Famous Pedestal Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Pedestal poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous pedestal poems. These examples illustrate what a famous pedestal poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Stevenson, Robert Louis
...A travesty of man, ye go:
But fear not: ere the curtain fall,
Death in the transformation scene
Steps forward from her pedestal,
Apparent, as the fairy Queen;
And coming, frees you in a trice
From all your lendings - lust of fame,
Ungainly virtue, ugly vice,
Terror and tyranny and shame.
So each, at last himself, for good
In that dear country lays him down,
At last beloved and understood
And pure in feature and renown....Read more of this...
by
Keats, John
...nst thou read aught? O read for pity's sake!
Olympus! we are safe! Now, Carian, break
This wand against yon lyre on the pedestal."
'Twas done: and straight with sudden swell and fall
Sweet music breath'd her soul away, and sigh'd
A lullaby to silence.--"Youth! now strew
These minced leaves on me, and passing through
Those files of dead, scatter the same around,
And thou wilt see the issue."--'Mid the sound
Of flutes and viols, ravishing his heart,
Endymion from ...Read more of this...
by
Yevtushenko, Yevgeny
...here was some minor overthrow or other,
and the poet was thrown out, beyond the gates.
Sweating,
they removed
the pedestal
to a filthy little red-light district.
And the poet stood,
as the sailor's adopted brother,
against a background
you might call native to him.
Our Bilbao loved cracking jokes.
He would say:
'On this best of possible planets
there are prostitutes and politutes --
as I'm a poet,
I prefer the former.'"
And Neruda comments, with a ...Read more of this...
by
Stevenson, Robert Louis
...t one swoop impresst
By one low-flying swallow for her nest,
Strip god Priapus of each attribute
Here finds he scarce a pedestal to foot.
The gathered harvest scarcely brims a spoon;
And all my vintage drips in a cocoon.
Generous are you, but I more generous still:
Take back your farm and stand me half a gill!...Read more of this...
by
Masters, Edgar Lee
...ing the army,
Rather a thousand times the county jail
Than to lie under this marble figure with wings,
And this granite pedestal
Bearing the words 'Pro Patria.'
What do they mean, anyway?...Read more of this...
by
Hugo, Victor
...tott'ring stone whilst ocean ebbs,
And, reeking of no storms to come to-morrow,
Or to-morrow—deem that a certain pedestal
Whereon thou'lt be adored for e'er—e'en while
It shakes—o'ersets the rider! Tremble, thou!
For he who dazzles, makes men Samson-blind,
Will see the pillars of his palace kiss
E'en at the whelming ruin! Then, what word
Of answer from your wreck when I demand
Account of Cromwell! glory of the people
Smothered in ashes! through ...Read more of this...
by
Shelley, Percy Bysshe
...d
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal these words appear:
'My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings,
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away."...Read more of this...
by
Masters, Edgar Lee
...shepherd --
Others bearing a cross, one foot lifted up --
Why not chisel a few shambles?
And fallen columns! Carve the pedestal, please,
Or the foundations; let us see the cause of the fall.
And compasses and mathematical instruments,
In irony of the under tenants' ignorance
Of determinants and the calculus of variations.
And anchors, for those who never sailed.
And gates ajar -- yes, so they were;
You left them open and stray goats entered your garden.
And a...Read more of this...
by
Ashbery, John
...n changes are merely
Features of the whole. The whole is stable within
Instability, a globe like ours, resting
On a pedestal of vacuum, a ping-pong ball
Secure on its jet of water.
And just as there are no words for the surface, that is,
No words to say what it really is, that it is not
Superficial but a visible core, then there is
No way out of the problem of pathos vs. experience.
You will stay on, restive, serene in
Your gesture which is neither embrace nor...Read more of this...
by
Edson, Russell
...ipline the night, and make him jump through
hoops of gasolined fire. Someone who could make a tiger sit
on a tiny pedestal and yawn . . ....Read more of this...
by
Poe, Edgar Allan
...
Of glory which the world hath known
Stands she not nobly and alone?
Falling- her veriest stepping-stone
Shall form the pedestal of a throne-
And who her sovereign? Timour- he
Whom the astonished people saw
Striding o'er empires haughtily
A diadem'd outlaw!
