Famous Paces Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Beowulf (Old English)

...l,
after havoc of heroes, those hardy Scyldings?
Now, the son of a certain slaughtering Dane,
proud of his treasure, paces this hall,
joys in the killing, and carries the jewel {28d}
that rightfully ought to be owned by thee!_
Thus he urges and eggs him all the time
with keenest words, till occasion offers
that Freawaru’s thane, for his father’s deed,
after bite of brand in his blood must slumber,
losing his life; but that liegeman flies
living away, for the land h...Read more of this...
by Anonymous,


Constantly Risking Absurdity

...the poet like an acrobat
climbs on rime
to a high wire of his own making
and balancing on eyebeams
above a sea of faces
paces his way
to the other side of the day
performing entrachats
and sleight-of-foot tricks
and other high theatrics
and all without mistaking
any thing
for what it may not be
For he's the super realist
who must perforce perceive
taut truth
before the taking of each stance or step
in his supposed advance
toward that still higher perch
where Beauty stands and...Read more of this...
by Ferlinghetti, Lawrence

Endymion: Book I

...picture of his sovereign power,
And I could witness his most kingly hour,
When he doth lighten up the golden reins,
And paces leisurely down amber plains
His snorting four. Now when his chariot last
Its beams against the zodiac-lion cast,
There blossom'd suddenly a magic bed
Of sacred ditamy, and poppies red:
At which I wondered greatly, knowing well
That but one night had wrought this flowery spell;
And, sitting down close by, began to muse
What it might mean. Perhaps, thoug...Read more of this...
by Keats, John

Endymion: Book II

...he, "why should I tarry here?"
No! loudly echoed times innumerable.
At which he straightway started, and 'gan tell
His paces back into the temple's chief;
Warming and glowing strong in the belief
Of help from Dian: so that when again
He caught her airy form, thus did he plain,
Moving more near the while. "O Haunter chaste
Of river sides, and woods, and heathy waste,
Where with thy silver bow and arrows keen
Art thou now forested? O woodland Queen,
What smoothest air thy smoo...Read more of this...
by Keats, John

Music

...a courtly mien;
Crossing hands and changing places,
Bowing low between,
While the minuet inlaces
Waving arms and woven paces,--
Glittering damaskeen.
Where is she whose form is folden
In its royal sheen?
>From our longing eyes withholden
By her mystic girdle golden,
Beauty sought but never seen,
Music walks the maze, a queen.


VIII

THE SYMPHONY

Music, they do thee wrong who say thine art
Is only to enchant the sense.
For every timid motion of the heart,
And every passion ...Read more of this...
by Dyke, Henry Van


My Perfect Rose

...re the ‘moments of vision’, her eyes

Dissolving the blank walls and made-up faces,

Genius painfully going through her paces,

The skull she drew, the withered chrysanthemum

And scarlet rose, ‘Descensus averno’, like Virgil,

I supposed.

Now three years later, in nylons and tight skirt,

She returns from grammar school to make a chaos of my room;

Plaiting a rose in her hair, I remember the words of her poem -

‘For love is wrong/in word, in deed/But you will be mine’

And...Read more of this...
by Tebb, Barry

Paradise Lost: Book 06

...the proud crest of Satan, that no sight, 
Nor motion of swift thought, less could his shield, 
Such ruin intercept: Ten paces huge 
He back recoiled; the tenth on bended knee 
His massy spear upstaid; as if on earth 
Winds under ground, or waters forcing way, 
Sidelong had pushed a mountain from his seat, 
Half sunk with all his pines. Amazement seised 
The rebel Thrones, but greater rage, to see 
Thus foiled their mightiest; ours joy filled, and shout, 
Presage of victory, a...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Paradise Lost: Book 08

...es; this Earth, a spot, a grain, 
An atom, with the firmament compared 
And all her numbered stars, that seem to roll 
Spaces incomprehensible, (for such 
Their distance argues, and their swift return 
Diurnal,) merely to officiate light 
Round this opacous Earth, this punctual spot, 
One day and night; in all her vast survey 
Useless besides; reasoning I oft admire, 
How Nature wise and frugal could commit 
Such disproportions, with superfluous hand 
So many nobler bodies to...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Seaside Golf

...d it out of sight,
And spite of grassy banks between
I knew I'd find it on the green.

And so I did. It lay content
Two paces from the pin;
A steady putt and then it went
Oh, most surely in.
The very turf rejoiced to see
That quite unprecedented three.

Ah! Seaweed smells from sandy caves
And thyme and mist in whiffs,
In-coming tide, Atlantic waves
Slapping the sunny cliffs,
Lark song and sea sounds in the air
And splendour, splendour everywhere....Read more of this...
by Betjeman, John

Skimbleshanks: The Railway Cat

...om the driver and the guards to the bagmen playing cards
He will supervise them all, more or less.
Down the corridor he paces and examines all the faces
Of the travellers in the First and the Third;
He establishes control by a regular patrol
And he'd know at once if anything occurred.
He will watch you without winking and he sees what you are thinking
And it's certain that he doesn't approve
Of hilarity and riot, so the folk are very quiet
When Skimble is about and on the mov...Read more of this...
by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)

Song of Myself

...th pleasure, as we race around and return. 

