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Famous Promontory Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Whitman, Walt
...A NOISELESS, patient spider, 
I mark’d, where, on a little promontory, it stood, isolated; 
Mark’d how, to explore the vacant, vast surrounding, 
It launch’d forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself; 
Ever unreeling them—ever tirelessly speeding them.

And you, O my Soul, where you stand, 
Surrounded, surrounded, in measureless oceans of space, 
Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing,—seeking the spher...Read more of this...



by Whitman, Walt
...A noiseless patient spider,
I marked where on a promontory it stood isolated,
Marked how to explore the vacant vast surrounding,
It launched forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself,
Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them.

And you O my soul where you stand,
Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space,
Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to...Read more of this...

by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...r'd as when the rolling breakers boom and blanch on the precipices,
Yell'd as when the winds of winter tear an oak on a promontory.
So the silent colony hearing her tumultuous adversaries
Clash the darts and on the buckler beat with rapid unanimous hand,
Thought on all her evil tyrannies, all her pitiless avarice,
Till she felt the heart within her fall and flutter tremulously,
Then her pulses at the clamoring of her enemy fainted away.
Out of evil evil flourishes, ou...Read more of this...

by Browning, Robert
...th my brain and arm, 
Is lost indeed; since, what survives myself? 
The brazen statue to o'erlook my grave, 
Set on the promontory which I named. 
And that--some supple courtier of my heir 
Shall use its robed and sceptred arm, perhaps, 
To fix the rope to, which best drags it down. 
I go then: triumph thou, who dost not go!" 

Nay, thou art worthy of hearing my whole mind. 
Is this apparent, when thou turn'st to muse 
Upon the scheme of earth and man in chief, 
T...Read more of this...

by Donne, John
...
There in a creek where chosen pearls do swell,
The remora, her cleaving tongue doth dwell.
These, and the glorious promontory, her chin,
O'erpassed, and the straight Hellespont between
The Sestos and Abydos of her breasts,
(Not of two lovers, but two loves the nests)
Succeeds a boundless sea, but yet thine eye
Some island moles may scattered there descry;
And sailing towards her India, in that way
Shall at her fair Atlantic navel stay;
Though thence the current be thy pi...Read more of this...



by Keats, John
...she would not conceive it. Timid thing!
She fled me swift as sea-bird on the wing,
Round every isle, and point, and promontory,
From where large Hercules wound up his story
Far as Egyptian Nile. My passion grew
The more, the more I saw her dainty hue
Gleam delicately through the azure clear:
Until 'twas too fierce agony to bear;
And in that agony, across my grief
It flash'd, that Circe might find some relief--
Cruel enchantress! So above the water
I rear'd my head, an...Read more of this...

by Donne, John
...of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manner of thine own
Or of thine friend's were.
Each man's death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee....Read more of this...

by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
...juna
On the field of battle.
 Not fare well,
But fare forward, voyagers.


IV

Lady, whose shrine stands on the promontory,
Pray for all those who are in ships, those
Whose business has to do with fish, and
Those concerned with every lawful traffic
And those who conduct them.

 Repeat a prayer also on behalf of
Women who have seen their sons or husbands
Setting forth, and not returning:
Figlia del tuo figlio,
Queen of Heaven.

 Also pray for those who were in ...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...hard mishap hath doom'd this gentle swain? 
And question'd every gust of rugged wings 
That blows from off each beaked Promontory, 
They knew not of his story, 
And sage Hippotades their answer brings, 
That not a blast was from his dungeon stray'd, 
The Ayr was calm, and on the level brine, 
Sleek Panope with all her sisters play'd. 
It was that fatall and perfidious Bark 
Built in th'eclipse, and rigg'd with curses dark, 
That sunk so low that sacred head of thine....Read more of this...

by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...en brake short, and down his enemy rolled, 
And there lay still; as he that tells the tale 
Saw once a great piece of a promontory, 
That had a sapling growing on it, slide 
From the long shore-cliff's windy walls to the beach, 
And there lie still, and yet the sapling grew: 
So lay the man transfixt. His craven pair 
Of comrades making slowlier at the Prince, 
When now they saw their bulwark fallen, stood; 
On whom the victor, to confound them more, 
Spurred with his ter...Read more of this...

by Campbell, Thomas
...lide;
Then dived, and vanish'd in the woodlands dun.
Oft, to that spot by tender memory won,
Would Albert climb the promontory's height,
If but a dim sail glimmer'd in the sun;
But never more to bless his longing sight,
Was Outalissi hail'd, with bark and plumage bright.


PART II.

A valley from the river shower withdrawn
Was Albert's home, two quiet woods between,
Whose lofty verdure overlook'd his lawn
And waters to their resting-place serene
Came freshening, a...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...hard mishap hath doomed this gentle swain?
And questioned every gust of rugged wings
That blows from off each beaked promontory.
They knew not of his story;
And sage Hippotades their answer brings,
That not a blast was from his dungeon strayed:
The air was calm, and on the level brine
Sleek Panope with all her sisters played.
It was that fatal and perfidious bark,
Built in the eclipse, and rigged with curses dark,
That sunk so low that sacred head of thine....Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...enormous in their gait, 
Tempest the ocean: there leviathan, 
Hugest of living creatures, on the deep 
Stretched like a promontory sleeps or swims, 
And seems a moving land; and at his gills 
Draws in, and at his trunk spouts out, a sea. 
Mean while the tepid caves, and fens, and shores, 
Their brood as numerous hatch, from the egg that soon 
Bursting with kindly rupture forth disclosed 
Their callow young; but feathered soon and fledge 
They summed their pens; and, soari...Read more of this...

by Brautigan, Richard
...like ants, bringing visions of the good life to the

poison oak, the ticks, and the salmon.

 The mansion was on a promontory, high over the Pacific.

Money could see farther in the 1920s and one could look out

and see whales and the Hawaiian Islands and the Kuomintang

in China.

 The mansion burned down years ago.

 The actor died.

 His mules were made into soap.

 His mistresses became bird nests of wrinkles.

 Now only the fireplace remains ...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...untains—I see
 the
 Wind River and the Wahsatch mountains; 
I see the Monument mountain and the Eagle’s Nest—I pass the Promontory—I
 ascend
 the Nevadas; 
I scan the noble Elk mountain, and wind around its base; 
I see the Humboldt range—I thread the valley and cross the river, 
I see the clear waters of Lake Tahoe—I see forests of majestic pines,
Or, crossing the great desert, the alkaline plains, I behold enchanting mirages of waters
 and
 meadows; 
Marking through these, ...Read more of this...

by Shelley, Percy Bysshe
...ife which was sick with fear
Of all the woe that now I bear.

Amid a bloomless myrtle wood,
On a green and sea-girt promontory 
Not far from where we dwelt, there stood,
In record of a sweet sad story,
An altar and a temple bright
Circled by steps, and o'er the gate
Was sculptured, 'To Fidelity;'
And in the shrine an image sate
All veiled; but there was seen the light
Of smiles which faintly could express
A mingled pain and tenderness
Through that ethereal drapery. 
T...Read more of this...

by Southey, Robert
...Argument.

To leap from the promontory of LEUCADIA was believed by the Greeks to be
a remedy for hopeless love, if the self-devoted victim escaped with
life. Artemisia lost her life in the dangerous experiment: and Sappho is
said thus to have perished, in attempting to cure her passion for Phaon.


SAPPHO

(Scene the promontory of Leucadia.)

This is the spot:--'tis here Tr...Read more of this...

by Scott, Sir Walter
...ed sheet of living gold,
     Loch Katrine lay beneath him rolled,
     In all her length far winding lay,
     With promontory, creek, and bay,
     And islands that, empurpled bright,
     Floated amid the livelier light,
     And mountains that like giants stand
     To sentinel enchanted land.
     High on the south, huge Benvenue
     Down to the lake in masses threw
     Crags, knolls, and mounds, confusedly hurled,
     The fragments of an earlier world;
  ...Read more of this...

by Bishop, Elizabeth
...ange sea make no sound?
Is it because we're far away?
Where are we? Are we in Asia Minor, 
or in Mongolia?"
 An ancient promontory,
an ancient principality whose artist-prince
might have wanted to build a monument
to mark a tomb or boundary, or make
a melancholy or romantic scene of it...
"But that ***** sea looks made of wood,
half-shining, like a driftwood, sea.
And the sky looks wooden, grained with cloud.
It's like a stage-set; it is all so flat!
Those...Read more of this...

by Walcott, Derek
...of your young face washed by the wind
and your voice that chuckles in the slap of the sea?
The lights are out on La Toc promontory,
except for the hospital. Across at Vigie
the marina arcs keep vigil. I have kept my own
promise, to leave you the one thing I own,
you whom I loved first: my poetry.
We here for one night. Tomorrow, the Flight will be gone.


8 Fight with the Crew

It had one ***** on board, like he had me mark -
that was the cook, some Vincen...Read more of this...

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Book: Reflection on the Important Things