Famous Latent Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Dream Song 129: Thin as a sheet his mother came to him

by John Berryman
 Thin as a sheet his mother came to him
during the screaming evenings after he did it,
touched F.J.'s dead hand.
The parlour was dark, he was the first pall-bearer in,
he gave himself a dare & then did it,
the thing was quite unplanned,

riots for Henry the unstructured dead,
his older playmate fouled, reaching for him
and never will he be free
from the older boy...Read more of this...

To a foil'd European Revolutionaire

by Walt Whitman
 1
COURAGE yet! my brother or my sister! 
Keep on! Liberty is to be subserv’d, whatever occurs; 
That is nothing, that is quell’d by one or two failures, or any number of failures, 
Or by the indifference or ingratitude of the people, or by any unfaithfulness, 
Or the show of the tushes of power, soldiers, cannon, penal statutes.

Revolt! and still...Read more of this...

Musketaquid

by Ralph Waldo Emerson
 Because I was content with these poor fields, 
Low, open meads, slender and sluggish streams, 
And found a home in haunts which others scorned, 
The partial wood-gods overpaid my love, 
And granted me the freedom of their state, 
And in their secret senate have prevailed 
With the dear, dangerous lords that rule our life, 
Made moon and planets parties...Read more of this...

As a Strong Bird on Pinions Free

by Walt Whitman
 1
AS a strong bird on pinions free, 
Joyous, the amplest spaces heavenward cleaving, 
Such be the thought I’d think to-day of thee, America, 
Such be the recitative I’d bring to-day for thee. 

The conceits of the poets of other lands I bring thee not,
Nor the compliments that have served their turn so long, 
Nor rhyme—nor the classics—nor perfume of...Read more of this...

To Thee Old Cause!

by Walt Whitman
 TO thee, old Cause! 
Thou peerless, passionate, good cause! 
Thou stern, remorseless, sweet Idea! 
Deathless throughout the ages, races, lands! 
After a strange, sad war—great war for thee,
(I think all war through time was really fought, and ever will be really fought,
 for thee;) 
These chants for thee—the eternal march of thee. 

Thou orb of many orbs! 
Thou seething...Read more of this...

To Mrs Reynolds Cat

by John Keats
 Cat! who hast pass’d thy grand climacteric,
How many mice and rats hast in thy days
Destroy’d? How many tit bits stolen? Gaze
With those bright languid segments green, and prick
Those velvet ears - but pr’ythee do not stick
Thy latent talons in me - and upraise
Thy gentle mew - and tell me all thy frays,
Of fish and mice, and rats and tender...Read more of this...

A Poem Sacred to the Memory of Sir Isaac Newton

by James Thomson
 Shall the great soul of Newton quit this earth, 
To mingle with his stars; and every muse,
Astonish'd into silence, shun the weight
Of honours due to his illustrious name?
But what can man?--Even now the sons of light,
In strains high-warbled to seraphic lyre,
Hail his arrival on the coast of bliss.
Yet am not I deterr'd, though high the theme,
And sung to harps...Read more of this...

Fate

by Ralph Waldo Emerson
 Fate is above me. Why should I browse? 
 Sleeping in dosses, an outcast, I rove. 
 Grief is a cellar, 
 that opens in every old house. 
 A ditch is below me and fate is above. 

 What did I want? Well, a life of contentment. 
 What did I get? Just a coffin and wreath... 
...Read more of this...

Initial Love

by Ralph Waldo Emerson
 Venus, when her son was lost,
Cried him up and down the coast,
In hamlets, palaces, and parks,
And told the truant by his marks,
Golden curls, and quiver, and bow;—
This befell long ago.
Time and tide are strangely changed,
Men and manners much deranged;
None will now find Cupid latent
By this foolish antique patent.
He came late along the waste,
Shod like a traveller for haste,
With malice...Read more of this...

Musketaquid

by Ralph Waldo Emerson
 Because I was content with these poor fields,
Low open meads, slender and sluggish streams,
And found a home in haunts which others scorned,
The partial wood-gods overpaid my love,
And granted me the freedom of their state,
And in their secret senate have prevailed
With the dear dangerous lords that rule our life,
Made moon and planets parties to their bond,
And pitying through my solitary...Read more of this...

