Famous Strenuous Poems by Famous Poets

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

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A Subalterns Love Song

...Miss J.Hunter Dunn, Miss J.Hunter Dunn,
Furnish'd and burnish'd by Aldershot sun,
What strenuous singles we played after tea,
We in the tournament - you against me!

Love-thirty, love-forty, oh! weakness of joy,
The speed of a swallow, the grace of a boy,
With carefullest carelessness, gaily you won,
I am weak from your loveliness, Joan Hunter Dunn

Miss Joan Hunter Dunn, Miss Joan Hunter Dunn,
How mad I am, sad I am, glad that you won,
The wa...Read more of this...
by Betjeman, John


A Years Carols

...that laughs with love
Of thee and all the heaven above,
More fruitful found than all save thine
Whose skies fulfil with strenuous cheer
The fervent fields that knew thee near.

OCTOBER
October of the tawny crown,
Whose heavy-laden hands drop down
Blessing, the bounties of thy breath
And mildness of thy mellowing might
Fill earth and heaven with love and light
Too sweet for fear to dream of death
Or memory, while thy joy lives yet,
To know what joy would fain forget.

NOVEMBER...Read more of this...
by Swinburne, Algernon Charles

Beowulf (Old English)

...loath, from your labor dire
could you dissuade, from swimming the main.
Ocean-tides with your arms ye covered,
with strenuous hands the sea-streets measured,
swam o’er the waters. Winter’s storm
rolled the rough waves. In realm of sea
a sennight strove ye. In swimming he topped thee,
had more of main! Him at morning-tide
billows bore to the Battling Reamas,
whence he hied to his home so dear
beloved of his liegemen, to land of Brondings,
fastness fair, where his f...Read more of this...
by Anonymous,

Captain Craig

...Till to the changing glimpse, now sharp, now faint, 
They gave me of the woodland over west, 
A gleam of long-forgotten strenuous years
Came back, when we were Red Men on the trail, 
With Morgan for the big chief Wocky-Bocky; 
And yawning out of that I set myself 
To face again the loud monotonous ride 
That lay before me like a vista drawn
Of bag-racks to the fabled end of things....Read more of this...
by Robinson, Edwin Arlington

Endymion: Book III

...n.
O what a load of misery and pain
Each Atlas-line bore off!--a shine of hope
Came gold around me, cheering me to cope
Strenuous with hellish tyranny. Attend!
For thou hast brought their promise to an end.

 "In the wide sea there lives a forlorn wretch,
Doom'd with enfeebled carcase to outstretch
His loath'd existence through ten centuries,
And then to die alone. Who can devise
A total opposition? No one. So
One million times ocean must ebb and flow,
And he oppressed. Yet h...Read more of this...
by Keats, John


Hymn Of Man

...footsole clings;
A manifold God fast-bound as with iron of adverse things.
A soul that labours and lives, an emotion, a strenuous breath,
From the flame that its own mouth gives reillumed, and refreshed with death.
In the sea whereof centuries are waves the live God plunges and swims;
His bed is in all men's graves, but the worm hath not hold on his limbs.
Night puts out not his eyes, nor time sheds change on his head;
With such fire as the stars of the skies are the roots of...Read more of this...
by Swinburne, Algernon Charles

In Progress

...e a passing bell.
Mindful of drudging daily common things,
Patient at pastime, patient at her work,
Wearied perhaps but strenuous certainly.
Sometimes I fancy we may one day see
Her head shoot forth seven stars from where they lurk
And her eyes lightnings and her shoulders wings....Read more of this...
by Rossetti, Christina

Jubilate Agno: Fragment A

...cruel and killeth and preyeth upon that which God has given to aspire and bear fruit. 

Let Lud bless with the Elk, the strenuous asserter of his liberty, and the maintainer of his ground. 

Let Obadiah with the Palmer-worm bless God for the remnant that is left. 

Let Agur bless with the Cockatrice -- The consolation of the world is deceitful, and temporal honour the crown of him that creepeth. 

Let Ithiel bless with the Baboon, whose motions are regular in the wilderness, ...Read more of this...
by Smart, Christopher

Mycerinus

...
Vain dreams, which quench our pleasures, then depart
When the duped soul, self-master'd, claims its meed;
When, on the strenuous just man, Heaven bestows,
Crown of his struggling life, an unjust close!

'Seems it so light a thing, then, austere Powers,
To spurn man's common lure, life's pleasant things?
Seems there no joy in dances crown'd with flowers,
Love, free to range, and regal banquetings?
Bend ye on these, indeed, an unmoved eye,
Not Gods but ghosts, in frozen apathy...Read more of this...
by Arnold, Matthew

Nephelidia

...st?
Nay, for the nick of the tick of the time is a tremulous touch on the temples of terror,
Strained as the sinews yet strenuous with strife of the dead who is dumb as the dust-heaps of death:
Surely no soul is it, sweet as the spasm of erotic emotional exquisite error,
Bathed in the balms of beatified bliss, beatific itself by beatitude's breath.
Surely no spirit or sense of a soul that was soft to the spirit and soul of our senses
Sweetens the stress of suspiring suspicion...Read more of this...
by Swinburne, Algernon Charles

