Famous Retains Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Retains poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous retains poems. These examples illustrate what a famous retains poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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...Knight, a true sister-love
This heart retains;
Ask me no other love,
That way lie pains!
Calm must I view thee come,
Calm see thee go;
Tale-telling tears of thine
I must not know...Read more of this...
by
Hardy, Thomas
...of good taste.
A good many of the best minds rally
Holding high Man’s standard: toffee-nosed scoffer
And Lemerre* retains with success poetry’s destiny.
More than one poet then helter-skelter
Sought to join the rest through the narrow fissure;
But Vanier at the very end made haste
The only lucky one to assume the rôle of Fisher*.
We are the writers of good taste.
ENVOI
Even if our stock exchange tends to dither
Princes hold sway: gentle folk and the divining...Read more of this...
by
Wignesan, T
...Removed he too from Roumelie
To this our Asiatic side,
Far from our seat by Danube's tide,
With none but Haroun, who retains
Such knowledge — and that Nubian feels
A tyrant's secrets are but chains,
From which the captive gladly steals,
And this and more to me reveals:
Such still to guilt just Allah sends —
Slaves, tools, accomplices — no friends!
XVII.
"All this, Zuleika, harshly sounds;
But harsher still my tale must be:
Howe'er my tongue thy softness wounds,...Read more of this...
by
Byron, George (Lord)
.../SPAN>(For none save He such favour could bestow)And like our Maker its high state retains,To pardon who is never tired, nor slow,If but with humble heart and suppliant show,For mercy for past sins to Him we bend;And if, against his wont, He seem to lend,Awhile, a cold ear to our earnest prayers,'Tis that righ...Read more of this...
by
Petrarch, Francesco
...
Dropt in ambrosial oils, till she revived,
And underwent a quick immortal change,
Made Goddess of the river. Still she retains
Her maiden gentleness, and oft at eve
Visits the herds along the twilight meadows,
Helping all urchin blasts, and ill-luck signs
That the shrewd meddling elf delights to make,
Which she with precious vialed liquors heals:
For which the shepherds, at their festivals,
Carol her goodness loud in rustic lays,
And throw sweet garland wreaths into her stre...Read more of this...
by
Milton, John
...counterfeit of flower,
These children of the meadows, born
Of sunshine and of showers!
How well the conscious wood retains
The pictures of its flower-sown home,
The lights and shades, the purple stains,
And golden hues of bloom!
It was a happy thought to bring
To the dark season's frost and rime
This painted memory of spring,
This dream of summertime.
Our hearts are lighter for its sake,
Our fancy's age renews its youth,
And dim-remembered fictions take
The ...Read more of this...
by
Whittier, John Greenleaf
...fee,
after speaking, or before,
that I dumbly inhabit
a density; in language,
there is nothing to stop it,
for nothing retains an edge.
Simple ignorance presents,
later, words for a function,
but it is common pretense
of speech, by a convention,
and there is nothing at all
but inner silence, nothing
to relieve on principle
now this intense thickening....Read more of this...
by
Hall, Donald
...ragrant seaside bowers.
The twilight waxeth dim and dark,
The sad waves mutter sounds of woe,
But the evergreen retains its sheen,
And happy hearts exist below;
But pleasure sparkles on the sward,
And voices utter words of bliss,
And while my bride
Sits by my side,
Oh, where's the scene surpassing this?
Kiama slumbers, robed with mist,
All glittering in the dewy light
That, brooding o'er
The shingly shore,
Lies resting in the arms of Night;...Read more of this...
by
Kendall, Henry
...ke hath borne
Nor gout of blood, nor shred of mantle torn;
Nor fall nor struggle hath defaced the grass,
Which still retains a mark where murder was;
Nor dabbling fingers left to tell the tale,
The bitter print of each convulsive nail,
When agonised hands that cease to guard,
Wound in that pang the smoothness of the sward.
