Famous Remnant Poems by Famous Poets

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

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An Epitaph

by Walter de la Mare
 Interr'd beneath this marble stone, 
Lie saunt'ring Jack and idle Joan. 
While rolling threescore years and one 
Did round this globe their courses run; 
If human things went ill or well; 
If changing empires rose or fell; 
The morning passed, the evening came, 
And found this couple still the same. 
They walk'd and eat, good folks: what then? 
Why...Read more of this...

The Division Of The Earth

by Friedrich von Schiller
 "Take the world!" Zeus exclaimed from his throne in the skies
To the children of man--"take the world I now give;
It shall ever remain as your heirloom and prize,
So divide it as brothers, and happily live."

Then all who had hands sought their share to obtain,
The young and the aged made haste to appear;
The husbandman seized on the fruits of the...Read more of this...

The Task: Book V The Winter Morning Walk (excerpts)

by William Cowper
 'Tis morning; and the sun, with ruddy orb
Ascending, fires th' horizon: while the clouds,
That crowd away before the driving wind,
More ardent as the disk emerges more,
Resemble most some city in a blaze,
Seen through the leafless wood. His slanting ray
Slides ineffectual down the snowy vale,
And, tinging all with his own rosy hue,
From ev'ry herb and ev'ry spiry blade
Stretches a length...Read more of this...

The Christian

by William Cowper
 Honor and happiness unite
To make the Christian's name a praise;
How fair the scene, how clear the light,
That fills the remnant of His days!

A kingly character He bears,
No change His priestly office knows;
Unfading is the crown He wears,
His joys can never reach a close.

Adorn'd with glory from on high,
Salvation shines upon His face;
His robe is of the ethereal dye,
His steps...Read more of this...

I Hardly Remember

by Robert Graves
 I hardly remember your voice, but the pain of you
floats in some remote current of my blood.
I carry you in my depths, trapped in the sludge
like one of those corpses the sea refuses to give up.

It was a spoiled remnant of the South. A beach
without fishing boats, where the sun was for sale.
A stretch of shore, now a jungle...Read more of this...

Pilates Wifes Dream

by Charlotte Bronte
 I've quenched my lamp, I struck it in that start
Which every limb convulsed, I heard it fall­
The crash blent with my sleep, I saw depart
Its light, even as I woke, on yonder wall;
Over against my bed, there shone a gleam
Strange, faint, and mingling also with my dream. 

It sunk, and I am wrapt in utter gloom; 
How far is...Read more of this...

From learning to the cup your bridle turn;

by Omar Khayyam
From learning to the cup your bridle turn;
All lore of world to come, save Kausar, spurn;
Your turban pawn for wine, or keep a shred
To bind your brow, and all the remnant burn....Read more of this...

The Song of Los

by William Blake
 AFRICA 

I will sing you a song of Los. the Eternal Prophet: 
He sung it to four harps at the tables of Eternity. 
In heart-formed Africa. 
Urizen faded! Ariston shudderd! 
And thus the Song began 

Adam stood in the garden of Eden: 
And Noah on the mountains of Ararat; 
They saw Urizen give his Laws to the Nations 
By...Read more of this...

To Ladies Of A Certain Age

by John Trumbull
 Ye ancient Maids, who ne'er must prove
The early joys of youth and love,
Whose names grim Fate (to whom 'twas given,
When marriages were made in heaven)
Survey'd with unrelenting scowl,
And struck them from the muster-roll;
Or set you by, in dismal sort,
For wintry bachelors to court;
Or doom'd to lead your faded lives,
Heirs to the joys of former wives;
Attend! nor fear in state...Read more of this...

Hymn 55

by Isaac Watts
 Hezekiah's song; or, Sickness and recovery.

Isa. 38:9ff. 

When we are raised from deep distress,
Our God deserves a song;
We take the pattern of our praise
From Hezekiah's tongue.

The gates of the devouring grave
Are opened wide in vain,
If he that holds the keys of death
Commands them fast again.

Pains of the flesh are wont t' abuse
Our minds with slavish fears:
"Our days are past,...Read more of this...

Hildrup Tubbs

by Edgar Lee Masters
 I made two fights for the people.
First I left my party, bearing the gonfalon
Of independence, for reform, and was defeated.
Next I used my rebel strength
To capture the standard of my old party --
And I captured it, but I was defeated.
Discredited and discarded, misanthropical,
I turned to the solace of gold
And I used my remnant of power
To fasten myself like a...Read more of this...

Roaming Cloud

by Rabindranath Tagore
 I am like a remnant of a cloud of autumn 
uselessly roaming in the sky, O my sun ever-glorious! 
Thy touch has not yet melted my vapor, 
making me one with thy light, 
and thus I count months and years separated from thee. 

If this be thy wish and if this be thy play, 
then take this fleeting emptiness...Read more of this...

Sonnet LXXXVI

by Francesco Petrarch
SONNET LXXXVI. I' vo piangendo i miei passati tempi. HE HUMBLY CONFESSES THE ERRORS OF HIS PAST LIFE, AND PRAYS FOR DIVINE GRACE.  Weeping, I still revolve the seasons flownIn vain idolatry of mortal things;Not soaring heavenward; though my soul had wings[Pg 315]Which might, perchance, a glorious flight have...Read more of this...

