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Famous Link Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Larkin, Philip
...
That this is what we fear -- no sight, no sound,
No touch or taste or smell, nothing to think with,
Nothing to love or link with,
The anaesthetic from which none come round.

And so it stays just on the edge of vision,
A small unfocused blur, a standing chill
That slows each impulse down to indecision.
Most things may never happen: this one will,
And realisation of it rages out
In furnace-fear when we are caught without
People or drink. Courage is no good:
It mea...Read more of this...



by Ashbery, John
...itself. 
All life is but a figment; conversely, the tiny
Tome that slips from your hand is not perhaps the 
Missing link in this invisible picnic whose leverage
Shrouds our sense of it. Therefore bivouac we 
On this great, blond highway, unimpeded by
Veiled scruples, worn conundrums. Morning is
Impermanent. Grab sex things, swing up
Over the horizon like a boy
On a fishing expedition. No one really knows
Or cares whether this is the whole of which parts
We...Read more of this...

by Keats, John
...ditation,
To occupy me wholly, and to fashion
My pilgrimage for the world's dusky brink.
No more will I count over, link by link,
My chain of grief: no longer strive to find
A half-forgetfulness in mountain wind
Blustering about my ears: aye, thou shalt see,
Dearest of sisters, what my life shall be;
What a calm round of hours shall make my days.
There is a paly flame of hope that plays
Where'er I look: but yet, I'll say 'tis naught--
And here I bid it die. Have n...Read more of this...

by Pope, Alexander
...r in the full creation leave a void, 
Where, one step broken, the great scale's destoy'd: 
From Nature's chain whatever link you strike, 
Tenth or ten thousandth, breaks the chain alike. 
And if each system in gradation roll, 
Alike essential to th' amazing whole; 
The least confusion but in one, not all 
That system only, but the whole must fall. 
Let Earth unbalanc'd from her orbit fly, 
Planets and Suns run lawless thro' the sky, 
Let ruling Angels from their spher...Read more of this...

by Thoreau, Henry David
...I think awhile of Love, and while I think, 
Love is to me a world, 
Sole meat and sweetest drink, 
And close connecting link 
Tween heaven and earth. 
I only know it is, not how or why, 
My greatest happiness; 
However hard I try, 
Not if I were to die, 
Can I explain. 

I fain would ask my friend how it can be, 
But when the time arrives, 
Then Love is more lovely 
Than anything to me, 
And so I'm dumb. 

For if the truth were known, Love cannot speak, 
But only ...Read more of this...



by Schiller, Friedrich von
...that ever into ocean run!

Did not the same strong mainspring urge and guide
Our hearts to meet in love's eternal bond?
Linked to thine arm, O Raphael, by thy side
Might I aspire to reach to souls beyond
Our earth, and bid the bright ambition go
To that perfection which the angels know!

Happy, O happy--I have found thee--I
Have out of millions found thee, and embraced;
Thou, out of millions, mine!--Let earth and sky
Return to darkness, and the antique waste--
To chaos shocke...Read more of this...

by Wordsworth, William
...e reclined,
In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts
Bring sad thoughts to the mind.

To her fair works did Nature link
The human soul that through me ran;
And much it grieved my heart to think
What man has made of man.

Through primrose tufts, in that green bower,
The periwinkle trailed its wreaths;
And 'tis my faith that every flower
Enjoys the air it breathes.

The birds around me hopped and played,
Their thoughts I cannot measure:--
But the least motion which...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...ught,
Which strike from out the heart o’erwrought,
And form a strange intelligence,
Alike mysterious and intense,
Which link the burning chain that binds,
Without their will, young hearts and minds
Conveying, as the electric wire,
We know not how, the absorbing fire.
I saw, and sighed - in silence wept, 
And still reluctant distance kept, 
Until I was made known to her, 
And we might then and there confer
Without suspicion - then, even then,
I longed, and was resolved to ...Read more of this...

by Emerson, Ralph Waldo
...r, bear, and deer;
Well-built abode of many a race;
Tower of observance searching space;
Factory of river, and of rain;
Link in the alps' globe-girding chain;
By million changes skilled to tell
What in the Eternal standeth well,
And what obedient nature can,—
Is this colossal talisman
Kindly to creature, blood, and kind,
And speechless to the master's mind?

I thought to find the patriots
In whom the stock of freedom roots.
To myself I oft recount
Tales of many a famous m...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...destroyed, 
Or won to what may work his utter loss, 
For whom all this was made, all this will soon 
Follow, as to him linked in weal or woe; 
In woe then; that destruction wide may range: 
To me shall be the glory sole among 
The infernal Powers, in one day to have marred 
What he, Almighty styled, six nights and days 
Continued making; and who knows how long 
Before had been contriving? though perhaps 
Not longer than since I, in one night, freed 
From servitude inglorious...Read more of this...

by Paterson, Andrew Barton
...arer in its spell. 

