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Famous Remains Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry
...ither party is nor true nor kind:
They sought their shame that so their shame did find;
And so much less of shame in me remains,
By how much of me their reproach contains.

''Among the many that mine eyes have seen,
Not one whose flame my heart so much as warm'd,
Or my affection put to the smallest teen,
Or any of my leisures ever charm'd:
Harm have I done to them, but ne'er was harm'd;
Kept hearts in liveries, but mine own was free,
And reign'd, commanding in his monarchy.

...Read more of this...
by Shakespeare, William



...s feeds, with Vigour fills the whole,
Each Motion guides, and ev'ry Nerve sustains;
It self unseen, but in th' Effects, remains.
Some, to whom Heav'n in Wit has been profuse.
Want as much more, to turn it to its use,
For Wit and Judgment often are at strife,
Tho' meant each other's Aid, like Man and Wife.
'Tis more to guide than spur the Muse's Steed;
Restrain his Fury, than provoke his Speed;
The winged Courser, like a gen'rous Horse,
Shows most true Mettle when you check hi...Read more of this...
by Pope, Alexander
...ngs its own styles. 

The immortal poets of Asia and Europe have done their work, and pass’d to other
 spheres, 
A work remains, the work of surpassing all they have done. 

America, curious toward foreign characters, stands by its own at all hazards,
Stands removed, spacious, composite, sound—initiates the true use of precedents, 
Does not repel them, or the past, or what they have produced under their forms, 
Takes the lesson with calmness, perceives the corpse slowly borne...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt
...he gift-hall,
their chieftains came from far and near,
throughout the wide ways, to gaze upon that wonder,
the hated remains. His life-parting could never
seem a sore point to any of the men
who traced the track of the glory-torn,
how he stumbled on his way thence,
overcome in his malice, into the mere of monsters,
fated and banished, bearing bloody footprints.
There the waters welled with blood,
a terrible surge of waves, all mixed together
with heated gore, the w...Read more of this...
by Anonymous,
...he mighty blasts of October
Seize them, and whirl them aloft, and sprinkle them far o'er the ocean
Naught but tradition remains of the beautiful village of Grand-Pre.

Ye who believe in affection that hopes, and endures, and is patient,
Ye who believe in the beauty and strength of woman's devotion,
List to the mournful tradition still sung by the pines of the forest;
List to a Tale of Love in Acadie, home of the happy.



PART THE FIRST

I

In the Acadian land, on the shores ...Read more of this...
by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth



...rth 
 We glance, and pass forgetful. Hope in death 
 They have not. Memory of them on the earth 
 Where once they lived remains not. Nor the breath 
 Of Justice shall condemn, nor Mercy plead, 
 But all alike disdain them. That they know 
 Themselves so mean beneath aught else constrains 
 The envious outcries that too long ye heed. 
 Move past, but speak not." 
 Then I looked, and
 lo, 
 Were souls in ceaseless and unnumbered trains 
 That past me whirled unending, vainly le...Read more of this...
by Alighieri, Dante
...it for the grave; 
With feeble and convulsive effort swept 
Their limbs along the crimson'd turf have crept: 
The faint remains of life such struggles waste, 
But yet they reach the stream, and bend to taste: 
They feel its freshness, and almost partake — 
Why pause? — No further thirst have they to slake — 
It is unquench'd, and yet they feel it not — 
It was an agony — but now forgot! 

XVII. 

Beneath a lime, remoter from the scene, 
Where but for him that strife had never...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)
...ng ago,
Abandoning the invaded shrines and fanes
Of her old sanctuary,
A deity obscure and legendary,
Of whom there now remains,
For sages to decipher and priests to garble,
Only and for a little while her letters wedged in marble,
Which even now, behold, the friendly mumbling rain erases,
And the inarticulate snow,
Leaving at last of her least signs and traces
None whatsoever, nor whither she is vanished from these places.
"She will love well," I said,
"If love be of that he...Read more of this...
by St. Vincent Millay, Edna
..., these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”...Read more of this...
by Shelley, Percy Bysshe
...t that which justly gives heroick name 
To person, or to poem. Me, of these 
Nor skill'd nor studious, higher argument 
Remains; sufficient of itself to raise 
That name, unless an age too late, or cold 
Climate, or years, damp my intended wing 
Depress'd; and much they may, if all be mine, 
Not hers, who brings it nightly to my ear. 
The sun was sunk, and after him the star 
Of Hesperus, whose office is to bring 
Twilight upon the earth, short arbiter 
"twixt day and night, ...Read more of this...
by Milton, John
...k speech that became part of you
Like light behind windblown fog and sand,
Filtered and influenced by it, until no part
Remains that is surely you. Those voices in the dusk
Have told you all and still the tale goes on
In the form of memories deposited in irregular
Clumps of crystals. Whose curved hand controls,
Francesco, the turning seasons and the thoughts
That peel off and fly away at breathless speeds
Like the last stubborn leaves ripped
From wet branches? I see in this o...Read more of this...
by Ashbery, John
...rld over, 
That months are vacuums, and the ground but wallow and filth; 
That life is a suck and a sell, and nothing remains at the end but threadbare
 crape, and tears. 

