Famous Long Future Poems

Famous Long Future Poems. Long Future Poetry by Famous Poets. A collection of the all-time best Future long poems

See also: Long Member Poems

 Man, is the Sea your master? Sea, and is man your slave? – 
This is the song of brave men who never know they are brave: 
Ceaselessly watching to save you, stranger from foreign lands, 
Soundly asleep in your state room, full sail for the Goodwin Sands! 
Life is a dream, they tell us, but life seems very real, 
When the lifeboat puts out from Ramsgate, and the buggers put out from Deal! 

A gun from the lightship! – a rocket! – a cry of, "Turn out, me lad!" 
"Ship on the Sands!" they're shouting, and a rush of the oilskin-clad. 
The lifeboat leaping and swooping, in the wake of the fighting tug, 
And the luggers afloat in Hell's water – Oh, "tourist", with cushion and rug! – 
Think of the freezing fury, without one minute's relief, 
When they stood all night in the blackness by the wreck of the Indian Chief! 

Lashed to their seats, and crouching, to the spray that froze as it flew, 
Twenty-six hours in midwinter! That was the lifeboat's crew. 
Twice she was swamped, and she righted, in the rush of the heavy seas, 
And her tug was mostly buried; but these were common...
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When day comes we ask ourselves,
where can we find light in this never-ending shade?
The loss we carry,
a sea we must wade
We've braved the belly of the beast
We've learned that quiet isn't always peace
And the norms and notions
of what just is
Isn't always just-ice
And yet the dawn is ours
before we knew it
Somehow we do it
Somehow we've weathered and witnessed
a nation that isn't broken
but simply unfinished
We the successors of a country and a time
Where a skinny Black girl
descended from slaves and raised by a single mother
can dream of becoming president
only to find herself reciting for one
And yes we are far from polished
far from pristine
but that doesn't mean we are
striving to form a union that is perfect
We are striving to forge a union with purpose
To compose a country committed to all cultures, colors, characters and
conditions of man
And so we lift our gazes not to what stands between us
but what stands before us
We close the divide because we know, to put our future first,
we must first put our differences aside
We lay down our arms
so we can reach out our arms
to one another
We seek harm to none and harmony for all
Let the globe, if nothing else, say this is true:
That even as we grieved, we grew
That...
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 I Sing the Man that never Equal knew, 
Whose Mighty Arms all Asia did subdue, 
Whose Conquests through the spacious World do ring, 
That City-Raser, King-destroying King, 
Who o're the Warlike Macedons did Reign, 
And worthily the Name of Great did gain. 
This is the Prince (if Fame you will believe,
To ancient Story any credit give.) 
Who when the Globe of Earth he had subdu'd, 
With Tears the easie Victory pursu'd; 
Because that no more Worlds there were to win, 
No further Scene to act his Glorys in. 
 Ah that some pitying Muse would now inspire
My frozen style with a Poetique fire, 
And Raptures worthy of his Matchless Fame, 
Whose Deeds I sing, whose never fading Name 

Long as the world shall fresh and deathless last, 
No less to future Ages, then the past. 
Great my presumption is, I must confess, 
But if I thrive, my Glory's ne're the less; 
Nor will it from his Conquests derogate
A Female Pen his Acts did celebrate. 
If thou O Muse wilt thy assistance give, 
Such as made Naso and great Maro live, 
With him whom Melas fertile Banks did bear, 
Live, though their Bodies dust and ashes are; 
Whose Laurels were...
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 ("En ce temps-là du ciel les portes.") 
 
 {Bk. I. v., December, 1822.} 


 The golden gates were opened wide that day, 
 All through the unveiled heaven there seemed to play 
 Out of the Holiest of Holy, light; 
 And the elect beheld, crowd immortal, 
 A young soul, led up by young angels bright, 
 Stand in the starry portal. 
 
 A fair child fleeing from the world's fierce hate, 
 In his blue eye the shade of sorrow sate, 
 His golden hair hung all dishevelled down, 
 On wasted cheeks that told a mournful story, 
 And angels twined him with the innocent's crown, 
 The martyr's palm of glory. 
 
 The virgin souls that to the Lamb are near, 
 Called through the clouds with voices heavenly clear, 
 God hath prepared a glory for thy brow, 
 Rest in his arms, and all ye hosts that sing 
 His praises ever on untired string, 
 Chant, for a mortal comes among ye now; 
 Do homage—"'Tis a king." 
 