O, human love! thou spirit given
On Earth, of all we hope in Heaven!
Which fall'st into the soul like rain
Upon the Siroc-wither'd plain,
And, failing in thy power to bless,
But leav'st the heart a wilderness!
Idea! which...Read more of this...
by
McGonagall, William Topaz
...rs standing by seemed very dejected.
And through the Central Avenue, to make the decorations complete,
There were pedestals erected, rising fourteen to fifteen feet,
And at the foot and top of each pedestal were hung decorations of green bay,
Also beautiful wreaths and evergreen festoons all in grand array.
And there were torches fastened on pieces of wood stuck in the ground;
And as the people gazed on the weird-like scene, their silence was profound;
And the shopk...Read more of this...
by
Tennyson, Alfred Lord
..., nor shun to do it,
Being other--since we learnt our meaning here,
To lift the woman's fallen divinity
Upon an even pedestal with man.'
She paused, and added with a haughtier smile
'And as to precontracts, we move, my friend,
At no man's beck, but know ourself and thee,
O Vashti, noble Vashti! Summoned out
She kept her state, and left the drunken king
To brawl at Shushan underneath the palms.'
'Alas your Highness breathes full East,' I said,
'On that whi...Read more of this...
by
Tennyson, Alfred Lord
..., wrapped in a soldier's cloak,
Like some sweet sculpture draped from head to foot,
And pushed by rude hands from its pedestal,
All her fair length upon the ground she lay:
And at her head a follower of the camp,
A charred and wrinkled piece of womanhood,
Sat watching like the watcher by the dead.
Then Florian knelt, and 'Come' he whispered to her,
'Lift up your head, sweet sister: lie not thus.
What have you done but right? you could not slay
Me, nor your ...Read more of this...
by
Kipling, Rudyard
...r>
Ye have forgotten of all Gods the Chief,
Taman!" Here rolled the thunder through the Hills
And Yabosh shook upon his pedestal.
"Ye have forgotten of all Gods the Chief
Too long." And all were dumb save one, who cried
On Yabosh with the Sapphire 'twixt His knees,
But found no answer in the smoky roof,
And, being smitten of the Sickness, died
Before the altar of the Sapphire Shrine.
Then said Bisesa: -- "I am near to Death,
And have the Wisdom of the Grave for g...Read more of this...
by
Gregory, Rg
...ention
(said the teacher)
and look up here
the children looked up
this is william shakespeare
four centuries up
on a pedestal
was shakespeare's head
he was what we call
a great man
the children got sore necks
looking up
and some began to look down
no no
you mustn't look down
(said the teacher)
apart from winston churchill
shakespeare was the greatest
englishman who ever lived
the children's eyes
drained to their feet
and their minds
played around with
their private par...Read more of this...
by
Schiller, Friedrich von
...e met his eye?
I know not,--but, when day appeared, the priests
Found him extended senseless, pale as death,
Before the pedestal of Isis' statue.
What had been seen and heard by him when there
He never would disclose, but from that hour
His happiness in life had fled forever,
And his deep sorrow soon conducted him
To an untimely grave. "Woe to that man,"
He warning said to every questioner,
"Woe to that man who wins the truth by guilt,
For truth so gained will ne'er r...Read more of this...
by
Aiken, Conrad
...ling
shining like a harp string
an old man draws with his ferrule
in wet sand a map of Spain
the marble soldier on his pedestal
draws a stiff diagram of pain
but the walls around her tremble
with the speed of the earth the floor
curves to the terrestrial center
and behind her the door
opens darkly down to the beginning
far down to the first simple cry
and the animal waking in water
and the opening of the eye
she looks out in the blue morning
and sees a whole wonderful wor...Read more of this...
by
Brautigan, Richard
...jamin Franklin
statue in San Francisco's Washington Square.
Born 1706--Died 1790, Benjamin Franklin stands on a
pedestal that looks like a house containing stone furniture.
He holds some papers in one hand and his hat in the other.
Then the statue speaks, saying in marble:
PRESENTED BY
H. D. COGSWELL
TO OUR
BOYS AND GIRLS
WHO WILL SOON
TAKE OUR PLACES
AND PASS ON.
Around the base of the statue are four words facing the
dire...Read more of this...
Dont forget to view our wonderful member Pedestal poems.