Famous Push Through Poems by Famous Poets

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

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The power to be true to You

by Emily Dickinson
 The power to be true to You,
Until upon my face
The Judgment push his Picture --
Presumptuous of Your Place --

Of This -- Could Man deprive Me --
Himself -- the Heaven excel --
Whose invitation -- Yours reduced
Until it showed too small --...Read more of this...

The Way I read a Letters -- this --

by Emily Dickinson
 The Way I read a Letter's -- this --
'Tis first -- I lock the Door --
And push it with my fingers -- next --
For transport it be sure --

And then I go the furthest off
To counteract a knock --
Then draw my little Letter forth
And slowly pick the lock --

Then -- glancing narrow, at the Wall --
And narrow at the...Read more of this...

The Wind Sings Welcome in Early Spring

by Carl Sandburg
 (For Paula)THE GRIP of the ice is gone now.
The silvers chase purple.
The purples tag silver.
 They let out their runners
Here where summer says to the lilies:
 “Wish and be wistful,
Circle this wind-hunted, wind-sung water.”

Come along always, come along now.
You for me, kiss me, pull me by the ear.
Push me along with the wind push.
Sing like the whinnying wind.
Sing like...Read more of this...

Cherry- Tree Inn

by Henry Lawson
 The rafters are open to sun, moon, and star, 
Thistles and nettles grow high in the bar -- 
The chimneys are crumbling, the log fires are dead, 
And green mosses spring from the hearthstone instead. 
The voices are silent, the bustle and din, 
For the railroad hath ruined the Cherry-tree Inn. 

Save the glimmer of stars, or the moon's...Read more of this...

Wolf Knife

by Donald Hall
 In the mid August, in the second year
of my First Polar Expedition, the snow and ice of winter
almost upon us, Kantiuk and I
attempted to dash the sledge
along Crispin Bay, searching again for relics
of the Frankline Expedition. Now a storm blew,
and we turned back, and we struggled slowly
in snow, lest we depart land and venture onto ice
from which a sudden...Read more of this...

This Me -- that walks and works -- must die

by Emily Dickinson
 This Me -- that walks and works -- must die,
Some fair or stormy Day,
Adversity if it may be
Or wild prosperity
The Rumor's Gate was shut so tight
Before my mind was born
Not even a Prognostic's push
Can make a Dent thereon --...Read more of this...

Banish Air from Air --

by Emily Dickinson
 Banish Air from Air --
Divide Light if you dare --
They'll meet
While Cubes in a Drop
Or Pellets of Shape
Fit
Films cannot annul
Odors return whole
Force Flame
And with a Blonde push
Over your impotence
Flits Steam....Read more of this...

The Fallen Angels

by Anne Sexton
 They come on to my clean
sheet of paper and leave a Rorschach blot.
They do not do this to be mean,
they do it to give me a sign
they want me, as Aubrey Beardsley once said,
to shove it around till something comes.
Clumsy as I am,
I do it.
For I am like them -
both saved and lost,
tumbling downward like Humpty Dumpty
off the alphabet.

Each...Read more of this...

Elementalist

by Robert William Service
 Could Fate ordain a lot for me
 Beyond all human ills,
I think that I would choose to be
 A shephard of the hills;
With shaggy cloak and cape where skies
 Eternally are blue
How I would stare with quiet eyes
 At passing you!

And you would stare at static me,
 Beside my patient flock;
And I would watch you silently,
 A one with...Read more of this...

The Captain of the Push

by Henry Lawson
 As the night was falling slowly down on city, town and bush, 
From a slum in Jones's Alley sloped the Captain of the Push; 
And he scowled towards the North, and he scowled towards the South, 
As he hooked his little finger in the corners of his mouth. 
Then his whistle, loud and shrill, woke the echoes of the...Read more of this...

The Return of the Children

by Rudyard Kipling
 "They" -- Traffics and Discoveries
Neither the harps nor the crowns amused, nor the cherubs' dove-winged races--
Holding hands forlornly the Children wandered beneath the Dome,
Plucking the splendid robes of the passers-by, and with pitiful! faces
Begging what Princes and Powers refused:--"Ah, please will you let us go home?"

Over the jewelled floor, nigh weeping, ran to them Mary the Mother,
Kneeled and caressed...Read more of this...

Barclay Of Ury

by John Greenleaf Whittier
 Up the streets of Aberdeen,
By the kirk and college green,
Rode the Laird of Ury;
Close behind him, close beside,
Foul of mouth and evil-eyed,
Pressed the mob in fury.

Flouted him the drunken churl,
Jeered at him the serving-girl,
Prompt to please her master;
And the begging carlin, late
Fed and clothed at Ury's gate,
Cursed him as he passed her.