We have our songs -- not songs of strife 
And hot blood spilt on sea and land; 
But lilts that link achievement grand 
To honest toil and valiant life. 

Lift ye your faces to the sky 
Ye barrier mountains in the west 
Who lie so peacefully at rest 
Enshrouded in a haze of blue; 
'Tis hard to feel that years went by 
Before the pioneers broke through 
Your rocky heights and walls of stone, 
And made your secrets all their own. 

For years the ...Read more of this...

by Schiller, Friedrich von
...on as reality asserts its sway.
The column, yielding to proportion's chains,
Must with its sisters join in friendly link,
The hero in the hero-band must sink,
The Muses' harp peals forth its tuneful strains.

The wondering savages soon came
To view the new creation's plan
"Behold!"--the joyous crowds exclaim,--
"Behold, all this is done by man!"
With jocund and more social aim
The minstrel's lyre their awe awoke,
Telling of Titans, and of giant's frays
And lion-slayer...Read more of this...

by von Goethe, Johann Wolfgang
...To deny her daughter's plighted troth.

From my grave to wander I am forc'd,

Still to seek The Good's long-sever'd link,
Still to love the bridegroom I have lost,

And the life-blood of his heart to drink;

When his race is run,

I must hasten on,

And the young must 'neath my vengeance sink,

"Beauteous youth! no longer mayst thou live;

Here must shrivel up thy form so fair;
Did not I to thee a token give,

Taking in return this lock of hair?

View it to thy sorrow!

G...Read more of this...

by Wordsworth, William
...en pleasant thoughts  Bring sad thoughts to the mind.   To her fair works did nature link  The human soul that through me ran;  And much it griev'd my heart to think  What man has made of man.   Through primrose tufts, in that sweet bower,  The periwinkle trail'd its wreathes;  And 'tis my faith that every flower  Enjoys the air it breath...Read more of this...

by Gibran, Kahlil
...in his durability you are deathless. 

You have been told that, even like a chain, you are as weak as your weakest link. 

This is but half the truth. You are also as strong as your strongest link. 

To measure you by your smallest deed is to reckon the power of ocean by the frailty of its foam. 

To judge you by your failures is to cast blame upon the seasons for their inconsistency. 

Ay, you are like an ocean, 

And though heavy-grounded ships awai...Read more of this...

by Aiken, Conrad
...of faces rise and vanish before me.
Thousands of voices weave in the rain.

'I am the one who rode beside you, blinking
At a dazzle of golden lights.
Tempests of music swept me: I was thinking
Of the gorgeous promise of certain nights:
Of the woman who suddenly smiled at me this day,
Smiled in a certain delicious sidelong way,
And turned, as she reached the door,
To smile once more . . .
Her hands are whiter than snow on midnight water.
Her throat ...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...irr'd in this black spot,
I only lived, I only drew
The accursed breath of dungeon-dew;
The last, the sole, the dearest link
Between me and the eternal brink,
Which bound me to my failing race,
Was broken in this fatal place.
One on earth, and one beneath -
My brothers - both had ceased to breathe:
I took that hand that lay so still,
Alas! my own was full as chill;
I had not the strength to stir, or strive,
But felt that I was still alive -
A frantic feeling, when we know...Read more of this...

by Khayyam, Omar
...f it. 

LXI.
For let Philosopher and Doctor preach
Of what they will, and what they will not -- each
Is but one Link in an eternal Chain
That none can slip, nor break, nor over-reach. 

LXII.
And that inverted Bowl we call The Sky,
Whereunder crawling coop't we live and die,
Lift not thy hands to it for help -- for It
Rolls impotently on as Thou or I. 

LXIII.
With Earth's first Clay They did the Last Man knead,
And then of the Last Harvest sow'd the S...Read more of this...

by Whittier, John Greenleaf
...n dwarfs, and the fairies 
Dancing in their moorland rings! 

Jolliest of our birds of singing 
Best he loved the Bob-o-link. 
"Hush!" he'd say, "the tipsy fairies! 
Hear the little folks in drink!" 

Merry-faced, with spade and fiddle, 
Singing through the ancient town, 
Only this, of poor Hugh Tallant 
Hath Tradtion handed down. 

Not a stone his grave discloses; 
But if yet his spirit walks 
Tis beneath the trees he planted 
And when Bob-o-Lincoln talks. 

Gree...Read more of this...

by Chaucer, Geoffrey
...e Wife of Bath's Tale


1. Among the evidences that Chaucer's great work was left
incomplete, is the absence of any link of connexion between the
Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale, and what goes before. This
deficiency has in some editions caused the Squire's and the
Merchant's Tales to be interposed between those of the Man of
Law and the Wife of Bath; but in the Merchant's Tale there is
internal proof that it was told after the jolly Dame's. Several
manuscripts c...Read more of this...

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Book: Reflection on the Important Things