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Famous Safe Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry
...their hands it flourishes 
With fruit and blossoms, and soon gives a shade, 
Beneath which ev'ry traveller shall rest, 
Safe from the burning east-wind and the sun. 
A vernal shade not with'ring like the gourd 
Of him who warned Nineveh, but like 
The aged oaks immortal on the plain 
Of Kadesh, or tall cedars on the hill 
Of Lebanon, and Hermon's shady top. 


High is their fame through each succeeding age 
Who build the walls of Zion upon earth. 
Let mighty kings and potenta...Read more of this...
by Brackenridge, Hugh Henry



...Turn?
Oft, leaving what is Natural and fit,
The current Folly proves the ready Wit,
And Authors think their Reputation safe,
Which lives as long as Fools are pleas'd to Laugh.

Some valuing those of their own, Side or Mind,
Still make themselves the measure of Mankind;
Fondly we think we honour Merit then,
When we but praise Our selves in Other Men.
Parties in Wit attend on those of State,
And publick Faction doubles private Hate.
Pride, Malice, Folly, against Dryden rose,
I...Read more of this...
by Pope, Alexander
...ared Poseidon's treachery, and cried,
And like bright sunbeams flitting through a glade
Each startled Dryad sought some safe and leafy ambuscade.

Save one white girl, who deemed it would not be
So dread a thing to feel a sea-god's arms
Crushing her breasts in amorous tyranny,
And longed to listen to those subtle charms
Insidious lovers weave when they would win
Some fenced fortress, and stole back again, nor thought it sin

To yield her treasure unto one so fair,
And lay bes...Read more of this...
by Wilde, Oscar
...in the closet, and even that imaginary, nothing but a hopeful little bit of hallucination—
ah, Carl, while you are not safe I am not safe, and now you’re really in the total animal soup of time—
and who therefore ran through the icy streets obsessed with a sudden flash of the alchemy of the use of the ellipsis catalogue a variable measure and the vibrating plane,
who dreamt and made incarnate gaps in Time & Space through images juxtaposed, and trapped the archangel of the ...Read more of this...
by Ginsberg, Allen
...nd doleful thing:  Then, lovely baby, do not fear!  I pray thee have no fear of me,  But, safe as in a cradle, here  My lovely baby! thou shalt be,  To thee I know too much I owe;  I cannot work thee any woe."   A fire was once within my brain;  And in my head a dull, dull pain;  And fiendish faces one, two, three,  Hung at my breasts, and pulled at me.  But th...Read more of this...
by Wordsworth, William



...y earthly use
The line where man leaves off and nature starts.
And never overstepped it save in dreams.
He stood on the safe side of the line talking—
Which is sheer Matthew Arnoldism,
The cult of one who owned himself "a foiled
Circuitous wanderer," and "took dejectedly
His seat upon the intellectual throne"—
Agreed in 'frowning on these improvised
Altars the woods are full of nowadays,
Again as in the days when Ahaz sinned
By worship under green trees in the open.
Scarcely ...Read more of this...
by Frost, Robert
...answer, his lips are pale and still, 
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will, 
The ship is anchor'd safe and sound, its voyage closed and done, 
From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won; 
Exult O shores, and ring O bells! 
But I with mournful tread, 
Walk the deck my Captain lies, 
Fallen cold and dead. ...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt
...ay moving; seems another morn 
Risen on mid-noon; some great behest from Heaven 
To us perhaps he brings, and will vouchsafe 
This day to be our guest. But go with speed, 
And, what thy stores contain, bring forth, and pour 
Abundance, fit to honour and receive 
Our heavenly stranger: Well we may afford 
Our givers their own gifts, and large bestow 
From large bestowed, where Nature multiplies 
Her fertile growth, and by disburthening grows 
More fruitful, which instructs us ...Read more of this...
by Milton, John
...the faithful side 
That gave thee being, still shades thee, and protects. 
The wife, where danger or dishonour lurks, 
Safest and seemliest by her husband stays, 
Who guards her, or with her the worst endures. 
To whom the virgin majesty of Eve, 
As one who loves, and some unkindness meets, 
With sweet austere composure thus replied. 
Offspring of Heaven and Earth, and all Earth's Lord! 
That such an enemy we have, who seeks 
Our ruin, both by thee informed I learn, 
And fro...Read more of this...
by Milton, John
...THOUGH love repine and reason chafe  
There came a voice without reply ¡ª 
'T is man's perdition to be safe, 
When for the truth he ought to die.  ...Read more of this...
by Emerson, Ralph Waldo
...y takes
Some of the sanctimonious conceit
Out of one of those pious scalawags.”

