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Famous Perforce Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Ferlinghetti, Lawrence
...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 waits
with gravity
to start her death-defying leap
And he
a little charleychaplin man
who may or may not catch
her fair eternal form
spreadeagled in the empty air
of existence...Read more of this...



by Keats, John
...Carian
No word return'd: both lovelorn, silent, wan,
Into the vallies green together went.
Far wandering, they were perforce content
To sit beneath a fair lone beechen tree;
Nor at each other gaz'd, but heavily
Por'd on its hazle cirque of shedded leaves.

 Endymion! unhappy! it nigh grieves
Me to behold thee thus in last extreme:
Ensky'd ere this, but truly that I deem
Truth the best music in a first-born song.
Thy lute-voic'd brother will I sing ere long,
And th...Read more of this...

by Hugo, Victor
...pikes have death's-heads carved, and seem to be 
 Too heavy; but the shapes defiantly 
 Sit proudly in the saddle—and perforce 
 The rider looks united to the horse! 
 The network of their mail doth clearly cross. 
 The Marquis' mortar beams near Ducal wreath, 
 And on the helm and gleaming shield beneath 
 Alternate triple pearls with leaves displayed 
 Of parsley, and the royal robes are made 
 So large that with the knightly harness they 
 Seem to o'ermaster palf...Read more of this...

by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...r at first he proffered gold, 
Yet, for the field was pleasant in our eyes, 
We yielded not; and then he reft us of it 
Perforce, and left us neither gold nor field.' 

Said Arthur, 'Whether would ye? gold or field?' 
To whom the woman weeping, 'Nay, my lord, 
The field was pleasant in my husband's eye.' 

And Arthur, 'Have thy pleasant field again, 
And thrice the gold for Uther's use thereof, 
According to the years. No boon is here, 
But justice, so thy say be ...Read more of this...

by Homer,
...n form of the daughters of Celeus, answered her and said:

[Line 147] "Mother, what the gods send us, we mortals bear perforce, although we suffer; for they are much stronger than we. But now I will teach you clearly, telling you the names of men who have great power and honour here and are chief among the people, guarding our city's coif of towers by their wisdom and true judgements: there is wise Triptolemus and Dioclus and Polyxeinus and blameless Eumolpus and Dolich...Read more of this...



by Keats, John
...ses, stifle up your ears,
My voice is not a bellows unto ire.
Yet listen, ye who will, whilst I bring proof
How ye, perforce, must be content to stoop:
And in the proof much comfort will I give,
If ye will take that comfort in its truth.
We fall by course of Nature's law, not force
Of thunder, or of Jove. Great Saturn, thou
Hast sifted well the atom-universe;
But for this reason, that thou art the King,
And only blind from sheer supremacy,
One avenue was shaded fr...Read more of this...

by St Vincent Millay, Edna
...at we could die apart. I had not thought
That I could move,—and you be stiff and still!
That I could speak,—and you perforce be dumb!
I think our heart-strings were, like warp and woof
In some firm fabric, woven in and out;
Your golden filaments in fair design
Across my duller fibre. And to-day
The shining strip is rent; the exquisite
Fine pattern is destroyed; part of your heart
Aches in my breast; part of my heart lies chilled
In the damp earth with you. I have ...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...member'd well, 
And on the words, however light, would dwell. 
None knew nor how, nor why, but he entwined 
Himself perforce around the hearer's mind; 
There he was stamp'd, in liking, or in hate, 
If greeted once; however brief the date 
That friendship, pity, or aversion knew, 
Still there within the inmost thought he grew. 
You could not penetrate his soul, but found 
Despite your wonder, to your own he wound. 
His presence haunted still; and from the breast 
H...Read more of this...

by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...hese idols to herself? or do they fly
Now thinner, and now thicker, like the flakes
In a fall of snow, and so press in, perforce
Of multitude, as crowds that in an hour
Of civic tumult jam the doors, and bear
The keepers down, and throng, their rags and the
The basest, far into that council-hall
Where sit the best and stateliest of the land?

³Can I not fling this horror off me again, 
Seeing with how great ease Nature can smile 
Balmier and nobler from her bath of storm, 
At...Read more of this...

by Robinson, Edwin Arlington
...,
But none shall ever know that royalty
For what it is till he has realized
His best friend in himself. 'T is then, perforce,
That man's unfettered faith indemnifies
Of its own conscious freedom the old shame,
And love's revealed infinitude supplants
Of its own wealth and wisdom the old scorn. 

XIV 

Though the sick beast infect us, we are fraught
Forever with indissoluble Truth,
Wherein redress reveals itself divine,
Transitional, transcendent. Grief and loss,
D...Read more of this...

by Cowper, William
...He shouted: nor his friends had fail'd
To check the vessel's course,
But so the furious blast prevail'd,
That, pitiless perforce,
They left their outcast mate behind,
And scudded still before the wind.