Yet, with calm and stately mien,
Up the streets...Read more of this...

The Star of Australasia

by Henry Lawson
 We boast no more of our bloodless flag, that rose from a nation's slime; 
Better a shred of a deep-dyed rag from the storms of the olden time. 
From grander clouds in our `peaceful skies' than ever were there before 
I tell you the Star of the South shall rise -- in the lurid clouds of war. 
It ever...Read more of this...

Dedication To M..

by Rainer Maria Rilke
 Swing of the heart. O firmly hung, fastened on what
invisible branch. Who, who gave you the push,
that you swung with me into the leaves?
How near I was to the exquisite fruits. But not-staying
is the essence of this motion. Only the nearness, only
toward the forever-too-high, all at once the possible
nearness. Vicinities, then
from an irresistibly swung-up-to place
--already, once again, lost--the new...Read more of this...

Renascence

by Edna St. Vincent Millay
 All I could see from where I stood
Was three long mountains and a wood;
I turned and looked another way,
And saw three islands in a bay.
So with my eyes I traced the line 
Of the horizon, thin and fine,
Straight around till I was come
Back to where I'd started from; 
And all I saw from where I stood
Was three long mountains...Read more of this...

Yes, I’ll marry you, my dear

by Pam Ayres
Yes, I’ll marry you, my dear.
And here’s the reason why.
So I can push you out of bed
When the baby starts to cry.
And if we hear a knocking
And it’s creepy and it’s late,
I hand you the torch you see,
And you investigate.

Yes I’ll marry you, my dear,
You may not apprehend it,
But when the tumble-drier goes
It’s you that has to mend it.
You have...Read more of this...

Ulysses

by Alfred Lord Tennyson
 It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Matched with an aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.

I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
Life to the lees: all times I have enjoyed
Greatly, have suffered greatly, both with those
That loved me,...Read more of this...

With French to Kimberley

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 The Boers were down on Kimberley with siege and Maxim gun; 
The Boers were down on Kimberley, their numbers ten to one! 
Faint were the hopes the British had to make the struggle good -- 
Defenceless in an open plain the Diamond City stood. 
They built them forts with bags of sand, they fought from roof and wall, 
They...Read more of this...

In Defence of the Bush

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 So you're back from up the country, Mister Lawson, where you went, 
And you're cursing all the business in a bitter discontent; 
Well, we grieve to disappoint you, and it makes us sad to hear 
That it wasn't cool and shady -- and there wasn't whips of beer, 
And the looney bullock snorted when you first came into view...Read more of this...

Hudsons Last Voyage

by Henry Van Dyke
 June 22, 1611 

THE SHALLOP ON HUDSON BAY 

One sail in sight upon the lonely sea
And only one, God knows! For never ship 
But mine broke through the icy gates that guard 
These waters, greater grown than any since
We left the shores of England. We were first, 
My men, to battle in between the bergs
And floes to these wide...Read more of this...

Morning Poem #6

by Wanda Phipps
 groggy voice
hangover head
phone rongs
work call
money writing
muddled thoughts
adrenaline rush
hands clutch
power book
pauses comerapid doubts
make calls
take notes
ming push
fear waits...Read more of this...

Having it Out with Melancholy

by Jane Kenyon
 1FROM THE NURSERY


When I was born, you waited 
behind a pile of linen in the nursery, 
and when we were alone, you lay down 
on top of me, pressing
the bile of desolation into every pore.


And from that day on 
everything under the sun and moon 
made me sad -- even the yellow 
wooden beads that slid and spun 
along...Read more of this...

The City Bushman

by Henry Lawson
 It was pleasant up the country, City Bushman, where you went, 
For you sought the greener patches and you travelled like a gent; 
And you curse the trams and buses and the turmoil and the push, 
Though you know the squalid city needn't keep you from the bush; 
But we lately heard you singing of the `plains where shade...Read more of this...

Climbing

by Amy Lowell
 High up in the apple tree climbing I go,
With the sky above me, the earth below.
Each branch is the step of a wonderful stair
Which leads to the town I see shining up there.
Climbing, climbing, higher and higher,
The branches blow and I see a spire,
The gleam of a turret, the glint of a dome,
All sparkling and bright, like white sea...Read more of this...

Five Bells

by Kenneth Slessor
 Time that is moved by little fidget wheels 
Is not my time, the flood that does not flow. 
Between the double and the single bell 
Of a ship's hour, between a round of bells 
From the dark warship riding there below, 
I have lived many lives, and this one life 
Of Joe, long dead, who lives between five bells....Read more of this...

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