“Nonsense to that! You want to see him safe.”

“You like the runt.”

“Don’t you a little?”

“Well,
I don’t like what he’s doing, which is what
You like, and like him for.”

“Oh, yes you do.
You like your fun as well as anyone;
Only you women have to put these airs on
To impress men. You’ve got us so ashamed
Of being men we can’t look at a good fight
Between two boys and not feel bound to stop it....Read more of this...
by Frost, Robert
...n the wilds and mountains, I hunt, 
Wandering, amazed at my own lightness and glee; 
In the late afternoon choosing a safe spot to pass the night, 
Kindling a fire and broiling the fresh-kill’d game;
Falling asleep on the gather’d leaves, with my dog and gun by my side. 

The Yankee clipper is under her sky-sails—she cuts the sparkle and scud; 
My eyes settle the land—I bend at her prow, or shout joyously from the
 deck. 

The boatmen and clam-diggers arose early an...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt
...going with me goes often with spare diet, poverty, angry enemies, desertions. 

17
Allons! the road is before us!
It is safe—I have tried it—my own feet have tried it well. 

Allons! be not detain’d! 
Let the paper remain on the desk unwritten, and the book on the shelf unopen’d! 
Let the tools remain in the workshop! let the money remain unearn’d! 
Let the school stand! mind not the cry of the teacher!
Let the preacher preach in his pulpit! let the lawyer plead in the court,...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt
...the life for which he pray'd. 
The knowledge of my birth secured 
From all and each, but most from me; 
Thus Giaffir's safety was insured. 
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, accomp...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)
...her bosom's screen;—
     So forth the startled swan would swing,
     So turn to prune his ruffled wing.
     Then safe, though fluttered and amazed,
     She paused, and on the stranger gazed.
     Not his the form, nor his the eye,
     That youthful maidens wont to fly.
     XXI.

     On his bold visage middle age
     Had slightly pressed its signet sage,
     Yet had not quenched the open truth
     And fiery vehemence of youth;
     Forward and frolic gl...Read more of this...
by Scott, Sir Walter
...Providence, that ever-waking Eye
Looks down, with Pity, on the fruitless Toil
Of Mortals, lost to Hope, and lights them safe,
Thro' all this dreary Labyrinth of Fate.

'TIS done! -- Dread WINTER has subdu'd the Year,
And reigns, tremenduous, o'er the desart Plains!
How dead the Vegetable Kingdom lies!
How dumb the Tuneful! Horror wide extends
His solitary Empire -- Now, fond Man!
Behold thy pictur'd Life: pass some few Years,
Thy flow'ring SPRING, thy short-liv'd SUMMER's Str...Read more of this...
by Thomson, James
...t glance 
Thine eye along America and France. 

XLIV 

'Tis true, he was a tool from first to last 
(I have the workmen safe); but as a tool 
So let him be consumed. From out the past 
Of ages, since mankind have known the rule 
Of monarchs — from the bloody rolls amass'd 
Of sin and slaughter — from the C?sar's school, 
Take the worst pupil; and produce a reign 
More drench'd with gore, more cumber'd with the slain. 

XLV 

'He ever warr'd with freedom and the free: 
Nations...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)
...endlessly o'er
Giddily look I above, shudderingly look I below,
But between the infinite height and the infinite hollow
Safely the wanderer moves over a well-guarded path.
Smilingly past me are flying the banks all teeming with riches,
And the valley so bright boasts of its industry glad.
See how yonder hedgerows that sever the farmer's possessions
Have by Demeter been worked into the tapestried plain!
Kindly decree of the law, of the Deity mortal-sustaining,
Since from the b...Read more of this...
by Schiller, Friedrich von
...the Ten Lost Tribes
Of Israel had settled here—
A theory my father had at his fingers' ends—
Only one person was always safe from his jibes—
My mother-in-law, for they were really friends. 

XLIV 
Oh, to come home to your country 
After long years away, 
To see the tall shining towers 
Rise over the rim of the bay, 
To feel the west wind steadily blowing 
And the sunshine golden and hot, 
To speak to each man as an equal, 
Whether he is or not. 

XLV 
Was this America—this my...Read more of this...
by Miller, Alice Duer
...hat is not material.

The streets may turn to paper suddenly, but I recover
From the long fall, and find myself in bed,
Safe on the mattress, hands braced, as for a fall.
I find myself again. I am no shadow
Though there is a shadow starting from my feet. I am a wife.
The city waits and aches. The little grasses
Crack through stone, and they are green with life....Read more of this...
by Plath, Sylvia

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry