Famous Survive Poems by Famous Poets

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

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A Curse For A Nation

...
Which burns at your heart.
This is the curse. Write.

Ye shall watch while nations strive
With the bloodhounds, die or survive,
Drop faint from their jaws,
Or throttle them backward to death;
And only under your breath
Shall favor the cause.
This is the curse. Write.

Ye shall watch while strong men draw
The nets of feudal law
To strangle the weak;
And, counting the sin for a sin,
Your soul shall be sadder within
Than the word ye shall speak.
This is the curse. Write.

When ...Read more of this...
by Browning, Elizabeth Barrett


A Dialogue between Old England and New

...ess some Cordial thou fetch from high,
18 Which present help may ease my malady.
19 If I decease, dost think thou shalt survive?
20 Or by my wasting state dost think to thrive?
21 Then weigh our case, if 't be not justly sad.
22 Let me lament alone, while thou art glad. 

New England. 

23 And thus, alas, your state you much deplore
24 In general terms, but will not say wherefore.
25 What Medicine shall I seek to cure this woe,
26 If th' wound's so dangerous, I may not know?
...Read more of this...
by Bradstreet, Anne

A poem on divine revelation

..., 
Of civil war, dark treason, or the shock 
Of hostile nations in dire league combin'd. 
This still shall flourish and survive the date, 
Of each wide state and empire of the earth 
Which yet shall rise, as now of those which once 
From richest Asia or from Europe spread 
On mighty base and shaded half the world. 
Great Babylon which vex'd the chosen seed, 
And by whose streams the captive Hebrews sat, 
In desolation lies, and Syria west, 
Where the Seleucidæ did fix their t...Read more of this...
by Brackenridge, Hugh Henry

Adonais

...ng but as a kiss may live;
And in my heartless breast and burning brain
That word, that kiss, shall all thoughts else survive,
With food of saddest memory kept alive,
Now thou art dead, as if it were a part
Of thee, my Adonais! I would give
All that I am to be as thou now art!
But I am chained to Time, and cannot thence depart!

"O gentle child, beautiful as thou wert,
Why didst thou leave the trodden paths of men
Too soon, and with weak hands though mighty heart
...Read more of this...
by Shelley, Percy Bysshe

Beowulf (Modern English)

...under the vault of heaven
of a more difficult contest in the night,
nor in the sea-streams a man harder beset.
Yet I survived the clutch of foes, escaped with my life,
weary with swimming. Then the sea carried me,
the flood according to the tides onto Finnish territory,
the welling waves. I haven’t heard a peep
spoken about you, about such terrible battles,
the terror of blades. Neither Brecca nor you
ever performed much of note in the dance of battle,
with the spla...Read more of this...
by Anonymous,


Bridge Over The Aire Book 1

...raise

Where praise is due.



10



The caf? staff are chatting in subdued tones,

Wearing white, wondering if they’ll survive

The winter, so do I; at fifty-four I must decide

For poetry, my sons educated just, one at Balliol

One at the Royal College, I have cast my lot

With Lady Luck, I own no property but a book.



In Roundhay’s Tropical World Nepalese Trumpets

Glow in red and yellow like mendicant priests,

The waterfall roars like Lodore and I am more

Myself here ...Read more of this...
by Tebb, Barry

Cleon

...ife, 
Complete and whole now in its power and joy, 
Dies altogether with my brain and arm, 
Is lost indeed; since, what survives myself? 
The brazen statue to o'erlook my grave, 
Set on the promontory which I named. 
And that--some supple courtier of my heir 
Shall use its robed and sceptred arm, perhaps, 
To fix the rope to, which best drags it down. 
I go then: triumph thou, who dost not go!" 

Nay, thou art worthy of hearing my whole mind. 
Is this apparent, when thou turn...Read more of this...
by Browning, Robert

Deer Dancer

...rts.

The woman inside the woman who was to dance naked in the bar of misfits
blew deer magic.Henry jack, who could not survive a sober day, thought she
was Buffalo Calf Woman come back, passed out, his head by the toilet.All
night he dreamed a dream he could not say.The next day he borrowed
money, went home, and sent back the money I lent.Now that's a miracle.
Some people see vision in a burned tortilla, some in the face of a woman.

This is the bar of broken survivors, the ...Read more of this...
by Harjo, Joy

Last Instructions to a Painter

...he true Royal Oak and Royal James, 
Allied in fate, increase, with theirs, her flames. 
Of all our navy none should now survive, 
But that the ships themselves were taught to dive, 
And the kind river in its creek them hides, 
Fraughting their pierc?d keels with oozy tides. 

