Famous Sequence Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Sequence poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous sequence poems. These examples illustrate what a famous sequence poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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...(From a sonnet-sequence)
Somewhile before the dawn I rose, and stept
Softly along the dim way to your room,
And found you sleeping in the quiet gloom,
And holiness about you as you slept.
I knelt there; till your waking fingers crept
About my head, and held it. I had rest
Unhoped this side of Heaven, beneath your breast.
I knelt a long time, still; nor even wept.
...Read more of this...
by
Brooke, Rupert
...the wrong god home we may miss our star.
For there is many a small betrayal in the mind,
a shrug that lets the fragile sequence break
sending with shouts the horrible errors of childhood
storming out to play through the broken dyke.
And as elephants parade holding each elephant's tail,
but if one wanders the circus won't find the park,
I call it cruel and maybe the root of all cruelty
to know what occurs but not recognize the fact.
And so I appeal to a voice, to something ...Read more of this...
by
Stafford, William
...th. There is something finely feminine in this speech of Wealhtheow’s, apart from its somewhat irregular and irrelevant sequence of topics. Both she and her lord probably distrust Hrothulf; but she bids the king to be of good cheer, and, turning to the suspect, heaps affectionate assurances on his probity. “My own Hrothulf” will surely not forget these favors and benefits of the past, but will repay them to the orphaned boy.
{19a} They had laid their arms on the benches ne...Read more of this...
by
Anonymous,
...distances,
and summoned and stirred as from far away,
and slowly, like a long new thread,
introduced into that picture-sequence
where now having to go on bewilders us....Read more of this...
by
Rilke, Rainer Maria
...t above the dawn-enkindled quire
Where all ye sang together, all that are,
And all the starry songs behind thy car
Rang sequence, all our souls acclaim thee sire.
"If all the pens that ever poets held
Had fed the feeling of their masters' thoughts,"
And as with rush of hurtling chariots
The flight of all their spirits were impelled
Toward one great end, thy glory--nay, not then,
Not yet might'st thou be praised enough of men....Read more of this...
by
Swinburne, Algernon Charles
...rs, nor meant for ours.
And ours is greater, had we skill to know:
For, what we call this life of men on earth,
This sequence of the soul's achievements here
Being, as I find much reason to conceive,
Intended to be viewed eventually
As a great whole, not analyzed to parts,
But each part having reference to all,--
How shall a certain part, pronounced complete,
Endure effacement by another part?
Was the thing done?--then, what's to do again?
See, in the chequered pav...Read more of this...
by
Browning, Robert
...one on the beach, the unprayable
Prayer at the calamitous annunciation?
There is no end, but addition: the trailing
Consequence of further days and hours,
While emotion takes to itself the emotionless
Years of living among the breakage
Of what was believed in as the most reliable—
And therefore the fittest for renunciation.
There is the final addition, the failing
Pride or resentment at failing powers,
The unattached devotion which might pass for devotionless,
In a drifting...Read more of this...
by
Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
...morning, O idol, whose coming
brings happiness! Chant the refrain and bring the wine;
for [you know it], the constant sequence of these months
of Tir and Di have overturned upon the earth a thousand
potentates like Djem, a hundred thousand like to Kai....Read more of this...
by
Khayyam, Omar
...h it -- Seam by Seam --
But could not make it fit.
The thought behind, I strove to join
Unto the thought before --
But Sequence ravelled out of Sound
Like Balls -- upon a Floor....Read more of this...
by
Dickinson, Emily
...hbor in death, Golgotha dust
still streaked on the dried sweat of his body
no one had washed and anointed, is here,
for sequence is not known in Limbo;
the promise, given from cross to cross
at noon, arches beyond sunset and dawn.
All these He will swiftly lead
to the Paradise road: they are safe.
That done, there must take place that struggle
no human presumes to picture:
living, dying, descending to rescue the just
from shadow, were lesser travails
than this: to break
throu...Read more of this...
by
Levertov, Denise
...ess note is heard.
I have found my music in a common word,
Trying each pleasurable throat that sings
And every praised sequence of sweet strings,
And know infallibly which I preferred.
The authentic cadence was discovered late
Which ends those only strains that I approve,
And other science all gone out of date
And minor sweetness scarce made mention of:
I have found the dominant of my range and state -
Love, O my God, to call Thee Love and Love....Read more of this...
by
Hopkins, Gerard Manley
...light,
O even wings of music, bear my soul!
Ye have the power, if but ye had the will,
Strong-smitten steady chords in sequence grand,
To bear me forth into that tranquil land
Where good is no more ravelled up with ill;
Where she and I, remote upon some hill
Or by some quiet river's windless strand,
May live, and love, and wander hand in hand,
And follow nature simply, and be still.
From this grim world, where, sadly, prisoned, we
Sit bound with others' heart-strings as wit...Read more of this...
by
Stevenson, Robert Louis
...So take my vows and scatter them to sea;
Who swears the sweetest is no more than human.
And say no kinder words than these of me:
"Ever she longed for peace, but was a woman!
And thus they are, whose silly female dust
Needs little enough to clutter it and bind it,
Who meet a slanted gaze, and ever must
Go build themselves a soul to dwell behind it."
For n...Read more of this...
by
Parker, Dorothy
...The constant sequence of springtime and autumn makes
the leaves of our existence disappear. Drink wine, my
friend, for sages have well said that grief in this world
is a poison and its antidote is wine....Read more of this...
by
Khayyam, Omar
...The Dust behind I strove to join
Unto the Disk before --
But Sequence ravelled out of Sound
Like Balls upon a Floor --...Read more of this...
by
Dickinson, Emily
...
I have desired to listen - to listen -
to the ripening of seasons....
Winter 2001
This is ONE of a continuing sequence. ...Read more of this...
by
Nwakanma, Obi
...a beautiful table embellished with all kinds of the rarest flowers. The feasters dined and drank abundantly, until the sequence of the wine began to play its part. At dawn the throng dispersed boisterously, after spending a long night of intoxication and gluttony which hurried their worn bodies into their deep beds with unnatural sleep.
Part Two
At eventide, a man attired in the dress of heavy work stood before the door of his small house and knocked at the door. As it...Read more of this...
by
Gibran, Kahlil
...rtiginous caresses
To imponderable recesses,
Till at last the spell is woven,
And the faery veil is cloven
That was Sequence, Space, and Stress
Of the soul-sick consciousness.
"Give thy body to the beasts!
Give thy spirit to the priests!
Break in twain the hazel rod
On the virgin lips of God!
Tear the Rosy Cross asunder!
Shatter the black bolt of thunder!
Suck the swart ensanguine kiss
Of the resolute abyss!"
Wonder-weft the wizard heard
This intolerable word....Read more of this...
by
Crowley, Aleister
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