Famous Safest Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Fragment of a Greek Tragedy

by A E Housman
 CHORUS: O suitably-attired-in-leather-boots
Head of a traveller, wherefore seeking whom
Whence by what way how purposed art thou come
To this well-nightingaled vicinity?
My object in inquiring is to know.
But if you happen to be deaf and dumb
And do not understand a word I say,
Then wave your hand, to signify as much.

ALCMAEON: I journeyed hither a Boetian road.
CHORUS: Sailing on horseback, or with...Read more of this...

Judgment is justest

by Emily Dickinson
 Judgment is justest
When the Judged,
His action laid away,
Divested is of every Disk
But his sincerity.

Honor is then the safest hue
In a posthumous Sun --
Not any color will endure
That scrutiny can burn....Read more of this...

Dulcis Memoria

by Henry Van Dyke
 Long, long ago I heard a little song,
(Ah, was it long ago, or yesterday?)
So lowly, slowly wound the tune along,
That far into my heart it found the way:
A melody consoling and endearing;
And still, in silent hours, I'm often hearing
The small, sweet song that does not die away.

Long, long ago I saw a little flower,--
(Ah, was it long ago, or...Read more of this...

Letters To Friends

by Barry Tebb
 I


Eddie Linden

Dear Eddie we’ve not met

Except upon the written page 

And at your age the wonder 

Is that you write at all

When so many have gone under 

Or been split asunder by narcissistic humours

Blunder following blunder

Barker and Graham, godfathering my verse

Bearing me cloud-handed to Haworth moor

From my chained metropolitan moorings,

O hyaline March morning with Leeds

At its thrusting best, the...Read more of this...

Pan and Luna

by Robert Browning
 Si credere dignum est.--Virgil, Georgics, III, 390


Oh, worthy of belief I hold it was, 
Virgil, your legend in those strange three lines! 
No question, that adventure came to pass 
One black night in Arcadia: yes, the pines, 
Mountains and valleys mingling made one mass 
Of black with void black heaven: the earth's confines, 
The sky's embrace,--below, above, around, 
All...Read more of this...

II. Safety

by Rupert Brooke
 Dear! of all happy in the hour, most blest
He who has found our hid security,
Assured in the dark tides of the world that rest,
And heard our word, `Who is so safe as we?'
We have found safety with all things undying,
The winds, and morning, tears of men and mirth,
The deep night, and birds singing, and clouds flying,
And sleep, and freedom,...Read more of this...

The Story of Mongrel Grey

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 This is the story the stockman told 
On the cattle-camp, when the stars were bright; 
The moon rose up like a globe of gold 
And flooded the plain with her mellow light. 
We watched the cattle till dawn of day 
And he told me the story of Mongrel Grey. 
He was a knock-about station hack, 
Spurred and walloped, and...Read more of this...

Safety

by Rupert Brooke
 Dear! of all happy in the hour, most blest 
He who has found our hid security, 
Assured in the dark tides of the world that rest, 
And heard our word, 'Who is so safe as we?' 
We have found safety with all things undying, 
The winds, and morning, tears of men and mirth, 
The deep night, and birds singing,...Read more of this...

The Whistle Of Sandy McGraw

by Robert William Service
 You may talk o' your lutes and your dulcimers fine,
 Your harps and your tabors and cymbals and a',
But here in the trenches jist gie me for mine
 The wee penny whistle o' Sandy McGraw.
Oh, it's: "Sandy, ma lad, will you lilt us a tune?"
 And Sandy is willin' and trillin' like mad;
Sae silvery sweet that we a' throng...Read more of this...

This Compost

by Walt Whitman
 1
SOMETHING startles me where I thought I was safest; 
I withdraw from the still woods I loved; 
I will not go now on the pastures to walk; 
I will not strip the clothes from my body to meet my lover the sea; 
I will not touch my flesh to the earth, as to other flesh, to renew me.

O how...Read more of this...

Was There A Time

by Dylan Thomas
 Was there a time when dancers with their fiddles
In children's circuses could stay their troubles?
There was a time they could cry over books,
But time has set its maggot on their track.
Under the arc of the sky they are unsafe.
What's never known is safest in this life.
Under the skysigns they who have no arms
Have cleanest hands, and, as the heartless...Read more of this...

