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Famous Stand Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Shakespeare, William
...have, that never touch'd his hand,
Sweetly supposed them mistress of his heart.
My woeful self, that did in freedom stand,
And was my own fee-simple, not in part,
What with his art in youth, and youth in art,
Threw my affections in his charmed power,
Reserved the stalk and gave him all my flower.

'Yet did I not, as some my equals did,
Demand of him, nor being desired yielded;
Finding myself in honour so forbid,
With safest distance I mine honour shielded:
Experience ...Read more of this...



by Whitman, Walt
...ourselves—We are sufficient in the variety of ourselves, 
We are the most beautiful to ourselves, and in ourselves; 
We stand self-pois’d in the middle, branching thence over the world; 
From Missouri, Nebraska, or Kansas, laughing attacks to scorn. 

Nothing is sinful to us outside of ourselves,
Whatever appears, whatever does not appear, we are beautiful or sinful in ourselves only. 

(O mother! O sisters dear! 
If we are lost, no victor else has destroy’d us; 
It i...Read more of this...

by Ginsberg, Allen
...mping 
 with sensation of Pater Omnipotens Aeterna 
 Deus 
to recreate the syntax and measure of poor human 
 prose and stand before you speechless and intel- 
 ligent and shaking with shame, rejected yet con- 
 fessing out the soul to conform to the rhythm 
 of thought in his naked and endless head, 
the madman bum and angel beat in Time, unknown, 
 yet putting down here what might be left to say 
 in time come after death, 
and rose reincarnate in the ghostly clothes of jaz...Read more of this...

by Wilde, Oscar
...though the stormy sea
Contain it not, and the huge deep answer ''Tis not in me.'

To burn with one clear flame, to stand erect
In natural honour, not to bend the knee
In profitless prostrations whose effect
Is by itself condemned, what alchemy
Can teach me this? what herb Medea brewed
Will bring the unexultant peace of essence not subdued?

The minor chord which ends the harmony,
And for its answering brother waits in vain
Sobbing for incompleted melody,
Dies a swan's de...Read more of this...

by Alighieri, Dante
.... 
 'O Mantuan Spirit,' she said, 'whose lasting fame 
 Continues on the earth ye left, and still 
 With Time shall stand, an earthly friend to me, 
 - My friend, not fortune's - climbs a path so ill 
 That all the night-bred fears he hastes to flee 
 Were kindly to the thing he nears. The tale 
 Moved through the peace of I leaven, and swift I sped 
 Downward, to aid my friend in love's avail, 
 With scanty time therefor, that half I dread 
 Too late I came. But ...Read more of this...



by Byron, George (Lord)
...unction, but his words are strung 
In terms that seem not of his native tongue; 
Distinct but strange, enough they understand 
To deem them accents of another land, 
And such they were, and meant to meet an ear 
That hears him not — alas! that cannot hear! 

XIV. 

His page approach'd, and he alone appear'd 
To know the import of the words they heard; 
And by the changes of his cheek and brow 
They were not such as Lara should avow, 
Nor he interpret, yet with less surpri...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...rock-fish, in Chesapeake Bay—I one of the brown-faced
 crew: 
Or, another time, trailing for blue-fish off Paumanok, I stand with braced body, 
My left foot is on the gunwale—my right arm throws the coils of slender rope,
In sight around me the quick veering and darting of fifty skiffs, my companions. 

7
O boating on the rivers! 
The voyage down the Niagara, (the St. Lawrence,)—the superb scenery—the
 steamers, 
The ships sailing—the Thousand Islands—the occasional ...Read more of this...

by Wilde, Oscar
...
Are Lethe's waters, and that fatal weed
Which makes a man forget his fatherland.

Ay! amid lotus-meadows dost thou stand,
Like Proserpine, with poppy-laden head,
Guarding the holy ashes of the dead.
For though thy brood of warrior sons hath ceased,
Thy noble dead are with thee! - they at least
Are faithful to thine honour:- guard them well,
O childless city! for a mighty spell,
To wake men's hearts to dreams of things sublime,
Are the lone tombs where rest the Great ...Read more of this...

by Frost, Robert
...what we always say is true.
I’ll have to turn the leaf if no one else will.
It won’t lie down. Then let it stand. Who cares?”

“I shouldn’t want to hurry you, Meserve,
But if you’re going— Say you’ll stay, you know?
But let me raise this curtain on a scene,
And show you how it’s piling up against you.
You see the snow-white through the white of frost?
Ask Helen how far up the sash it’s climbed
Since last we read the gage.”

“It looks as if
Some pallid...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...entretied, braced in
 the beams, 
Stout as a horse, affectionate, haughty, electrical, 
I and this mystery, here we stand. 

Clear and sweet is my Soul, and clear and sweet is all that is not my Soul. 

