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Famous Rear Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry
...eeks have taught me not to doubt you,
And also that I cannot live without you.

Then I came back to you; black treasons rear
Their heads, blind hates, deaf agonies of fear,
Cruelty, cowardice, falsehood, broken pledges,
The temple soiled with senseless sacrileges,
Sickness and poverty, a thousand evils,
Concerted malice of a million devils; ---
You never swerved; your high-pooped galleon
Went marvellously, majestically on
Full-sailed, while every other braver bark
Drove on th...Read more of this...
by Crowley, Aleister



...h seamen now with strange surprise 
Behold the pole star glitt'ring o'er their heads; 
The other in the southern tropic rears 
Its head above the waves; Bermudas and 
Canary isles, Britannia and th' Azores, 
With fam'd Hibernia are but broken parts 
Of some prodigious waste which once sustain'd 
Armies by lands, where now but ships can range. 



LEANDER. 
Your sophistry Acasto makes me smile; 
The roving mind of man delights to dwell 
On hidden things, merely because they're...Read more of this...
by Brackenridge, Hugh Henry
...the lustre of his crown, 
From Samuel's horn, and God's renown, 
 Which is the people's voice; 
For all the host, from rear to van, 
Applauded and embrac'd the man— 
 The man of God's own choice. 

 VI 
Valiant—the word, and up he rose; 
The fight—he triumph'd o'er the foes, 
 Whom God's just laws abhor; 
And, arm'd in gallant faith, he took 
Against the boaster, from the brook,
 The weapons of the war. 

 VII 
Pious—magnificent and grand; 
'Twas he the famous temple plann'd...Read more of this...
by Smart, Christopher
...oying oars and silken sails they glide,
 Nor care for wind and tide.

"Mounted on panthers' furs and lions' manes,
From rear to van they scour about the plains;
A three days' journey in a moment done:
And always, at the rising of the sun,
About the wilds they hunt with spear and horn,
 On spleenful unicorn.

"I saw Osirian Egypt kneel adown
 Before the vine-wreath crown!
I saw parch'd Abyssinia rouse and sing
 To the silver cymbals' ring!
I saw the whelming vintage hotly pier...Read more of this...
by Keats, John
...memories roll upon him,
Unspeakable for sadness. By and by
The ruddy square of comfortable light,
Far-blazing from the rear of Philip's house,
Allured him, as the beacon-blaze allures
The bird of passage, till he madly strikes
Against it, and beats out his weary life.

For Philip's dwelling fronted on the street,
The latest house to landward; but behind,
With one small gate that open'd on the waste,
Flourish'd a little garden square and wall'd:
And in it throve an ancient ev...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord



...the tenantless house of her father.
Smouldered the fire on the hearth, on the board was the supper untasted,
Empty and drear was each room, and haunted with phantoms of terror.
Sadly echoed her step on the stair and the floor of her chamber.
In the dead of the night she heard the disconsolate rain fall
Loud on the withered leaves of the sycamore-tree by the window.
Keenly the lightning flashed; and the voice of the echoing thunder
Told her that God was in heaven, and governed...Read more of this...
by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...her regard,
As if calamity had but begun;
As if the vanward clouds of evil days
Had spent their malice, and the sullen rear
Was with its stored thunder labouring up.
One hand she press'd upon that aching spot
Where beats the human heart, as if just there,
Though an immortal, she felt cruel pain:
The other upon Saturn's bended neck
She laid, and to the level of his ear
Leaning with parted lips, some words she spake
In solemn tenor and deep organ tone:
Some mourning words, whi...Read more of this...
by Keats, John
...ir pain content 
 With hope of pardon; still beyond, more high, 
 Holier than opens to such souls as I, 
 The Heavens uprear; but if thou wilt, is one 
 Worthier, and she shall guide thee there, where none 
 Who did the Lord of those fair realms deny 
 May enter. There in his city He dwells, and there 
 Rules and pervades in every part, and calls 
 His chosen ever within the sacred walls. 
 O happiest, they!" 
 I answered, "By that Go 
 Thou didst not know, I do thine aid ent...Read more of this...
by Alighieri, Dante
...ready they descry — Is yon the bank? 
Away! 'tis lined with many a hostile rank. 
Return or fly! — What glitters in the rear? 
'Tis Otho's banner — the pursuer's spear! 
Are those the shepherds' fires upon the height? 
Alas! they blaze too widely for the flight: 
Cut off from hope, and compass'd in the toil, 
Less blood, perchance, hath bought a richer spoil! 

XIII. 

