Famous Masses Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Masses poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous masses poems. These examples illustrate what a famous masses poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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...f the Soul—born by the world of the real alone—led to identity, body, by
it
alone;
Yet in beginning only—incalculable masses of composite, precious materials,
By history’s cycles forwarded—by every nation, language, hither sent,
Ready, collected here—a freer, vast, electric World, to be constructed here,
(The true New World—the world of orbic Science, Morals, Literatures to come,)
Thou Wonder World, yet undefined, unform’d—neither do I define thee;
How can I pierce the ...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...s,
Here the doings of men correspond with the broadcast doings of the day and night,
Here is what moves in magnificent masses, careless of particulars,
Here are the roughs, beards, friendliness, combativeness, the Soul loves,
Here the flowing trains—here the crowds, equality, diversity, the Soul loves.
6
Land of lands, and bards to corroborate!
Of them, standing among them, one lifts to the light his west-bred face,
To him the hereditary countenance bequeath’d, both mot...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...ou are remarking all this time
How narrowly and grossly I view life,
Respect the creature-comforts, care to rule
The masses, and regard complacently
"The cabin," in our old phrase. Well, I do.
I act for, talk for, live for this world now,
As this world prizes action, life and talk:
No prejudice to what next world may prove,
Whose new laws and requirements, my best pledge
To observe then, is that I observe these now,
Shall do hereafter what I do meanwhile.
Let us co...Read more of this...
by
Browning, Robert
...
Male and Female!
I pass so poorly with paper and types, I must pass with the contact of bodies and souls.
American masses!
I do not thank you for liking me as I am, and liking the touch of me—I know that it
is
good for
you to do so.
2
This is the carol of occupations;
In the labor of engines and trades, and the labor of fields, I find the developments,
And find the eternal meanings.
Workmen and Workwomen!
Were all educations, practical and ornamental, well disp...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...ce is on a rampage
4 endangered surviving black males
i mean really if anyone really valued life
and cared about the masses
theyd take em both 2 pen optical
and get 2 pair of glasses...Read more of this...
by
Shakur, Tupac
...in our dreams,
To stretch beyond the sight;
And here and there a speck of white,
Or scattered spot of dusky green,
In masses broke into the light,
As rose the moon upon my right:
But nought distinctly seen
In the dim waste would indicate
The omen of a cottage gate;
No twinkling taper from afar
Stood like a hospitable star;'
Not even an ignis-fatuus rose
To make him merry with my woes:
That very cheat had cheered me then!
Although detected, welcome still,
Reminding me, thr...Read more of this...
by
Byron, George (Lord)
...the belfry-chamber overhead,
And startled the pigeons from their perch
On the sombre rafters, that round him made
Masses and moving shapes of shade,--
By the trembling ladder, steep and tall,
To the highest window in the wall,
Where he paused to listen and look down
A moment on the roofs of the town,
And the moonlight flowing over all.
Beneath, in the churchyard, lay the dead,
In their night-encampment on the hill,
Wrapped in silence so deep and still ...Read more of this...
by
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...rest;
And with it every instrument in multitudes,
The players playing—all the world’s musicians,
The solemn hymns and masses, rousing adoration,
All passionate heart-chants, sorrowful appeals,
The measureless sweet vocalists of ages,
And for their solvent setting, Earth’s own diapason,
Of winds and woods and mighty ocean waves;
A new composite orchestra—binder of years and climes—ten-fold renewer,
As of the far-back days the poets tell—the Paradiso,
The straying thenc...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...sea—it is plenty light enough;
Through the clear atmosphere I stretch around on the wonderful beauty;
The enormous masses of ice pass me, and I pass them—the scenery is plain in
all directions;
The white-topt mountains show in the distance—I fling out my fancies toward
them;
(We are approaching some great battle-field in which we are soon to be engaged;
We pass the colossal outposts of the encampment—we pass with still feet and
caution;
Or we are entering by...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...long,
’Mid cannon’s thunder-crash, and many a curse, and groan and yell—and rifle-volleys
cracking sharp,
And moving masses, as wild demons surging—and lives as nothing risk’d,
For thy mere remnant, grimed with dirt and smoke, and sopp’d in blood;
For sake of that, my beauty—and that thou might’st dally, as now, secure up there,
Many a good man have I seen go under.
14
Now here, and these, and hence, in peace all thine, O Flag!
