Famous Mark Poems by Famous Poets

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

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As I Sat Alone by Blue Ontario's Shores

...e
 stake—and
 respite no more.

7
(Lo! high toward heaven, this day, 
Libertad! from the conqueress’ field return’d, 
I mark the new aureola around your head; 
No more of soft astral, but dazzling and fierce, 
With war’s flames, and the lambent lightnings playing,
And your port immovable where you stand; 
With still the inextinguishable glance, and the clench’d and lifted fist, 
And your foot on the neck of the menacing one, the scorner, utterly crush’d beneath
 you; 
The men...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt


Beowulf (Modern English)

...e will bear me to bloody slaughter, thinking to taste me—
the solitary stalker will eat without the slightest regret,
marking his swampy lair. There will be no need
to sorrow for long over cleaning my corpse!
Just send Hygelac, if the contest conquers me,
this best of battle-clothes that wards my breast,
finest of garments. It is an heirloom of Hrethel,
the work of Weland. The way of the world
always goes as it must!” (ll. 442-55)

 

VII.

Hrothgar spoke in rep...Read more of this...
by Anonymous,

Charmides

...the creaking gear,
And bade the pilot head her lustily
Against the nor'west gale, and all day long
Held on his way, and marked the rowers' time with measured song.

And when the faint Corinthian hills were red
Dropped anchor in a little sandy bay,
And with fresh boughs of olive crowned his head,
And brushed from cheek and throat the hoary spray,
And washed his limbs with oil, and from the hold
Brought out his linen tunic and his sandals brazen-soled,

And a rich robe stained ...Read more of this...
by Wilde, Oscar

Humanitad

...sh and throb of brain
The soul in flawless essence high enthroned,
Against all outer vain attack invincibly bastioned,

Mark with serene impartiality
The strife of things, and yet be comforted,
Knowing that by the chain causality
All separate existences are wed
Into one supreme whole, whose utterance
Is joy, or holier praise! ah! surely this were governance

Of Life in most august omnipresence,
Through which the rational intellect would find
In passion its expression, and mer...Read more of this...
by Wilde, Oscar

Hyperion

...eading a shade: the Naiad 'mid her reeds
Press'd her cold finger closer to her lips.

 Along the margin-sand large foot-marks went,
No further than to where his feet had stray'd,
And slept there since. Upon the sodden ground
His old right hand lay nerveless, listless, dead,
Unsceptred; and his realmless eyes were closed;
While his bow'd head seem'd list'ning to the Earth,
His ancient mother, for some comfort yet.

 It seem'd no force could wake him from his place;
But there c...Read more of this...
by Keats, John


Inferno (English)

...in their dominion moved. My guide 
 Before I questioned told, "That first ye see, 
 With hand that fits the swordhilt, mark, for he 
 Is Homer, sovereign of the craft we tried, 
 Leader and lord of even the following three, - 
 Horace, and Ovid, and Lucan. The voice ye heard, 
 That hailed me, caused them by one impulse stirred 
 Approach to do me honour, for these agree 
 In that one name we boast, and so do well 
 Owning it in me." There was I joyed to meet 
 Those shades,...Read more of this...
by Alighieri, Dante

Lara

...f lightness woke no echo there: 
He lean'd against the lofty pillar nigh 
With folded arms and long attentive eye, 
Nor mark'd a glance so sternly fix'd on his, 
Ill brook'd high Lara scrutiny like this: 
At length he caught it, 'tis a face unknown, 
But seems as searching his, and his alone; 
Prying and dark, a stranger's by his mien, 
Who still till now had gazed on him unseen; 
At length encountering meets the mutual gaze 
Of keen inquiry, and of mute amaze; 
On Lara's gla...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)

On the Pulse of Morning

...(also referred to as The Rock Cries Out To Us Today)

A Rock, A River, A Tree
Hosts to species long since departed,
Mark the mastodon.
The dinosaur, who left dry tokens
Of their sojourn here
On our planet floor,
Any broad alarm of their of their hastening doom
Is lost in the gloom of dust and ages.
But today, the Rock cries out to us, clearly, forcefully,
Come, you may stand upon my
Back and face your distant destiny,
But seek no haven in my shadow.
I will give ...Read more of this...
by Angelou, Maya

Paradise Lost: Book 05

...s last best gift, my ever new delight! 
Awake: The morning shines, and the fresh field 
Calls us; we lose the prime, to mark how spring 
Our tender plants, how blows the citron grove, 
What drops the myrrh, and what the balmy reed, 
How nature paints her colours, how the bee 
Sits on the bloom extracting liquid sweet. 
Such whispering waked her, but with startled eye 
On Adam, whom embracing, thus she spake. 
O sole in whom my thoughts find all repose, 
My glory, my perfectio...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Song of Myself

...nted gift and remembrancer, designedly dropt,
Bearing the owner’s name someway in the corners, that we may see and
 remark, and say, Whose? 

Or I guess the grass is itself a child, the produced babe of the vegetation. 

Or I guess it is a uniform hieroglyphic; 
And it means, Sprouting alike in broad zones and narrow zones, 
Growing among black folks as among white;
Kanuck, Tuckahoe, Congressman, Cuff, I give them the same, I receive them the
 same. 

