Famous Responsive Poems by Famous Poets

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

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A poem on the rising glory of America

...onfinement, rose 
An infant seraph to the worlds on high. 



EUGENIO. 
For him we sound the melancholy lyre, 
The lyre responsive to each distant sigh; 
No grief like that which mourns departing souls 
Of holy, just and venerable men, 
Whom pitying Heav'n sends from their native skies 
To light our way and bring us nearer God. 
But come Leander since we know the past 
And present glory of this empire wide, 
What hinders to pervade with searching eye 
The mystic scenes of dar...Read more of this...
by Brackenridge, Hugh Henry


Ainsi Va le Monde

...rystal altar rears, 
Deck'd with fresh myrtle­gemm'd with lovers tears; 
Apollo strikes his lyre's rebounding strings, 
Responsive notes divine Cecilia sings, 
The tuneful sisters prompt the heavenly choir, 
Thy temple glitters with Promethean fire. 
The sacred Priestess in the centre stands, 
She strews the sapphire floor with flow'ry bands. 
See ! from her shrine electric incense rise; 
Hark ! "Freedom" echoes thro' the vaulted skies. 
The Goddess speaks! O mark the blest d...Read more of this...
by Robinson, Mary Darby

Chicago Weather

...trees; 
To-morrow morn, her sealskin sack
Defies the piping polar breeze.
So Doris is to-day enthused
By Thisbe's soft, responsive sighs, 
And on the morrow is confused
By Thisbe's cold, repellent eyes....Read more of this...
by Field, Eugene

Farewell To The Muse

...ld part;
Then rise on the gale this the last of my lays,
The coldest effusion which springs from my heart.

This bosom, responsive to rapture no more,
Shall hush thy wild notes, nor implore thee to sing;
The feelings of childhood, which taught thee to soar,
Are wafted far distant on Apathy's wing.

Though simple the themes of my rude flowing Lyre,
Yet even these themes are departed for ever;
No more beam the eyes which my dream could inspire,
My visions are flown, to return,-...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)

February

...thro' the spacious street, 
In hollow murmurs roll the dirt along, 
With inundations wet the sabled feet, 
Whilst gouts responsive, join th'elegiac song. 

Ye damsels fair, whose silver voices shrill, 
Sound thro' meand'ring folds of Echo's horn; 
Let the sweet cry of liberty be still, 
No more let smoking cakes awake the morn. 

O, Winter! Put away the snowy pride; 
O, Spring! Neglect the cowslip and the bell; 
O, Summer! Throw thy pears and plums aside; 
O, Autumn! Bid the ...Read more of this...
by Chatterton, Thomas


Ode On The Spring

...enus' train, appear,
Disclose the long-expecting flowers,
And wake the purple year!
The Attic warbler pours her throat,
Responsive to the cuckoo's note,
The untaught harmony of spring:
While, whisp'ring pleasure as they fly,
Cool Zephyrs thro' the clear blue sky
Their gathered fragrance fling.

Where'er the oak's thick branches stretch
A broader browner shade,
Where'er the rude and moss-grown beech
O'er-canopies the glade,
Beside some water's rushy brink
With me the Muse shal...Read more of this...
by Gray, Thomas

Ode To Neptune

...II.
The Pow'r propitious hears the lay,
The blue-ey'd daughters of the sea
With sweeter cadence glide along,
And Thames responsive joins the song.
Pleas'd with their notes Sol sheds benign his ray,
And double radiance decks the face of day.

III.
To court thee to Britannia's arms
Serene the climes and mild the sky,
Her region boasts unnumber'd charms,
Thy welcome smiles in ev'ry eye.
Thy promise, Neptune keep, record my pray'r,
Not give my wishes to the empty air....Read more of this...
by Wheatley, Phillis

Ode to the Muse

...varying course; 
To mark th' enthusiast's vivid fire,
Or calmly touch thy golden lyre,
While gentle Reason mildly sings
Responsive to the trembling strings. 

SWEET Nymph, enchanting Poetry! 
I dedicate my mind to Thee. 
Oh! from thy bright Parnassian bow'rs
Descend, to bless my sombre hours;
Bend to the earth thy eagle wing,
And on its glowing plumage bring
Blithe FANCY, from whose burning eye
The young ideas sparkling fly; 
O, come, and let us fondly stray,
Where rosy Healt...Read more of this...
by Robinson, Mary Darby

Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking

...he song of my dusky demon and brother,
That he sang to me in the moonlight on Paumanok’s gray beach, 
With the thousand responsive songs, at random, 
My own songs, awaked from that hour; 
And with them the key, the word up from the waves, 
The word of the sweetest song, and all songs,
That strong and delicious word which, creeping to my feet, 
The sea whisper’d me....Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt

Paradise Lost: Book 04

...ht: How often from the steep 
Of echoing hill or thicket have we heard 
Celestial voices to the midnight air, 
Sole, or responsive each to others note, 
Singing their great Creator? oft in bands 
While they keep watch, or nightly rounding walk, 
With heavenly touch of instrumental sounds 
In full harmonick number joined, their songs 
Divide the night, and lift our thoughts to Heaven. 
Thus talking, hand in hand alone they passed 
On to their blissful bower: it was a place 
Ch...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Plea For A History Of Working-class Leeds

...t one in the sixties

Who had all the coldness of Himmler

So svelte and adored by the cognoscenti.



I want a history responsive

To the needs of the working-class

One that will minute the back-to-backs

Spread over the city like a seamless robe



SO **** CUTHBERT BRODERICK’S TOWN HALL

BRIDEWELL AND MAGISTRACY.



I want a history of the culture

Of the working class and not

Hoggart’s slimy gone-up-in-the-world

Jabber for the curious bourgeoisie

He was especially mala...Read more of this...
by Tebb, Barry

Salut au Monde

...b muezzin, calling from the top of the mosque; 
I hear the Christian priests at the altars of their churches—I hear the responsive bass
 and
 soprano;
I hear the wail of utter despair of the white-hair’d Irish grandparents, when they learn
 the
 death
 of their grandson; 
I hear the cry of the Cossack, and the sailor’s voice, putting to sea at Okotsk; 
I hear the wheeze of the slave-coffle, as the slaves march on—as the husky gangs pass on
 by
 twos
 and threes, fasten’d toge...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt

Song of Myself

...icking out here one that I love, and now go with him on brotherly terms. 

A gigantic beauty of a stallion, fresh and responsive to my caresses, 
Head high in the forehead, wide between the ears,
Limbs glossy and supple, tail dusting the ground, 
Eyes full of sparkling wickedness—ears finely cut, flexibly moving. 

His nostrils dilate, as my heels embrace him; 
His well-built limbs tremble with pleasure, as we race around and return. 

I but use you a moment, then I...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt

Song of the Exposition

...French and Spanish
 Castles; 
For know a better, fresher, busier sphere—a wide, untried domain awaits, demands you. 

3
Responsive to our summons, 
Or rather to her long-nurs’d inclination,
Join’d with an irresistible, natural gravitation, 

She comes! this famous Female—as was indeed to be expected; 
(For who, so-ever youthful, ’cute and handsome, would wish to stay in mansions such as
 those,

When offer’d quarters with all the modern improvements, 
With all the fun that ’s...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt

The Alien Boy

...nd toil, he had not known,
Till then, the horror-giving chearless hour
Of TOTAL SOLITUDE!

He spoke--he groan'd,
But no responsive voice, no kindred tone
Broke the dread pause: For now the storm had ceas'd,
And the bright Sun-beams glitter'd on the breast
Of the green placid Ocean. To his Hut
The lorn Boy hasten'd; there the rushy couch,
The pillow still indented, met his gaze
And fix'd his eye in madness.--From that hour
A maniac wild, the Alien Boy has been;
His garb with s...Read more of this...
by Robinson, Mary Darby

The Comedian As The Letter C

...
330 A comprehensive island hemisphere. 
331 The man in Georgia waking among pines 
332 Should be pine-spokesman. The responsive man, 
333 Planting his pristine cores in Florida, 
334 Should prick thereof, not on the psaltery, 
335 But on the banjo's categorical gut, 
336 Tuck tuck, while the flamingos flapped his bays. 
337 Sepulchral se?ors, bibbing pale mescal, 
338 Oblivious to the Aztec almanacs, 
339 Should make the intricate Sierra scan. 
340 And dark Brazili...Read more of this...
by Stevens, Wallace

The Deserted Garden

...ir song and in the murmuring breeze
It seemed angelic choirs were all about
Mingling in universal harmonies,
As though, responsive to the chords they woke,
All Nature into sweet epithalamium broke.

And still they think a spirit haunts the place:
'Tis said, when Night has drawn her jewelled pall
And through the branches twinkling fireflies trace
Their mimic constellations, if it fall
That one should see the moon rise through the lace
Of blossomy boughs above the garden wall,
...Read more of this...
by Seeger, Alan

The Deserted Village

...ge murmur rose;
There, as I passed with careless steps and slow,
The mingling notes came softened from below;
The swain responsive as the milkmaid sung,
The sober herd that lowed to meet their young;
The noisy geese that gabbled o'er the pool,
The playful children just let loose from school;
The watchdog's voice that bayed the whisp'ring wind,
And the loud laugh that spoke the vacant mind;
These all in sweet confusion sought the shade,
And filled each pause the nightingale ha...Read more of this...
by Goldsmith, Oliver

The Task: Book IV The Winter Evening (excerpts)

...he writer's cheeks
Fast as the periods from his fluent quill,
Or charg'd with am'rous sighs of absent swains,
Or nymphs responsive, equally affect
His horse and him, unconscious of them all.
But oh th' important budget! usher'd in
With such heart-shaking music, who can say
What are its tidings? have our troops awak'd?
Or do they still, as if with opium drugg'd,
Snore to the murmurs of th' Atlantic wave?
Is India free? and does she wear her plum'd
And jewell'd turban with a sm...Read more of this...
by Cowper, William

The Triumph Of Fame

...n lasting lightThe trophies ransom'd from oblivion's nightThe Mantuan bard, responsive to his song,Co-rival of his glory, walk'd along.[Pg 392]The next with new surprise my notice drew,Where'er he pass'd spontaneous flowerets grew,Fit emblems of his style; and close behindRead more of this...
by Petrarch, Francesco

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