 And the pale shadow saith to God in heaven: 
 "I am an orphan and no king at all;...
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 After Joseph Roth

Parce que c'était lui; parce que c'était moi.
Montaigne, De L'amitië

The dream's forfeit was a night in jail
and now the slant light is crepuscular.
Papers or not, you are a foreigner
whose name is always difficult to spell.
You pack your one valise. You ring the bell.
Might it not be prudent to disappear
beneath that mauve-blue sky above the square
fronting your cosmopolitan hotel?
You know two short-cuts to the train station
which could get you there, on foot, in time.
The person who's apprised of your intention
and seems to be your traveling companion
is merely the detritus of a dream.
You cross the lobby and go out alone.

You crossed the lobby and went out alone
through the square, where two red-headed girls played
hopscotch on a chalk grid, now in the shade,
of a broad-leafed plane tree, now in the sun.
The lively, lovely, widowed afternoon
disarmed, uncoupled, shuffled and disarrayed
itself; despite itself, dismayed
you with your certainties, your visa, gone
from your breast-pocket, or perhaps expired.
At the reception desk, no one inquired
if you'd be returning. Now you wonder why.
When the stout conductor comes down the aisle
mustached, red-faced, at first jovial,
and asks for your passport, what will you say?

When they ask for your passport, will you say
that town's name they'd find unpronounceable
which resonates, when...
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 O trees of life, oh, what when winter comes?
We are not of one mind. Are not like birds
in unison migrating. And overtaken,
overdue, we thrust ourselves into the wind
and fall to earth into indifferent ponds.
Blossoming and withering we comprehend as one.
And somewhere lions roam, quite unaware,
in their magnificence, of any weaknesss.

But we, while wholly concentrating on one thing,
already feel the pressure of another.
Hatred is our first response. And lovers,
are they not forever invading one another's
boundaries? -although they promised space,
hunting and homeland. Then, for a sketch
drawn at a moment's impulse, a ground of contrast
is prepared, painfully, so that we may see.
For they are most exact with us. We do not know
the contours of our feelings. We only know 
what shapes them from the outside. 

Who has not sat, afraid, before his own heart's
curtain? It lifted and displayed the scenery
of departure. Easy to understand. The well-known
garden swaying just a little. Then came the dancer.
Not he! Enough! However lightly he pretends to move:
he is just disguised, costumed, an ordinary man
who enters through the kitchen when coming home.
I will not have these half-filled human masks;
better the puppet. It at least is full.
I will endure this well-stuffed doll, the wire,
the face that is nothing but...
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 Mirth the halls of Troy was filling,
Ere its lofty ramparts fell;
From the golden lute so thrilling
Hymns of joy were heard to swell.
From the sad and tearful slaughter
All had laid their arms aside,
For Pelides Priam's daughter
Claimed then as his own fair bride.

Laurel branches with them bearing,
Troop on troop in bright array
To the temples were repairing,
Owning Thymbrius' sovereign sway.
Through the streets, with frantic measure,
Danced the bacchanal mad round,
And, amid the radiant pleasure,
Only one sad breast was found.

Joyless in the midst of gladness,
None to heed her, none to love,
Roamed Cassandra, plunged in sadness,
To Apollo's laurel grove.
To its dark and deep recesses
Swift the sorrowing priestess hied,
And from off her flowing tresses
Tore the sacred band, and cried:

"All around with joy is beaming,
Ev'ry heart is happy now,
And my sire is fondly dreaming,
Wreathed with flowers my sister's brow
I alone am doomed to wailing,
That sweet vision flies from me;
In my mind, these walls assailing,
Fierce destruction I can see."

"Though a torch I see all-glowing,
Yet 'tis not in Hymen's hand;
Smoke across the skies is blowing,
Yet 'tis from no votive brand.
Yonder see I feasts entrancing,
But in my prophetic soul,
Hear I now the God advancing,
Who will steep in tears the bowl!"

"And they blame my lamentation,
And they laugh my grief to scorn;
To...
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 The mountain brook sung lonesomelike, and loitered on its way
Ez if it waited for a child to jine it in its play;
The wild-flowers uv the hillside bent down their heads to hear
The music uv the little feet that had somehow grown so dear;
The magpies, like winged shadders, wuz a-flutterin' to an' fro
Among the rocks an' holler stumps in the ragged gulch below;
The pines an' hemlocks tosst their boughs (like they wuz arms) and made
Soft, sollum music on the slope where he had often played;
But for these lonesome, sollum voices on the mountain-side,
There wuz no sound the summer day that Marthy's younkit died.

We called him Marthy's younkit, for Marthy wuz the name
Uv her ez wuz his mar, the wife uv Sorry Tom,--the same
Ez taught the school-house on the hill, way back in '69,
When she marr'd Sorry Tom, wich owned the Gosh-all-Hemlock mine!
And Marthy's younkit wuz their first, wich, bein' how it meant
The first on Red Hoss Mountain, wuz truly a' event!
The miners sawed off short on work ez soon ez they got word
That Dock Devine allowed to Casey what had just occurred;
We loaded up an' whooped around until we all wuz hoarse
Salutin' the arrival, wich weighed ten pounds, uv course!

Three...
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 Who is your lady of love, O ye that pass
Singing? and is it for sorrow of that which was
That ye sing sadly, or dream of what shall be?
For gladly at once and sadly it seems ye sing.
--Our lady of love by you is unbeholden;
For hands she hath none, nor eyes, nor lips, nor golden
Treasure of hair, nor face nor form; but we
That love, we know her more fair than anything.
--Is she a queen, having great gifts to give?
--Yea, these; that whoso hath seen her shall not live
Except he serve her sorrowing, with strange pain,
Travail and bloodshedding and bitterer tears;
And when she bids die he shall surely die.
And he shall leave all things under the sky
And go forth naked under sun and rain
And work and wait and watch out all his years.

--Hath she on earth no place of habitation?
--Age to age calling, nation answering nation,
Cries out, Where is she? and there is none to say;
For if she be not in the spirit of men,
For if in the inward soul she hath no place,
In vain they cry unto her, seeking her face,
In vain their mouths make much of her; for they
Cry with vain tongues, till the heart lives again.

--O ye that...
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 WHEN Nature her great master-piece design’d,
And fram’d her last, best work, the human mind,
Her eye intent on all the mazy plan,
She form’d of various parts the various Man.


 Then first she calls the useful many forth;
Plain plodding Industry, and sober Worth:
Thence peasants, farmers, native sons of earth,
And merchandise’ whole genus take their birth:
Each prudent cit a warm existence finds,
And all mechanics’ many-apron’d kinds.
Some other rarer sorts are wanted yet,
The lead and buoy are needful to the net:
The caput mortuum of gross desires
Makes a material for mere knights and squires;
The martial phosphorus is taught to flow,
She kneads the lumpish philosophic dough,
Then marks th’ unyielding mass with grave designs,
Law, physic, politics, and deep divines;
Last, she sublimes th’ Aurora of the poles,
The flashing elements of female souls.


 The order’d system fair before her stood,
Nature, well pleas’d, pronounc’d it very good;
But ere she gave creating labour o’er,
Half-jest, she tried one curious labour more.
Some spumy, fiery, ignis fatuus matter,
Such as the slightest breath of air might scatter;
With arch-alacrity and conscious glee,
(Nature may have her whim as well as we,
Her Hogarth-art perhaps she meant to show it),
She forms the thing and christens it—a Poet:
Creature, tho’ oft the prey of care and sorrow,
When blest to-day, unmindful...
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 Mournful groans, as when a tempest lowers,
Echo from the dreary house of woe;
Death-notes rise from yonder minster's towers!
Bearing out a youth, they slowly go;
Yes! a youth--unripe yet for the bier,
Gathered in the spring-time of his days,
Thrilling yet with pulses strong and clear,
With the flame that in his bright eye plays--
Yes, a son--the idol of his mother,
(Oh, her mournful sigh shows that too well!)
Yes! my bosom-friend,--alas my brother!--
Up! each man the sad procession swell!

Do ye boast, ye pines, so gray and old,
Storms to brave, with thunderbolts to sport?
And, ye hills, that ye the heavens uphold?
And, ye heavens, that ye the suns support!
Boasts the graybeard, who on haughty deeds
As on billows, seeks perfection's height?
Boasts the hero, whom his prowess leads
Up to future glory's temple bright!
If the gnawing worms the floweret blast,
Who can madly think he'll ne'er decay?
Who above, below, can hope to last,
If the young man's life thus fleets away?

Joyously his days of youth so glad
Danced along, in rosy garb beclad,
And the world, the world was then so sweet!
And how kindly, how enchantingly
Smiled the future,--with what golden eye
Did life's paradise his moments greet!
While the tear his mother's eye escaped,
Under him the realm of shadows gaped
And the fates his thread began to...
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 1
MANHATTAN’S streets I saunter’d, pondering, 
On time, space, reality—on such as these, and abreast with them, prudence. 

