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Famous Stand By Poems by Famous Poets

These are examples of famous Stand By 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 by poems. These examples illustrate what a famous stand by poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).

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by Swinburne, Algernon Charles
...s now and then 
From a palace where spoilers sit, 
Trampling the children of men.

Prophet, what of the night? - 
I stand by the verge of the sea, 
Banished, uncomforted, free, 
Hearing the noise of the waves 
And sudden flashes that smite 
Some man's tyrannous head, 
Thundering, heard among graves 
That hide the hosts of his dead.

Mourners, what of the night? - 
All night through without sleep 
We weep, and we weep, and we weep. 
Who shall give us our sons ? 
Be...Read more of this...



by Whitman, Walt
...d,
I saw you at last refuse to treat but directly with individuals.) 

16
Underneath all, nativity, 
I swear I will stand by my own nativity—pious or impious, so be it; 
I swear I am charm’d with nothing except nativity, 
Men, women, cities, nations, are only beautiful from nativity.

Underneath all is the need of the expression of love for men and women, 
I swear I have seen enough of mean and impotent modes of expressing love for men and
 women, 
After this day I ta...Read more of this...

by Tebb, Barry
...1





The mooring posts marked on the South Leeds map

Of 1908 still line the Aire’s side, huge, red

With rust, they stand by the Council’s Transpennine

Trail opposite the bricked and boarded up Hunslet

Mills with trees growing from its top storey, roofless,

Open to the enormous skies of our childhood.



The Aire Suspension Bridge, always my bridge,

Has gone from wartime camouflage grey to

Council green with a traffic island in between

The lanes where lorries ro...Read more of this...

by Newbolt, Sir Henry
...ancel softly dark,
The brasses black and red.

He saw the School Close, sunny and green,
The runner beside him, the stand by the parapet wall,
The distant tape, and the crowd roaring between,
His own name over all.

He saw the dark wainscot and timber’d roof,
The long tables, and the faces merry and keen;
The College Eight and their trainer dining aloof,
The Dons on the da?is serene.

He watch’d the liner’s stem ploughing the foam,
He felt her trembling speed and ...Read more of this...

by Collins, Billy
...nd again.

I walk through the house reciting it
and leave its letters falling
through the air of every room.

I stand by the big silence of the piano and say it.
I say it in front of a painting of the sea.
I tap out its rhythm on an empty shelf.

I listen to myself saying it,
then I say it without listening,
then I hear it without saying it.

And when the dog looks up at me,
I kneel down on the floor
and whisper it into each of his long white ears....Read more of this...



by Aiken, Conrad
...g to the garden stones, 
The robin chips in the chinaberry tree 
Repeating three clear tones. 
It is morning. I stand by the mirror 
And tie my tie once more. 
While waves far off in a pale rose twilight 
Crash on a white sand shore. 
I stand by a mirror and comb my hair: 
How small and white my face!—
The green earth tilts through a sphere of air 
And bathes in a flame of space. 
There are houses hanging above the stars 
And stars hung under a sea. .<...Read more of this...

by Kipling, Rudyard
...ve gathered on my Name.
I took a country twice the size of France,
And shuttered up one doorway in the North.
I stand by those. You'll find that both will pay,
I pledged my Name on both -- they're yours to-night.
Hold to them -- they hold fame enough for two.
I'm old, but I shall live till Burma pays.
Men there -- not German traders -- Crsthw-te knows --
You'll find it in my papers. For the North
Guns always -- quietly -- but always guns.
You'v...Read more of this...

by Carroll, Lewis
...e 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 remonstrance 
was impossible, and no steering could be done till the next 
varnishing day. During the...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...payment of perpetual loan; 
Rich, showering rain, and recompense richer afterward. 

Sprouts take and accumulate—stand by the curb prolific and vital: 
Landscapes, projected, masculine, full-sized and golden. 

30
All truths wait in all things;
They neither hasten their own delivery, nor resist it; 
They do not need the obstetric forceps of the surgeon; 
The insignificant is as big to me as any; 
(What is less or more than a touch?) 

Logic and sermons ne...Read more of this...

by Kipling, Rudyard
...e're going
To find our master to-night.

For we hold that in all disaster
Of shipwreck, storm, or sword,
A Man must stand by his Master
When once he has pledged his word.

Raging seas have we rowed in
But we seldom saw them thus,
Our master is angry with Odin--
Odin is angry with us!
Heavy odds have we taken,
But never before such odds.
The Gods know they are forsaken.
We must risk the wrath of the Gods!

