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Famous Rest Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Whitman, Walt
...’s, or any. 

All comes by the body—only health puts you rapport with the universe.

Produce great persons, the rest follows. 

4
America isolated I sing; 
I say that works made here in the spirit of other lands, are so much poison in The States.


(How dare such insects as we see assume to write poems for America? 
For our victorious armies, and the offspring following the armies?)

Piety and conformity to them that like! 
Peace, obesity, allegiance, to them ...Read more of this...



by Wilde, Oscar
...in unison, a time
When all the strings of boyish life were stirred
To quick response or more melodious rhyme
By every forest idyll; - do I change?
Or rather doth some evil thing through thy fair pleasaunce range?

Nay, nay, thou art the same: 'tis I who seek
To vex with sighs thy simple solitude,
And because fruitless tears bedew my cheek
Would have thee weep with me in brotherhood;
Fool! shall each wronged and restless spirit dare
To taint such wine with the salt poison of o...Read more of this...

by Keats, John
...fiery noon, and eve's one star,
Sat gray-hair'd Saturn, quiet as a stone,
Still as the silence round about his lair;
Forest on forest hung above his head
Like cloud on cloud. No stir of air was there,
Not so much life as on a summer's day
Robs not one light seed from the feather'd grass,
But where the dead leaf fell, there did it rest.
A stream went voiceless by, still deadened more
By reason of his fallen divinity
Spreading a shade: the Naiad 'mid her reeds
Press'd ...Read more of this...

by Alighieri, Dante
...eyes to see 
 The league-wide wastes that held him. So mine eyes 
 Surveyed that fear, the while my wearied frame 
 Rested, and ever my heart's tossed lake became 
 More quiet. 
 Then from that pass released, which yet 
 With living feet had no man left, I set 
 My forward steps aslant the steep, that so, 
 My right foot still the lower, I climbed. 

 Below 
 No more I gazed. Around, a slope of sand 
 Was sterile of all growth on either hand, 
 Or moving life,...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...nd slavery half forgets her feudal chain; 
He, their unhoped, but unforgotten lord — 
The long self-exiled chieftain is restored: 
There be bright faces in the busy hall, 
Bowls on the board, and banners on the wall; 
Far chequering o'er the pictured window, plays 
The unwonted fagots' hospitable blaze; 
And gay retainers gather round the hearth, 
With tongues all loudness, and with eyes all mirth. 

II. 

The chief of Lara is return'd again: 
And why had Lara cross'd...Read more of this...



by Shakur, Tupac
...Life through my bloodshot eyes
would scare a square 2 death
poverty,murder,violence
and never a moment 2 rest
Fun and games are few
but treasured like gold 2 me
cuz I realize that I must return
2 my spot in poverty
But mock my words when I say
my heart will not exist
unless my destiny comes through
and puts an end 2 all of this ...Read more of this...

by Wordsworth, William
...raz'd this bold and lovely Knight,  And that be cross'd the mountain woods    Nor rested day nor night;   That sometimes from the savage Den,  And sometimes from the darksome Shade,  And sometimes starting up at once    In green and sunny Glade,   There came, and look'd him in the face,  An Angel beautiful and bright;  ...Read more of this...

by St Vincent Millay, Edna
...ake a wreath
Of my locked hands, that on her quiet breast
Shall lie till age has withered them!

 (Ah, sweetly from the rest
I see
Turn and consider me
Compassionate Euterpe!)
"There is a gate beyond the gate of Death,
Beyond the gate of everlasting Life,
Beyond the gates of Heaven and Hell," she saith,
"Whereon but to believe is horror!
Whereon to meditate engendereth
Even in deathless spirits such as I
A tumult in the breath,
A chilling of the inexhaustible blood
Even in my...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
..., 
I hear the cry again sent down from the mast-head—There—she blows! 
—Again I spring up the rigging, to look with the rest—We see—we descend,
 wild
 with excitement, 
I leap in the lower’d boat—We row toward our prey, where he lies,
We approach, stealthy and silent—I see the mountainous mass, lethargic, basking, 
I see the harpooneer standing up—I see the weapon dart from his vigorous arm: 
O swift, again, now, far out in the ocean, the wounded whale, settling, running to
 ...Read more of this...

by Frost, Robert
...nt to say Good-morning there.—
I thought I would.— I know, but, Lett—I know—
I could, but what’s the sense? The rest won’t be
So bad.— Give me an hour for it.— Ho, ho,
Three hours to here! But that was all up hill;
The rest is down.— Why no, no, not a wallow:
They kept their heads and took their time to it
Like darlings, both of them. They’re in the barn.—
My dear, I’m coming just the same. I didn’t
Call you to ask you to invite me home.—”
...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...any man hearty and clean; 
Not an inch, nor a particle of an inch, is vile, and none shall be less familiar
 than the rest.