A School Song

by Rudyard Kipling
 "Let us now praise famous men"--
 Men of little showing-- 
For their work continueth, 
And their work continueth, 
Broad and deep continues,
 Greater then their knowing!

Western wind and open surge
 Took us from our mothers--
Flung us on a naked shore
(Twelve bleak houses by the shore.
Seven summers by the shore! )
 'Mid two hundred brothers.

There we met with famous men
...Read more of this...

The Lottery

by Robert William Service
 "Young fellow, listen to a friend:
Beware of wedlock - 'tis a gamble,
It's MAN who holds the losing end
In every matrimonial scramble."

"Young lady, marriage mostly is
A cruel cross of hope's concealing.
A rarity is wedded bliss
And WOMAN gets the dirty dealing."

. . . Such my advice to man and maid,
But though they harken few will take it.
The parson plies his merry...Read more of this...

The Widow at Windsor

by Rudyard Kipling
 'Ave you 'eard o' the Widow at Windsor
 With a hairy gold crown on 'er 'ead?
She 'as ships on the foam -- she 'as millions at 'ome,
 An' she pays us poor beggars in red.
 (Ow, poor beggars in red!)
There's 'er nick on the cavalry 'orses,
 There's 'er mark on the medical stores --
An' 'er troopers you'll find with...Read more of this...

Crossed Threads

by Helen Hunt Jackson
 The silken threads by viewless spinners spun, 
Which float so idly on the summer air, 
And help to make each summer morning fair, 
Shining like silver in the summer sun, 
Are caught by wayward breezes, one by one, 
Are blown to east and west and fastened there, 
Weaving on all the roads their sudden snare. 
No sign which road...Read more of this...

Jack Honest or the Widow and Her Son

by William Topaz McGonagall
 Jack Honest was only eight years of age when his father died,
And by the death of his father, Mrs Honest was sorely tried;
And Jack was his father's only joy and pride,
And for honesty Jack couldn't be equalled in the country-side. 

So a short time before Jack's father died,
'Twas loud and bitterly for Jack he cried,
And bade him sit down...Read more of this...

1914 II: Safety

by Rupert Brooke
 Dear! of all happy in the hour, most blest 
He who has found our hid security, 
Assured in the dark tides of the world that rest, 
And heard our word, 'Who is so safe as we?' 
We have found safety with all things undying, 
The winds, and morning, tears of men and mirth, 
The deep night, and birds singing,...Read more of this...

Gods Judgment on a Wicked Bishop

by Robert Southey
 The summer and autumn had been so wet,
That in winter the corn was growing yet,
'Twas a piteous sight to see all around
The grain lie rotting on the ground.

Every day the starving poor
Crowded around Bishop Hatto's door,
For he had a plentiful last-year's store,
And all the neighbourhood could tell
His granaries were furnish'd well.

At last Bishop Hatto appointed a day
To quiet the...Read more of this...

The Travelling Post Office

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 The roving breezes come and go, the reed-beds sweep and sway, 
The sleepy river murmers low,and loiters on its way, 
It is the land of lots o'time along the Castlereagh. 
. . .. . . . . 

The old man's son had left the farm, he found it full and slow, 
He drifted to the great North-west, where all...Read more of this...

The First Surveyor

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 'The man who brought the railway through -- our friend the engineer.' 
They cheer his pluck and enterprise and engineering skill! 
'Twas my old husband found the pass behind that big red hill. 
Before the engineer was born we'd settled with our stock 
Behind that great big mountain chain, a line of range and rock -- 
A line that...Read more of this...

The Federal Bus Conductor and the Old Lady

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 'The man who brought the railway through -- our friend the engineer.' 
They cheer his pluck and enterprise and engineering skill! 
'Twas my old husband found the pass behind that big red hill. 
Before the engineer was born we'd settled with our stock 
Behind that great big mountain chain, a line of range and rock -- 
A line that...Read more of this...

On Death

by Anne Killigrew
 TEll me thou safest End of all our Woe, 
Why wreched Mortals do avoid thee so: 
Thou gentle drier o'th' afflicteds Tears, 
Thou noble ender of the Cowards Fears; 
Thou sweet Repose to Lovers sad dispaire, 
Thou Calm t'Ambitions rough Tempestuous Care. 
If in regard of Bliss thou wert a Curse, 
And then the Joys of Paradise art worse;...Read more of this...

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