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Famous Steady Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry
...ould see the lights in the windows of all the other
houses on our hill and hear the music rising from them up the long, steady falling night. I turned the gas
down, I got into bed. I said some words to the close and holy darkness, and then I slept....Read more of this...
by Thomas, Dylan



...distant thence towards the burning line. 


These men deserve our song, and those who still, 
With industry severe, and steady aim 
Diffuse the light in this late dreary land, 
In whose lone wastes and solitudes forlorn, 
Death long sat brooding with his raven wing. 
Who many 'a structure of great fame have rais'd, 
College, and school, upon th' Atlantic coast, 
Or inland town, through ev'ry province wide, 
Which rising up like pyramids of fire, 
Give light and glory to the w...Read more of this...
by Brackenridge, Hugh Henry
...their genii were the ministers 
Appointed to conduct him to the light
Of those belovèd eyes, the Poet sate,
Holding the steady helm. Evening came on;
The beams of sunset hung their rainbow hues
High 'mid the shifting domes of sheeted spray
That canopied his path o'er the waste deep;
Twilight, ascending slowly from the east,
Entwined in duskier wreaths her braided locks
O'er the fair front and radiant eyes of Day;
Night followed, clad with stars. On every side 
More horribly t...Read more of this...
by Shelley, Percy Bysshe
...the
 engineer’s—he can make every word he speaks draw blood; 
The years straying toward infidelity, he withholds by his steady faith,
He is no argurer, he is judgment—(Nature accepts him absolutely;) 
He judges not as the judge judges, but as the sun falling round a helpless thing; 
As he sees the farthest, he has the most faith, 
His thoughts are the hymns of the praise of things, 
In the dispute on God and eternity he is silent,
He sees eternity less like a play with a prol...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt
...t sneers can never change a strong mind's bent.
He knows his purpose and he does not swerve, 
And with a quiet mien and steady nerve
He meets dark looks where'er his steps may go, 
And silence that is bruising as a blow, 
Where late were smiles and words of ardent praise.
So pass the lagging weeks of wearying delays.



XXXIX.
Inaction is not always what it seems, 
And Custer's mind with plan and project teems.
Fixed in his peaceful purpose he abides
With none takes counsel a...Read more of this...
by Wilcox, Ella Wheeler



...or its strength in the village of Grand-Pre;
While from his pocket the notary drew his papers and inkhorn,
Wrote with a steady hand the date and the age of the parties,
Naming the dower of the bride in flocks of sheep and in cattle.
Orderly all things proceeded, and duly and well were completed,
And the great seal of the law was set like a sun on the margin.
Then from his leathern pouch the farmer threw on the table
Three times the old man's fee in solid pieces of silver;
And...Read more of this...
by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...e write a protest
(In verse I think) against the Volstead Act.
He didn't even offer me a drink
Until I asked for one to steady him.
This is called having an idea to sell.

It never could have happened in New Hampshire.

The only person really soiled with trade
I ever stumbled on in old New Hampshire
Was someone who had just come back ashamed
From selling things in California.
He'd built a noble mansard roof with balls
On turrets, like Constantinople, deep
In woods some ten mi...Read more of this...
by Frost, Robert
...ack, 
the prize we sought is won, The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting, 
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring; But O heart! heart! heart! 
O the bleeding drops of red, Where on the deck my Captain lies, Fallen cold and dead. 
O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells; Rise up- for you the flag is flung- for 
you the bugle trills, 

For you bouquets and ribbon'd wreaths- for you the shores 
a-crowding, 
For you t...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt
...spot. Down thither prone in flight 
He speeds, and through the vast ethereal sky 
Sails between worlds and worlds, with steady wing 
Now on the polar winds, then with quick fan 
Winnows the buxom air; till, within soar 
Of towering eagles, to all the fowls he seems 
A phoenix, gazed by all as that sole bird, 
When, to enshrine his reliques in the Sun's 
Bright temple, to Egyptian Thebes he flies. 
At once on the eastern cliff of Paradise 
He lights, and to his proper shape re...Read more of this...
by Milton, John
...onent. 

O the joy of that vast elemental sympathy which only the human Soul is capable of
 generating
 and emitting in steady and limitless floods. 

4
O the mother’s joys!
The watching—the endurance—the precious love—the anguish—the patiently
 yielded life. 

O the joy of increase, growth, recuperation; 
The joy of soothing and pacifying—the joy of concord and harmony. 

O to go back to the place where I was born! 
To hear the birds sing once more!
To ramble about the house...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt
...his four horses—the block swags
 underneath on its tied-over chain; 
The ***** that drives the dray of the stone-yard—steady and tall he stands,
 pois’d on one leg on the string-piece; 
His blue shirt exposes his ample neck and breast, and loosens over his hip-band;

His glance is calm and commanding—he tosses the slouch of his hat away from
 his forehead;
The sun falls on his crispy hair and moustache—falls on the black of his
 polish’d and perfect limbs. 

