Famous Preceding Poems by Famous Poets

• Best Preceding Poems by Famous Poets
• Preceding Poems by Members
• Best Preceding Poems by Members
• Preceding Quotes

Life -- is what we make of it --

 Life -- is what we make of it --
Death -- we do not know --
Christ's acquaintance with Him
Justify Him -- though --

He -- would trust no stranger --
Other -- could betray --
Just His own endorsement --
That -- sufficeth Me --

All the other Distance
He hath traversed first --
No New Mile remaineth --
Far as Paradise --

His sure foot preceding --
Tender Pioneer...Read more of this...

The Wood

 But two miles more, and then we rest ! 
Well, there is still an hour of day, 
And long the brightness of the West 
Will light us on our devious way; 
Sit then, awhile, here in this wood­ 
So total is the solitude, 
We safely may delay. 

These massive roots afford a seat, 
Which seems for weary travellers made....Read more of this...

Thought

 OF what I write from myself—As if that were not the resumé; 
Of Histories—As if such, however complete, were not less complete than the preceding
 poems; 
As if those shreds, the records of nations, could possibly be as lasting as the preceding
 poems; 
As if here were not the amount of all nations, and of all the lives of...Read more of this...

Variant Form Of The Preceding Poem

 COME to me, all ye that labour; I will give your spirits rest;
Here apart in starry quiet I will give you rest.
Come to me, ye heavy laden, sin defiled and care opprest,
In your father's quiet mansions, soon to prove a welcome guest.
But an hour you bear your trial, sin and suffer, bleed and die;
But an hour you toil and...Read more of this...

Rise O Days

 1
RISE, O days, from your fathomless deeps, till you loftier, fiercer sweep! 
Long for my soul, hungering gymnastic, I devour’d what the earth gave me; 
Long I roam’d the woods of the north—long I watch’d Niagara pouring; 
I travel’d the prairies over, and slept on their breast—I cross’d the
 Nevadas, I
 cross’d the plateaus; 
I ascended the towering rocks...Read more of this...

The Hermit of Mont-Blanc

 High, on the Solitude of Alpine Hills,
O'er-topping the grand imag'ry of Nature,
Where one eternal winter seem'd to reign;
An HERMIT'S threshold, carpetted with moss,
Diversified the Scene. Above the flakes
Of silv'ry snow, full many a modest flow'r
Peep'd through its icy veil, and blushing ope'd
Its variegated hues; The ORCHIS sweet,
The bloomy CISTUS, and the fragrant branch
Of glossy MYRTLE. In his rushy cell,
The...Read more of this...

I made slow Riches but my Gain

 I made slow Riches but my Gain
Was steady as the Sun
And every Night, it numbered more
Than the preceding One

All Days, I did not earn the same
But my perceiveless Gain
Inferred the less by Growing than
The Sum that it had grown....Read more of this...

They say that the moon of Ramazan (month of fasting)

They say that the moon of Ramazan [month of fasting]
is about to appear and that wine must no longer be
thought of. It is well; but let me during the remainder
of Cheeban [the month preceding] drink such
a quantity of it that I may remain drunk up to the day
of the fast.
322...Read more of this...

From The Mountain

 [Written just after the preceding one, on a 
mountain overlooking the Lake of Zurich.]

IF I, dearest Lily, did not love thee,

How this prospect would enchant my sight!
And yet if I, Lily, did not love thee,

Could I find, or here, or there, delight?

1775....Read more of this...

Drum-Taps

 1
FIRST, O songs, for a prelude, 
Lightly strike on the stretch’d tympanum, pride and joy in my city, 
How she led the rest to arms—how she gave the cue, 
How at once with lithe limbs, unwaiting a moment, she sprang; 
(O superb! O Manhattan, my own, my peerless!
O strongest you in the hour of danger, in crisis! O truer...Read more of this...

Operation Memory

 We were smoking some of this knockout weed when
Operation Memory was announced. To his separate bed
Each soldier went, counting backwards from a hundred
With a needle in his arm. And there I was, in the middle
Of a recession, in the middle of a strange city, between jobs
And apartments and wives. Nobody told me the gun was loaded.

We'd been drinking since...Read more of this...

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