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Famous Narrower Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry
...
And each tried to pretend that he did not remark 
That the other was going that way. 

But the valley grew narrow and narrower still, 
And the evening got darker and colder, 
Till (merely from nervousness, not from goodwill) 
They marched along shoulder to shoulder. 

Then a scream, shrill and high, rent the shuddering sky, 
And they knew that some danger was near: 
The Beaver turned pale to the tip of its tail, 
And even the Butcher felt *****. 

He thought of his childhoo...Read more of this...
by Carroll, Lewis



...
And his face was in the water. 
And above him, wheeled and clamored 
The Keneu, the great war-eagle, 
Sailing round in narrower circles,
Hovering nearer, nearer, nearer.
From the wigwam Hiawatha 
Bore the wealth of Megissogwon, 
All his wealth of skins and wampum, 
Furs of bison and of beaver, 
Furs of sable and of ermine, 
Wampum belts and strings and pouches, 
Quivers wrought with beads of wampum, 
Filled with arrows, silver-headed.
Homeward then he sailed exulting, 
Homew...Read more of this...
by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...hypocrite, and apostate.

Broad is the road that leads to death,
And thousands walk together there;
But wisdom shows a narrower path,
With here and there a traveller.

"Deny thyself, and take thy cross,"
Is the Redeemer's great command;
Nature must count her gold but dross,
If she would gain this heav'nly land.

The fearful soul that tires and faints,
And walks the ways of God no more,
Is but esteemed almost a saint,
And makes his own destruction sure.

Lord, let not all my ...Read more of this...
by Watts, Isaac
...d this is what keeps up the illusion of the tree. 
Oaks differ much, and much turns on the broadness of the leaves, the narrower 
giving the crisped and starry and catharine-wheel forms, the broader the flat-pieced 
mailed or chard-covered ones, in wh. it is possible to see composition in dips, etc. 
But I shall study them further. It was this night I believe but possibly the next 
that I saw clearly the impossibility of staying in the Church of England.

 *

How many coats d...Read more of this...
by Graham, Jorie
...to a shrewish tongue! 

Is it well to wish thee happy?--having known me--to decline
On a range of lower feelings and a narrower heart than mine! 

Yet it shall be; thou shalt lower to his level day by day,
What is fine within thee growing coarse to sympathize with clay. 

As the husband is, the wife is: thou art mated with a clown,
And the grossness of his nature will have weight to drag thee down. 

He will hold thee, when his passion shall have spent its novel force,
Somet...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord



...under
Shadows and chains and dreams and iron things;
The sea is dumb before thy face, the thunder
Silent, the skies are narrower than thy wings.

Angels and Gods, spirit and sense, thou takest
In thy right hand as drops of dust or dew;
The temples and the towers of time thou breakest,
His thoughts and words and works, to make them new.

All we have wandered from thy ways, have hidden
Eyes from thy glory and ears from calls they heard;
Called of thy trumpets vainly, called and...Read more of this...
by Swinburne, Algernon Charles
...clime,) 
Dismounted, on the Aleian field I fall, 
Erroneous there to wander, and forlorn. 
Half yet remains unsung, but narrower bound 
Within the visible diurnal sphere; 
Standing on earth, not rapt above the pole, 
More safe I sing with mortal voice, unchanged 
To hoarse or mute, though fallen on evil days, 
On evil days though fallen, and evil tongues; 
In darkness, and with dangers compassed round, 
And solitude; yet not alone, while thou 
Visitest my slumbers nightly, or...Read more of this...
by Milton, John
...by voice from Heaven
Heard thee pronounced the Son of God beloved.
Thenceforth I thought thee worth my nearer view
And narrower scrutiny, that I might learn
In what degree or meaning thou art called
The Son of God, which bears no single sense.
The Son of God I also am, or was;
And, if I was, I am; relation stands:
All men are Sons of God; yet thee I thought 
In some respect far higher so declared.
Therefore I watched thy footsteps from that hour,
And followed thee still on t...Read more of this...
by Milton, John
...e back off—I see him settle again—the life is leaving him fast, 
As he rises, he spouts blood—I see him swim in circles narrower and narrower, swiftly
 cutting the water—I see him die; 
He gives one convulsive leap in the centre of the circle, and then falls flat and still in
 the
 bloody foam. 

10
O the old manhood of me, my joy! 
My children and grand-children—my white hair and beard,
My largeness, calmness, majesty, out of the long stretch of my life. 

O the ripen’d joy ...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt
...se they grew infallible:
At last, a knowing age began t'enquire
If they the Book, or that did them inspire:
And, making narrower search they found, though late,
That what they thought the priest's was their estate:
Taught by the will produc'd, (the written Word)
How long they had been cheated on record.
Then, every man who saw the title fair,
Claim'd a child's part, and put in for a share:
Consulted soberly his private good;
And sav'd himself as cheap as e'er he could.

'Tis ...Read more of this...
by Dryden, John
...ule's coast,Nile, Tanaïs, and Calpe should resound,And dread Olympus.—But a narrower boundConfines my flight: and thee, our native climeBetween the Alps and Apennine must boast. Capel Lofft.  With glowing virtue graced, of warm heart known,Sweet S...Read more of this...
by Petrarch, Francesco
...y;
And each tried to pretend that he did not remark
 That the other was going that way.

But the valley grew narrow and narrower still,
 And the evening got darker and colder,
Till (merely from nervousness, not from goodwill)
 They marched along shoulder to shoulder.

Then a scream, shrill and high, rent the shuddering sky,
 And they knew that some danger was near:
The Beaver turned pale to the tip of its tail,
 And even the Butcher felt *****.

He thought of his childhood, l...Read more of this...
by Carroll, Lewis
...table mass-disasters
Will not come in our time nor in our children's, but we 
 and our children
Must watch the net draw narrower, government take all 
 powers--or revolution, and the new government
Take more than all, add to kept bodies kept souls--or anarchy, 
 the mass-disasters.
 These things are Progress;
Do you marvel our verse is troubled or frowning, while it keeps 
 its reason? Or it lets go, lets the mood flow
In the manner of the recent young men into mere hysteria,...Read more of this...
by Jeffers, Robinson
...odies of sleeping women.
Often I had to slow down for herds of goats
Or cattle milling on those narrow roads, & for
The narrower, lost, stone streets of villages
I passed through. The pains in my stomach had grown
Gradually sharper & more frequent as the day
Wore on, & now a fever had set up house.
In the villages there wasn't much point in asking
Anyone for help. In those places, where tanks
Were bivouacked in shade on their way back
From some routine exercise along
The Danu...Read more of this...
by Levis, Larry
...fall;
These, heedful, from afar I feel -
I mark them all.

But not, my friend, not these I sing,
My voice shall fill a narrower ring.
Tired souls, that flag upon the wing,
I seek to cheer:
Brave wines to strengthen hope I bring,
Life's cantineer!

Some song that shall be suppling oil
To weary muscles strained with toil,
Shall hearten for the daily moil,
Or widely read
Make sweet for him that tills the soil
His daily bread.

Such songs in my flushed hours I dream
(High though...Read more of this...
by Stevenson, Robert Louis
...ther
ahead of you, maybe ten places.
You rub your glasses with your fingers,
and of course it's someone else's brother,
narrower across the shoulders than
yours but with the same sad slouch, the grin
that does not hide the stubbornness,
the sad refusal to give in to
rain, to the hours wasted waiting,
to the knowledge that somewhere ahead
a man is waiting who will say, "No,
we're not hiring today," for any
reason he wants. You love your brother,
now suddenly you can hardly sta...Read more of this...
by Levine, Philip

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Book: Reflection on the Important Things