Famous Reposing Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Alias Bill

...thought,
For close as clam was he;
We never guessed that he had got
A lawful family,
Till lo! we saw a gorgeous wreath
Reposing on his bier,
With on a scarlet scroll beneath:
 "To Father Dear."

He ordered it hisself, they said,
Before he had to go.
His folks don't know that he is dead -
Maybe they'll never know.
His step was frail, his hair was grey,
But though his sight was dim,
He liked to kid hisself that they
 Still thought of him.

Maybe they did: we never knew,
And he...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William


Edmunds Wedding

...to behold thee--
"When the sulphur of War, in its cloudy mist roll'd me!

"At the still hour of morn, when the Camp was reposing,
"I wander'd alone on the wide dewy plain:
"And when the gold curtains of Ev'ning were closing,
"I watch'd the long shadows steal over the Main!
"Across the wild Ocean, half frantic they bore me,
"Unheeding my groans, from Thee, AGNES, they tore me;
"But, though my poor heart might have bled in the battle,
"Thy name should have echoed, amidst the lo...Read more of this...
by Robinson, Mary Darby

Endymion: Book IV

...amethyst,
Puzzled those eyes that for the centre sought;
And scarcely for one moment could be caught
His sluggish form reposing motionless.
Those two on winged steeds, with all the stress
Of vision search'd for him, as one would look
Athwart the sallows of a river nook
To catch a glance at silver throated eels,--
Or from old Skiddaw's top, when fog conceals
His rugged forehead in a mantle pale,
With an eye-guess towards some pleasant vale
Descry a favourite hamlet faint and ...Read more of this...
by Keats, John

Epistles to Several Persons: Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot

...domestic bliss be thine!
Be no unpleasing melancholy mine:
Me, let the tender office long engage
To rock the cradle of reposing age,
With lenient arts extend a mother's breath,
Make langour smile, and smooth the bed of death,
Explore the thought, explain the asking eye,
And keep a while one parent from the sky!
On cares like these if length of days attend,
May Heav'n, to bless those days, preserve my friend,
Preserve him social, cheerful, and serene,
And just as rich as when...Read more of this...
by Pope, Alexander

Genius

...d, borne by an effort proud 
 Beyond the reach of vulgar enmities. 
 'Tis thus the eagle, with his pinions spread, 
 Reposing o'er the tempest, from that height 
 Sees the clouds reel and roll above our head, 
 While he, rejoicing in his tranquil flight, 
 More upward soars sublime in heaven's eternal light. 
 
 MRS. TORRE HULME 


 




...Read more of this...
by Hugo, Victor


Gilbert

...cling waters' crystal sweep,
Like glass, her shape enshrining;
Her pale dead face, to Gilbert turned,
Seems as in sleep reposing;
A feeble light, now first discerned,
The features well disclosing. 

No effort from the haunted air
The ghastly scene could banish;
That hovering wave, arrested there,
Rolled­throbbed­but did not vanish.
If Gilbert upward turned his gaze,
He saw the ocean-shadow;
If he looked down, the endless seas
Lay green as summer meadow. 

And straight before,...Read more of this...
by Bronte, Charlotte

Last Instructions to a Painter

...he felt 
His altering form and soldered limbs to melt, 
Down on the deck he laid himself and died, 
With his dear sword reposing by his side, 
And on the flaming plank, so rests his head 
As one that's warmed himself and gone to bed. 
His ship burns down, and with his relics sinks, 
And the sad stream beneath his ashes drinks. 
Fortunate boy, if either pencil's fame, 
Or if my verse can propagate thy name, 
When Oeta and Alcides are forgot, 
Our English youth shall sing the v...Read more of this...
by Marvell, Andrew

Lay His Sword By His Side

...t was still turn'd to a flying foe. 
Fellow-labourers in life, let them slumber in death, 
Side by side, as becomes the reposing brave -- 
That sword which he loved still unbroke in its sheath, 
And himself unsubdued in his grave. 

Yet pause -- for, in fancy, a still voice I hear, 
As if breathed from his brave heart's remains; -- 
Faint echo of that which, in Slavery's ear, 
Once sounded the war-word, "Burst your chains." 
And it cries, from the grave where the hero lies de...Read more of this...
by Moore, Thomas

Magdalen

...Was ever known
A woman with a heart of stone?

The doctor says that I shall die.
It may be so, yet what care I?
Endless reposing from the strife?
Death do I trust no more than life.
For one thing is like one arrayed,
And there is neither false nor true;
But in a hideous masquerade
All things dance on, the ages through.
And good is evil, evil good;
Nothing is known or understood
Save only Pain. I have no faith
In God, or Devil, Life or Death.

