Famous Portents Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Green Thumb

by Philip Levine
 Shake out my pockets! Harken to the call 
Of that calm voice that makes no sound at all! 
Take of me all you can; my average weight 
May make amends for this, my low estate. 
But do not shake, Green Thumb, as once you did 
My heart and liver, or my prostate bid 
Good Morning to -- leave it,...Read more of this...

The Black Art

by Anne Sexton
 A woman who writes feels too much,
those trances and portents!
As if cycles and children and islands
weren't enough; as if mourners and gossips
and vegetables were never enough.
She thinks she can warn the stars.
A writer is essentially a spy.
Dear love, I am that girl.

A man who writes knows too much,
such spells and fetiches!
As if erections and congresses and products
weren't enough; as...Read more of this...

Years of the Modern

by Walt Whitman
 YEARS of the modern! years of the unperform’d! 
Your horizon rises—I see it parting away for more august dramas; 
I see not America only—I see not only Liberty’s nation, but other nations
 preparing; 
I see tremendous entrances and exits—I see new combinations—I see the solidarity
 of
 races; 
I see that force advancing with irresistible power on the world’s stage;
(Have...Read more of this...

Strange Are The Ways Of Men

by Robert Louis Stevenson
 STRANGE are the ways of men,
And strange the ways of God!
We tread the mazy paths
That all our fathers trod.

We tread them undismayed,
And undismayed behold
The portents of the sky,
The things that were of old.

The fiery stars pursue
Their course in heav'n on high;
And round the 'leaguered town,
Crest-tossing heroes cry.

Crest-tossing heroes cry;
And martial fifes declare
How small, to mortal minds,
Is merely mortal care.

And...Read more of this...

The Man With The Hoe

by Edwin Markham
 BOWED by the weight of centuries he leans 
Upon his hoe and gazes on the ground, 
The emptiness of ages in his face, 
And on his back the burden of the world. 
Who made him dead to rapture and despair, 
A thing that grieves not and that never hopes, 
Stolid and stunned, a brother to the ox? 
Who loosened...Read more of this...

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