Ode on Melancholy

...: 
Ay in the very temple of Delight 25 
Veil'd Melancholy has her sovran shrine  
Though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongue 
Can burst Joy's grape against his palate fine; 
His soul shall taste the sadness of her might  
And be among her cloudy trophies hung. 30 ...Read more of this...
by Keats, John

Samson Agonistes

...grown corrupt,
And by thir vices brought to servitude,
Then to love Bondage more then Liberty, 
Bondage with ease then strenuous liberty;
And to despise, or envy, or suspect
Whom God hath of his special favour rais'd
As thir Deliverer; if he aught begin,
How frequent to desert him, and at last
To heap ingratitude on worthiest deeds?

Chor: Thy words to my remembrance bring
How Succoth and the Fort of Penuel
Thir great Deliverer contemn'd,
The matchless Gideon in pursuit 
Of ...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

The Hard Times In Elfland

...,
Bows, arrows, cannon, Indian reeds,

Cap-pistols, drums, mechanic toys,
And all th' infernal host of horns
Whereby to strenuous hells of noise
Are turned the blessed Christmas morns;

Thus, roused -- those horns! -- to sacred rage,
I rose, forefinger high in air,
When Harry cried (SOME war to wage),
"Papa, is hard times ev'ywhere?

"Maybe in Santa Claus's land
It isn't hard times none at all!"
Now, blessed Vision! to my hand
Most pat, a marvel strange did fall.

Scarce had ...Read more of this...
by Lanier, Sidney

The Jacquerie A Fragment

...ring health that leaps along the veins --
As a hart upon his river banks at morn,
-- Sir, wild with the urgings and hot strenuous beats
Of manhood's heart in this full-sinewed breast
Which thou may'st even now discern is mine,
-- Sir, full aware, each instant in each day,
Of motions of great muscles, once were mine,
And thrill of tense thew-knots, and stinging sense
Of nerves, nice, capable and delicate:
-- Sir, visited each hour by passions great
That lack all instrument of ...Read more of this...
by Lanier, Sidney

The Lacking Sense Scene.--A sad-coloured landscape Waddon Vale

...unfulfilments, that red ravage through her zones 
 Whereat all creation groans. 

V 

"She whispers it in each pathetic strenuous slow endeavour, 
 When in mothering she unwittingly sets wounds on what she loves; 
 Yet her primal doom pursues her, faultful, fatal is she ever; 
Though so deft and nigh to vision is her facile finger-touch 
 That the seers marvel much. 

VI 

"Deal, then, her groping skill no scorn, no note of malediction; 
 Not long on thee will press the hand ...Read more of this...
by Hardy, Thomas

The Organ-Blower

...can't he look
Beforehand in the service-book?

But thou, with decent mien and face,
Art always ready in thy place;
Thy strenuous blast, whate'er the tune,
As steady as the strong monsoon;
Thy only dread a leathery creak,
Or small residual extra squeak,
To send along the shadowy aisles
A sunlit wave of dimpled smiles.

Not all the preaching, O my friend,
Comes from the church's pulpit end!
Not all that bend the knee and bow
Yield service half so true as thou!
One simple task ...Read more of this...
by Holmes, Oliver Wendell

The Wizard Way

...sely curled 
Like a serpent round his heart 
Shakes herself and stands apart. 
So the heart's blood flames, expanding, 
Strenuous, urgent, and commanding; 
And the key unlocks the door 
Where his love lives evermore. 

She is of the faery blood; 
All smaragdine flows its flood. 
Glowing in the amber sky 
To ensorcelled porphyry 
She hath eyes of glittering flake 
Like a cold grey water-snake. 
She hath naked breasts of amber 
Jetting wine in her bed-chamber, 
Whereof whoso st...Read more of this...
by Crowley, Aleister

The Wood

...t thou fear ? 
So that the knife does not divide, 
It may be ever hovering near: 
I could not tremble at thy side, 
And strenuous love­like mine for thee­
Is buckler strong, 'gainst treachery, 
And turns its stab aside. 

I am resolved 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 wh...Read more of this...
by Bronte, Charlotte

The Wood

...t thou fear ? 
So that the knife does not divide, 
It may be ever hovering near: 
I could not tremble at thy side, 
And strenuous love­like mine for thee­
Is buckler strong, 'gainst treachery, 
And turns its stab aside. 

I am resolved 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 wh...Read more of this...
by Bronte, Charlotte

To A Buddha Seated On A Lotus

...strife, 
And Death unweaves the webs of Life.

For us the travail and the heat, 
The broken secrets of our pride, 
The strenuous lessons of defeat, 
The flower deferred, the fruit denied; 
But not the peace, supremely won, 
Lord Buddha, of thy Lotus-throne. 

With futile hands we seek to gain 
Our inaccessible desire, 
Diviner summits to attain, 
With faith that sinks and feet that tire; 
But nought shall conquer or control 
The heavenward hunger of our soul. 

The end, elus...Read more of this...
by Naidu, Sarojini

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