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Famous Runs Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Browning, Robert
...ts best.
Shake the whole tree in the summer-prime,
But bring to the Iast leaf no such test!
``Hold the last fast!'' runs the rhyme.

XLII.

For a chance to make your little much,
To gain a lover and lose a friend,
Venture the tree and a myriad such,
When nothing you mar but the year can mend:
But a last leaf---fear to touch!

XLIII.

Yet should it unfasten itself and fall
Eddying down till it find your face
At some slight wind---best chance of all!
Be your hea...Read more of this...



by Pope, Alexander
...> 
He, who thro' vast immensity can pierce, 
See worlds on worlds compose one universe, 
Observe how system into system runs, 
What other planets circle other suns, 
What vary'd being peoples ev'ry star, 
May tell why Heav'n has made us as we are. 
But of this frame the bearings, and the ties, 
The strong connections, nice dependencies, 
Gradations just, has thy pervading soul 
Look'd thro'? or can a part contain the whole? 
Is the great chain, that draws all to agree, 
A...Read more of this...

by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...congeals our blood like the rivers;
Here no stony ground provokes the wrath of the farmer.
Smoothly the ploughshare runs through the soil, as a keel through the water.
All the year round the orange-groves are in blossom; and grass grows
More in a single night than a whole Canadian summer.
Here, too, numberless herds run wild and unclaimed in the prairies;
Here, too, lands may be had for the asking, and forests of timber
With a few blows of the axe are hewn and fra...Read more of this...

by Carroll, Lewis
...lost: that mighty mind o'erthrown,
Like sweet bells jangled, piteous sight to see!
"Doubt that the stars are fire," so runs his moan,
"Doubt Truth herself, but not my love for thee!" 

A sadder vision yet: thine aged sire
Shaming his hoary locks with treacherous wile!
And dost thou now doubt Truth to be a liar?
And wilt thou die, that hast forgot to smile? 

Nay, get thee hence! Leave all thy winsome ways
And the faint fragrance of thy scattered flowers:
In holy silence wait...Read more of this...

by Wilde, Oscar
...ith bright eyes the rabbit peers

From the dark warren where the fir-cones lie,
And treads one snowdrop under foot, and runs
Over the mossy knoll, and blackbirds fly
Across our path at evening, and the suns
Stay longer with us; ah! how good to see
Grass-girdled spring in all her joy of laughing greenery

Dance through the hedges till the early rose,
(That sweet repentance of the thorny briar!)
Burst from its sheathed emerald and disclose
The little quivering disk of golden fi...Read more of this...



by Byron, George (Lord)
...raved, they still oppose 
Despair to daring, and a front to foes; 
And blood is mingled with the dashing stream, 
Which runs all redly till the morning beam. 

XV. 

Commanding, aiding, animating all, 
Where foe appear'd to press, or friend to fall, 
Cheers Lara's voice, and waves or strikes his steel, 
Inspiring hope himself had ceased to feel. 
None fled, for well they knew that flight were vain, 
But those that waver turn to smite again, 
While yet they find th...Read more of this...

by Marvell, Andrew
...use and a new flame began. 
Her wonted joys thenceforth and court she shuns, 
And still within her mind the footman runs: 
His brazen calves, his brawny thighs--the face 
She slights--his feet shaped for a smoother race. 
Poring within her glass she readjusts 
Her looks, and oft-tried beauty now distrusts, 
Fears lest he scorn a woman once assayed, 
And now first wished she e'er had been a maid. 
Great Love, how dost thou triumph and how reign, 
That to a groom co...Read more of this...

by Dyke, Henry Van
...and plead again,
With throbbing notes delayed, that would impart
To every urgent tone the beating of the heart.
So runs the andante, making plain
The hopes and fears of love without a word.

Then comes the adagio, with a yielding theme
Through which the violas flow soft as in a dream,
While horns and mild bassoons are heard
In tender tune, that seems to float
Like an enchanted boat
Upon the downward-gliding stream,
Toward the allegro's wide, bright sea
Of dancing, gl...Read more of this...

by Frost, Robert
...Committees
Had had to organize to stock the graveyards
And vindicate the state's humanity.
"Just the way Stefansson runs on," I murmured,
"About the British Arctic. That's what comes
Of being in the market with a climate."

I met a poet from another state,
A zealot full of fluid inspiration,
Who in the name of fluid inspiration,
But in the best style of bad salesmanship,
Angrily tried to male me write a protest
(In verse I think) against the Volstead Act.
He d...Read more of this...

by Wilde, Oscar
...gold to all the trees,
And see it scattered by the spendthrift breeze;
And after that the Winter cold and drear.
So runs the perfect cycle of the year.
And so from youth to manhood do we go,
And fall to weary days and locks of snow.
Love only knows no winter; never dies:
Nor cares for frowning storms or leaden skies
And mine for thee shall never pass away,
Though my weak lips may falter in my lay.