Up to the bridge contagious terror struck: 
The Tower itself with the near danger shook, 
And were not Ruyter's maw with ravage cloyed, 
E'en London's ashes had been then destroyed. 
Officious fear, howe...Read more of this...
by Marvell, Andrew

Last Words

...the penitent 
just before he stands to his full height 
with the knowledge of his enormity. 
For that moment which will survive 
the burning of all the small pockets 
of fat and oil that are the soul, 
I am the soul stretching into 
the furthest reaches of my fingers 
and beyond, glowing like ten candles 
in the vault of night for anyone 
who could see, even though it is 
12:40 in the afternoon and I 
have passed from darkness into sunlight 
so fierce the sweat streams down 
...Read more of this...
by Levine, Philip

Look What You Did Christopher!

...u may think, my friends, is that.
But it isn't - not by a fireman's hat.
The American people,
With grins jocose,
Always survive the fatal dose.
And though our systems are slightly wobbly,
We'll fool the doctor this time, probly....Read more of this...
by Nash, Ogden

Monadnoc

...ke,—
Sink, O mountain! in the swamp,
Hide in thy skies, O sovereign lap!
Perish like leaves the highland breed!
No sire survive, no son succeed!

Soft! let not the offended muse
Toil's hard hap with scorn accuse.
Many hamlets sought I then,
Many farms of mountain men;—
Found I not a minstrel seed,
But men of bone, and good at need.
Rallying round a parish steeple
Nestle warm the highland people,
Coarse and boisterous, yet mild,
Strong as giant, slow as child,
Smoking in a squ...Read more of this...
by Emerson, Ralph Waldo

Ozymandias

...whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”...Read more of this...
by Shelley, Percy Bysshe

Ruins of Rome by Bellay

...earned writs, 
Old Rome out of her ashes to revive, 
And give a second life to dead decays: 
Needs must he all eternity survive, 
That can to other give eternal days. 
Thy days therefore are endless, and thy praise 
Excelling all, that ever went before; 
And after thee, 'gins Bartas high to raise 
His heavenly Muse, th' Almighty to adore. 
Live, happy spirits, th' honour of your name, 
And fill the world with never dying fame....Read more of this...
by Spenser, Edmund

The Artists

...dain,
Let solemn truth in song remain,
And let the Muses' band defend her!
In all the fullness of her splendor,
Let her survive in numbers glorious,
More dread, when veiled her charms appear,
And vengeance take, with strains victorious,
On her tormentor's ear!

The freest mother's children free,
With steadfast countenance then rise
To highest beauty's radiancy,
And every other crown despise!
The sisters who escaped you here,
Within your mother's arms ye'll meet;
What noble sp...Read more of this...
by Schiller, Friedrich von

The Break Away

...one prayed tough enough.
And yet I demand,
even in prayer,
that I am not a thief,
a mugger of need,
and that your heart survive
on its own,
belonging only to itself,
whole, entirely whole,
and workable
in its dark cavern under your ribs.

I pray it will know truth,
if truth catches in its cup
and yet I pray, as a child would,
that the surgery take.

I dream it is taking.
Next I dream the love is swallowing itself.
Next I dream the love is made of glass,
glass coming through t...Read more of this...
by Sexton, Anne

The Rape of the Lock

...And tho' she plays no more, o'erlooks the Cards.
Her Joy in gilded Chariots, when alive,
And Love of Ombre, after Death survive.
For when the Fair in all their Pride expire,
To their first Elements the Souls retire:
The Sprights of fiery Termagants in Flame
Mount up, and take a Salamander's Name.
Soft yielding Minds to Water glide away,
And sip with Nymphs, their Elemental Tea.
The graver Prude sinks downward to a Gnome,
In search of Mischief still on Earth to roam.
The light...Read more of this...
by Pope, Alexander

The Schooner Flight

...ies, when the whale-bell
sang service and, in hard pews ribbed like the whale,
proud with despair, we sang how our race
survive the sea's maw, our history, our peril,
and now I was ready for whatever death will.
But if that storm had strength, was in Cap'n face,
beard beading with spray, tears salting his eyes,
crucify to his post, that ****** hold fast
to that wheel, man, like the cross held Jesus,
and the wounds of his eyes like they crying for us,
and I feeding him white r...Read more of this...
by Walcott, Derek

The Story Of Our Lives

...given because it could not be tested,
each pain rewarded because it was unreal.
They did nothing."

7
The book will not survive.
We are the living proof of that.
It is dark outside, in the room it is darker.
I hear your breathing.
You are asking me if I am tired,
if I want to keep reading.
Yes, I am tired.
Yes, I want to keep reading.
I say yes to everything.
You cannot hear me.
"They sat beside each other on the couch.
They were the copies, the tired phantoms
of something th...Read more of this...
by Strand, Mark

Who Said It Was Simple

...who am bound by my mirror
as well as my bed 
see causes in color 
as well as sex

and sit here wondering
which me will survive 
all these liberations....Read more of this...
by Lorde, Audre

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