Famous Stirring Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Stirring poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous stirring poems. These examples illustrate what a famous stirring poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Poe, Edgar Allan
...well-
Apart from Heaven's Eternity- and yet how far from Hell!
What guilty spirit, in what shrubbery dim,
Heard not the stirring summons of that hymn?
But two: they fell: for Heaven no grace imparts
To those who hear not for their beating hearts.
A maiden-angel and her seraph-lover-
O! where (and ye may seek the wide skies over)
Was Love, the blind, near sober Duty known?
Unguided Love hath fallen- 'mid "tears of perfect moan."
He was a goodly spirit- he who fell:
A w...Read more of this...
by
Mayakovsky, Vladimir
...always serene.
My cabin is the worst
of all cabins -
All night above me
Thuds a smithy of feet.
All night,
stirring the ceiling’s calm,
dancers stampede
to a moaning motif:
“Marquita,
Marquita,
Marquita my darling,
why won’t you,
Marquita,
why won’t you love me …”
But why
Should marquita love me?!
I have
no francs to spare.
And Marquita
(at the slightest wink!)
for a hundred francs
she’d be brought to your room.
The sum’s not large -
just live fo...Read more of this...
by
Lawrence, D. H.
...e world,
it will be spring in the world of the living;
wonderment organising itself, heralding itself with the violets,
stirring of new seasons.
Ah, do not let me die on the brink of such anticipation!
Worse, let me not deceive myself....Read more of this...
by
Wilcox, Ella Wheeler
...attle and for strife
Like some caged eagle frets in peaceful life;
So Custer fretted when detained afar
From scenes of stirring action and of war.
And as the captive eagle in delight,
When freedom offers, plumes himself for flight
And soars away to thunder clouds on high,
With palpitating wings and wild exultant cry,
V.
So lion-hearted Custer sprang to arms,
And gloried in the conflict's loud alarms.
But one dark shadow marred his bounding joy;
And then th...Read more of this...
by
Ammons, A R
...s wrong, what was
wrong, to see it all by
the light of a different necessity
but the grave will not heal
and the child,
stirring, must share my grave
with me, an old man having
gotten by on what was left
when I go back to my home country in these
fresh far-away days, it’s convenient to visit
everybody, aunts and uncles, those who used to say,
look how he’s shooting up, and the
trinket aunts who always had a little
something in their pocketbooks, cinnamon bark
or a penny or n...Read more of this...
by
Hugo, Victor
...Made but one hydra with its scales of steel.
Yet is there history here. Each coat of mail
Is representant of some stirring tale.
Each delta-shaped escutcheon shines to show
A vision of the chief by it we know.
Here are the blood-stained Dukes' and Marquis' line,
Barbaric lords, who amid war's rapine
Bore gilded saints upon their banners still
Painted on fishes' skin with cunning skill.
Here Geth, who to the Slaves cried "Onward go,"
And Mundiaque...Read more of this...
by
Laurence Dunbar, Paul
...ce how high her hopes may soar
And bade her seek the heights, nor faint, nor fail.
She will not fail, she heeds thy stirring cry,
She knows thy guardian spirit will be nigh,
And rising from beneath the chast'ning rod,
She stretches out her bleeding hands to God!...Read more of this...
by
Pinsky, Robert
...ing
Bogart as he winces through it.
You not in the words, not even
Between the words, but a torsion,
A cleavage, a stirring.
You stirring even in the arctic ice,
Even at the dark ocean floor, even
In the cellular flesh of a stone.
Gas. Gossamer. My poker friends
Question your presence
In a poem by me, passing the magazine
One to another.
Not the stone and not the words, you
Like a veil over Arthur's headstone,
The passage from Proverbs he chose
Whil...Read more of this...
by
Milton, John
...t sin
Will reign among them, as of thee begot;
And therefore was law given them, to evince
Their natural pravity, by stirring up
Sin against law to fight: that when they see
Law can discover sin, but not remove,
Save by those shadowy expiations weak,
The blood of bulls and goats, they may conclude
Some blood more precious must be paid for Man;
Just for unjust; that, in such righteousness
To them by faith imputed, they may find
Justification towards God, and peace
...Read more of this...
by
Wordsworth, William
...?"
XVIII
He with a smile did then his words repeat;
And said, that, gathering leeches, far and wide
He travelled; stirring thus about his feet
The waters of the pools where they abide.
"Once I could meet with them on every side;
But they have dwindled long by slow decay;
Yet still I persevere, and find them where I may."
XIX
While he was talking thus, the lonely place,
The old Man's shape, and speech--all troubled me:
In my mind's eye I seemed to see h...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...oice announcing—I will sleep no more, but arise;
You oceans that have been calm within me! how I feel you, fathomless, stirring,
preparing unprecedented waves and storms.
19See! steamers steaming through my poems!
See, in my poems immigrants continually coming and landing;
See, in arriere, the wigwam, the trail, the hunter’s hut, the flatboat, the
maize-leaf, the claim, the rude fence, and the backwoods village;
See, on the one side the Western Sea, and on the othe...Read more of this...
by
Wordsworth, William
... And murmurs musical and swift jug jug And one low piping sound more sweet than all— Stirring the air with such an harmony, That should you close your eyes, you might almost Forget it was not day! A most gentle maid Who dwelleth in her hos...Read more of this...
by
Browning, Robert
...d glad in his sight; therefore, glad I will be.''
So, smiling as at first went she.
VIII.
She was active, stirring, all fire---
Could not rest, could not tire---
To a stone she might have given life!
(I myself loved once, in my day)
---For a shepherd's, miner's, huntsman's wife,
(I had a wife, I know what I say)
Never in all the world such an one!
And here was plenty to be done,
And she that could do it, great or small,
She was to do nothing at all.
There wa...Read more of this...
by
Scott, Sir Walter
...sure bold on festal day,
In yon lone isle,—again where ne'er
Shall harper play or warrior hear!—
That stirring air that peals on high,
O'er Dermid's race our victory.—
Strike it!—and then,—for well thou canst,—
Free from thy minstrel-spirit glanced,
Fling me the picture of the fight,
When met my clan the Saxon might.
I'll listen, till my fancy hears
The clang of swords' the crash of spears!
These grates, these ...Read more of this...
by
Chaucer, Geoffrey
...ly*
This Absolon full jolly was and light,
And thought, "Now is the time to wake all night,
For sickerly* I saw him not stirring *certainly
About his door, since day began to spring.
So may I thrive, but I shall at cock crow
Full privily go knock at his window,
That stands full low upon his bower* wall: *chamber
To Alison then will I tellen all
My love-longing; for I shall not miss
That at the leaste way I shall her kiss.
Some manner comfort shall I have, parfay*, *by...Read more of this...
by
Wordsworth, William
...ruel father! XIV. Sad case for such a brain to hold Communion with a stirring child! Sad case, as you may think, for one Who had a brain so wild! Last Christmas when we talked of this, Old Farmer Simpson did maintain, That in her womb the infant wrought About its mother's heart, and brought Her senses back again: ...Read more of this...
by
Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
...> THE BURIAL OF THE DEAD
April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.
Summer surprised us, coming over the Starnbergersee
With a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade,
And went on in sunlight, into the Hofgarten,
And drank coffee, and talked for an hour.
Bin gar keine Russin, ...Read more of this...
by
Bronte, Charlotte
...
And not a wherry could be moored
Along the guarded land.
I feared not thenI fear not now;
The interest of each stirring scene
Wakes a new sense, a welcome glow,
In every nerve and bounding vein;
Alike on turbid Channel sea,
Or in still wood of Normandy,
I feel as born again.
The rain descended that wild morn
When, anchoring in the cove at last,
Our band, all weary and forlorn,
Ashore, like wave-worn sailors, cast
Sought for a sheltering roof in vain, ...Read more of this...
by
Bronte, Charlotte
...
And not a wherry could be moored
Along the guarded land.
I feared not thenI fear not now;
The interest of each stirring scene
Wakes a new sense, a welcome glow,
In every nerve and bounding vein;
Alike on turbid Channel sea,
Or in still wood of Normandy,
I feel as born again.
The rain descended that wild morn
When, anchoring in the cove at last,
Our band, all weary and forlorn,
Ashore, like wave-worn sailors, cast
Sought for a sheltering roof in vain, ...Read more of this...
by
Akhmatova, Anna
...e's no air -- so long!
You are my life's only blessing,
You are the sun of my song.
Now the dark buildings are stirring
And I'll fall on earth as they shake --
Inside of my village garden
I do not fear to awake.
Escape
"My dear, if we could only
Reach all the way to the seas"
"Be quiet" and descended the stairs
Losing breath and looking for keys.
Past the buildings, where sometime
We danced and had fun and drank wine
Past the white colu...Read more of this...
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