And now it s...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt

The Ballad of the White Horse

...;
But if he fail or if he win
To no good man is told.

"The men of the East may spell the stars,
And times and triumphs mark,
But the men signed of the cross of Christ
Go gaily in the dark.

"The men of the East may search the scrolls
For sure fates and fame,
But the men that drink the blood of God
Go singing to their shame.

"The wise men know what wicked things
Are written on the sky,
They trim sad lamps, they touch sad strings,
Hearing the heavy purple wings,
Where the for...Read more of this...
by Chesterton, G K

The Dream

...eam.
The Wanderer was alone as heretofore,
The beings which surrounded him were gone,
Or were at war with him; he was a mark
For blight and desolation, compassed round
With Hatred and Contention; Pain was mixed
In all which was served up to him, until,
Like to the Pontic monarch of old days,
He fed on poisons, and they had no power,
But were a kind of nutriment; he lived
Through that which had been death to many men,
And made him friends of mountains; with the stars
And the q...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)

The Four Ages of Man

...reedom from Envy and from Arrogance.
2.29 How to be rich, or great, I did not cark,
2.30 A Baron or a Duke ne'r made my mark,
2.31 Nor studious was, Kings favours how to buy,
2.32 With costly presents, or base flattery;
2.33 No office coveted, wherein I might
2.34 Make strong my self and turn aside weak right.
2.35 No malice bare to this or that great Peer,
2.36 Nor unto buzzing whisperers gave ear.
2.37 I gave no hand, nor vote, for death, of life.
2.38 I'd nought to do, 'tw...Read more of this...
by Bradstreet, Anne

The Growth of Love

...oving voice: whate'er my terror be,
This heavenly comfort still I win from thee,
To shine my lodestar that wert once my mark. 
Prodigal nature makes us but to taste
One perfect joy, which given she niggard grows;
And lest her precious gift should run to waste,
Adds to its loss a thousand lesser woes:
So to the memory of the gift that graced
Her hand, her graceless hand more grace bestows. 

45
In this neglected, ruin'd edifice
Of works unperfected and broken schemes,
Where is...Read more of this...
by Bridges, Robert Seymour

The Hunting Of The Snark

...f Bonnets and Hoods--
A Barrister, brought to arrange their disputes--
 And a Broker, to value their goods.

A Billiard-marker, whose skill was immense,
 Might perhaps have won more than his share--
But a Banker, engaged at enormous expense,
 Had the whole of their cash in his care.

There was also a Beaver, that paced on the deck,
 Or would sit making lace in the bow:
And had often (the Bellman said) saved them from wreck,
 Though none of the sailors knew how.

There was one...Read more of this...
by Carroll, Lewis

The Lady of the Lake

...,
     Between the precipice and brake,
     O'er stock and rock their race they take.
     VIII.

     The Hunter marked that mountain high,
     The lone lake's western boundary,
     And deemed the stag must turn to bay,
     Where that huge rampart barred the way;
     Already glorying in the prize,
     Measured his antlers with his eyes;
     For the death-wound and death-halloo
     Mustered his breath, his whinyard drew:—
     But thundering as he came pr...Read more of this...
by Scott, Sir Walter

The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

...gels look like torment and
insanity. I collected some of their Proverbs: thinking that as
the sayings used in a nation, mark its character, so the Proverbs
of Hell, shew the nature of Infernal wisdom better than any
description of buildings or garments.
When I came home; on the abyss of the five senses, where a
flat sided steep frowns over the present world. I saw a mighty
Devil folded in black clouds, hovering on the sides of the rock,
with cor[PL 7]roding fires he wrote the...Read more of this...
by Blake, William

The Three Voices

...Present Company." 

Baffled, she gave a wolfish bark:
He, aiming blindly in the dark,
With random shaft had pierced the mark. 

She felt that her defeat was plain,
Yet madly strove with might and main
To get the upper hand again. 

Fixing her eyes upon the beach,
As though unconscious of his speech,
She said "Each gives to more than each." 

He could not answer yea or nay:
He faltered "Gifts may pass away."
Yet knew not what he meant to say. 

"If that be so," she straight re...Read more of this...
by Carroll, Lewis

The Triumph of Life

...e bubble, paint them how you may;
We have but thrown, as those before us threw,
"Our shadows on it as it past away.
But mark, how chained to the triumphal chair
The mighty phantoms of an elder day--
"All that is mortal of great Plato there
Expiates the joy & woe his master knew not;
That star that ruled his doom was far too fair--
"And Life, where long that flower of Heaven grew not,
Conquered the heart by love which gold or pain
Or age or sloth or slavery could subdue not--
...Read more of this...
by Shelley, Percy Bysshe

White Flock

...
Though barely audible, of the Muse.



x x x

I remember you only rarely
And your fate I do not view
But the mark won't be stripped from my soul
Of the meaningless meeting with you.

Your red house I avoid on purpose,
Your red house murky river beside,
But I know, that I am disturbing
Gravely your heart-pierced respite.

Would it weren't you that, on to my lips pressing,
Prayed of love, and for love did wish,
Would it weren't you that with golden verses
...Read more of this...
by Akhmatova, Anna

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