Famous Tread Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Quia Multum Amavi

by Oscar Wilde
 Dear Heart, I think the young impassioned priest
When first he takes from out the hidden shrine
His God imprisoned in the Eucharist,
And eats the bread, and drinks the dreadful wine,

Feels not such awful wonder as I felt
When first my smitten eyes beat full on thee,
And all night long before thy feet I knelt
Till thou wert wearied of Idolatry.

Ah! hadst thou...Read more of this...

St. Alexis Patron of Beggars

by Joyce Kilmer
 We who beg for bread as we daily tread
Country lane and city street,
Let us kneel and pray on the broad highway
To the saint with the vagrant feet.
Our altar light is a buttercup bright,
And our shrine is a bank of sod,
But still we share St. Alexis' care,
The Vagabond of God.
They gave him a home in purple Rome
And a princess for...Read more of this...

Song of the Indian Maid

by John Keats
Song of the Indian Maid 

O SORROW! 
Why dost borrow 
The natural hue of health, from vermeil lips?¡ª 
To give maiden blushes 
To the white rose bushes? 5 
Or is it thy dewy hand the daisy tips? 

O Sorrow! 
Why dost borrow 
The lustrous passion from a falcon-eye?¡ª 
To give the glow-worm light? 10 
Or, on a moonless night, 
To...Read more of this...

In a Castle

by Amy Lowell
 I
Over the yawning chimney hangs the fog. Drip 
-- hiss -- drip -- hiss --
fall the raindrops on the oaken log which burns, and steams,
and smokes the ceiling beams. Drip -- hiss -- the rain 
never stops.

The wide, state bed shivers beneath its velvet coverlet. Above, 
dim,
in the smoke, a tarnished coronet gleams dully. Overhead 
hammers and chinks
the rain....Read more of this...

My Mother Would Be a Falconress

by Robert Duncan
 My mother would be a falconress,
And I, her gay falcon treading her wrist,
would fly to bring back
from the blue of the sky to her, bleeding, a prize, 
where I dream in my little hood with many bells 
jangling when I'd turn my head.

My mother would be a falconress, 
and she sends me as far as her will goes. 
She...Read more of this...

When Death shall tread me down upon the plain,

by Omar Khayyam
When Death shall tread me down upon the plain,
And pluck my feathers, and my life-blood drain,
Then mould me to a cup, and fill with wine,
Haply its scent will make me breathe again....Read more of this...

Sonnet (Women Have Loved Before As I Love Now)

by Edna St. Vincent Millay
 Women have loved before as I love now;
At least, in lively chronicles of the past—
Of Irish waters by a Cornish prow
Or Trojan waters by a Spartan mast
Much to their cost invaded—here and there,
Hunting the amorous line, skimming the rest,
I find some woman bearing as I bear
Love like a burning city in the breast.
I think however that of all alive
I...Read more of this...

Verses on Sir Joshua Reynolds Painted Window at New College Oxford

by Thomas Warton
 Ah, stay thy treacherous hand, forbear to trace
Those faultless forms of elegance and grace!
Ah, cease to spread the bright transparent mass,
With Titian's pencil, o'er the speaking glass!
Nor steal, by strokes of art with truth combin'd,
The fond illusions of my wayward mind!
For long, enamour'd of a barbarous age,
A faithless truant to the classic page;
Long have I lov'd to catch the...Read more of this...

Think Not Not For A Moment Let Your Mind

by Edna St. Vincent Millay
 Think not, not for a moment let your mind,
Wearied with thinking, doze upon the thought
That the work's done and the long day behind,
And beauty, since 'tis paid for, can be bought.
If in the moonlight from the silent bough
Suddenly with precision speak your name
The nightingale, be not assured that now
His wing is limed and his wild virtue tame.
Beauty beyond all...Read more of this...

Love Song

by Elinor Wylie
 My own dear love, he is strong and bold 
And he cares not what comes after. 
His words ring sweet as a chime of gold, 
And his eyes are lit with laughter. 
He is jubilant as a flag unfurled -- 
Oh, a girl, she'd not forget him. 
My own dear love, he is all my world, -- 
And I...Read more of this...

The Death and Last Confession of Wandering Peter

by Hilaire Belloc
 When Peter Wanderwide was young
He wandered everywhere he would:
All that he approved was sung,
And most of what he saw was good.

When Peter Wanderwide was thrown
By Death himself beyond Auxerre,
He chanted in heroic tone
To priests and people gathered there:

"If all that I have loved and seen
Be with me on the Judgment Day,
I shall be saved the crowd between
From Satan and...Read more of this...

When

by George William Russell
 WHEN mine hour is come
Let no teardrop fall
And no darkness hover
Round me where I lie.
Let the vastness call
One who was its lover,
Let me breathe the sky.


Where the lordly light
Walks along the world,
And its silent tread
Leaves the grasses bright,
Leaves the flowers uncurled,
Let me to the dead
Breathe a gay goodnight....Read more of this...

