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Famous Hold On Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Frost, Robert
...Magoon. 
Doctor Magoon." 
"A Doctor?" 
"Well, a teacher." 
"Professor Square-the-circle-till-you're-tired? 
Hold on, there's something I don't think of now 
That I had on my mind to ask the first 
Man that knew anything I happened in with. 
I'll ask you later--don't let me forget it." 
The Doctor looked at Lafe and looked away. 
A man? A brute. Naked above the waist, 
He sat there creased and shining in the light, 
Fumbling the buttons in a well-st...Read more of this...



by Allingham, William
...ung down, 
And through the Winter neglected lay, 
Uncoils two little green leaves and two brown, 
With tiny root taking hold on the clay 
As, lifting and strengthening day by day, 
It pushes red branchless, sprouts new leaves, 
And cell after cell the Power in it weaves 
Out of the storehouse of soil and clime, 
To fashion a Tree in due course of time; 
Tree with rough bark and boughs' expansion, 
Where the Crow can build his mansion, 
Or a Man, in some new May, 
Lie under wh...Read more of this...

by Hughes, Langston
...days of slavery,
Guarding in their hearts the seed of freedom,
The slaves made up a song:
 Keep Your Hand On The Plow! Hold On!
That song meant just what it said: Hold On!
Freedom will come!
 Keep Your Hand On The Plow! Hold On!
Out of war it came, bloody and terrible!
But it came!
Some there were, as always,
Who doubted that the war would end right,
That the slaves would be free,
Or that the union would stand,
But now we know how it all came out.
Out of the darkest days...Read more of this...

by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...ramp and roar at leaving of your lord!-- 
Care not, good beasts, so well I care for you. 
O noble Lancelot, from my hold on these 
Streams virtue--fire--through one that will not shame 
Even the shadow of Lancelot under shield. 
Hence: let us go.' 

Silent the silent field 
They traversed. Arthur's harp though summer-wan, 
In counter motion to the clouds, allured 
The glance of Gareth dreaming on his liege. 
A star shot: 'Lo,' said Gareth, 'the foe falls!'...Read more of this...

by Kipling, Rudyard
...ave known,
 Helen ran with me, she did,
 Helen all alone!

 When the Horror passing speech
 Hunted us along,
 Each laid hold on each, and each
 Found the other strong.
 In the teeth of Things forbid
 And Reason overthrown,
 Helen stood by me, she did,
 Helen all alone!

 When, at last, we heard those Fires
 Dull and die away,
 When, at last, our linked desires
 Dragged us up to day;
 When, at last, our souls were rid
 Of what that Night had shown,
 Helen passed from me, s...Read more of this...



by Swinburne, Algernon Charles
...e sea whereof centuries are waves the live God plunges and swims;
His bed is in all men's graves, but the worm hath not hold on his limbs.
Night puts out not his eyes, nor time sheds change on his head;
With such fire as the stars of the skies are the roots of his heart are fed.
Men are the thoughts passing through it, the veins that fulfil it with blood,
With spirit of sense to renew it as springs fulfilling a flood.
Men are the heartbeats of man, the plumes that...Read more of this...

by Lanier, Sidney
...the space 'twixt the marsh and the skies:
By so many roots as the marsh-grass sends in the sod
I will heartily lay me a-hold on the greatness of God:
Oh, like to the greatness of God is the greatness within
The range of the marshes, the liberal marshes of Glynn.

And the sea lends large, as the marsh: lo, out of his plenty the sea
Pours fast: full soon the time of the flood-tide must be:
Look how the grace of the sea doth go
About and about through the intricate channels ...Read more of this...

by Kipling, Rudyard
...ut your loss: 
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew 
To serve your turn long after they are gone, 
And so hold on when there is nothing in you 
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!" 

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, 
Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch, 
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you, 
If all men count with you, but none too much: 
If you can fill the unforgiving minute 
With sixty seconds' worth of...Read more of this...

by Nemerov, Howard
...and let down
Out of itself a finger at a time
And then an arm, and so down to the trunk,
Until there's nothing left to hold on to
Or snub the splintery holding rope around,
And where those big green divagations were
So loftily with shadows interleaved
The absent-minded blue rains in on us.
Now that they've got it sectioned on the ground

It looks as though somebody made a plain 
Error in diagnosis, for the wood
Looks sweet and sound throughout. You couldn't know,
Of ...Read more of this...

by Browning, Elizabeth Barrett
...oys, how you hurt ! you were strong as you pressed,
And I proud, by that test.