The doctor says that I shall die....Read more of this...
by Levy, Amy

The Ballad Of Caseys Billy-Goat

...of lead he tumbled - right across the railroad track.

And there he lay, serenely, and defied the powers to budge him,
Reposing like a baby, with his head upon the rail;
But Shamus seemed unhappy, and from time to time would nudge him,
Though his prods to protestation were without the least avail.
Then to that goatish mind, maybe, a sense of fell disaster
Came stealing like a spectre in the dim and dreary dawn;
For his bleat of warning blended with the snoring of his master
...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William

The Castle of Mains

...astle of the Mains,
Not far from Dundee. 

Then there's the old burying-ground,
Most solemn to see,
And the silent dead reposing silently
Amid the shady trees,
In that beautiful fairy dell
Most lovely to see,
Which in the summer season
Fills the people's hearts with glee,
To hear the birds singing and the humming of the bee....Read more of this...
by McGonagall, William Topaz

The Dream

...wanderer;
There was a mass of many images
Crowded like waves upon me, but he was
A part of all; and in the last he lay
Reposing from the noontide sultriness,
Couched among fallen columns, in the shade
Of ruined walls that had survived the names
Of those who reared them; by his sleeping side
Stood camels grazing, and some goodly steeds
Were fastened near a fountain; and a man,
Glad in a flowing garb, did watch the while,
While many of his tribe slumbered around:
And they were...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)

The Farewell XXVIII

...hasten your tides. 

And like the seasons you are also, 

And though in your winter you deny your spring, 

Yet spring, reposing within you, smiles in her drowsiness and is not offended. 

Think not I say these things in order that you may say the one to the other, "He praised us well. He saw but the good in us." 

I only speak to you in words of that which you yourselves know in thought. 

And what is word knowledge but a shadow of wordless knowledge? 

Your thoughts and my ...Read more of this...
by Gibran, Kahlil

The Infanticide

...ayer, what! thy soul relentless closing
To grief--the woman-shame no art can heal--
To that small life beneath my heart reposing!
Man, man, the wild beast for its young can feel!
Proud flew the sails--receding from the land,
I watched them waning from the wistful eye,
Round the gay maids on Seine's voluptuous strand,
Breathes the false incense of his fatal sigh.

And there the babe! there, on the mother's bosom,
Lulled in its sweet and golden rest it lay,
Fresh in life's morn...Read more of this...
by Schiller, Friedrich von

The Symphony

...Wind-sighings, doves' melodious moans,
And night's unearthly under-tones;
All placid lakes and waveless deeps,
All cool reposing mountain-steeps,
Vale-calms and tranquil lotos-sleeps; --
Yea, all fair forms, and sounds, and lights,
And warmths, and mysteries, and mights,
Of Nature's utmost depths and heights,
-- These doth my timid tongue present,
Their mouthpiece and leal instrument
And servant, all love-eloquent.
I heard, when `"All for love"' the violins cried:
So, Nature ...Read more of this...
by Lanier, Sidney

The Triumph Of Eternity

...future and the past,But on the moveless present fix'd at last;As at a goal reposing from his toils,Like earth unclothed of all its vernal foils.Unvaried scene! where neither change nor fate,Nor care, nor sorrow, can our joys abate;Nor finds the light of thought resistance here,More than the sunbeams in a crystal sphere.Read more of this...
by Petrarch, Francesco

The Visit

...tly,
And held counsel, whether I should wake her.

Then I looked upon the beauteous quiet
That on her sweet eyelids was reposing
On her lips was silent truth depicted,
On her cheeks had loveliness its dwelling,
And the pureness of a heart unsullied
In her bosom evermore was heaving.
All her limbs were gracefully reclining,
Set at rest by sweet and godlike balsam.
Gladly sat I, and the contemplation
Held the strong desire I felt to wake her
Firmer and firmer down, with mystic ...Read more of this...
by von Goethe, Johann Wolfgang

Winter Journey Over The Hartz Mountains

...z and the metalliferous 
veins of its smaller brethren.]

LIKE the vulture
Who on heavy morning clouds
With gentle wing reposing
Looks for his prey,--
Hover, my song!

For a God hath
Unto each prescribed
His destined path,
Which the happy one
Runs o'er swiftly
To his glad goal:
He whose heart cruel
Fate hath contracted,
Struggles but vainly
Against all the barriers
The brazen thread raises,
But which the harsh shears
Must one day sever.

Through gloomy thickets
Presseth the w...Read more of this...
by von Goethe, Johann Wolfgang

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