Famous Take The Lead Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Sonnet LXXIII

by Francesco Petrarch
SONNET LXXIII. Fu forse un tempo dolce cosa amore. HE COMPLAINS OF HIS SUFFERINGS, WHICH ADMIT OF NO RELIEF.  Love, haply, was erewhile a sweet relief;I scarce know when; but now it bitter growsBeyond all else. Who learns from life well knows,As I have learnt to know from heavy grief;Read more of this...

To Contemplation

by Robert Southey
 Faint gleams the evening radiance thro' the sky,
The sober twilight dimly darkens round;
In short quick circles the shrill bat flits by,
And the slow vapour curls along the ground.

Now the pleas'd eye from yon lone cottage sees
On the green mead the smoke long-shadowing play;
The Red-breast on the blossom'd spray
Warbles wild her latest lay,
And sleeps along the dale the silent breeze.
Calm...Read more of this...

Curriculum Vitae

by Anthony Hecht
 As though it were reluctant to be day,
.......Morning deploys a scale
.......Of rarities in gray,
And winter settles down in its chain-mail,

Victorious over legions of gold and red.
......The smokey souls of stones,
......Blunt pencillings of lead,
Pare down the world to glintless monotones

Of graveyard weather, vapors of a fen
.......We reckon through our pores.
.......Save for the garbage men,
Our children are the first ones out...Read more of this...

Sonnet XXXVI: Lead Me Sicilian Maids

by Mary Darby Robinson
 Lead me, Sicilian Maids, to haunted bow'rs,
While yon pale moon displays her faintest beams
O'er blasted woodlands, and enchanted streams,
Whose banks infect the breeze with pois'nous flow'rs.
Ah! lead me, where the barren mountain tow'rs,
Where no sounds echo, but the night-owl's screams,
Where some lone spirit of the desart gleams,
And lurid horrors wing the fateful hours!
Now goaded frenzy grasps my shrinking brain,
Her...Read more of this...

Sail On Sail On

by Thomas Moore
 Sail on, sail on, thou fearless bark -- 
Where'er blows the welcome wind, 
It cannot lead to scenes more dark, 
More sad than those we leave behind. 
Each wave that passes seems to say, 
"Though death beneath our smile may be, 
Less cold we are, less false than they, 
Whose smiling wreck'd thy hopes and thee." 

Sail on, sail...Read more of this...

Lead Soldiers

by Amy Lowell
 The nursery fire burns brightly, crackling in cheerful 
little explosions
and trails of sparks up the back of the chimney. Miniature 
rockets
peppering the black bricks with golden stars, as though a gala
flamed a night of victorious wars.
The nodding mandarin on the bookcase moves his 
head forward and back, slowly,
and looks into the air with his blue-green eyes. He stares 
into...Read more of this...

The Hunters in the Snow

by William Carlos (WCW) Williams
 1962 

The over-all picture is winter 
icy mountains 
in the background the return 

from the hunt it is toward evening 
from the left 
sturdy hunters lead in 

their pack the inn-sign 
hanging from 
a broken hinge is a stag a crucifix 

between his antlers the cold 
inn yard 
is deserted but for a huge bonfire 

that flares wind-driven it...Read more of this...

Young Munro the Sailor

by William Topaz McGonagall
 'Twas on a sunny morning in the month of May,
I met a pretty damsel on the banks o' the Tay;
I said, My charming fair one, come tell to me I pray,
Why do you walk alone on the banks o' the Tay. 

She said, Kind sir, pity me, for I am in great woe
About my young sailor lad, whose name...Read more of this...

Stout Marches Lead To Certain Ends

by Robert Louis Stevenson
 STOUT marches lead to certain ends,
We seek no Holy Grail, my friends -
That dawn should find us every day
Some fraction farther on our way.

The dumb lands sleep from east to west,
They stretch and turn and take their rest.
The cock has crown in the steading-yard,
But priest and people slumber hard.

We two are early forth, and hear
The nations snoring far and...Read more of this...

Monody to the Memory of Chatterton

by Mary Darby Robinson
 Chill penury repress'd his noble rage, 
And froze the genial current of his soul.
GRAY. 


IF GRIEF can deprecate the wrath of Heaven, 
Or human frailty hope to be forgiven ! 
Ere now thy sainted spirit bends its way 
To the bland regions of celestial day; 
Ere now, thy soul, immers'd in purest air 
Smiles at the triumphs of supreme...Read more of this...

Swinging the Lead

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 Said the soldier to the Surgeon, "I've got noises in me head 
And a kind o' filled up feeling after every time I'm fed; 
I can sleep all night on picket, but I can't sleep in my bed". 
And the Surgeon said, 
"That's Lead!" 
Said the soldier to the Surgeon, "Do you think they'll send me back? 
For I...Read more of this...

Advice To An Old Man of Sixty Three About To Marry a Girle of Sixteen

by Thomas Flatman
 Now fie upon him! what is Man,
Whose life at best is but a span?
When to an inch it dwindles down,
Ice in his bones, snow on his Crown,
That he within his crazy brain,
Kind thoughts of Love should entertain,
That he, when Harvest comes should plow
And when 'tis time to reap, go sowe,
Who in imagination only strong,
Tho' twice a Child, can never...Read more of this...

