Famous Outset Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Bishop Blougrams Apology

...try! 
'T is clear, I cannot lead my life, at least, 


Induce the world to let me peaceably, 
Without declaring at the outset, "Friends, 
"I absolutely and peremptorily 
"Believe!"--I say, faith is my waking life: 
One sleeps, indeed, and dreams at intervals, 
We know, but waking's the main point with us 
And my provision's for life's waking part. 
Accordingly, I use heart, head and hand 
All day, I build, scheme, study, and make friends; 
And when night overtakes me, down I...Read more of this...
by Browning, Robert


Impossible To Tell

...beg her life.
Possibly he grew up to be the tall rabbi,

The one who washed his hands of all those capers
Right at the outset. Or maybe he became
The author of these lines, a one-man renga

The one for whom it seems to be impossible
To tell a story straight. It was a routine
Procedure. When it was finished the physicians

Told Sandra and the kids it had succeeded,
But Elliot wouldn't wake up for maybe an hour,
They should go eat. The two of them loved to bicker

In a way tha...Read more of this...
by Pinsky, Robert

Indications The

...on them, follows beauty, longing, fain, love-sick. 

They prepare for death—yet are they not the finish, but rather the outset, 
They bring none to his or her terminus, or to be content and full; 
Whom they take, they take into space, to behold the birth of stars, to learn one of the
 meanings,
To launch off with absolute faith—to sweep through the ceaseless rings, and never be
 quiet
 again.THE indications, and tally of time; 
Perfect sanity shows the master among philosophs...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt

Song of the Broad-Axe

...goods, 
The disembarkation, the founding of a new city, 
The voyage of those who sought a New England and found it—the outset anywhere, 
The settlements of the Arkansas, Colorado, Ottawa, Willamette, 
The slow progress, the scant fare, the axe, rifle, saddle-bags;
The beauty of all adventurous and daring persons, 
The beauty of wood-boys and wood-men, with their clear untrimm’d faces, 
The beauty of independence, departure, actions that rely on themselves, 
The American cont...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt

The House Of Hospitalities

...l,
 And called in friends.

Time has tired me since we met here
 When the folk now dead were young,
And the viands were outset here
 And quaint songs sung.

And the worm has bored the viol
 That used to lead the tune,
Rust eaten out the dial
 That struck night's noon.

Now no Christmas brings in neighbours,
 And the New Year comes unlit;
Where we sang the mole now labours,
 And spiders knit.

Yet at midnight if here walking,
 When the moon sheets wall and tree,
I see forms of...Read more of this...
by Hardy, Thomas


With brutus in st. jo

...--Marc Antony's was four;
Our army hankered after fame, but Marc's was after gore!
And when we reached Philippi, at the outset we were met
With an inartistic gusto I can never quite forget.
For Antony's overwhelming force of thumpers seemed to be
Resolved to do "them Kansas jays"--and that meant Jack and me!
My lips were sealed but that it seems quite proper you should know
That Rome was nowhere in it at Philippi in St. Jo!

I've known the slow-consuming grief and ostentatiou...Read more of this...
by Field, Eugene

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