Famous Upright Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Upright poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous upright poems. These examples illustrate what a famous upright poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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...some river, overhung with green,
The waving moon and trembling leaves are seen;
When freshened grass now bears itself upright,
And makes cool banks to pleasing rest invite,
Whence springs the woodbind, and the bramble-rose,
And where the sleepy cowslip sheltered grows;
Whilst now a paler hue the foxglove takes,
Yet checkers still with red the dusky brakes
When scattered glow-worms, but in twilight fine,
Shew trivial beauties watch their hour to shine;
Whilst Salisb'...Read more of this...
by
Finch, Anne Kingsmill
...t to oppress and ruin, but protect:
Since flattery, which way soever laid,
Is still a tax: on that unhappy trade.
If so upright a statesman you can find,
Whose passions bend to his unbiased mind,
Who does his arts and policies apply
To raise his country, not his family;
Nor while his pride owned avarice withstands,
Receives close bribes, from friends corrupted hands.
Is there a churchman who on God relies
Whose life, his faith and doctrine justifies
Not one blown up, with va...Read more of this...
by
Wilmot, John
...e encountered during the days of his life.
Then the good man, Hygelac’s kin, was mindful
of his evening-speech, stood upright
and he locked down on him fast, fingers bursting—
the giant monster was moving outside,
the noble man stepped with him.
The notorious thing wanted to get far away,
wherever he could, thenceward on the way,
fleeing into the fen-fastness—he knew control
of his fingers was grabbed in a grim grip—
that was the most grievous journey
the harm-seek...Read more of this...
by
Anonymous,
...therein, an innocent man,
the fiendish foe was fain to thrust
with many another. He might not so,
when I all angrily upright stood.
’Twere long to relate how that land-destroyer
I paid in kind for his cruel deeds;
yet there, my prince, this people of thine
got fame by my fighting. He fled away,
and a little space his life preserved;
but there staid behind him his stronger hand
left in Heorot; heartsick thence
on the floor of the ocean that outcast fell.
Me for thi...Read more of this...
by
Anonymous,
...wine she drank:
Her fair large eyes 'gan glitter bright,
And from the floor, whereon she sank,
The lofty lady stood upright:
She was most beautiful to see,
Like a lady of a far countree.
And thus the lofty lady spake-
'All they, who live in the upper sky,
Do love you, holy Christabel!
And you love them, and for their sake,
And for the good which me befell,
Even I in my degree will try,
Fair maiden, to requite you well.
But now unrobe yourself; for I
Must pray...Read more of this...
by
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor
...isted,
On Circe's island fell. (Who knows not Circe,
The daughter of the Sun, whose charmed cup
Whoever tasted lost his upright shape,
And downward fell into a grovelling swine?)
This Nymph, that gazed upon his clustering locks,
With ivy berries wreathed, and his blithe youth,
Had by him, ere he parted thence, a son
Much like his father, but his mother more,
Whom therefore she brought up, and Comus named:
Who, ripe and frolic of his full-grown age,
Roving the Celtic and Iberi...Read more of this...
by
Milton, John
....
Hour following hour that little band defied
The hordes of red men swarming o'er the plain,
Till scarce a score stood upright 'mid the slain.
Then in the lull of battle, creeping near,
A scout breathed low in Custer's listening ear:
'Death lies before, dear life remains behind
Mount thy sure-footed steed, and hasten with the wind.'
XXXII.
A second's silence. Custer dropped his head,
His lips slow moving as when prayers are said-
Two words he breathed-'God and Elizabet...Read more of this...
by
Wilcox, Ella Wheeler
...usion, illusion strange to tell;
for as a man who lyeth fast asleep in his bed
may dream he waketh, and that he walketh upright
pursuing some endeavour in full conscience-so 'twas
with me; but contrawise; for being in truth awake
methought I slept and dreamt; and in thatt dream methought
I was telling a dream; nor telling was I as one
who, truly awaked from a true sleep, thinketh to tell
his dream to a friend, but for his scant remembrances
findeth no token of speech-it was n...Read more of this...
by
Bridges, Robert Seymour
...ursues
Things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme.
And chiefly thou, O Spirit, that dost prefer
Before all temples th' upright heart and pure,
Instruct me, for thou know'st; thou from the first
Wast present, and, with mighty wings outspread,
Dove-like sat'st brooding on the vast Abyss,
And mad'st it pregnant: what in me is dark
Illumine, what is low raise and support;
That, to the height of this great argument,
I may assert Eternal Providence,
And justify the ways of...Read more of this...
by
Milton, John
...an sulphur and strange fire,
His own invented torments. But perhaps
The way seems difficult, and steep to scale
With upright wing against a higher foe!
Let such bethink them, if the sleepy drench
Of that forgetful lake benumb not still,
That in our porper motion we ascend
Up to our native seat; descent and fall
To us is adverse. Who but felt of late,
When the fierce foe hung on our broken rear
Insulting, and pursued us through the Deep,
With what compulsion and lab...Read more of this...
by
Milton, John
...ink not, revolted Spirit, thy shape the same,
Or undiminished brightness to be known,
As when thou stoodest in Heaven upright and pure;
That glory then, when thou no more wast good,
Departed from thee; and thou resemblest now
Thy sin and place of doom obscure and foul.
But come, for thou, be sure, shalt give account
To him who sent us, whose charge is to keep
This place inviolable, and these from harm.
So spake the Cherub; and his grave rebuke,
Severe in youthful be...Read more of this...
by
Milton, John
...to the houses of men and women, at the table, in the bed-room, everywhere,
Smartly attired, countenance smiling, form upright, death under the breast-bones, hell
under
the
skull-bones,
Under the broadcloth and gloves, under the ribbons and artificial flowers,
Keeping fair with the customs, speaking not a syllable of itself,
Speaking of anything else, but never of itself.
16
Allons! through struggles and wars!
The goal that was named cannot be countermanded.
Have t...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...brow,
And the majestic, noble stranger, thought,
From out the wondering brain sprang boldly now.
Man in his glory stood upright,
And showed the stars his kingly face;
His speaking glance the sun's bright light
Blessed in the realms sublime of space.
Upon the cheek now bloomed the smile,
The voice's soulful harmony
Expanded into song the while,
And feeling swam in the moist eye;
And from the mouth, with spirit teeming o'er,
Jest, sweetly linked with grace, began to pour.
Sunk...Read more of this...
by
Schiller, Friedrich von
...ead upon my chest,
I give old purple parson best.
For while the Plough tips round the Pole
The trained mind outs the upright soul,
As Jesus said the trained mind might,
Being wiser than the sons of light,
But trained men's minds are spread so thin
They let all sorts of darkness in;
Whatever light man finds they doubt it
They love, not light, but talk about it.
But parson'd proved to people's eyes
That I was drunk, and he was wise;
And people grinned and women titt...Read more of this...
by
Masefield, John
...from the boat I leapt, and up the stairs.
There drew my sword. With sudden-flaring manes
Those two great beasts rose upright like a man,
Each gript a shoulder, and I stood between;
And, when I would have smitten them, heard a voice,
`Doubt not, go forward; if thou doubt, the beasts
Will tear thee piecemeal.' Then with violence
The sword was dashed from out my hand, and fell.
And up into the sounding hall I past;
But nothing in the sounding hall I saw,
No bench nor ...Read more of this...
by
Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...adlong force, Beneath the moon, yet shining fair, As careless as if nothing were, Sits upright on a feeding horse? Unto his horse, that's feeding free, He seems, I think, the rein to give; Of moon or stars he takes no heed; Of such we in romances read, —Tis Johnny! Johnny! as I live. And that's the very pony too. Where is she, where is Betty Foy? ...Read more of this...
by
Wordsworth, William
...im thought how that the winged god Mercury
Before him stood, and bade him to be merry.
His sleepy yard* in hand he bare upright; *rod
A hat he wore upon his haires bright.
Arrayed was this god (as he took keep*) *notice
As he was when that Argus took his sleep;
And said him thus: "To Athens shalt thou wend*; *go
There is thee shapen* of thy woe an end." *fixed, prepared
And with that word Arcite woke and start.
"Now truely how sore that e'er me smart,"
Quoth he, "to ...Read more of this...
by
Chaucer, Geoffrey
...the* *mead
Or hoard of apples, laid in hay or heath.
Wincing* she was as is a jolly colt, *skittish
Long as a mast, and upright as a bolt.
A brooch she bare upon her low collere,
As broad as is the boss of a bucklere.
Her shoon were laced on her legges high;
She was a primerole,* a piggesnie , *primrose
For any lord t' have ligging* in his bed, *lying
Or yet for any good yeoman to wed.
Now, sir, and eft* sir, so befell the case, *again
That on a day this Hendy Nicholas
F...Read more of this...
by
Chaucer, Geoffrey
...he Dominican Republic.
Its coarse pages were black with the usual
symbols of prophecy, in excited Spanish:
an open palm upright, sectioned and numbered
like a butcher chart, delivered the future.
One night, in a fever, radiantly ill,
she say, "Bring me the book, the end has come."
She said, "I dreamt of whales and a storm,"
but for that dream, the book had no answer.
A next night I dreamed of three old women
featureless as silkworms, stitching my fate,
and I scream at them to...Read more of this...
by
Walcott, Derek
...My dame taughte me that subtilty);
And eke I said, I mette* of him all night, *dreamed
He would have slain me, as I lay upright,
And all my bed was full of very blood;
But yet I hop'd that he should do me good;
For blood betoken'd gold, as me was taught.
And all was false, I dream'd of him right naught,
But as I follow'd aye my dame's lore,
As well of that as of other things more.] 25
But now, sir, let me see, what shall I sayn?
Aha! by God, I have my tale again.
When that my...Read more of this...
by
Chaucer, Geoffrey
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