They Who Tread the Path of Labor

by Henry Van Dyke
 They who tread the path of labor follow where My feet have trod; 
They who work without complaining, do the holy will of God; 
Nevermore thou needest seek me; I am with thee everywhere; 
Raise the stone, and thou shalt find Me, clease the wood and I am there. 

Where the many toil together, there am I among My...Read more of this...

Two Songs From A Play

by William Butler Yeats
 I

I saw a staring virgin stand
Where holy Dionysus died,
And tear the heart out of his side.
And lay the heart upon her hand
And bear that beating heart away;
Of Magnus Annus at the spring,
As though God's death were but a play.

Another Troy must rise and set,
Another lineage feed the crow,
Another Argo's painted prow
Drive to a flashier bauble yet.
The Roman Empire stood...Read more of this...

A Summer Night

by George William Russell
 HER mist of primroses within her breast
Twilight hath folded up, and o’er the west,
Seeking remoter valleys long hath gone,
Not yet hath come her sister of the dawn.
Silence and coolness now the earth enfold,
Jewels of glittering green, long mists of gold,
Hazes of nebulous silver veil the height,
And shake in tremors through the shadowy night.
Heard through the stillness, as in whispered...Read more of this...

Roses

by George Eliot
 You love the roses - so do I. I wish
The sky would rain down roses, as they rain
From off the shaken bush. Why will it not?
Then all the valley would be pink and white
And soft to tread on. They would fall as light
As feathers, smelling sweet; and it would be
Like sleeping and like waking, all at once!...Read more of this...

Westward on the High-Hilled Plains

by A E Housman
 Westward on the high-hilled plains 
Where for me the world began, 
Still, I think, in newer veins 
Frets the changeless blood of man. 

Now that other lads than I 
Strip to bathe on Severn shore, 
They, no help, for all they try, 
Tread the mill I trod before. 

There, when hueless is the west 
And the darkness hushes wide,...Read more of this...

Lochinvar

by Sir Walter Scott
Oh! young Lochinvar is come out of the west,
Through all the wide Border his steed was the best;
And save his good broadsword he weapons had none.
He rode all unarmed and he rode all alone.
So faithful in love and so dauntless in war,
There never was knight like the young Lochinvar. 

He stayed not for brake and he stopped not for stone,
He...Read more of this...

Sonnet I

by Charlotte Turner Smith
 THE partial Muse, has from my earliest hours, 
Smil'd on the rugged path I'm doom'd to tread, 
And still with sportive hand has snatch'd wild flowers, 
To weave fantastic garlands for my head: 
But far, far happier is the lot of those 
Who never learn'd her dear delusive art; 
Which, while it decks the head with many a rose,...Read more of this...

Days changed to nights, ere you were born, or I,

by Omar Khayyam
Days changed to nights, ere you were born, or I,
And on its business ever rolled the sky;
See you tread gently on this dust—perchance
'Twas once the apple of some beauty's eye....Read more of this...

Rugby Chapel

by Matthew Arnold
 Coldly, sadly descends
The autumn-evening. The field
Strewn with its dank yellow drifts
Of wither'd leaves, and the elms,
Fade into dimness apace,
Silent;--hardly a shout
From a few boys late at their play!
The lights come out in the street,
In the school-room windows;--but cold,
Solemn, unlighted, austere,
Through the gathering darkness, arise
The chapel-walls, in whose bound
Thou, my father! art laid.

There thou dost lie, in the gloom
Of the...Read more of this...

Where I have lost I softer tread

by Emily Dickinson
 Where I have lost, I softer tread --
I sow sweet flower from garden bed --
I pause above that vanished head
And mourn.

Whom I have lost, I pious guard
From accent harsh, or ruthless word --
Feeling as if their pillow heard,
Though stone!

When I have lost, you'll know by this --
A Bonnet black -- A dusk surplice --
A little tremor in my voice...Read more of this...

Sonnet LXXII

by Francesco Petrarch
SONNET LXXII. Ripensando a quel ch' oggi il ciel onora. HE WOULD DIE OF GRIEF WERE SHE NOT SOMETIMES TO CONSOLE HIM BY HER PRESENCE.  To that soft look which now adorns the skies,The graceful bending of the radiant head,[Pg 299]The face, the sweet angelic accents fled,That soothed me...Read more of this...

The Street Sounds to the Soldiers Tread

by A E Housman
 The street sounds to the soldiers' tread, 
And out we troop to see: 
A single redcoat turns his head, 
He turns and looks at me. 

My man, from sky to sky's so far, 
We never crossed before; 
Such leagues apart the world's ends are, 
We're like to meet no more; 

What thoughts at heart have you and I 
We...Read more of this...

Good-Night

by Robert Louis Stevenson
 Then the bright lamp is carried in, 
The sunless hours again begin; 
O'er all without, in field and lane, 
The haunted night returns again. 

Now we behold the embers flee 
About the firelit hearth; and see 
Our faces painted as we pass, 
Like pictures, on the window glass. 

Must we to bed indeed? Well then, 
Let us arise and...Read more of this...

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