2
After all, the last explanation remains to be made about prudence; 
Little and large alike drop quietly aside from the prudence that suits immortality. 

The Soul is of itself;
All verges to it—all has reference to what ensues; 
All that a person does, says, thinks, is of consequence; 
Not a move can a man or woman make, that affects him or her in a day, month, any part of
 the
 direct
 life-time, or the hour of death, but the same affects him or her onward afterward through
 the
 indirect life-time. 

3
The indirect is just as much as the direct, 
The spirit receives from the body just as much as it gives to the body, if not more.

Not one word or deed—not venereal sore, discoloration, privacy of the onanist,
 putridity
 of
 gluttons or rum-drinkers, peculation, cunning, betrayal, murder, seduction, prostitution,
 but
 has
 results beyond death, as really as before death. 

4
Charity and personal force are the only investments worth anything. 

No specification is necessary—all that a male or female does, that is vigorous,
 benevolent,
 clean, is so much profit to him or her, in...
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 With short, sharp violent lights made vivid,
To the southward far as the sight can roam,
Only the swirl of the surges livid,
The seas that climb and the surfs that comb,
Only the crag and the cliff to nor'ward,
And rocks receding, and reefs flung forward,
And waifs wreck'd seaward and wasted shoreward
On shallows sheeted with flaming foam.

A grim grey coast and a seaboard ghastly,
And shores trod seldom by feet of men --
Where the batter'd hull and the broken mast lie
They have lain embedded these long years ten.
Love! when we wander'd here together,
Hand in hand through the sparkling weather,
From the heights and hollows of fern and heather,
God surely loved us a little then.

Then skies were fairer and shores were firmer --
The blue sea over the bright sand roll'd;
Babble and prattle, and ripple and murmur,
Sheen of silver and glamour of gold --
And the sunset bath'd in the gulf to lend her
A garland of pinks and of purples tender,
A tinge of the sun-god's rosy splendour,
A tithe of his glories manifold.

Man's works are craven, cunning, and skillful
On earth where his tabernacles are;
But the sea is wanton, the sea is wilful,
And who shall mend her and who shall mar?
Shall we carve success or record disaster
On her bosom of...
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 1
HARK! some wild trumpeter—some strange musician, 
Hovering unseen in air, vibrates capricious tunes to-night. 

I hear thee, trumpeter—listening, alert, I catch thy notes, 
Now pouring, whirling like a tempest round me, 
Now low, subdued—now in the distance lost.

2
Come nearer, bodiless one—haply, in thee resounds 
Some dead composer—haply thy pensive life 
Was fill’d with aspirations high—unform’d ideals, 
Waves, oceans musical, chaotically surging, 
That now, ecstatic ghost, close to me bending, thy cornet echoing, pealing,
Gives out to no one’s ears but mine—but freely gives to mine, 
That I may thee translate. 

3
Blow, trumpeter, free and clear—I follow thee, 
While at thy liquid prelude, glad, serene, 
The fretting world, the streets, the noisy hours of day, withdraw;
A holy calm descends, like dew, upon me, 
I walk, in cool refreshing night, the walks of Paradise, 
I scent the grass, the moist air, and the roses; 
Thy song expands my numb’d, imbonded spirit—thou freest, launchest me, 
Floating and basking upon Heaven’s lake.

4
Blow again, trumpeter! and for my sensuous eyes, 
Bring the old pageants—show the feudal world. 

What charm thy music works!—thou makest pass before me, 
Ladies and cavaliers long dead—barons are in their castle halls—the troubadours
 are
 singing; 
Arm’d knights go forth to redress...
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 There's many a schoolboy's bat and ball that are gathering dust at home, 
For he hears a voice in the future call, and he trains for the war to come; 
A serious light in his eyes is seen as he comes from the schoolhouse gate; 
He keeps his kit and his rifle clean, and he sees that his back is straight. 

But straight or crooked, or round, or lame – you may let these words take root; 
As the time draws near for the sterner game, all boys should learn to shoot, 
From the beardless youth to the grim grey-beard, let Australians ne'er forget, 
A lame limb never interfered with a brave man's shooting yet. 

Over and over and over again, to you and our friends and me, 
The warning of danger has sounded plain – like the thud of a gun at sea. 
The rich man turns to his wine once more, and the gay to their worldly joys, 
The "statesman" laughs at a hint of war – but something has told the boys. 

The schoolboy scouts of the White Man's Land are out on the hills to-day; 
They trace the tracks from the sea-beach sand and sea-cliffs...
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