IV.
What art's for a woman ? To hold on her knees
Both darlings ! to feel all their arms round her throat,
Cling, strangle a little ! to sew by degrees
And 'broider the long-clothes and neat little coat ;
To dream and to doat.

V.
To teach them ... It stings there ! I made them indeed
Speak plain the word country. I taught them, no doubt, 
That a country's a thing m...Read more of this...

by Frost, Robert
...at down
Helpless. “There’s nothing we can do till morning.”

“Fred, I shan’t let you think of going out.”

“Hold on.” The double bell began to chirp.
They started up. Fred took the telephone.
“Hello, Meserve. You’re there, then!—And your wife?

Good! Why I asked—she didn’t seem to answer.
He says she went to let him in the barn.—
We’re glad. Oh, say no more about it, man.
Drop in and see us when you’re passing.”

“Well,
She ...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...none of them restrain her? 
Nor shades of Virgil and Dante—nor myriad memories, poems, old associations, magnetize and
 hold on to her? 
But that she ’s left them all—and here? 

Yes, if you will allow me to say so,
I, my friends, if you do not, can plainly see Her, 
The same Undying Soul of Earth’s, activity’s, beauty’s, heroism’s Expression, 
Out from her evolutions hither come—submerged the strata of her former themes, 
Hidden and cover’d by to-day’s—foundation of to-day’s...Read more of this...

by Williams, C K
...stay so clear 
to me and why the rest, 
the terror of that time, the reflexive disbelief and distancing, all we should 
hold on to, dims so.
I remember the president in his absurd protective booties, looking 
absolutely unafraid, the fool.
I remember a woman on the front page glaring across the misty Sus-
quehanna at those looming stacks.
But, more vividly, the men, silvered with glitter from the shingles, cling-
ing like starlings beneath the eaves.
Even the ...Read more of this...

by Matthew, John
...knife
Careful of your arm’s sockets
Lest they dislocate and misery make life.

Welcome to Bombay’s bustling trains
Hold on fast as if you are insane!...Read more of this...

by Bradstreet, Anne
...I then with both hands graspt the world together,
4.14 Thus out of one extreme into another,
4.15 But yet laid hold on virtue seemingly:
4.16 Who climbs without hold, climbs dangerously.
4.17 Be my condition mean, I then take pains
4.18 My family to keep, but not for gains.
4.19 If rich, I'm urged then to gather more
4.20 To bear me out i' th' world and feed the poor;
4.21 If a father, then for children must provide,
4.22 But if no...Read more of this...

by Kunitz, Stanley
...Truro
where the scrub pines 
overlook the bay.
Half-way I'm dead enough,
strayed from my own nature 
and my fierce hold on life.
If I could cry, I'd cry, 
but I'm too old to be 
anybody's child.
Liebchen,
with whom should I quarrel 
except in the hiss of love, 
that harsh, irregular flame?...Read more of this...

by Herbert, George
...d hell about my lips? and miss
Of life, just at the gates of life and bliss? 
Was ever grief like mine? 

See, they lay hold on me, not with the hands
Of faith, but fury: yet at their commands
I suffer binding, who have loos'd their bands: 
Was ever grief like mine? 

All my Disciples fly; fear puts a bar
Betwixt my friends and me. They leave the star
That brought the wise men of the East from far.
Was ever grief like mine? 

Then from one ruler to another bound
They ...Read more of this...

by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
...ren, staying at the archduke's,
My cousin's, he took me out on a sled,
And I was frightened. He said, Marie,
Marie, hold on tight. And down we went.
In the mountains, there you feel free.
I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter.
 What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow
Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man, 
You cannot say, or guess, for you know only
A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
And the dead tree gives no shelter,...Read more of this...

by Atwood, Margaret
...ic
silence, a mouth that says
O again and again in wonder
and pain, a breath, a finger
grip on a cliffside. You can
hold on or let go....Read more of this...

by Frost, Robert
...the tree to earth
And put it in my hands to pick my own grapes.
"Here, take a tree-top, I'll get down another.
Hold on with all your might when I let go."
I said I had the tree. It wasn't true.
The opposite was true. The tree had me.
The minute it was left with me alone
It caught me up as if I were the fish
And it the fishpole. So I was translated
To loud cries from my brother of "Let go!
Don't you know anything, you girl? Let go!"
But I, with...Read more of this...

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Book: Shattered Sighs