Famous Progress Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Progress poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous progress poems. These examples illustrate what a famous progress poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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...hile to see what happens;
And this time it was only for the season
Between the swift midwinter holidays
And the long progress into weeks and months
Of all the days that followed—with him there
To make them longer. I would have given an eye,
Before the summer came, to know for certain
That I should never be condemned again
To see him with the other; and all the while
There was a battle going on within me
Of hate that fought remorse—if you must have it—
Never to win,… ...Read more of this...
by
Robinson, Edwin Arlington
...e land were pressed,
And selfish cities, harbingers of want,
Shut from their vision each accustomed haunt.
Yet hungry Progress, never satisfied,
Gazed on the western plains, and gazing, longed and sighed.
IV.
As some strange bullock in a pasture field
Compels the herds to fear him, and to yield
The juicy grass plots and the cooling shade
Until, despite their greater strength, afraid,
They huddle in some corner spot and cower
Before the monarch's all controlling power, ...Read more of this...
by
Wilcox, Ella Wheeler
...l ease my breast
Of secret grief, here in this bowery nest.
"This river does not see the naked sky,
Till it begins to progress silverly
Around the western border of the wood,
Whence, from a certain spot, its winding flood
Seems at the distance like a crescent moon:
And in that nook, the very pride of June,
Had I been used to pass my weary eves;
The rather for the sun unwilling leaves
So dear a picture of his sovereign power,
And I could witness his most kingly hour,
When he...Read more of this...
by
Keats, John
...or shadow, making way
With wings or chariot fierce to repossess
A heaven he lost erewhile: it must---it must
Be of ripe progress---Saturn must be King.
Yes, there must be a golden victory;
There must be Gods thrown down, and trumpets blown
Of triumph calm, and hymns of festival
Upon the gold clouds metropolitan,
Voices of soft proclaim, and silver stir
Of strings in hollow shells; and there shall be
Beautiful things made new, for the surprise
Of the sky-children; I will give ...Read more of this...
by
Keats, John
...had pressed the miry plain
With flattened shades that in their emptiness
Still showed as bodies. We might not here progress
Except we trod them. Of them all, but one
Made motion as we passed. Against the rain
Rising, and resting on one hand, he said,
"O thou, who through the drenching murk art led,
Recall me if thou canst. Thou wast begun
Before I ended."
I, who looked in vain
For human semblance in that bestial shade,
Made answer, "Misery here hath all...Read more of this...
by
Alighieri, Dante
...reaming,
To do with “people”? You may be the devil
In your dead-reckoning of what reefs and shoals
Are waiting on the progress of our ship
Unless you steer it, but you’ll find it irksome
Alone there in the stern; and some warm day
There’ll be an inland music in the rigging,
And afterwards on deck. I’m not affined
Or favored overmuch at Monticello,
But there’s a mighty swarming of new bees
About the premises, and all have wings.
If you hear something buzzing before lo...Read more of this...
by
Robinson, Edwin Arlington
...ough Heaven's King
Ride on thy wings, and thou with thy compeers,
Us'd to the yoke, drawest his triumphant wheels
In progress through the road of Heaven star-paved.
While thus he spake, the angelick squadron bright
Turned fiery red, sharpening in mooned horns
Their phalanx, and began to hem him round
With ported spears, as thick as when a field
Of Ceres ripe for harvest waving bends
Her bearded grove of ears, which way the wind
Sways them; the careful plowman doubti...Read more of this...
by
Milton, John
...e city falling with its beautiful suburbs
Into space always less clear, less defined,
Should read as the support of its progress,
The easel upon which the drama unfolded
To its own satisfaction and to the end
Of our dreaming, as we had never imagined
It would end, in worn daylight with the painted
Promise showing through as a gage, a bond.
This nondescript, never-to-be defined daytime is
The secret of where it takes place
And we can no longer return to the various
Conflicting...Read more of this...
by
Ashbery, John
...New England and found it—the outset anywhere,
The settlements of the Arkansas, Colorado, Ottawa, Willamette,
The slow progress, the scant fare, the axe, rifle, saddle-bags;
The beauty of all adventurous and daring persons,
The beauty of wood-boys and wood-men, with their clear untrimm’d faces,
The beauty of independence, departure, actions that rely on themselves,
The American contempt for statutes and ceremonies, the boundless impatience of restraint,
The loose drift o...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...y has just as great a work as the soul, and parts away at last for the journeys of
the
soul.
All parts away for the progress of souls;
All religion, all solid things, arts, governments,—all that was or is apparent upon this
globe
or
any globe, falls into niches and corners before the procession of Souls along the grand
roads
of
the
universe.
Of the progress of the souls of men and women along the grand roads of the universe, all
other
progress is the needed em...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...n but to serve and support
Civilization, the enemy of man,
No wonder they live insanely, and desire
With their tongues, progress; with their eyes, pleasure; with their hearts, death.
