Get Your Premium Membership

Famous Strong Poems by Famous Poets

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

See also:

Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry
...im.

'So on the tip of his subduing tongue
All kinds of arguments and question deep,
All replication prompt, and reason strong,
For his advantage still did wake and sleep:
To make the weeper laugh, the laugher weep,
He had the dialect and different skill,
Catching all passions in his craft of will:

'That he did in the general bosom reign
Of young, of old; and sexes both enchanted,
To dwell with him in thoughts, or to remain
In personal duty, following where he haunted:
Conse...Read more of this...
by Shakespeare, William



...toms, popularities? 
Can you hold your hand against all seductions, follies, whirls, fierce contentions? are
 you
 very strong? are you really of the whole people? 
Are you not of some coterie? some school or mere religion? 
Are you done with reviews and criticisms of life? animating now to life itself? 
Have you vivified yourself from the maternity of These States?
Have you too the old, ever-fresh forbearance and impartiality? 
Do you hold the like love for those hardening t...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt
...truly,
among the hall-wise or heroes under heaven,
who took in those treasures. (ll. 47-52)

 

I.

Then in the strongholds was the Scylding Beow
the beloved king of the people for a very long time,
famous to his folk—his father departed elsewhere,
the prince from this earth—until from him was soon born
Halfdane the High, who held onto the joyful Scyldings,
so long as he lived, ancient and ferocious in war. (ll. 53-58)

From him, the head of the armies, came fo...Read more of this...
by Anonymous,
...rt and a soul inviolate!

For gentle brotherhood, the harmony
Of living in the healthful air, the swift
Clean beauty of strong limbs when men are free
And women chaste, these are the things which lift
Our souls up more than even Agnolo's
Gaunt blinded Sibyl poring o'er the scroll of human woes,

Or Titian's little maiden on the stair
White as her own sweet lily and as tall,
Or Mona Lisa smiling through her hair, -
Ah! somehow life is bigger after all
Than any painted angel, c...Read more of this...
by Wilde, Oscar
...d all those acts which Deity supreme
Doth ease its heart of love in.---I am gone
Away from my own bosom: I have left
My strong identity, my real self,
Somewhere between the throne, and where I sit
Here on this spot of earth. Search, Thea, search!
Open thine eyes eterne, and sphere them round
Upon all space: space starr'd, and lorn of light;
Space region'd with life-air; and barren void;
Spaces of fire, and all the yawn of hell.---
Search, Thea, search! and tell me, if thou se...Read more of this...
by Keats, John



...ot. This I know. 
 When gained my feet the upward, lighted way, 
 I backward gazed, as one the drowning sea, 
 The deep strong tides, has baffled, and panting lies, 
 On the shelved shore, and turns his eyes to see 
 The league-wide wastes that held him. So mine eyes 
 Surveyed that fear, the while my wearied frame 
 Rested, and ever my heart's tossed lake became 
 More quiet. 
 Then from that pass released, which yet 
 With living feet had no man left, I set 
 My forward ste...Read more of this...
by Alighieri, Dante
...the stern 
Have deeper thoughts than your dull eyes discern, 
And when they love, your smilers guess not how 
Beats the strong heart, though less the lips avow. 
They were not common links that form'd the chain 
That bound to Lara Kaled's heart and brain; 
But that wild tale she brook'd not to unfold, 
And seal'd is now each lip that could have told. 

XXIII. 

They laid him in the earth, and on his breast, 
Besides the wound that sent his soul to rest, 
They found the scatte...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)
...ght,
I hear bells—shouts!—I pass the crowd—I run! 
The sight of the flames maddens me with pleasure. 

O the joy of the strong-brawn’d fighter, towering in the arena, in perfect condition,
 conscious of power, thirsting to meet his opponent. 

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
...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt
...had to preach.”

“It’s no night to be out.”

“He may be small,
He may be good, but one thing’s sure, he’s tough.”

“And strong of stale tobacco.”

“He’ll pull through.’
“You only say so. Not another house
Or shelter to put into from this place
To theirs. I’m going to call his wife again.”

“Wait and he may. Let’s see what he will do.
Let’s see if he will think of her again.
But then I doubt he’s thinking of himself
He doesn’t look on it as anything.”

“He shan’t go—there!”

“...Read more of this...
by Frost, Robert
...ed and unmarried children ride home to their Thanksgiving dinner; 
The pilot seizes the king-pin—he heaves down with a strong arm; 
The mate stands braced in the whale-boat—lance and harpoon are ready; 
The duck-shooter walks by silent and cautious stretches;
The deacons are ordain’d with cross’d hands at the altar; 
The spinning-girl retreats and advances to the hum of the big wheel; 
The farmer stops by the bars, as he walks on a First-day loafe, and looks at the
 oa...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt
...ceforth I ask not good-fortune—I myself am good fortune; 
Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing,
Strong and content, I travel the open road. 

The earth—that is sufficient; 
I do not want the constellations any nearer; 
I know they are very well where they are; 
I know they suffice for those who belong to them.

(Still here I carry my old delicious burdens; 
I carry them, men and women—I carry them with me wherever I go; 
I swear it is impossible for me...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt
...gone to chaos,
A great face turned to night--
Why bend above a shapeless shroud
Seeking in such archaic cloud
Sight of strong lords and light?

Where seven sunken Englands
Lie buried one by one,
Why should one idle spade, I wonder,
Shake up the dust of thanes like thunder
To smoke and choke the sun?

In cloud of clay so cast to heaven
What shape shall man discern?
These lords may light the mystery
Of mastery or victory,
And these ride high in history,
But these shall not ret...Read more of this...
by Chesterton, G K
...ld mock my penning, could they see
How down the right it maps a jagged coast;
Seeing they hold the manlier praise to be
Strong hand and will, and the heart best when most
'Tis sober, simple, true, and fancy-free. 

12
How could I quarrel or blame you, most dear,
Who all thy virtues gavest and kept back none;
Kindness and gentleness, truth without peer,
And beauty that my fancy fed upon?
Now not my life's contrition for my fault
Can blot that day, nor work me recompence,
Tho' ...Read more of this...
by Bridges, Robert Seymour
...al indignantly to my other writings as a proof that I am incapable of such a deed: I will not (as I might) point to the strong moral purpose of this poem itself, to the arithmetical principles so cautiously inculcated in it, or to its noble teachings in Natural History--I will take the more prosaic course of simply explaining how it happened. 

The Bellman, who was almost morbidly sensitive about appearances, used to have the bowsprit unshipped once or twice a week to be reva...Read more of this...
by Carroll, Lewis
...bane of all that dread the devil.   I to the muses have been bound  These fourteen years, by strong indentures:  Oh gentle muses! let me tell  But half of what to him befel,  For sure he met with strange adventures.   Oh gentle muses! is this kind  Why will ye thus my suit repel?  Why of your further aid bereave me?  And can ye thus unfriended leave me?  Ye muses!...Read more of this...
by Wordsworth, William
...garland for her head, *subtle, well-arranged
And as an angel heavenly she sung.
The greate tower, that was so thick and strong,
Which of the castle was the chief dungeon
(Where as these knightes weren in prison,
Of which I tolde you, and telle shall),
Was even joinant* to the garden wall, *adjoining
There as this Emily had her playing.

Bright was the sun, and clear that morrowning,
And Palamon, this woful prisoner,
As was his wont, by leave of his gaoler,
Was ris'n, and ...Read more of this...
by Chaucer, Geoffrey
...k;
     To many a mingled sound at once
     The awakened mountain gave response.
     A hundred dogs bayed deep and strong,
     Clattered a hundred steeds along,
     Their peal the merry horns rung out,
     A hundred voices joined the shout;
     With hark and whoop and wild halloo,
     No rest Benvoirlich's echoes knew.
     Far from the tumult fled the roe,
     Close in her covert cowered the doe,
     The falcon, from her cairn on high,
     Cast on the r...Read more of this...
by Scott, Sir Walter
...a kingly title!

The eyes of fire, the nostrils of air, the mouth of water, the
beard of earth.

The weak in courage is strong in cunning.
The apple tree never asks the beech how he shall grow, nor the
lion. the horse; how he shall take his prey. 
The thankful reciever bears a plentiful harvest.

If others bad not been foolish. we should be so.
The soul of sweet delight. can never be defil'd,

When thou seest an Eagle, thou seest a portion of Genius. lift up
thy head!

As the...Read more of this...
by Blake, William
...
Logically as they lived. But Englishmen 
Will serve day after day, obey the law, 
And do dull tasks that keep a nation strong. 
Once I remember in London how I saw 
Pale shabby people standing in a long 
Line in the twilight and the misty rain 
To pay their tax. I then saw England plain. 

XXII 
Johnnie and I were married. England then 
Had been a week at war, and all the men 
Wore uniform, as English people can, 
Unconscious of it. Percy, the best man, 
As thin as paper and...Read more of this...
by Miller, Alice Duer
...you carried me,
That on deck of a yacht alabaster
Incorruptible day's light we'd meet.



x x x

When with a strong but tired hand
In dreary capital of nation
Upon the whiteness of the page
I did record my recantations,

And wind into the window round
Poured in a wet and silent stream
The sky was burning, burning bright
With smoky dawn, it so did seem.

I did not look at the Nieva,
The dawn-drenched granite did not view,
And it appeared that that I, awa...Read more of this...
by Akhmatova, Anna

Dont forget to view our wonderful member Strong poems.


Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry