Famous Realms Poems by Famous Poets

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

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On Recollection

by Phillis Wheatley
 MNEME begin. Inspire, ye sacred nine,
Your vent'rous Afric in her great design.
Mneme, immortal pow'r, I trace thy spring:
Assist my strains, while I thy glories sing:
The acts of long departed years, by thee
Recover'd, in due order rang'd we see:
Thy pow'r the long-forgotten calls from night,
That sweetly plays before the fancy's sight.
Mneme in our nocturnal visions pours
The ample treasure of her...Read more of this...

Departure

by Thomas Hardy
 While the far farewell music thins and fails, 
And the broad bottoms rip the bearing brine - 
All smalling slowly to the gray sea line - 
And each significant red smoke-shaft pales, 

Keen sense of severance everywhere prevails, 
Which shapes the late long tramp of mounting men 
To seeming words that ask and ask again: 
"How long, O striving...Read more of this...

The Conquerors Grave

by William Cullen Bryant
WITHIN this lowly grave a Conqueror lies  
And yet the monument proclaims it not  
Nor round the sleeper's name hath chisel wrought 
The emblems of a fame that never dies ¡ª 
Ivy and amaranth in a graceful sheaf 5 
Twined with the laurel's fair imperial leaf. 
A simple name alone  
To the great world unknown  
Is...Read more of this...

The Lost Battle

by Victor Hugo
 ("Allah! qui me rendra-") 
 
 {XVI., May, 1828.} 


 Oh, Allah! who will give me back my terrible array? 
 My emirs and my cavalry that shook the earth to-day; 
 My tent, my wide-extending camp, all dazzling to the sight, 
 Whose watchfires, kindled numberless beneath the brow of night, 
 Seemed oft unto the sentinel that...Read more of this...

To S. M. a young African Painter on seeing his Works

by Phillis Wheatley
To show the lab'ring bosom's deep intent,
And thought in living characters to paint,
When first thy pencil did those beauties give,
And breathing figures learnt from thee to live,
How did those prospects give my soul delight,
A new creation rushing on my sight?
Still, wond'rous youth! each noble path pursue,
On deathless glories fix thine ardent view:
Still may the painter's and the poet's fire
To aid...Read more of this...

Sonnet XXXVIII

by Francesco Petrarch
SONNET XXXVIII. Quel sol che mi mostrava il cammin destro. LOVE AND HE SEEK LAURA, BUT FIND NO TRACES OF HER EXCEPT IN THE SKY.  That sun, which ever signall'd the right road,Where flash'd her own bright feet, to heaven to fly,Returning to the Eternal Sun on high,Has quench'd my light, and...Read more of this...

One Art

by Elizabeth Bishop
The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther losing faster:
places and names and where it was your meant
to travel. None of these...Read more of this...

Sonnet CXLVII

by Francesco Petrarch
[Pg 166] SONNET CXLVII. Po, ben puo' tu portartene la scorza. TO THE RIVER PO, ON QUITTING LAURA.  Thou Po to distant realms this frame mayst bear,On thy all-powerful, thy impetuous tide;But the free spirit that within doth bideNor for thy might, nor any might doth care:Not varying...Read more of this...

Psalm LXXII: Great God

by Isaac Watts
 Great God, whose universal sway
The known and unknown worlds obey,
Now give the kingdom to thy Son,
Extend his power, exalt his throne.

The scepter well becomes his hands;
All heaven submits to his commands;
His justice shall avenge the poor,
And pride and rage prevail no more.

With power he vindicates the just,
And treads the oppressor in the dust:
His worship and his fear shall last
Till...Read more of this...

Lines On Hearing That Lady Byron Was Ill

by George (Lord) Byron
 And thou wert sad—yet I was not with thee!
And thou wert sick, and yet I was not near;
Methought that joy and health alone could be
Where I was not—and pain and sorrow here.
And is it thus?—it is as I foretold,
And shall be more so; for the mind recoils
Upon itself, and the wrecked heart lies cold,
While heaviness collects the shattered spoils.
It...Read more of this...

And ask ye why these sad tears stream?

by Alfred Lord Tennyson
 ‘Te somnia nostra reducunt.’
OVID.

And ask ye why these sad tears stream?
Why these wan eyes are dim with weeping?
I had a dream–a lovely dream,
Of her that in the grave is sleeping.

I saw her as ’twas yesterday,
The bloom upon her cheek still glowing;
And round her play’d a golden ray,
And on her brows were gay flowers blowing.

With angel-hand she swept a lyre,
A...Read more of this...

Outside The Ball-room

by Victor Hugo
 ("Ainsi l'Hôtel de Ville illumine.") 
 
 {VI., May, 1833.} 


 Behold the ball-room flashing on the sight, 
 From step to cornice one grand glare of light; 
 The noise of mirth and revelry resounds, 
 Like fairy melody on haunted grounds. 
 But who demands this profuse, wanton glee, 
 These shouts prolonged and wild festivity— 
...Read more of this...

The Proverbs Of Confucius

by Friedrich von Schiller
 Threefold is the march of time
While the future slow advances,
Like a dart the present glances,
Silent stands the past sublime.

No impatience e'er can speed him
On his course if he delay;
No alarm, no doubts impede him
If he keep his onward way;
No regrets, no magic numbers
Wake the tranced one from his slumbers.
Wouldst thou wisely and with pleasure,
Pass the days of life's short...Read more of this...

To A Child

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
 Dear child! how radiant on thy mother's knee,
With merry-making eyes and jocund smiles,
Thou gazest at the painted tiles,
Whose figures grace,
With many a grotesque form and face.
The ancient chimney of thy nursery!
The lady with the gay macaw,
The dancing girl, the grave bashaw
With bearded lip and chin;
And, leaning idly o'er his gate,
Beneath the imperial fan of state,
The Chinese mandarin.

With what a...Read more of this...

The Clovers simple Fame

by Emily Dickinson
 The Clover's simple Fame
Remembered of the Cow --
Is better than enameled Realms
Of notability.
Renown perceives itself
And that degrades the Flower --
The Daisy that has looked behind
Has compromised its power --...Read more of this...

The Funeral of the German Emperor

by William Topaz McGonagall
 Ye sons of Germany, your noble Emperor William now is dead.
Who oft great armies to battle hath led;
He was a man beloved by his subjects all,
Because he never tried them to enthral. 

The people of Germany have cause now to mourn,
The loss of their hero, who to them will ne'er return;
But his soul I hope to Heaven has fled...Read more of this...

Niobe in Distress

by Phillis Wheatley
 Apollo's wrath to man the dreadful spring
Of ills innum'rous, tuneful goddess, sing!
Thou who did'st first th' ideal pencil give,
And taught'st the painter in his works to live,
Inspire with glowing energy of thought,
What Wilson painted, and what Ovid wrote.
Muse! lend thy aid, nor let me sue in vain,
Tho' last and meanest of the rhyming train!
O guide my pen in lofty...Read more of this...

An Evening Song

by Anonymous
How radiant the evening skies!Broad wing of blue in heaven unfurled,God watching with unwearied eyesThe welfare of a sleeping world.He rolls the sun to its decline,And speeds it on to realms afar,To let the modest glowworm shine,And men behold the evening star.He lights the wild flower in the wood,He rocks the sparrow in her nest,He guides the angels on their...Read more of this...

The Pro-Consuls

by Rudyard Kipling
 The overfaithful sword returns the user
His heart's desire at price of his heart's blood.
The clamour of the arrogant accuser
Wastes that one hour we needed to make good.
This was foretold of old at our outgoing;
This we accepted who have squandered, knowing,
The strength and glory of our reputations,
At the day's need, as it were dross, to guard
The tender and new-dedicate foundations
Against...Read more of this...

Duino Elegies: The First Elegy

by Rainer Maria Rilke
 Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the angels'
hierarchies? and even if one of them suddenly
pressed me against his heart, I would perish
in the embrace of his stronger existence.
For beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror
which we are barely able to endure and are awed
because it serenely disdains to annihilate us.
Each single angel is terrifying.
And so...Read more of this...

The Swimmer

by Adam Lindsay Gordon
 With short, sharp violent lights made vivid,
To the southward far as the sight can roam,
Only the swirl of the surges livid,
The seas that climb and the surfs that comb,
Only the crag and the cliff to nor'ward,
And rocks receding, and reefs flung forward,
And waifs wreck'd seaward and wasted shoreward
On shallows sheeted with flaming foam.

A grim grey coast and a seaboard...Read more of this...

To My Friends

by Friedrich von Schiller
 Yes, my friends!--that happier times have been
Than the present, none can contravene;
That a race once lived of nobler worth;
And if ancient chronicles were dumb,
Countless stones in witness forth would come
From the deepest entrails of the earth.
But this highly-favored race has gone,
Gone forever to the realms of night.
We, we live! The moments are our own,
And the living judge the right.

Brighter...Read more of this...

The Obdurate Beauty

by Victor Hugo
 ("A Juana la Grenadine!") 
 
 {XXIX., October, 1843.} 


 To Juana ever gay, 
 Sultan Achmet spoke one day 
 "Lo, the realms that kneel to own 
 Homage to my sword and crown 
 All I'd freely cast away, 
 Maiden dear, for thee alone." 
 
 "Be a Christian, noble king! 
 For it were a...Read more of this...

Retirement

by William Cowper
 Far from the world, O Lord, I flee,
From strife and tumult far;
From scenes where Satan wages still
His most successful war.

The calm retreat, the silent shade,
With prayer and praise agree;
And seem, by Thy sweet bounty made,
For those who follow Thee.

There if Thy Spirit touch the soul,
And grace her mean abode,
Oh, with what peace, and joy, and love,
She communes with her...Read more of this...

King Trisanku

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
 Viswamitra the Magician,
By his spells and incantations,
Up to Indra's realms elysian
Raised Trisanku, king of nations. 

Indra and the gods offended
Hurled him downward, and descending
In the air he hung suspended,
With these equal powers contending. 

Thus by aspirations lifted,
By misgivings downward driven,
Human hearts are tossed and drifted
Midway between earth and heaven....Read more of this...

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