Broken Love

by William Blake
 MY Spectre around me night and day 
Like a wild beast guards my way; 
My Emanation far within 
Weeps incessantly for my sin. 

‘A fathomless and boundless deep, 
There we wander, there we weep; 
On the hungry craving wind 
My Spectre follows thee behind. 

‘He scents thy footsteps in the snow 
Wheresoever thou dost go, 
Thro’ the wintry hail...Read more of this...

The Ballad Of Hank The Finn

by Robert William Service
 Now Fireman Flynn met Hank the Finn where lights of Lust-land glow;
"Let's leave," says he, "the lousy sea, and give the land a show.
I'm fed up to the molar mark with wallopin' the brine;
I feel the bloody barnacles a-carkin' on me spine.
Let's hit the hard-boiled North a crack, where creeks are paved with gold."
"You count me in," says Hank...Read more of this...

I felt a Funeral in my Brain

by Emily Dickinson
I felt a Funeral, in my Brain,
And Mourners to and fro
Kept treading -- treading -- till it seemed
That Sense was breaking through --

And when they all were seated,
A Service, like a Drum --
Kept beating -- beating -- till I thought
My Mind was going numb --

And then I heard them lift a Box
And creak across my Soul
With those same Boots of...Read more of this...

The Cymbaleer's Bride

by Victor Hugo
 ("Monseigneur le Duc de Bretagne.") 
 
 {VI., October, 1825.} 


 My lord the Duke of Brittany 
 Has summoned his barons bold— 
 Their names make a fearful litany! 
 Among them you will not meet any 
 But men of giant mould. 
 
 Proud earls, who dwell in donjon keep, 
 And steel-clad knight and peer,...Read more of this...

The House Of Dust: Part 03: 01: As evening falls

by Conrad Aiken
 As evening falls,
And the yellow lights leap one by one
Along high walls;
And along black streets that glisten as if with rain,
The muted city seems
Like one in a restless sleep, who lies and dreams
Of vague desires, and memories, and half-forgotten pain . . .
Along dark veins, like lights the quick dreams run,
Flash, are extinguished, flash again,
To mingle and glow at...Read more of this...

You said to me, one evening

by Emile Verhaeren
You said to me, one evening, words so beautiful that doubtless the flowers that leaned towards us suddenly loved us, and one among them, in order to touch us both, fell upon our knees.
You spoke to me of a time nigh at hand when our years like over-ripe fruit would be ready for the gathering, how the knell of destiny...Read more of this...

All Roads That Lead To God Are Good

by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
 All roads that lead to God are good.
What matters it, your faith, or mine?
Both centre at the goal divine
Of love’s eternal Brotherhood.

The kindly life in house or street –
The life of prayer and mystic rite –
The student’s search for truth and light –
These paths at one great Junction meet.

Before the oldest book was writ,
Full many a prehistoric soul
Arrived at...Read more of this...

Alas! when the lead of illness flowed

by Emile Verhaeren
Alas! when the lead of illness flowed in my benumbed veins with my heavy, sluggish blood, with my blood day by day heavier and more sluggish;
When my eyes, my poor eyes, followed peevishly on my long, pale hands the fatal marks of insidious malady;
When my skin dried up like bark, and I had no longer even strength enough to press...Read more of this...

Dream Song 41: If we sang in the wood (and Death is a German expert)

by John Berryman
 If we sang in the wood (and Death is a German expert)
while snows flies, chill, after so frequent knew
so many all nothing,
for lead & fire, it's not we would assert
particulars, but animal; cats mew,
horses scream, man sing.

Or: men pslam. Man palms his ears and moans.
Death is a German expert. Scrambling, sitting,
spattering, we hurry.
I try to. Odd & trivial, atones
somehow...Read more of this...

With the Cattle

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 The drought is down on field and flock, 
The river-bed is dry; 
And we must shift the starving stock 
Before the cattle die. 
We muster up with weary hearts 
At breaking of the day, 
And turn our heads to foreign parts, 
To take the stock away. 
And it’s hunt ‘em up and dog ‘em, 
And it’s get the whip...Read more of this...

A Cap of Lead across the sky

by Emily Dickinson
 A Cap of Lead across the sky
Was tight and surly drawn
We could not find the mighty Face
The Figure was withdrawn --

A Chill came up as from a shaft
Our noon became a well
A Thunder storm combines the charms
Of Winter and of Hell....Read more of this...

To Mr. Cyriack Skinner Upon His Blindness

by John Milton
 Cyriack, this three years day these eys, though clear
To outward view, of blemish or of spot;
Bereft of light thir seeing have forgot,
Nor to thir idle orbs doth sight appear
Of Sun or Moon or Starre throughout the year,
Or man or woman. Yet I argue not
Against heavns hand or will, nor bate a jot
Of heart or hope; but still bear vp...Read more of this...

Psalm 119 part 4

by Isaac Watts
 Instruction from scripture.

ver. 9 

How shall the young secure their hearts,
And guard their lives from sin?
Thy word the choicest rules imparts
To keep the conscience clean.

ver. 130 

When once it enters to the mind,
It spreads such light abroad,
The meanest souls instruction find,
And raise their thoughts to God.

ver. 105 

'Tis like the sun, a heav'nly light,
That guides us all the day;
And...Read more of this...

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