Famous Persist Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Virginity

by Robert William Service
 My mother she had children five and four are dead and gone;
While I, least worthy to survive, persist in living on.
She looks at me, I must confess, sometimes with spite and bitterness.

My mother is three-score and ten, while I am forty-three,
You don't know how it hurts me when we go somewhere to tea,
And people tell her on the sly...Read more of this...

Tortoise Gallantry

by D. H. Lawrence
 Making his advances
He does not look at her, nor sniff at her,
No, not even sniff at her, his nose is blank.
Only he senses the vulnerable folds of skin
That work beneath her while she sprawls along
In her ungainly pace,
Her folds of skin that work and row
Beneath the earth-soiled hovel in which she moves.

And so he strains beneath her housey wall,
And...Read more of this...

the eyes that haunt me

by Rg Gregory
 there are eyes that refuse to exist
in the fresh air - they are invented
by the lies of paint or make their mark
in a memory that had a truth
to feed on but only by distortion

right now they sell a dream
i'd like to see the back of - they come
with a whole body rippling me apart
disturbing me with echoes of a...Read more of this...

Only a Curl

by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
 I.
FRIENDS of faces unknown and a land
Unvisited over the sea, 
Who tell me how lonely you stand
With a single gold curl in the hand
Held up to be looked at by me, --


II.
While you ask me to ponder and say
What a father and mother can do, 
With the bright fellow-locks put away
Out of reach, beyond kiss, in the clay
Where the...Read more of this...

The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (excerpt)

by William Blake
 In seed time learn, in harvest teach, in winter enjoy.
Drive your cart and your plow over the bones of the dead.
The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.
Prudence is a rich, ugly old maid courted by Incapacity.
He who desires but acts not, breeds pestilence.
The cut worm forgives the plow.
Dip him in the river who loves water.
A fool...Read more of this...

Step by step, day by day

by Emile Verhaeren
Step by step, day by day, age has come and placed his hands upon the bare forehead of our love, and has looked upon it with his dimmer eyes.
And in the fair garden shrivelled by July, the flowers, the groves and the living leaves have let fall something of their fervid strength on to the pale pond and the gentle...Read more of this...

The Thin People

by Sylvia Plath
 They are always with us, the thin people
Meager of dimension as the gray people

On a movie-screen. They
Are unreal, we say:

It was only in a movie, it was only
In a war making evil headlines when we

Were small that they famished and
Grew so lean and would not round

Out their stalky limbs again though peace
Plumped the bellies of the mice

Under the meanest...Read more of this...

Prothalamion

by Delmore Schwartz
 "little soul, little flirting,
 little perverse one
 where are you off to now?
 little wan one, firm one
 little exposed one...
 and never make fun of me again."


Now I must betray myself.
The feast of bondage and unity is near,
And none engaged in that great piety
When each bows to the other, kneels, and takes
Hand in hand, glance and glance, care...Read more of this...

Sepulchre

by George Herbert
 O blessed body! Whither are thou thrown? 
No lodging for thee, but a cold hard stone? 
So many hearts on earth, and yet not one
Receive thee? 
Sure there is room within our hearts' good store; 
For they can lodge transgressions by the score: 
Thousands of toys dwell there, yet out of door
They leave thee.
But that which shows them large,...Read more of this...

Proverbs of Hell (Excerpt from The Marriage of Heaven and H

by William Blake
 In seed time learn, in harvest teach, in winter enjoy.
Drive your cart and your plow over the bones of the dead.
The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.
Prudence is a rich, ugly old maid courted by Incapacity.
He who desires but acts not, breeds pestilence.
The cut worm forgives the plow.
Dip him in the river who loves water.
A fool...Read more of this...

Sonnet VI

by Edmund Spenser
 BE nought dismayd that her vnmoued mind,
doth still persist in her rebellious pride:
such loue not lyke to lusts of baser kynd,
the harder wonne, the firmer will abide.
The durefull Oake, whose sap is not yet dride,
is long ere it conceiue the kindling fyre:
but when it once doth burne, it doth diuide
great heat, and makes his flames to heauen aspire.
So hard...Read more of this...

Inspiration

by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
 Not like a daring, bold, aggressive boy, 
Is inspiration, eager to pursue, 
But rather like a maiden, fond, yet coy, 
Who gives herself to him who best doth woo.

Once she may smile, or thrice, thy soul to fire, 
In passing by, but when she turns her face, 
Thou must persist and seek her with desire, 
If thou wouldst win...Read more of this...

The King and the Shepherd

by Anne Kingsmill Finch
 Through ev'ry Age some Tyrant Passion reigns: 
Now Love prevails, and now Ambition gains 
Reason's lost Throne, and sov'reign Rule maintains. 
Tho' beyond Love's, Ambition's Empire goes; 
For who feels Love, Ambition also knows, 
And proudly still aspires to be possest 
Of Her, he thinks superior to the rest. 

As cou'd be prov'd, but that our plainer Task 
Do's...Read more of this...

In slandering and reviling you persist,

by Omar Khayyam
In slandering and reviling you persist,
Calling me infidel and atheist:
My errors I will not deny, but yet
Does foul abuse become a moralist?...Read more of this...

You And Me

by Robert William Service
 I'm part of people I have known
 And they are part of me;
The seeds of thought that I have sown
 In other minds I see.
There's something of me in the throne
 And in the gallows tree.

There's something of me in each one
 With whom I work and play,
For islanded there can be none
 In this dynamic day;
And meshed with...Read more of this...

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