Lack one lacks both, and the unseen is proved by the seen,
Till that becomes unseen, and receives proof in its turn. 

Showing the best, and dividing it from the worst, age vexes age; 
Knowing the perfect fitness and equanimity of things, while they dis...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...
Dancers at wedding-dances, kissers of brides, tender helpers of children, bearers of
 children,

Soldiers of revolts, standers by gaping graves, lowerers down of coffins,
Journeyers over consecutive seasons, over the years—the curious years, each emerging from
 that
 which preceded it, 
Journeyers as with companions, namely, their own diverse phases, 
Forth-steppers from the latent unrealized baby-days, 
Journeyers gayly with their own youth—Journeyers with their bearded an...Read more of this...

by Chesterton, G K
...ll about his land,
But Alfred up against them bare
And gripped the ground and grasped the air,
Staggered, and strove to stand.

He bent them back with spear and spade,
With desperate dyke and wall,
With foemen leaning on his shield
And roaring on him when he reeled;
And no help came at all.

He broke them with a broken sword
A little towards the sea,
And for one hour of panting peace,
Ringed with a roar that would not cease,
With golden crown and girded fleece
Made la...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...ing thought, is capable of years,
And curdles a long life into one hour.

II

I saw two beings in the hues of youth
Standing upon a hill, a gentle hill,
Green and of mild declivity, the last
As 'twere the cape of a long ridge of such,
Save that there was no sea to lave its base,
But a most living landscape, and the wave
Of woods and corn-fields, and the abodes of men
Scattered at intervals, and wreathing smoke
Arising from such rustic roofs: the hill
Was crowned with a pe...Read more of this...

by Bridges, Robert Seymour
...strength is freed
In delicate ordination as I will,
Than that to be myself is all I need
For thee to be most mine: so I stand still,
And save to taste my joy no more take heed. 

3
The whole world now is but the minister
Of thee to me: I see no other scheme
But universal love, from timeless dream
Waking to thee his joy's interpreter.
I walk around and in the fields confer
Of love at large with tree and flower and stream,
And list the lark descant upon my theme,
Heaven...Read more of this...

by Carroll, Lewis
...to his Naval Code, and read out in pathetic tones Admiralty Instructions which none of them had ever been able to understand--so it generally ended in its being fastened on, anyhow, across the rudder. The helmsman* used to stand by with tears in his eyes; he knew it was all wrong, but alas! Rule 42 of the Code, "No one shall speak to the Man at the Helm," had been completed by the Bellman himself with the words "and the Man at the Helm shall speak to no one." So remo...Read more of this...

by Wordsworth, William
...dly shook the bridle too,  And then! his words were not a few,  Which Betty well could understand.   And now that Johnny is just going,  Though Betty's in a mighty flurry,  She gently pats the pony's side,  On which her idiot boy must ride,  And seems no longer in a hurry.   But when the pony moved his legs,  Oh! then for the poor idiot b...Read more of this...

by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
...I. A GAME OF CHESS
 The Chair she sat in, like a burnished throne,
Glowed on the marble, where the glass
Held up by standards wrought with fruited vines
From which a golden Cupidon peeped out 
(Another hid his eyes behind his wing)
Doubled the flames of sevenbranched candelabra
Reflecting light upon the table as
The glitter of her jewels rose to meet it,
From satin cases poured in rich profusion;
In vials of ivory and coloured glass
Unstoppered, lurked her strange synthet...Read more of this...

by Miller, Alice Duer
...me.


III 
A light blue carpet on the stair 
And tall young footmen everywhere, 
Tall young men with English faces 
Standing rigidly in their places, 
Rows and rows of them stiff and staid 
In powder and breeches and bright gold braid; 
And high above them on the wall 
Hung other English faces-all 
Part of the pattern of English life—
General Sir Charles, and his pretty wife, 
Admirals, Lords-Lieutenant of Shires, 
Men who were served by these footmen's sires 
At their gr...Read more of this...

by Plath, Sylvia
...t.
I do not have to think, or even rehearse.
What happens in me will happen without attention.
The pheasant stands on the hill;
He is arranging his brown feathers.
I cannot help smiling at what it is I know.
Leaves and petals attend me. I am ready.

SECOND VOICE:
When I first saw it, the small red seep, I did not believe it.
I watched the men walk about me in the office. They were so flat!
There was something about them like cardboard, and ...Read more of this...

by Akhmatova, Anna
...out Song

So many stones have been thrown at me
That I don't fear them any longer
Like elegant tower the westerner stands free
Among tall towers, the taller.
I'm grateful to their builders -- so be gone
Their sadness and their worry, go away,
Early from here I can see the dawn
And here triumphant lives the sun's last ray.
And frequently into my room's window
The winds from northern seas begin to blow
And pigeon from my palms eats wheat..
The page...Read more of this...

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Book: Shattered Sighs