Adieu! Adieu! yon silent evening star,
The night's ambassador,...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...illions ripen’d, and look at quintillions green. 

I fly the flight of the fluid and swallowing soul; 
My course runs below the soundings of plummets.

I help myself to material and immaterial; 
No guard can shut me off, nor law prevent me. 

I anchor my ship for a little while only; 
My messengers continually cruise away, or bring their returns to me. 

I go hunting polar furs and the seal—leaping chasms with a pike-pointed
 staff—clinging to topp...Read more of this...

by Chesterton, G K
...sung, O stranger,
Of death on the dyke in Wales,
Your chief was a bracelet-giver;
But the red unbroken river
Of a race runs not for ever,
But suddenly it fails.

"Doubtless your sires were sword-swingers
When they waded fresh from foam,
Before they were turned to women
By the god of the nails from Rome;

"But since you bent to the shaven men,
Who neither lust nor smite,
Thunder of Thor, we hunt you
A hare on the mountain height."

King Guthrum smiled a little,
And sa...Read more of this...

by Tagore, Rabindranath
...have come
to."
I say to you, "Mother, do not be afraid."
The meadow is prickly with spiky grass, and through it runs
a narrow broken path.
There are no cattle to be seen in the wide field; they have
gone to their village stalls.
It grows dark and dim on the land and sky, and we cannot tell
where we are going.
Suddenly you call me and ask me in a whisper, "What light is
that near the bank?"
Just then there bursts out a fearful yell, and figures come
running...Read more of this...

by Tebb, Barry
...scot was the worst, it seemed

No whitewashed wall was free from cavities that wound behind

And joined another maze of runs that opened to the boards of yet

Another floor, until the tiny house had grown to one great rat-run

Vaster than the universe, where that single rodent gnawed and slithered

To unsettle finally our fragile peace.



I did not want to go. You did. I could not stay alone. It was

The whispers said and never ceased, ‘the beginning of the e...Read more of this...

by Thomson, James
...of the mighty North;
But, rousing all their Waves, resistless heave, --
And hark! -- the length'ning Roar, continuous, runs
Athwart the rifted Main; at once, it bursts,
And piles a thousand Mountains to the Clouds!
Ill fares the Bark, the Wretches' last Resort,
That, lost amid the floating Fragments, moors
Beneath the Shelter of an Icy Isle;
While Night o'erwhelms the Sea, and Horror looks
More horrible. Can human Hearts endure
Th'assembled Mischiefs, that besiege them r...Read more of this...

by Paz, Octavio
...blindly
on the mute stones and dry leaves
and someone behind me is also walking:
if I stop, he stops;
if I run,, he runs. I turn around: no one.
Everything is black, there is no exit,
and I turn and turn corners
that always lead to the street
where no one waits for me, no one follows,
where I follow a man who trips
and gets up and says when he sees me: no one....Read more of this...

by Schiller, Friedrich von
...hamber's confinement escaping,
And from vain frivolous talk, gladly seek refuge with thee.
Through me to quicken me runs the balsamic stream of thy breezes,
While the energetical light freshens the gaze as it thirsts.
Bright o'er the blooming meadow the changeable colors are gleaming,
But the strife, full of charms, in its own grace melts away
Freely the plain receives me,--with carpet far away reaching,
Over its friendly green wanders the pathway along.
Round me ...Read more of this...

by Chaucer, Geoffrey
...distinct autobiographical tale, Tyrwhitt says: "The
extraordinary length of it, as well as the vein of pleasantry that
runs through it, is very suitable to the character of the speaker.
The greatest part must have been of Chaucer's own invention,
though one may plainly see that he had been reading the popular
invectives against marriage and women in general; such as the
'Roman de la Rose,' 'Valerius ad Rufinum, De non Ducenda
Uxore,' ('Valerius to Rufinus, on not being r...Read more of this...

by Plath, Sylvia
...black and red agonies. I drink them,
Hating myself, hating and fearing. And now the world conceives
Its end and runs toward it, arms held out in love.
It is a love of death that sickens everything.
A dead sun stains the newsprint. It is red.
I lose life after life. The dark earth drinks them.

She is the vampire of us all. So she supports us,
Fattens us, is kind. Her mouth is red.
I know her. I know her intimately--
Old winter-f...Read more of this...

by Akhmatova, Anna
...w.
How past over the heart is losing power!
Freedom is near. I will forgive all yet,
Watching, as ray of sun runs up and down
The springtime vine that with spring rain is wet.



x x x

He was jealous, fearful and tender,
He loved me like God's only light,
And that she not sing of the past times
He killed my bird colored white.

He said, in the lighthouse at sundown:
"Love me, laugh and write poetry!"
And I buried the joyous songbird
Behind...Read more of this...

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Book: Shattered Sighs