Rise O Days

by Walt Whitman
 1
RISE, O days, from your fathomless deeps, till you loftier, fiercer sweep! 
Long for my soul, hungering gymnastic, I devour’d what the earth gave me; 
Long I roam’d the woods of the north—long I watch’d Niagara pouring; 
I travel’d the prairies over, and slept on their breast—I cross’d the
 Nevadas, I
 cross’d the plateaus; 
I ascended the towering rocks...Read more of this...

Gods Funeral

by Thomas Hardy
 I 
I saw a slowly-stepping train --
Lined on the brows, scoop-eyed and bent and hoar --
Following in files across a twilit plain
A strange and mystic form the foremost bore.

II 
And by contagious throbs of thought
Or latent knowledge that within me lay
And had already stirred me, I was wrought
To consciousness of sorrow even as they.

III 
The fore-borne shape, to my...Read more of this...

Palm Trees by the Sea

by Adela Florence Cory Nicolson
   Second Song: The Girl from Baltistan

                            Throb, throb, throb,
   Far away in the blue transparent Night,
   On the outer horizon of a dreaming consciousness,
  ...Read more of this...

My Comforter

by Emily Brontë
 Well hast thou spoken, and yet, not taught
A feeling strange or new;
Thou hast but roused a latent thought,
A cloud-closed beam of sunshine, brought 
To gleam in open view. 

Deep down, concealed within my soul,
That light lies hid from men;
Yet, glows unquenched - though shadows roll,
Its gentle ray cannot control,
About the sullen den. 

Was I not vexed, in these gloomy...Read more of this...

France the 18th year of These States

by Walt Whitman
 1
A GREAT year and place; 
A harsh, discordant, natal scream out-sounding, to touch the mother’s heart closer
 than
 any yet. 

I walk’d the shores of my Eastern Sea, 
Heard over the waves the little voice, 
Saw the divine infant, where she woke, mournfully wailing, amid the roar of cannon,
 curses,
 shouts, crash of falling buildings;
Was not so sick from...Read more of this...

To the East and to the West

by Walt Whitman
 TO the East and to the West; 
To the man of the Seaside State, and of Pennsylvania, 
To the Kanadian of the North—to the Southerner I love; 
These, with perfect trust, to depict you as myself—the germs are in all men; 
I believe the main purport of These States is to found a superb friendship, exalté,
 previously unknown,
Because I...Read more of this...

Carol of Words

by Walt Whitman
 1
EARTH, round, rolling, compact—suns, moons, animals—all these are words to be
 said; 
Watery, vegetable, sauroid advances—beings, premonitions, lispings of the future, 
Behold! these are vast words to be said. 

Were you thinking that those were the words—those upright lines? those curves,
 angles,
 dots? 
No, those are not the words—the substantial words are in the ground and sea,
They are in...Read more of this...

Assurances

by Walt Whitman
 I NEED no assurances—I am a man who is preoccupied, of his own Soul; 
I do not doubt that from under the feet, and beside the hands and face I am cognizant of,
 are
 now looking faces I am not cognizant of—calm and actual faces; 
I do not doubt but the majesty and beauty of the world are latent...Read more of this...

Still though the One I Sing

by Walt Whitman
 STILL, though the one I sing, 
(One, yet of contradictions made,) I dedicate to Nationality, 
I leave in him Revolt, (O latent right of insurrection! O quenchless, indispensable fire!)...Read more of this...

Pioneers! O Pioneers!

by Walt Whitman
 1
 COME, my tan-faced children, 
Follow well in order, get your weapons ready; 
Have you your pistols? have you your sharp edged axes? Pioneers! O pioneers! 

2
 For we cannot tarry here, 
We must march my darlings, we must bear the brunt of danger,
We, the youthful sinewy races, all the rest on us depend, Pioneers! O pioneers! 

3
 O...Read more of this...

On a Lady Throwing Snow-Balls at Her Lover

by Christopher Smart
 [From the Latin of Petronious Ascanius.]

When, wanton fair, the snowy orb you throw, 
I feel a fire before unknown in snow. 
E'en coldest snow I find has pow'r to warm 
My breast, when flung by Julia's lovely arm. 
T'elude love's pow'rful arts I strive in vain, 
If ice and snow can latent fires contain. 
These frolics leave: the force...Read more of this...

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