace of measured speech in me 
 Derive...Read more of this...
by Alighieri, Dante


Lara

...aw nor start, 
His madness was not of the head, but heart; 
And rarely wander'd in his speech, or drew 
His thoughts so forth as to offend the view. 

XIX. 

With all that chilling mystery of mien, 
And seeming gladness to remain unseen, 
He had (if 'twere not nature's boon) an art 
Of fixing memory on another's heart: 
It was not love, perchance — nor hate — nor aught 
That words can image to express the thought; 
But they who saw him did not see in vain, 
And once beheld, w...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)

Poem of Joys

...ian’s, Wisconsinese’, Kanadian’s, Iowan’s,
 Kansian’s, Missourian’s, Oregonese’ joys; 
To rise at peep of day, and pass forth nimbly to work,
To plow land in the fall for winter-sown crops, 
To plough land in the spring for maize, 
To train orchards—to graft the trees—to gather apples in the fall. 

O the pleasure with trees! 
The orchard—the forest—the oak, cedar, pine, pekan-tree,
The honey-locust, black-walnut, cottonwood, and magnolia. 

12
O Death! the voyage of Death! 
...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt

Ravenna

...East there came a mighty cry,
And Greece stood up to fight for Liberty,
And called him from Ravenna: never knight
Rode forth more nobly to wild scenes of fight!
None fell more bravely on ensanguined field,
Borne like a Spartan back upon his shield!
O Hellas! Hellas! in thine hour of pride,
Thy day of might, remember him who died
To wrest from off thy limbs the trammelling chain:
O Salamis! O lone Plataean plain!
O tossing waves of wild Euboean sea!
O wind-swept heights of lo...Read more of this...
by Wilde, Oscar

Song of Myself

...tpone my acceptation and realization, and scream at my eyes, 
That they turn from gazing after and down the road,
And forthwith cipher and show me a cent, 
Exactly the contents of one, and exactly the contents of two, and which is
 ahead? 

4
Trippers and askers surround me; 
People I meet—the effect upon me of my early life, or the ward and city I
 live in, or the nation, 
The latest dates, discoveries, inventions, societies, authors old and new,
My dinner, dress,...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt

Song of the Open Road

...o the open road, 
Healthy, free, the world before me, 
The long brown path before me, leading wherever I choose. 

Henceforth I ask not good-fortune—I myself am good fortune; 
Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing,
Strong and content, I travel the open road. 

The earth—that is sufficient; 
I do not want the constellations any nearer; 
I know they are very well where they are; 
I know they suffice for those who belong to them.

(Still here I carry my ol...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt

The Ballad of the White Horse

...lants trailing heavily
And tracks of opal slime.

Yet Alfred is no fairy tale;
His days as our days ran,
He also looked forth for an hour
On peopled plains and skies that lower,
From those few windows in the tower
That is the head of 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 lo...Read more of this...
by Chesterton, G K

The Dungeon

...his delicious notes,  As he were fearful, that an April night  Would be too short for him to utter forth  Hi? love-chant, and disburthen his full soul  Of all its music! And I know a grove  Of large extent, hard by a castle huge  Which the great lord inhabits not: and so  This grove is wild with tangling underwood,  And the trim walks are broken up, and grass,  Thin grass and king-cups ...Read more of this...
by Wordsworth, William

The Growth of Love

...at stay:
Therefore farewell, nor look to bide with me.
Go find thy friends, if there be one to love thee:
Casting thee forth, my child, I rise above thee. 

27
The fabled sea-snake, old Leviathan,
Or else what grisly beast of scaly chine
That champ'd the ocean-wrack and swash'd the brine,
Before the new and milder days of man,
Had never rib nor bray nor swindging fan
Like his iron swimmer of the Clyde or Tyne,
Late-born of golden seed to breed a line
Of offspring swifter and...Read more of this...
by Bridges, Robert Seymour

The Knights Tale

...*, *raised, took
And them comforted in full good intent,
And swore his oath, as he was true knight,
He woulde do *so farforthly his might* *as far as his power went*
Upon the tyrant Creon them to wreak*, *avenge
That all the people of Greece shoulde speak,
How Creon was of Theseus y-served,
As he that had his death full well deserved.
And right anon withoute more abode* *delay
His banner he display'd, and forth he rode
To Thebes-ward, and all his, host beside:
No ner* Athenes...Read more of this...
by Chaucer, Geoffrey

The Lady of the Lake

...de,
     Ere now this falchion has been tried.'
     XVII.

     But scarce again his horn he wound,
     When lo! forth starting at the sound,
     From underneath an aged oak
     That slanted from the islet rock,
     A damsel guider of its way,
     A little skiff shot to the bay,
     That round the promontory steep
     Led its deep line in graceful sweep,
     Eddying, in almost viewless wave,
     The weeping willow twig to rave,
     And kiss, with whis...Read more of this...
by Scott, Sir Walter

The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

...erilous path was planted:
And a river, and a spring
On every cliff and tomb;
And on the bleached bones
Red clay brought forth.

Till the villain left the paths of ease,
To walk in perilous paths, and drive
The just man into barren climes.

Now the sneaking serpent walks
In mild humility.
And the just man rages in the wilds
Where lions roam.

Rintrah roars & shakes his fires in the burdend air;
Hungry clouds swag on the deep.
____________________________________________

PLATE...Read more of this...
by Blake, William

The Tables Turned

...y life,
There's more of wisdom in it.

And hark! how blithe the throstle sings!
He, too, is no mean preacher:
Come forth into the light of things,
Let Nature be your Teacher.

She has a world of ready wealth,
Our minds and hearts to bless—
Spontaneous wisdom breathed by health,
Truth breathed by cheerfulness.

One impulse from a vernal wood
May teach you more of man,
Of moral evil and of good,
Than all the sages can.

Sweet is the lore which Nature brings;
...Read more of this...
by Wordsworth, William

The Three Voices

...m,
Regardless of its battered rim,
She took it up and gave it him. 

A while like one in dreams he stood,
Then faltered forth his gratitude
In words just short of being rude: 

For it had lost its shape and shine,
And it had cost him four-and-nine,
And he was going out to dine. 

"To dine!" she sneered in acid tone.
"To bend thy being to a bone
Clothed in a radiance not its own!" 

The tear-drop trickled to his chin:
There was a meaning in her grin
That made him feel on fire ...Read more of this...
by Carroll, Lewis

The Triumph of Life

...Swift as a spirit hastening to his task 
Of glory & of good, the Sun sprang forth
Rejoicing in his splendour, & the mask
Of darkness fell from the awakened Earth.
The smokeless altars of the mountain snows
Flamed above crimson clouds, & at the birth
Of light, the Ocean's orison arose
To which the birds tempered their matin lay,
All flowers in field or forest which unclose
Their trembling eyelids to the kiss of day,
Swinging their ce...Read more of this...
by Shelley, Percy Bysshe

The Vision of Judgment

...s of yore in the 'Anti-jacobin,' by his present patrons. Hence all this 'skimble-scamble stuff' about 'Satanic,' and so forth. However, it is worthy of him — 'qualis ab incepto.' 

If there is anything obnoxious to the political opinions of a portion of the public in the following poem, they may thank Mr. Southey. He might have written hexameters, as he has written everything else, for aught that the writer cared — had they been upon another subject. But to attempt to canonis...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)

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