A moment's pause — 'tis but to breathe their band 
Or shall they onward press, or here withstand? 
It matter...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)
...id much fraud under an aspect grim. 
Next the lawyers' merecenary band appear: 
Finch in the front, and Thurland in the rear. 
The troop of privilege, a rabble bare 
Of debtors deep, fell to Trelawney's care. 
Their fortune's error they supplied in rage, 
Nor any further would than these engage. 
Then marched the troop, whose valiant acts before 
(Their public acts) obliged them still to more. 
For chimney's sake they all Sir Pool obeyed, 
Or in his absence him that first it ...Read more of this...
by Marvell, Andrew
...p to our native seat; descent and fall 
To us is adverse. Who but felt of late, 
When the fierce foe hung on our broken rear 
Insulting, and pursued us through the Deep, 
With what compulsion and laborious flight 
We sunk thus low? Th' ascent is easy, then; 
Th' event is feared! Should we again provoke 
Our stronger, some worse way his wrath may find 
To our destruction, if there be in Hell 
Fear to be worse destroyed! What can be worse 
Than to dwell here, driven out from bl...Read more of this...
by Milton, John
...their Hierarchs in orders bright: 
Ten thousand thousand ensigns high advanced, 
Standards and gonfalons 'twixt van and rear 
Stream in the air, and for distinction serve 
Of hierarchies, of orders, and degrees; 
Or in their glittering tissues bear imblazed 
Holy memorials, acts of zeal and love 
Recorded eminent. Thus when in orbs 
Of circuit inexpressible they stood, 
Orb within orb, the Father Infinite, 
By whom in bliss imbosomed sat the Son, 
Amidst as from a flaming mou...Read more of this...
by Milton, John
...pent, inmate bad! and toward Eve 
Addressed his way: not with indented wave, 
Prone on the ground, as since; but on his rear, 
Circular base of rising folds, that towered 
Fold above fold, a surging maze! his head 
Crested aloft, and carbuncle his eyes; 
With burnished neck of verdant gold, erect 
Amidst his circling spires, that on the grass 
Floated redundant: pleasing was his shape 
And lovely; never since of serpent-kind 
Lovelier, not those that in Illyria changed, 
Herm...Read more of this...
by Milton, John
...nk use of strongest wines
And strongest drinks our chief support of health,
When God with these forbid'n made choice to rear
His mighty Champion, strong above compare,
Whose drink was only from the liquid brook.

 Sam. But what avail'd this temperance, not compleat
Against another object more enticing?
What boots it at one gate to make defence, 
And at another to let in the foe
Effeminatly vanquish't? by which means,
Now blind, disheartn'd, sham'd, dishonour'd, quell'd,
To wh...Read more of this...
by Milton, John
...d line of masons with trowels in their right hands, rapidly laying the long
 side-wall, two
 hundred feet from front to rear, 
The flexible rise and fall of backs, the continual click of the trowels striking the
 bricks, 
The bricks, one after another, each laid so workmanlike in its place, and set with a knock
 of
 the
 trowel-handle, 
The piles of materials, the mortar on the mortar-boards, and the steady replenishing by
 the
 hod-men;
—Spar-makers in the spar-yard, the swa...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt
..."And when did Britain
Become your burying-yard?

"Before the Romans lit the land,
When schools and monks were none,
We reared such stones to the sun-god
As might put out the sun.

"The tall trees of Britain
We worshipped and were wise,
But you shall raid the whole land through
And never a tree shall talk to you,
Though every leaf is a tongue taught true
And the forest is full of eyes.

"On one round hill to the seaward
The trees grow tall and grey
And the trees talk together...Read more of this...
by Chesterton, G K
...o,
So, like black priests up, and so
Down the other side again
To another greater, wilder country,
That's one vast red drear burnt-up plain,
Branched through and through with many a vein
Whence iron's dug, and copper's dealt;
Look right, look left, look straight before,---
Beneath they mine, above they smelt,
Copper-ore and iron-ore,
And forge and furnace mould and melt,
And so on, more and ever more,
Till at the last, for a bounding belt,
Comes the salt sand hoar of the grea...Read more of this...
by Browning, Robert
...bright uncertainty they lie,
     Like future joys to Fancy's eye.
     The water-lily to the light
     Her chalice reared of silver bright;
     The doe awoke, and to the lawn,
     Begemmed with dew-drops, led her fawn;
     The gray mist left the mountain-side,
     The torrent showed its glistening pride;
     Invisible in flecked sky The lark sent clown her revelry:
     The blackbird and the speckled thrush
     Good-morrow gave from brake and bush;
     In ...Read more of this...
by Scott, Sir Walter
...the four faces of that charioteer
Had their eyes banded . . . little profit brings
Speed in the van & blindness in the rear,
Nor then avail the beams that quench the Sun
Or that his banded eyes could pierce the sphere
Of all that is, has been, or will be done.--
So ill was the car guided, but it past
With solemn speed majestically on . . .
The crowd gave way, & I arose aghast,
Or seemed to rise, so mighty was the trance,
And saw like clouds upon the thunder blast
The million...Read more of this...
by Shelley, Percy Bysshe
...to multiply 
With such rapidity of vice and woe, 
That he had stripp'd off both his wings in quills, 
And yet was in arrear of human ills. 

IV 

His business so augmented of late years, 
That he was forced, against his will no doubt, 
(Just like those cherubs, earthly ministers,) 
For some resource to turn himself about, 
And claim the help of his celestial peers, 
To aid him ere he should be quite worn out 
By the increased demand for his remarks: 
Six angels and twelve sa...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry