Famous Pursuit Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Pursuit poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous pursuit poems. These examples illustrate what a famous pursuit poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Smart, Christopher
...u'd,
The glory of thy gratitude,
Respir'd unto the Lord.
LXXV
Strong is the horse upon his speed;
Strong in pursuit the rapid glede,
Which makes at once his game:
Strong the tall ostrich on the ground;
Strong through the turbulent profound
Shoots xiphias to his aim.
LXXVI
Strong is the lion—like a coal
His eyeball—like a bastion's mole
His chest against his foes:
Strong, the gier-eagle on his sail,
Strong against tide, th'enormous whale
Emerges a...Read more of this...
by
Emerson, Ralph Waldo
...that it was a dupe;
And, in its highest noon and wantonness,
Is early frugal, like a beggar's child;
Even in the hot pursuit of the best aims
And prizes of ambition, checks its hand,
Like Alpine cataracts frozen as they leaped,
Chilled with a miserly comparison
Of the toy's purchase with the length of life. ...Read more of this...
by
Milton, John
...she was the daughter of Locrine,
That had the sceptre from his father Brute.
She, guiltless damsel, flying the mad pursuit
Of her enraged stepdame, Guendolen,
Commended her fair innocence to the flood
That stayed her flight with his cross-flowing course.
The water-nymphs, that in the bottom played,
Held up their pearled wrists, and took her in,
Bearing her straight to aged Nereus' hall;
Who, piteous of her woes, reared her lank head,
And gave her to his daughters to ...Read more of this...
by
Hughes, Langston
...EN ARE CREATED EQUAL--
ENDOWED BY THEIR CREATOR
WITH CERTAIN UNALIENABLE RIGHTS--
AMONG THESE LIFE, LIBERTY
AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS.
His name was Jefferson. There were slaves then,
But in their hearts the slaves believed him, too,
And silently too for granted
That what he said was also meant for them.
It was a long time ago,
But not so long ago at that, Lincoln said:
NO MAN IS GOOD ENOUGH
TO GOVERN ANOTHER MAN
WITHOUT THAT OTHER'S CONSENT.
There we...Read more of this...
by
Byron, George (Lord)
...>
Herself would question, and for him reply;
Then rising, start, and beckon him to fly
From some imagined spectre in pursuit;
Then seat her down upon some linden's root,
And hide her visage with her meagre hand,
Or trace strange characters along the sand. —
This could not last — she lies by him she loved;
Her tale untold — her truth too dearly proved....Read more of this...
by
Keats, John
...s or mortals or of both
In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?
What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?
What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?
What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy? 10
Heard melodies are sweet but those unheard
Are sweeter; therefore ye soft pipes play on;
Not to the sensual ear but more endear'd
Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:
Fair youth beneath the trees thou canst not leave 15
Thy song nor ever can those trees be bar...Read more of this...
by
Robinson, Edwin Arlington
...so leave him with his fire:
God knows that I shall never put it out.
He has not made a cripple of himself
In his pursuit of me, though I have heard
His condescension honors me with parts.
Parts make a whole, if we’ve enough of them;
And once I figured a sufficiency
To be at least an atom in the annals
Of your republic. But I must have erred.
HAMILTON
You smile as if your spirit lived at ease
With error. I should not have named it so,
Failing ass...Read more of this...
by
Milton, John
...s inmost counsels from their destined aim.
But see! the angry Victor hath recalled
His ministers of vengeance and pursuit
Back to the gates of Heaven: the sulphurous hail,
Shot after us in storm, o'erblown hath laid
The fiery surge that from the precipice
Of Heaven received us falling; and the thunder,
Winged with red lightning and impetuous rage,
Perhaps hath spent his shafts, and ceases now
To bellow through the vast and boundless Deep.
Let us not slip th'...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...acho crossing the plains—I see the incomparable rider of horses with his lasso
on
his
arm;
I see over the pampas the pursuit of wild cattle for their hides.
8
I see little and large sea-dots, some inhabited, some uninhabited;
I see two boats with nets, lying off the shore of Paumanok, quite still;
I see ten fishermen waiting—they discover now a thick school of mossbonkers—they drop the
join’d seine-ends in the water,
The boats separate—they diverge and row off, e...Read more of this...
by
Milton, John
...ords to my remembrance bring
How Succoth and the Fort of Penuel
Thir great Deliverer contemn'd,
The matchless Gideon in pursuit
Of Madian and her vanquisht Kings;
And how ingrateful Ephraim
Not worse then by his shield and spear
Had dealt with Jephtha, who by argument,
Defended Israel from the Ammonite,
Had not his prowess quell'd thir pride
In that sore battel when so many dy'd
Without Reprieve adjudg'd to death,
For want of well pronouncing Shibboleth.
Sam: Of such ex...Read more of this...
by
Robinson, Mary Darby
...he lone Exile, and with gen'rous zeal
Hastes to the sandy beach, he suddenly
Darts 'mid the cavern'd cliffs, and leaves pursuit
To track him, where no footsteps but his own,
Have e'er been known to venture ! YET HE LIVES
A melancholy proof that Man may bear
All the rude storms of Fate, and still suspire
By the wide world forgotten!...Read more of this...
by
Swinburne, Algernon Charles
...ise of the repossessing day,
And sunrise of all-renovating right;
And thou, whose trackless foot
Mocks hope's or fear's pursuit,
Swift Revolution, changing depth with height;
And thou, whose mouth makes one
All songs that seek the sun,
Serene Republic of a world made white;
Thou, Freedom, whence the soul's springs ran;
Praise earth for man's sake living, and for earth's sake man.
Make yourselves wings, O tarrying feet of fate,
And hidden hour that hast our hope to bear...Read more of this...
by
Thompson, Francis
...'s Heart or Life it be that yield thee harvest,
Must thy harvest fields be dunged with rotten death ?
Now of that long pursuit,
Comes at hand the bruit.
That Voice is round me like a bursting Sea:
And is thy Earth so marred,
Shattered in shard on shard?
Lo, all things fly thee, for thou fliest me.
Strange, piteous, futile thing;
Wherefore should any set thee love apart?
Seeing none but I makes much of Naught (He said).
And human love needs human meriting ---
How ...Read more of this...
by
Scott, Sir Walter
...
That costs thy life, my gallant gray!'
X.
Then through the dell his horn resounds,
From vain pursuit to call the hounds.
Back limped, with slow and crippled pace,
The sulky leaders of the chase;
Close to their master's side they pressed,
With drooping tail and humbled crest;
But still the dingle's hollow throat
Prolonged the swelling bugle-note.
The owlets started from their dream,
The eagles answered ...Read more of this...
by
Killigrew, Anne
...f we reflect,
The Joys and Sufferings of both sides collect,
We cannot say where lies the greatest Pain,
In the fond Pursuit, Loss, or Empty Gain.
And can it be, Lord of the Sea and Earth,
Off-spring of Heaven, that to thy State and Birth
Things so incompatible should be joyn'd,
Passions should thee confound, to Heaven assign'd?
Passions that do the Soul unguarded lay,
And to the strokes of Fortune ope' a way.
Were't not that these thy Force did from thee ...Read more of this...
by
Khayyam, Omar
...ur fingers in the tresses of
The Cypress-slender Minister of Wine.
XLII.
Waste not your Hour, nor in the vain pursuit
Of This and That endeavor and dispute;
Better be merry with the fruitful Grape
Than sadden after none, or bitter, fruit.
XLIII.
You know, my Friends, with what a brave Carouse
I made a Second Marriage in my house;
Divorced old barren Reason from my Bed,
And took the Daughter of the Vine to Spouse.
XLIV.
And lately, by the Tavern D...Read more of this...
by
Paterson, Andrew Barton
...We have all of us read how the Israelites fled
From Egypt with Pharaoh in eager pursuit of 'em,
And Pharaoh's fierce troop were all put "in the soup"
When the waters rolled softly o'er every galoot of 'em.
The Jews were so glad when old Pharaoh was "had"
That they sounded their timbrels and capered like mad.
You see he was hated from Jordan to Cairo --
Whence comes the expression "to buck against faro".
For forty long...Read more of this...
by
Thomson, James
...e! Thou Good Supreme!
O! teach me what is Good! teach me thy self!
Save me from Folly, Vanity and Vice,
From every low Pursuit! and feed my Soul,
With Knowledge, conscious Peace, and Vertue pure,
Sacred, substantial, never-fading Bliss!
LO! from the livid East, or piercing North,
Thick Clouds ascend, in whose capacious Womb,
A vapoury Deluge lies, to Snow congeal'd:
Heavy, they roll their fleecy World along;
And the Sky saddens with th'impending Storm.
Thro' the hush'...Read more of this...
by
Petrarch, Francesco
...nt foe,Who fled through burning plains and tracts of snowTheir fell pursuit. But now, the parting strainMust pass, with slight survey, the coming train:There British Arthur seeks his share of fame,And three Cæsarian victors join their claim;One from the race of Libya, one from Spain,And last, ...Read more of this...
by
Chaucer, Geoffrey
...n, maugre* her head, *in spite of
By very force he reft her maidenhead:
For which oppression was such clamour,
And such pursuit unto the king Arthour,
That damned* was this knight for to be dead *condemned
By course of law, and should have lost his head;
(Paraventure such was the statute tho),* *then
But that the queen and other ladies mo'
So long they prayed the king of his grace,
Till he his life him granted in the place,
And gave him to the queen, all at her will
To choose...Read more of this...
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