I am satisfied—I see, dance, laugh, sing: 
As the hugging and loving Bed-fellow sleeps at my side through the night, and
 withdraws at the peep of the day, with stealthy tread, 
Leaving me baskets cover’d with white towels, swelling the house with their
 plenty, 
Shall I postpone my acceptation and realization, and scream at my eyes, 
That...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...freedom of death. 

13
Allons! to that which is endless, as it was beginningless, 
To undergo much, tramps of days, rests of nights,
To merge all in the travel they tend to, and the days and nights they tend to, 
Again to merge them in the start of superior journeys; 
To see nothing anywhere but what you may reach it and pass it, 
To conceive no time, however distant, but what you may reach it and pass it, 
To look up or down no road but it stretches and waits for you—how...Read more of this...

by Chesterton, G K
...and war
That like yourself, goes on."

O go you onward; where you are
Shall honour and laughter be,
Past purpled forest and pearled foam,
God's winged pavilion free to roam,
Your face, that is a wandering home,
A flying home for me.

Ride through the silent earthquake lands,
Wide as a waste is wide,
Across these days like deserts, when
Pride and a little scratching pen
Have dried and split the hearts of men,
Heart of the heroes, ride.

Up through an empty house o...Read more of this...

by Bridges, Robert Seymour
...love's self-answering and awakening smile;
Whereby the lips in wonder reconcile
Passion with peace, and show desire at rest,--
A grace of silence by the Greek unguesst,
That bloom'd to immortalize the Tuscan style 
When first the angel-song that faith hath ken'd
Fancy pourtray'd, above recorded oath
Of Israel's God, or light of poem pen'd;
The very countenance of plighted troth
'Twixt heaven and earth, where in one moment blend
The hope of one and happiness of both. 

8
...Read more of this...

by Carroll, Lewis
...whispers of a summer sea.


Girt with a boyish garb for boyish task,
 Eager she wields her spade; yet loves as well
Rest on a friendly knee, intent to ask
 The tale he loves to tell.

Rude spirits of the seething outer strife,
 Unmeet to read her pure and simple spright,
Deem, if you list, such hours a waste of life,
 Empty of all delight!

Chat on, sweet Maid, and rescue from annoy
 Hearts that by wiser talk are unbeguiled.
Ah, happy he who owns that tenderest jo...Read more of this...

by Blake, William
...ward circumference of Energy.
Energy is Eternal Delight
_______________________________________

PLATE 5

Those who restrain desire, do so because theirs is weak enough
to be restrained; and the restrainer or reason usurps its place &
governs the unwilling.
And being restraind it by degrees becomes passive till it is
only the shadow of desire.
The history of this is written in Paradise Lost. & the Governor
or Reason is call'd Messiah.
And the original Arch...Read more of this...

by Shelley, Percy Bysshe
...at the birth
Of light, the Ocean's orison arose
To which the birds tempered their matin lay,
All flowers in field or forest which unclose
Their trembling eyelids to the kiss of day,
Swinging their censers in the element,
With orient incense lit by the new ray
Burned slow & inconsumably, & sent
Their odorous sighs up to the smiling air,
And in succession due, did Continent,
Isle, Ocean, & all things that in them wear
The form & character of mortal mould
Rise as the Sun their ...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...stors are, at his request, called up to his view; and he exclaims to
his ghostly guide) — 

'Aroar, what wretch that nearest us? what wretch 
Is that with eyebrows white and slanting brow? 
Listen! him yonder who, bound down supine, 
Shrinks yelling from that sword there, engine-hung. 
He too amongst my ancestors! I hate 
The despot, but the dastard I despise. 
Was he our countryman?' 
'Alas, O king! 
Iberia bore him, but the breed accurst 
Inclement winds blew blight...Read more of this...

by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
...kings, slippers, camisoles, and stays.
I Tiresias, old man with wrinkled dugs
Perceived the scene, and foretold the rest -
I too awaited the expected guest. 
He, the young man carbuncular, arrives,
A small house agent's clerk, with one bold stare,
One of the low on whom assurance sits
As a silk hat on a Bradford millionaire.
The time is now propitious, as he guesses,
The meal is ended, she is bored and tired,
Endeavours to engage her in caresses
Which still are un...Read more of this...

by Akhmatova, Anna
...hear her sweet voice.



x x x

True love's memory, You are heavy!
In your smoke I sing and burn,
And the rest -- is only fire
To keep the chilled soul warm.

To keep warm the sated body,
They need my tears for this
Did I for this sing your song, God?
Did I take part of love for this?

Let me drink of such a poison,
That I would be deaf and dumb,
And my unglorious glory
Wash away to the final crumb.



x x x

The blue lacquer dims of h...Read more of this...

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Book: Shattered Sighs