Some succour yet they could afford;
And, such as storms allow,
The cask, the coop, the floated cord,
Delay'd not to bestow.
But he (they knew) nor ship, nor shore,
Whate'er they gave, should visit more.

Nor, cruel as it seem'd, could he
Their haste himself condemn...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...all thy race;
There from thy daughter, sister, wife,
At midnight drain the stream of life;
Yet loathe the banquet which perforce
Must feed thy livid living corse:
Thy victims ere they yet expire
Shall know the demon for their sire,
As cursing thee, thou cursing them,
Thy flowers are withered on the stem.
But one that for thy crime must fall,
The youngest, most beloved of all,
Shall bless thee with a father's name -
That word shall wrap thy heart in flame!
Yet must thou en...Read more of this...

by Browning, Robert
...`He would brave when my lip formed a breath,
``I must reckon as braved, or, of course,
``Doubt his word---and moreover, perforce,
``For such gifts as no lady could spurn,
``Must offer my love in return.
``When I looked on your lion, it brought
``All the dangers at once to my thought,
``Encountered by all sorts of men,
``Before he was lodged in his den,---
``From the poor slave whose club or bare hands
``Dug the trap, set the snare on the sands,
``With no King and no Court...Read more of this...

by Scott, Sir Walter
...old;
     For ere that steep ascent was won,
     High in his pathway hung the sun,
     And many a gallant, stayed perforce,
     Was fain to breathe his faltering horse,
     And of the trackers of the deer
     Scarce half the lessening pack was near;
     So shrewdly on the mountain-side
     Had the bold burst their mettle tried.
     V.

     The noble stag was pausing now
     Upon the mountain's southern brow,
     Where broad extended, far beneath,
   ...Read more of this...

by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...lesh and blood 
Of our old kings: whence then? a doubtful lord 
To bind them by inviolable vows, 
Which flesh and blood perforce would violate: 
For feel this arm of mine--the tide within 
Red with free chase and heather-scented air, 
Pulsing full man; can Arthur make me pure 
As any maiden child? lock up my tongue 
From uttering freely what I freely hear? 
Bind me to one? The wide world laughs at it. 
And worldling of the world am I, and know 
The ptarmigan that whitens ...Read more of this...

by Robinson, Edwin Arlington
...nd there, of our poor self dominion reft, 
If inference and reason shun 
Hell, Heaven, and Oblivion,
May thwarted will (perforce precarious, 
But for our conservation better thus) 
Have no misgiving left 
Of doing yet what here we leave undone? 
Or if unto the last of these we cleave,
Believing or protesting we believe 
In such an idle and ephemeral 
Florescence of the diabolical,— 
If, robbed of two fond old enormities, 
Our being had no onward auguries,
What then were this ...Read more of this...

by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...mself would tilt it out among the lads: 
But overborne by all his bearded lords 
With reasons drawn from age and state, perforce 
He yielded, wroth and red, with fierce demur: 
And many a bold knight started up in heat, 
And sware to combat for my claim till death. 

All on this side the palace ran the field 
Flat to the garden-wall: and likewise here, 
Above the garden's glowing blossom-belts, 
A columned entry shone and marble stairs, 
And great bronze valves, embossed ...Read more of this...

by Coleridge, Samuel Taylor
...sank
Like music on my heart.

But soon I heard the dash of oars,
I heard the Pilot's cheer;
My head was turned perforce away
And I saw a boat appear.

The Pilot and the Pilot's boy,
I heard them coming fast:
Dear Lord in Heaven! it was a joy
The dead men could not blast.

I saw a third-I heard his voice:
It is the Hermit good!
He singeth loud his godly hymns
That he makes in the wood.
He'll shrieve my soul he'll wash away
The Albatross's bloo...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...Christians yielded not; 
And the foremost, if fearful, may vainly try 
Through the massy column to turn and fly; 
They perforce must do or die. 
They die: but ere their eyes could close, 
Avengers o'er their bodies rose; 
Fresh and furious, fast they fill 
The ranks unthinn'd, though slaughter'd still: 
And faint the weary Christians wax 
Before the still renew'd attacks: 
And now the Othmans gain the gate; 
Still resists its iron weight, 
And still, all deadly aim'd and...Read more of this...

by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...who carve the stone
Beyond all dreams of Godlike womanhood,
Ineffable beauty, out of whom, at a glance
And as it were, perforce, upon me flash'd
The power of prophesying‹but to me
No power so chain'd and coupled with the curse
Of blindness and their unbelief who heard
And heard not, when I spake of famine, plague
Shrine-shattering earthquake, fire, flood, thunderbolt,
And angers of the Gods for evil done
And expiation lack'd‹no power on Fate
Theirs, or mine own! for when the...Read more of this...

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Book: Reflection on the Important Things