Epistle To Augusta

by George (Lord) Byron
 My sister! my sweet sister! if a name
Dearer and purer were, it should be thine;
Mountains and seas divide us, but I claim
No tears, but tenderness to answer mine:
Go where I will, to me thou art the same— 
A loved regret which I would not resign.
There yet are two things in my destiny,— 
A world to roam through, and a...Read more of this...

Inextinguibles (Immutable)

by Delmira Agustini
Spanish ¡Oh, tú que duermes tan hondo que no despiertas!Milagrosas de vivas, milagrosas de muertas,Y por muertas y vivas eternamente abiertas,Alguna noche en duelo yo encuentro tus pupilas  Bajo un trapo de sombra o una blonda de luna.Bebo en ellas la Calma como en una laguna.Por hondas, por calladas, por buenas, por tranquilas  Un lecho o una tumba parece cada una.              English   O...Read more of this...

Kinsey Keene

by Edgar Lee Masters
 Your attention, Thomas Rhodes, president of the bank;
Coolbaugh Wedon, editor of the Argus;
Rev. Peet, pastor of the leading church;
A.D. Blood, several times Mayor of Spoon River;
And finally all of you, members of the Social Purity Club--
Your attention to Cambronne's dying words,
Standing with heroic remnant
Of Napoleon's guard on Mount Saint Jean
At the battle field of Waterloo,
When Maitland, the Englishman, called...Read more of this...

Life

by Charlotte Bronte
 I made a posie, while the day ran by: 
Here will I smell my remnant out, and tie 
My life within this band. 
But time did becken to the flowers, and they 
By noon most cunningly did steal away
And wither'd in my hand. 

My hand was next to them, and then my heart: 
I took, without more thinking, in...Read more of this...

Justice

by Rudyard Kipling
 October, 1918
Across a world where all men grieve
 And grieving strive the more,
The great days range like tides and leave
 Our dead on every shore.
Heavy the load we undergo,
 And our own hands prepare,
If we have parley with the foe,
 The load our sons must bear.

Before we loose the word
 That bids new worlds to birth,
Needs must we loosen...Read more of this...

Psalm 63

by Isaac Watts
 Longing after God; or, The love of God better than life.

Great God, indulge my humble claim,
Thou art my hope, my joy, my rest;
The glories that compose thy name
Stand all engaged to make me blest.

Thou great and good, thou just and wise,
Thou art my Father and my God;
And I am thine by sacred ties;
Thy son, thy servant, bought with blood

With...Read more of this...

Before the Altar

by Amy Lowell
 Before the Altar, bowed, he stands
With empty hands;
Upon it perfumed offerings burn
Wreathing with smoke the sacrificial urn.
Not one of all these has he given,
No flame of his has leapt to Heaven
Firesouled, vermilion-hearted,
Forked, and darted,
Consuming what a few spare pence
Have cheaply bought, to fling from hence
In idly-asked petition.
His sole condition
Love and poverty.
And while the moon
Swings slow across the sky,
Athwart a...Read more of this...

The Drovers Sweetheart

by Henry Lawson
 An hour before the sun goes down 
Behind the ragged boughs, 
I go across the little run 
And bring the dusty cows; 
And once I used to sit and rest 
Beneath the fading dome, 
For there was one that I loved best 
Who'd bring the cattle home. 

Our yard is fixed with double bails, 
Round one the grass is...Read more of this...

Tor House

by Robinson Jeffers
 If you should look for this place after a handful 
 of lifetimes:
Perhaps of my planted forest a few
May stand yet, dark-leaved Australians or the coast 
 cypress, haggard
With storm-drift; but fire and the axe are devils.
Look for foundations of sea-worn granite, my fingers 
 had the art
To make stone love stone, you will find some remnant.
But if you...Read more of this...

Calverlys

by Edwin Arlington Robinson
 We go no more to Calverly's,
For there the lights are few and low;
And who are there to see by them,
Or what they see, we do not know.
Poor strangers of another tongue
May now creep in from anywhere,
And we, forgotten, be no more
Than twilight on a ruin there.

We two, the remnant. All the rest
Are cold and quiet. You nor I,
Nor fiddle...Read more of this...

A March in the Ranks Hard-prest

by Walt Whitman
 A MARCH in the ranks hard-prest, and the road unknown; 
A route through a heavy wood, with muffled steps in the darkness; 
Our army foil’d with loss severe, and the sullen remnant retreating; 
Till after midnight glimmer upon us, the lights of a dim-lighted building; 
We come to an open space in the woods, and halt by the dim-lighted...Read more of this...

I Hardly Remember

by Rafael Guillen
 I hardly remember your voice, but the pain of you
floats in some remote current of my blood.
I carry you in my depths, trapped in the sludge
like one of those corpses the sea refuses to give up.

It was a spoiled remnant of the South. A beach
without fishing boats, where the sun was for sale.
A stretch of shore, now a jungle...Read more of this...

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