Whimpering and truckling fold with powders for invalids—conformity goes to
 the fourth-remov’d; 
I wear my hat as I please, indoors or out.

Why should I pray? Why should I venerate and be ceremonious? 

Having pried through the strata, analyzed to a hair, counsell’d with
 doctors, and calculat...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt
...ngs
Ride down by Severn side.

Stiff, strange, and quaintly coloured
As the broidery of Bayeux
The England of that dawn remains,
And this of Alfred and the Danes
Seems like the tales a whole tribe feigns
Too English to be true.

Of a good king on an island
That ruled once on a time;
And as he walked by an apple tree
There came green devils out of the sea
With sea-plants trailing heavily
And tracks of opal slime.

Yet Alfred is no fairy tale;
His days as our days ran,
He also ...Read more of this...
by Chesterton, G K
...he lap of luxury will shame — 
Away suspicion! — not Zuleika's name! 
But life is hazard at the best; and here 
No more remains to win, and much to fear: 
Yes, fear! — the doubt, the dread of losing thee, 
By Osman's power, and Giaffir's stern decree. 
That dread shall vanish with the favouring gale, 
Which Love to-night hath promised to my sail: 
No danger daunts the pair his smile hath blest, 
Their steps till roving, but their hearts at rest. 
With thee all toils are sweet...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)
...mbled: 'tis to be undone;
A forest fell'd; a city razed to ground;
A cloak unsewn, unwoven and unspun
Till not a thread remains that can be wound.
And yet, O lover, thee, the ruin'd one,
Love who hath humbled thus hath also crown'd. 

33
I care not if I live, tho' life and breath
Have never been to me so dear and sweet.
I care not if I die, for I could meet--
Being so happy--happily my death.
I care not if I love; to-day she saith
She loveth, and love's history is complete.
N...Read more of this...
by Bridges, Robert Seymour
...d gladly explain,
 While I have it so clear in my head,
If I had but the time and you had but the brain--
 But much yet remains to be said.

"In one moment I've seen what has hitherto been
 Enveloped in absolute mystery,
And without extra charge I will give you at large
 A Lesson in Natural History."

In his genial way he proceeded to say
 (Forgetting all laws of propriety,
And that giving instruction, without introduction,
 Would have caused quite a thrill in Society),

"As ...Read more of this...
by Carroll, Lewis
...hful hour, o'er dangerous track;
     And how, O how, can I atone
     The wreck my vanity brought on!—
     One way remains—I'll tell him all—
     Yes! struggling bosom, forth it shall!
     Thou, whose light folly bears the blame,
     Buy thine own pardon with thy shame!
     But first—my father is a man
     Outlawed and exiled, under ban;
     The price of blood is on his head,
     With me 't were infamy to wed.
     Still wouldst thou speak?—then hear the t...Read more of this...
by Scott, Sir Walter
...ss, toils,
And climbs against the Blast --
Low, waves the rooted Forest, vex'd, and sheds
What of its leafy Honours yet remains.
Thus, struggling thro' the dissipated Grove, 
The whirling Tempest raves along the Plain;
And, on the Cottage thacht, or lordly Dome,
Keen-fastening, shakes 'em to the solid Base.
Sleep, frighted, flies; the hollow Chimney howls,
The Windows rattle, and the Hinges creak. 

THEN, too, they say, thro' all the burthen'd Air,
Long Groans are heard, shri...Read more of this...
by Thomson, James
...mountainous waves rocks all-dismasted the bark;
Under the clouds are hid the steadfast stars of the chariot,
Naught now remains,--in the breast even the god goes astray.
Truth disappears from language, from life all faith and all honor
Vanish, and even the oath is but a lie on the lips.
Into the heart's most trusty bond, and into love's secrets,
Presses the sycophant base, tearing the friend from the friend.
Treason on innocence leers, with looks that seek to devour,
And the ...Read more of this...
by Schiller, Friedrich von
...he feeling
will never die--yet, ere we are aware,
The feeling and the sound are fled and gone
And the regret they leave remains alone.

And there lay Visions swift and sweet and quaint,
Each in its thin sheath like a chrysalis;--
Some eager to burst forth; some weak and faint
With the soft burden of intensest bliss
It is their work to bear to many a saint 
Whose heart adores the shrine which holiest is,
Even Love's; and others, white, green, grey, and black,
And of all shapes...Read more of this...
by Shelley, Percy Bysshe

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry