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Famous Travails Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Levertov, Denise
...place that struggle
no human presumes to picture:
living, dying, descending to rescue the just
from shadow, were lesser travails
than this: to break
through earth and stone of the faithless world
back to the cold sepulchre, tearstained
stifling shroud; to break from them
back into breath and heartbeat, and walk
the world again, closed into days and weeks again,
wounds of His anguish open, and Spirit
streaming through every cell of flesh
so that if mortal sight could bear
to p...Read more of this...



by Lowell, Amy
...ying, forlorn, in dreary sorrow,
Wrapping the mists round her withering form,
Day sinks down; and in darkness to-morrow
Travails to birth in the womb of the storm....Read more of this...

by Bronte, Charlotte
...certain sigh. 
Oh ! to behold the truth­that sun divine, 
How doth my bosom pant, my spirit pine ! 

This day, time travails with a mighty birth, 
This day, Truth stoops from heaven and visits earth, 
Ere night descends, I shall more surely know 
What guide to follow, in what path to go; 
I wait in hope­I wait in solemn fear, 
The oracle of God­the sole­true God­to hear....Read more of this...

by Housman, A E
...long as earth. 

"Wanderers eastward, wanderers west, 
Know you why you cannot rest? 
'Tis that every mother's son 
Travails with a skeleton. 

"Lie down in the bed of dust; 
Bear the fruit that bear you must; 
Bring the eternal seed to light, 
And morn is all the same as night. 

"Rest you so from trouble sore, 
Fear the heat o' the sun no more, 
Nor the snowing winter wild, 
Now you labour not with child. 

"Empty vessel, garment cast, 
We that wore you long...Read more of this...

by Hardy, Thomas
...reathe not, hid Heart: cease silently,
And though thy birth-hour beckons thee,
Sleep the long sleep:
The Doomsters heap
Travails and teens around us here,
And Time-Wraiths turn our songsingings to fear.

Hark, how the peoples surge and sigh,
And laughters fail, and greetings die;
Hopes dwindle; yea,
Faiths waste away,
Affections and enthusiasms numb:
Thou canst not mend these things if thou dost come.

Had I the ear of wombed souls
Ere their terrestrial chart unrolls,...Read more of this...



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