Their ancestors were good hunters, good herdsmen and swordsman,
But now the world is turned upside down;
The good do evil, the hope's in criminals; in vice
That dissolves the cities and war to destroy them.
Through wars and corruptions the house will fall.
Mourn whom it falls on. Be glad: the ho...Read more of this...
by
Jeffers, Robinson
...ack meridians,
212 Morose chiaroscuro, gauntly drawn.
213 How many poems he denied himself
214 In his observant progress, lesser things
215 Than the relentless contact he desired;
216 How many sea-masks he ignored; what sounds
217 He shut out from his tempering ear; what thoughts,
218 Like jades affecting the sequestered bride;
219 And what descants, he sent to banishment!
220 Perhaps the Arctic moonlight really gave
221 The liaison, the blissful liaison...Read more of this...
by
Stevens, Wallace
...rtain gaps which, men allege,
Have been used by every Hobden since a Hobden swapped a
hedge.
Shall I dog his morning progress o'er the track-betraying dew?
Demand his dinner-basket into which my pheasant flew?
Confiscate his evening ****** under which my conies ran,
And summons him to judgment? I would sooner summons Pan.
His dead are in the churchyard--thirty generations laid.
Their names were old in history when Domesday Book was made;
And the passion and the piety and...Read more of this...
by
Kipling, Rudyard
...s!
Out of his angle into the darkest house;
O Mars, O Atyzar, as in this case;
O feeble Moon, unhappy is thy pace.* *progress
Thou knittest thee where thou art not receiv'd,
Where thou wert well, from thennes art thou weiv'd.
Imprudent emperor of Rome, alas!
Was there no philosopher in all thy town?
Is no time bet* than other in such case? *better
Of voyage is there none election,
Namely* to folk of high condition, *especially
Not *when a root is of a birth y-know?* *...Read more of this...
by
Chaucer, Geoffrey
...ight,
The heav'ns bespangling with dishevel'd light.
The Sylphs behold it kindling as it flies,
And pleas'd pursue its Progress thro' the Skies.
This the Beau-monde shall from the Mall survey,
And hail with Musick its propitious Ray.
This, the blest Lover shall for Venus take,
And send up Vows from Rosamonda's Lake.
This Partridge soon shall view in cloudless Skies,
When next he looks thro' Galilaeo's Eyes;
And hence th' Egregious Wizard shall foredoom
The Fate of Louis, an...Read more of this...
by
Pope, Alexander
...nto Worlds remote.
NOW, when the Western Sun withdraws the Day,
And humid Evening, gliding o'er the Sky,
In her chill Progress, checks the straggling Beams,
And robs them of their gather'd, vapoury, Prey,
Where Marshes stagnate, and where Rivers wind,
Cluster the rolling Fogs, and swim along
The dusky-mantled Lawn: then slow descend,
Once more to mingle with their Watry Friends.
The vivid Stars shine out, in radiant Files;
And boundless Ether glows, till the fair Moon
Show...Read more of this...
by
Thomson, James
...own kingdom."
4
Before you woke
I read another part that described your absence
and told how you sleep to reverse
the progress of your life.
I was touched by my own loneliness as I read,
knowing that what I feel is often the crude
and unsuccessful form of a story
that may never be told.
"He wanted to see her naked and vulnerable,
to see her in the refuse, the discarded
plots of old dreams, the costumes and masks
of unattainable states.
It was as if he were drawn
irresistabl...Read more of this...
by
Strand, Mark
...brow a glory shed.Still on the noble pair my eyes I bent,And watch'd their progress up the steep ascent.The second Scipio next in line was seen,And he that seem'd the lure of Egypt's queen;With many a mighty chief I there beheld,Whose valorous hand the battle's storm repell'd.[Pg 383]Read more of this...
by
Petrarch, Francesco
...rim Feature, of my thought aware,
"I will now tell that which to this deep scorn
Led me & my companions, and relate
The progress of the pageant since the morn;
"If thirst of knowledge doth not thus abate,
Follow it even to the night, but I
Am weary" . . . Then like one who with the weight
Of his own words is staggered, wearily
He paused, and ere he could resume, I cried,
"First who art thou?" . . . "Before thy memory
"I feared, loved, hated, suffered, did, & died,
And if the ...Read more of this...
by
Shelley, Percy Bysshe
...let him in safety return!
But where am I? The path is now hid, declivities rugged
Bar, with their wide-yawning gulfs, progress before and behind.
Now far behind me is left the gardens' and hedges' sure escort,
Every trace of man's hand also remains far behind.
Only the matter I see piled up, whence life has its issue,
And the raw mass of basalt waits for a fashioning hand.
Down through its channel of rock the torrent roaringly rushes,
Angrily forcing a path under the roots ...Read more of this...
by
Schiller, Friedrich von
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