And here, and hence, for thee, O univers...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...uth, with the isthmus between.
See, vast, trackless spaces;
As in a dream, they change, they swiftly fill;
Countless masses debouch upon them;
They are now cover’d with the foremost people, arts, institutions, known.
See, projected, through time,
For me, an audience interminable.
With firm and regular step they wend—they never stop,
Successions of men, Americanos, a hundred millions;
One generation playing its part, and passing on;
Another generation playing its pa...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...
("Le soleil s'est couché")
{XXXV. vi., April, 1829.}
The sun set this evening in masses of cloud,
The storm comes to-morrow, then calm be the night,
Then the Dawn in her chariot refulgent and proud,
Then more nights, and still days, steps of Time in his flight.
The days shall pass rapid as swifts on the wing.
O'er the face of the hills, o'er the face of the seas,
O'er streamlets of silver, and forests that ring
With ...Read more of this...
by
Hugo, Victor
...thed; goat-toothed, to signify her
wantonness; or gap-toothed -- with gaps between her teeth.
42. An endowment to sing masses for the soul of the donor.
43. A ram was the usual prize at wrestling matches.
44. Cop: Head; German, "Kopf".
45. Nose-thirles: nostrils; from the Anglo-Saxon, "thirlian," to
pierce; hence the word "drill," to bore.
46. Goliardais: a babbler and a buffoon; Golias was the founder
of a jovial sect called by his name.
47. The proverb says that every...Read more of this...
by
Chaucer, Geoffrey
...n thou canst bid my Leila live,
Then will I sue thee to forgive;
Then plead my cause in that high place
Where purchased masses proffer grace.
Go, when the hunter's hand hath wrung
From forest-cave her shrieking young,
And calm the lonely lioness:
But soothe not - mock not my distress!
'In earlier days, and calmer hours,
When heart with heart delights to blend,
Where bloom my native valley's bowers
I had - Ah! have I now? - a friend!
To him this pledge I charge thee send,
Me...Read more of this...
by
Byron, George (Lord)
...at like giants stand
To sentinel enchanted land.
High on the south, huge Benvenue
Down to the lake in masses threw
Crags, knolls, and mounds, confusedly hurled,
The fragments of an earlier world;
A wildering forest feathered o'er
His ruined sides and summit hoar,
While on the north, through middle air,
Ben-an heaved high his forehead bare.
XV.
From the steep promontory gazed
The stranger, raptured and a...Read more of this...
by
Scott, Sir Walter
...
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
...Read more of this...
by
Lazarus, Emma
...and our peace more fragile.
You always felt lonely in the countryside, while I longed in Leeds
For open vistas cloud-masses over the blue chain of hills, the silence
Of the lanes, the sheep bells and the endless walks. Was I in flight..?
You had to ask but then as now I had no answer; but it’s the way I was,
Hating the clutter of the city, man en masse. I thought I needed a mate
For a Platonic cave, a companion for the Martello tower in Dublin Bay,
Whatever it was I n...Read more of this...
by
Tebb, Barry
...sons were downward borne
By the long and oft-renew'd
Charge of the Moslem multitude.
In firmness they stood, and in masses they fell,
Heap'd, by the host of the infidel,
Hand to hand, and foot to foot:
Nothing there, save death, was mute;
Stroke, and thrust, and flash, and cry
For quarter, or for victory,
Mingle there with the volleying thunder,
Which makes the distant cities wonder
How the sounding battle goes,
If with them, or for their foes;
If they must mour...Read more of this...
by
Byron, George (Lord)
...are almost at town.
Notes to the Sompnour's Tale
1. Trentals: The money given to the priests for performing thirty
masses for the dead, either in succession or on the anniversaries
of their death; also the masses themselves, which were very
profitable to the clergy.
2. Possessioners: The regular religious orders, who had lands
and fixed revenues; while the friars, by their vows, had to
depend on voluntary contributions, though their need suggested
many modes of evading ...Read more of this...
by
Chaucer, Geoffrey
...war glorious and
inevitable—and
they again leading to other results;)
How the great cities appear—How the Democratic masses, turbulent, wilful, as I love
them;
How the whirl, the contest, the wrestle of evil with good, the sounding and resounding,
keep on
and on;
How society waits unform’d, and is for awhile between things ended and things begun;
How America is the continent of glories, and of the triumph of freedom, and of the
Democracies,
and of the fruits of soc...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
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