I but use you a moment, then I resign you, stallion;
Why do I need your paces, when I myself out-gallop them? 
Even, as I stand or sit, passing faster than you. 

33
O swift wind! O space and time! now I see it is true, what I guessed at; 
What I guess’d when I loaf’d on the grass; 
What I guess’d while I lay alone in my bed,
And again as I walk’d the beach under the paling stars of the morning. 

My ties and ballasts l...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt

Street Cries

...'
`Where?' quoth Love --

"`Not far, not far,' said shivering Sense
As they rode on. `A short way hence,
-- But seventy paces hence:
Look, King, dost see where suddenly
This road doth dip from the height above?
Cold blew a mouldy wind by me'
(`Cold?' quoth Love)

"`As I rode down, and the River was black,
And yon-side, lo! an endless wrack
And rabble of souls,' sighed Sense,
`Their eyes upturned and begged and burned
In brimstone lakes, and a Hand above
Beat back the hands th...Read more of this...
by Lanier, Sidney

The Building of the Ship

...ight, 
The great sun rises to behold the sight. 
The ocean old, 
Centuries old, 
Strong as youth, and as uncontrolled, 
Paces restless to and fro, 
Up and down the sands of gold. 
His beating heart is not at rest; 
And far and wide, 
With ceaseless flow, 
His beard of snow 
Heaves with the heaving of his breast. 
He waits impatient for his bride. 
There she stands, 
With her foot upon the sands, 
Decked with flags and streamers gay, 
In honor of her marriage day, 
Her snow-wh...Read more of this...
by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth

The Dungeon

...bsp; Which they can do between them.   Beside their moss-grown hut of clay,  Not twenty paces from the door,  A scrap of land they have, but they  Are poorest of the poor.  This scrap of land he from the heath  Enclosed when he was stronger;  But what avails the land to them,  Which they can till no longer?   Few months of life has he in store,  As he to you ...Read more of this...
by Wordsworth, William

The Flight Of The Duchess

...s
Which proves the veil a Persian woman's.
And under her brow, like a snail's horns newly
Come out as after the rain he paces,
Two unmistakeable eye-points duly
Live and aware looked out of their places.
So, we went and found Jacynth at the entry
Of the lady's chamber standing sentry;
I told the command and produced my companion,
And Jacynth rejoiced to admit any one,
For since last night, by the same token,
Not a single word had the lady spoken:
They went in both to the pres...Read more of this...
by Browning, Robert

The Lady of Shalott

...al mirror, 
'Tirra lirra,' by the river 
Sang Sir Lancelot. 

She left the web, she left the loom, 
She made three paces thro' the room, 110 
She saw the water-lily bloom, 
She saw the helmet and the plume, 
She look'd down to Camelot. 
Out flew the web and floated wide; 
The mirror crack'd from side to side; 115 
'The curse is come upon me!' cried 
The Lady of Shalott. 

PART IV
In the stormy east-wind straining,

The pale yellow woods were waning, 
The bro...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord

The Other Tiger

...his one too will be a form
Of what I dream, a structure of words, and not
The flesh and one tiger that beyond all myths
Paces the earth. I know these things quite well,
Yet nonetheless some force keeps driving me
In this vague, unreasonable, and ancient quest,
And I go on pursuing through the hours
Another tiger, the beast not found in verse....Read more of this...
by Borges, Jorge Luis

The Princess (part 5)

...Now, scarce three paces measured from the mound, 
We stumbled on a stationary voice, 
And 'Stand, who goes?' 'Two from the palace' I. 
'The second two: they wait,' he said, 'pass on; 
His Highness wakes:' and one, that clashed in arms, 
By glimmering lanes and walls of canvas led 
Threading the soldier-city, till we heard 
The drowsy folds of our great ensign shake 
From blaz...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord

The Waste Land

...one half-formed thought to pass:
"Well now that's done: and I'm glad it's over."
When lovely woman stoops to folly and
Paces about her room again, alone,
She smoothes her hair with automatic hand,
And puts a record on the gramophone.
 "This music crept by me upon the waters"
And along the Strand, up Queen Victoria Street.
O City city, I can sometimes hear
Beside a public bar in Lower Thames Street, 
The pleasant whining of a mandoline
And a clatter and a chatter from within
...Read more of this...
by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)

To The Sound Of Violins

...e stand out in the teeming swarm

Of teens and twenties this foetid Friday night

On my way from the ward where our son paces

And fulminates I throw myself into the drowning

Tide of Friday to be rescued by sheer normality.

The mill girl with her mates asks anxiously

"Are you on your own? Come and join us

What’s your name?" Age has driven my shyness away 

As I join the crowd beneath the turning purple screens 

Bannered ‘****** lasts for ever’ and sip unending 

Halves o...Read more of this...
by Tebb, Barry

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