Over the crest she flies from,
Into its hollow she drop...Read more of this...

by Holmes, Oliver Wendell
...us in sunshine or shade;
Yet true to our course, though the shadows grow dark,
We'll trim our broad sail as before,
And stand by the rudder that governs the bark,
Nor ask how we look from the shore!...Read more of this...

by Sexton, Anne
...Sylvia 
where did you go 
after you wrote me 
from Devonshire 
about rasing potatoes 
and keeping bees?) 
what did you stand by, 
just how did you lie down into? 
Thief -- 
how did you crawl into, 
crawl down alone 
into the death I wanted so badly and for so long, 
the death we said we both outgrew, 
the one we wore on our skinny breasts, 
the one we talked of so often each time 
we downed three extra dry martinis in Boston, 
the death that talked of analysts and cures, 
th...Read more of this...

by Sexton, Anne
...> 
She's my workshop. Slippery eye, 
out of the tribe of myself my breath 
finds you gone. I horrify 
those who stand by. I am fed. 
At night, alone, I marry the bed. 
Finger to finger, now she's mine. 
She's not too far. She's my encounter. 
I beat her like a bell. I recline 
in the bower where you used to mount her. 
You borrowed me on the flowered spread. 
At night, alone, I marry the bed. 
Take for instance this night, my lo...Read more of this...

by Carroll, Lewis
...ble 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 remon{-} strance was impossible, and no steering could be done till the next varnishing day. During these be...Read more of this...

by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...I cannot love my lord and not his name. 
Far liefer had I gird his harness on him, 
And ride with him to battle and stand by, 
And watch his mightful hand striking great blows 
At caitiffs and at wrongers of the world. 
Far better were I laid in the dark earth, 
Not hearing any more his noble voice, 
Not to be folded more in these dear arms, 
And darkened from the high light in his eyes, 
Than that my lord through me should suffer shame. 
Am I so bold, and could I...Read more of this...

by Frost, Robert
...anything that might prove useful?" 
The Broken One saw Anne. "Why, here is Anne. 
What do you want, dear? Come, stand by the bed; 
Tell me what is it?" Anne just wagged her dress 
With both hands held behind her. "Guess," she said. 
"Oh, guess which hand? My my! Once on a time 
I knew a lovely way to tell for certain 
By looking in the ears. But I forget it. 
Er, let me see. I think I'll take the right. 
That's sure to be right even if it's wro...Read more of this...

by Lanier, Sidney
...ns and birds and bees,
And throbbed with neighbor-loves in loving these.
But oh, the poor! the poor! the poor!
That stand by the inward-opening door
Trade's hand doth tighten ever more,
And sigh their monstrous foul-air sigh
For the outside hills of liberty,
Where Nature spreads her wild blue sky
For Art to make into melody!
Thou Trade! thou king of the modern days!
Change thy ways,
Change thy ways;
Let the sweaty laborers file
A little while,
A little while,
Where Art an...Read more of this...

by Philips, Katherine
...h,
And what we call their birth would count their Death.
Mankind is mad; for none can live alone
Because their joys stand by comparison:
And yet they quarrell at Society,
And strive to kill they know not whom, nor why,
We all live by mistake, delight in Dreames,
Lost to ourselves, and dwelling in extreames;
Rejecting what we have, though ne're so good,
And prizing what we never understood.
compar'd to our boystrous inconstancy
Tempests are calme, and discords harmony....Read more of this...

by Field, Edward
...The poster with my picture on it
Is hanging on the bulletin board in the Post Office.

I stand by it hoping to be recognized
Posing first full face and then profile

But everybody passes by and I have to admit
The photograph was taken some years ago.

I was unwanted then and I'm unwanted now
Ah guess ah'll go up echo mountain and crah.

I wish someone would find my fingerprints somewhere
Maybe on a corpse and say, You're it.

Descrip...Read more of this...

by Akhmatova, Anna
...still,
"Don't forget" you prayed.
Now there's only shepherds'
Cry, and glancing winds,
And the worried cedars
Stand by clear springs.



x x x

Yellow and fresh are the lanterns,
Black is the road of the garden at sea.
I am very calm. Only please, do not
Talk about him with me.
You're tender and loyal, we'll be friends..
Have fun, kiss, together grow old..
And light months above us will fly like feathers,
Like stars mad...Read more of this...

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