I beho...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt
...place, and set with a knock
 of
 the
 trowel-handle, 
The piles of materials, the mortar on the mortar-boards, and the steady replenishing by
 the
 hod-men;
—Spar-makers in the spar-yard, the swarming row of well-grown apprentices, 
The swing of their axes on the square-hew’d log, shaping it toward the shape of a mast, 
The brisk short crackle of the steel driven slantingly into the pine, 
The butter-color’d chips flying off in great flakes and slivers, 
The limber motion of...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt
...vailed with double sway,
And fools, who came to scoff, remained to pray.
The service passed, around the pious man,
With steady zeal, each honest rustic ran;
Even children followed with endearing wile,
And plucked his gown, to share the good man's smile.
His ready smile a parent's warmth expressed,
Their welfare pleased him, and their cares distressed;
To them his heart, his love, his griefs were given,
But all his serious thoughts had rest in Heaven.
As some tall cliff, that ...Read more of this...
by Goldsmith, Oliver
...Thy everlasting mercy showed 
The ploughman patient on the hill 
Forever there, forever still, 
Ploughing the hill with steady yoke 
Of pine-trees lightning-struck and broke. 
I've marked the May Hill ploughman stay 
There on his hill, day after day 
Driving his team against the sky, 
While men and women live and die. 
And now and then he seems to stoop 
To clear the coulter with the scoop, 
Or touch an ox to haw or gee 
While Severn stream goes out to sea. 
The sea with all ...Read more of this...
by Masefield, John
...They saw the Chieftain's eagle plume,
     Their shout of welcome, shrill and wide,
     Shook the steep mountain's steady side.
     Thrice it arose, and lake and fell
     Three times returned the martial yell;
     It died upon Bochastle's plain,
     And Silence claimed her evening reign.




CANTO FOURTH.

The Prophecy.

     I.

     The rose is fairest when 't is budding new,
        And hope is brightest when it dawns from fears;
     The rose is ...Read more of this...
by Scott, Sir Walter
...s and strain,
But presently, together,
We were travelling back again.

XXI 
The English love their country with a love 
Steady, and simple, wordless, dignified;
I think it sets their patriotism above 
All others. We Americans have pride— 
We glory in our country's short romance. 
We boast of it and love it. Frenchmen when 
The ultimate menace comes, will die for France 
Logically as they lived. But Englishmen 
Will serve day after day, obey the law, 
And do dull tasks that ke...Read more of this...
by Miller, Alice Duer
...streamed to and fro;
Beneath, the billows, having vainly striven
Indignant and impetuous, roared to feel
The swift and steady motion of the keel.

Or, when the weary moon was in the wane,
Or in the noon of interlunar night,
The Lady Witch in visions could not chain
Her spirit; but sailed forth under the light
Of shooting stars, and bade extend amain
Its storm-outspeeding wings the Hermaphrodite;
She to the austral waters took her way,
Beyond the fabulous Thamondocana.

Where...Read more of this...
by Shelley, Percy Bysshe
...esolved that thou shalt learn 
To trust my strength as I trust thine; 
I am resolved our souls shall burn, 
With equal, steady, mingling shine;
Part of the field is conquered now, 
Our lives in the same channel flow, 
Along the self-same line; 

And while no groaning storm is heard, 
Thou seem'st content it should be so, 
But soon as comes a warning word 
Of danger­straight thine anxious brow 
Bends over me a mournful shade, 
As doubting if my powers are made 
To ford the flo...Read more of this...
by Bronte, Charlotte
...hink of death and not feel at all sad 
I never knew I loved the cosmos

snow flashes in front of my eyes
both heavy wet steady snow and the dry whirling kind 
I didn't know I liked snow

I never knew I loved the sun
even when setting cherry-red as now
in Istanbul too it sometimes sets in postcard colors 
but you aren't about to paint it that way
I didn't know I loved the sea
 except the Sea of Azov
or how much

I didn't know I loved clouds
whether I'm under or up above them
w...Read more of this...
by Hikmet, Nazim
...hearse and stages—other vehicles give place—the funeral of an old Broadway
 stage-driver, the cortege mostly drivers. 

Steady the trot to the cemetery, duly rattles the death-bell, the gate is pass’d, the
 new-dug grave is halted at, the living alight, the hearse uncloses, 
The coffin is pass’d out, lower’d and settled, the whip is laid on the coffin,
 the
 earth is swiftly shovel’d in,
The mound above is flatted with the spades—silence, 
A minute—no one moves or speaks—it i...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt

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Book: Reflection on the Important Things