Some such had been, if here a life was reft,
But these were not; and doubting hope is left;
And strange suspicion, whispering Lara's name,
Now d...Read more of this...
by
Byron, George (Lord)
...his life and lost it, has done
exceedingly
well
for himself without doubt,
That he who never peril’d his life, but retains it to old age in riches and ease, has
probably
achiev’d nothing for himself worth mentioning;
Knows that only that person has really learn’d, who has learn’d to prefer
results,
Who favors Body and Soul the same,
Who perceives the indirect assuredly following the direct,
Who in his spirit in any emergency whatever neither hurries or, avoids deat...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...'ring breath,
Yet let us view him in th' eternal skies,
Let ev'ry heart to this bright vision rise;
While the tomb safe retains its sacred trust,
Till life divine re-animates his dust.
*The Countess of Huntingdon, to whom Mr. Whitefield was
Chaplain....Read more of this...
by
Wheatley, Phillis
...our Friend
Your Mother Earth, thro' long preceding Rains,
(Which undermining sink below)
No more her wonted Strength retains;
Nor you so fix'd within her Bosom grow,
That for your sakes she can resolve to bear
These furious Shocks of hurrying Air;
But finding All your Ruin did conspire,
She soon her beauteous Progeny resign'd
To this destructive, this imperious Wind,
That check'd your nobler Aims, and gives you to the Fire.
Thus! have thy Cedars, Libanus, been st...Read more of this...
by
Finch, Anne Kingsmill
...whom their place knows here no more:
Yet far the greater part have kept, I see,
Their station; Heaven, yet populous, retains
Number sufficient to possess her realms
Though wide, and this high temple to frequent
With ministeries due, and solemn rites:
But, lest his heart exalt him in the harm
Already done, to have dispeopled Heaven,
My damage fondly deemed, I can repair
That detriment, if such it be to lose
Self-lost; and in a moment will create
Another world, out ...Read more of this...
by
Milton, John
.../SPAN>Ere long if she nor welcomes me, nor frees,But, as her wont, between the two retains,By the sweet poison circling through my veins,My life, O Love! will soon be on its lees.No longer can my virtue, worn and frailWith such severe vicissitudes, contend,At once which burn and freeze, make red and pale:By fl...Read more of this...
by
Petrarch, Francesco
...>What late was beauty, spotless honour, worth,Stern marble, here thy chill embrace retains.The freshness of the laurel Death disdains;And hath its root thus wither'd.—Such the dearthO'ertakes me. Here I bury ease and mirth,And hope from twenty years of cares and pains.This happy plant Avignon lonely fedWith Li...Read more of this...
by
Petrarch, Francesco
...gazer's eye away. For me, I lie
Languidly in the shade, where the thick turf,
Yet virgin from the kisses of the sun,
Retains some freshness, and I woo the wind
That still delays its coming. Why so slow,
Gentle and voluble spirit of the air?
Oh, come and breathe upon the fainting earth
Coolness and life. Is it that in his caves
He hears me? See, on yonder woody ridge,
The pine is bending his proud top, and now,
Among the nearer groves, chesnut and oak
Are tossing th...Read more of this...
by
Bryant, William Cullen
...Removed he too from Roumelie
To this our Asiatic side,
Far from our seat by Danube's tide,
With none but Haroun, who retains
Such knowledge — and that Nubian feels
A tyrant's secrets are but chains,
From which the captive gladly steals,
And this and more to me reveals:
Such still to guilt just Allah sends —
Slaves, tools, accomplices — no friends!
XVII.
"All this, Zuleika, harshly sounds;
But harsher still my tale must be:
Howe'er my tongue thy softness wounds,...Read more of this...
by
Byron, George (Lord)
...PAN class=i0>And mark'd my toils through many hard campaignsAnd wounds, whose scars my memory yet retains.Blest is the pile that marks the hallow'd dust!—There, at the resurrection of the just,When the last trumpet with earth-shaking soundShall wake her sleepers from their couch profound;Then, when that spotless and immortal mindRead more of this...
by
Petrarch, Francesco
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