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Famous Striven Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Lewis, C S
...Arise my body, my small body, we have striven 
Enough, and He is merciful; we are forgiven. 
Arise small body, puppet-like and pale, and go, 
White as the bed-clothes into bed, and cold as snow, 
Undress with small, cold fingers and put out the light, 
And be alone, hush'd mortal, in the sacred night, 
-A meadow whipt flat with the rain, a cup 
Emptied and clean, a garment washed and folded ...Read more of this...



by Moody, William Vaughn
...m thine eye? 
Do thy dark brows yet crave 
That swift and angry stave -- 
Unmeet for this desirous morn -- 
That I have striven, striven to evade? 
Gazing on him, must I not deem they err 
Whose careless lips in street and shop aver 
As common tidings, deeds to make his cheek 
Flush from the bronze, and his dead throat to speak? 
Surely some elder singer would arise, 
Whose harp hath leave to threaten and to mourn 
Above this people when they go astray. 
Is Whitman, the s...Read more of this...

by Browning, Elizabeth Barrett
...ing your gauges. If the day's work 's scant,
Why, call it scant ; affect no compromise ;
And, in that we have nobly striven at least,
Deal with us nobly, women though we be.
And honour us with truth if not with praise....Read more of this...

by Abercrombie, Lascelles
...ong
Strange sundering, with the years of the world between us?

He

Shall life do more than God? for hath not God
Striven with himself, when into known delight
His unaccomplisht joy he would put forth,—
This mystery of a world sign of his striving?
Else wherefore this, a thing to break the mind
With labouring in the wonder of it, that here
Being—the world and we—is suffered to be!—
But, lying on thy breast one notable day,
Sudden exceeding agony of love
Made my ...Read more of this...

by Keats, John
...out-told
Their fond imaginations,--saving him
Whose eyelids curtain'd up their jewels dim,
Endymion: yet hourly had he striven
To hide the cankering venom, that had riven
His fainting recollections. Now indeed
His senses had swoon'd off: he did not heed
The sudden silence, or the whispers low,
Or the old eyes dissolving at his woe,
Or anxious calls, or close of trembling palms,
Or maiden's sigh, that grief itself embalms:
But in the self-same fixed trance he kept,
Like o...Read more of this...



by Keats, John
...rst, first dawn and thought of thee,
With uplift hands I blest the stars of heaven.
Art thou not cruel? Ever have I striven
To think thee kind, but ah, it will not do!
When yet a child, I heard that kisses drew
Favour from thee, and so I kisses gave
To the void air, bidding them find out love:
But when I came to feel how far above
All fancy, pride, and fickle maidenhood,
All earthly pleasure, all imagin'd good,
Was the warm tremble of a devout kiss,--
Even then, that mome...Read more of this...

by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...me. 
Victor from vanquished issues at the last, 
And overthrower from being overthrown. 
With sword we have not striven; and thy good horse 
And thou are weary; yet not less I felt 
Thy manhood through that wearied lance of thine. 
Well hast thou done; for all the stream is freed, 
And thou hast wreaked his justice on his foes, 
And when reviled, hast answered graciously, 
And makest merry when overthrown. Prince, Knight 
Hail, Knight and Prince, and of our Ta...Read more of this...

by Russell, George William
...n a beauty that blinded the eyes
Shall call forth its image for ever, its shadow in alien skies.
The heart that had striven to beat in the heart of the Mighty too soon
Shall still of that beating remember some errant and faltering tune.


For thou hast but fallen to gather the last of the secrets of power;
The beauty that breathes in thy spirit shall shape of thy sorrow a flower,
The pale bud of pity shall open the bloom of its tenderest rays,
The heart of whose shini...Read more of this...

by Poe, Edgar Allan
...ould fall from life and Heaven 
Drawn by their heart's passion, and that tone, 
That high tone of the spirit which hath striven 
Though not with Faith - with godliness - whose throne 
With desperate energy 't hath beaten down; 
Wearing its own deep feeling as a crown....Read more of this...

by Paterson, Andrew Barton
...in scientific circles 
That the great Professor Brown 
Had a world-wide reputation 
As a writer of renown. 
He had striven finer feelings 
In our natures to implant 
By his Treatise on the Morals 
Of the Red-eyed Bulldog Ant. 
He had hoisted an opponent 
Who had trodden unawares 
On his "Reasons for Bare Patches 
On the Female Native Bears". 
So they gave him an appointment 
As instructor to a band 
Of the most attractive females 
To be gathered in the land. ...Read more of this...

by Shelley, Percy Bysshe
...hy wanderings over heaven, 
As then, when to outstrip thy skiey speed 50 
Scarce seem'd a vision,¡ªI would ne'er have striven 
As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need. 
O lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud! 
I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed! 
A heavy weight of hours has chain'd and bow'd 55 
One too like thee¡ªtameless, and swift, and proud. 

Make me thy lyre, ev'n as the forest is: 
What if my leaves are falling like its own! 
The tumult of thy...Read more of this...

by Wordsworth, William
...ing from above, a something given, 
Yet it befell, that, in this lonely place, 
When I with these untoward thoughts had striven, 
Beside a pool bare to the eye of heaven 
I saw a Man before me unawares: 
The oldest man he seemed that ever wore grey hairs. 

IX 

As a huge stone is sometimes seen to lie 
Couched on the bald top of an eminence; 
Wonder to all who do the same espy, 
By what means it could thither come, and whence; 
So that it seems a thing endued with sense:...Read more of this...

by Wordsworth, William
...ing from above, a something given, 
Yet it befell, that, in this lonely place, 
When I with these untoward thoughts had striven, 
Beside a pool bare to the eye of heaven 
I saw a Man before me unawares: 
The oldest man he seemed that ever wore grey hairs. 

IX 

As a huge stone is sometimes seen to lie 
Couched on the bald top of an eminence; 
Wonder to all who do the same espy, 
By what means it could thither come, and whence; 
So that it seems a thing endued with sense:...Read more of this...

by Bronte, Anne
...
O strive! and if thy strength be small,
Strive yet the more, and spend it all
For Love and Wisdom's sake!' 

'O I have striven both hard and long
But many are my foes and strong.
My gains are light -­ my progress slow;
For hard's the way I have to go,
And my worst enemies, I know,
Are these within my breast;
And it is hard to toil for aye, -­
Through sultry noon and twilight grey
To toil and never rest.' 

'There is a rest beyond the grave,
A lasting rest from pain a...Read more of this...

by Brontë, Emily
...whole life through,
Hast humbled Falsehood, trampled Fear;
What is there left to do?" 

"'Tis true, this arm has hotly striven,
Has dared what few would dare;
Much have I done, and freely given,
But little learnt to bear!" 

"Look on the grave, where thou must sleep,
Thy last, and strongest foe;
It is endurance not to weep,
If that repose seem woe. 

"The long war closing in defeat,
Defeat serenely borne,
Thy midnight rest may still be sweet,
And break in glorious morn!"...Read more of this...

by Poe, Edgar Allan
...same fierce heirdom given
Rome to the Caesar- this to me?
The heritage of a kingly mind,
And a proud spirit which hath striven
Triumphantly with human kind.

On mountain soil I first drew life:
The mists of the Taglay have shed
Nightly their dews upon my head,
And, I believe, the winged strife
And tumult of the headlong air
Have nestled in my very hair.

So late from Heaven- that dew- it fell
(Mid dreams of an unholy night)
Upon me with the touch of Hell,
While the r...Read more of this...

by Berry, Wendell
...show
To the sly cosmetician. Say that my flesh
Has a perfect compliance with the grass
Truer than any it could have striven for.
You will recognize the earth in me, as before
I wished to know it in myself: my earth
That has been my care and faithful charge from birth,
And toward which all my sorrows were surely bound,
And all my hopes. Say that I have found
A good solution, and am on my way
To the roots. And say I have left my native clay
At last, to be a trav...Read more of this...

by Robinson, Edwin Arlington
...hardly dared 
Look on to see him stand where many fell; 
And upward out of that, as out of hell, 
He may have sung and striven 
To mount where more of him shall yet be given, 
Bereft of all retreat,
To sevenfold heat,— 
As on a day when three in Dura shared 
The furnace, and were spared 
For glory by that king of Babylon 
Who made himself so great that God, who heard,
Covered him with long feathers, like a bird. 

Again, he may have gone down easily, 
By comfortable alti...Read more of this...

by Robinson, Edwin Arlington
...r dreamt in heaven 
Could have lured him anywhere 
That would have nbeen away from there; 
And all his wits had lightly striven, 
Foiled with her voice, and eyes, and hair.

There's nothing in the saints and sages 
To meet the shafts her glances had, 
Or such as hers have had for ages 
To blind a man till he be glad, 
And humble him till he be mad. 
The story would have many pages, 
And would be neither good nor bad.

And, having followed, you would find him 
Wher...Read more of this...

by Shelley, Percy Bysshe
...st down the mountains; loosely driven,
The Lady's radiant hair 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 aus...Read more of this...

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Book: Reflection on the Important Things