Famous Vitality Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Vitality poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous vitality poems. These examples illustrate what a famous vitality poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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...ishes. Dawn's at hand,
And you're an exile in a lonely land.
But what were magic if it could not give
My thought enough vitality to live?
Do not then dream this night has been a loss!
All night I have hung, a god, upon the cross;
All night I have offered incense at the shrine;
All night you have been unutterably mine,
Miner in the memory of the first wild hour
When my rough grasp tore the unwilling flower
From your closed garden, mine in every mood,
In every tense, in every a...Read more of this...
by
Crowley, Aleister
...low is a Life blow to Some
Who till they died, did not alive become --
Who had they lived, had died but when
They died, Vitality begun....Read more of this...
by
Dickinson, Emily
...sh --
If as the Days resume
The wilted countenance
Cannot correct the crease
Or counteract the stain --
Presumption is Vitality
Was somewhere put in twain....Read more of this...
by
Dickinson, Emily
...havior, or what not, is of account, unless it compare with
the
amplitude of the earth,
Unless it face the exactness, vitality, impartiality, rectitude of the earth.
13
I swear I begin to see love with sweeter spasms than that which responds love!
It is that which contains itself—which never invites, and never refuses.
I swear I begin to see little or nothing in audible words!
I swear I think all merges toward the presentation of the unspoken meanings of the earth!
To...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...und a caterpillar dying in the dirt, greedy ants crawling over it.
I'm always moved by disaster, always eager to oppose vitality
But timid also, quick to shut my eyes.
Whereas my friend was able to watch, to let events play out
According to nature. For my sake she intervened
Brushing a few ants off the torn thing, and set it down
Across the road.
My friend says I shut my eyes to God, that nothing else explains
My aversion to reality. She says I'm like the child who
Buries he...Read more of this...
by
Donne, John
...und a caterpillar dying in the dirt, greedy ants crawling over it.
I'm always moved by disaster, always eager to oppose vitality
But timid also, quick to shut my eyes.
Whereas my friend was able to watch, to let events play out
According to nature. For my sake she intervened
Brushing a few ants off the torn thing, and set it down
Across the road.
My friend says I shut my eyes to God, that nothing else explains
My aversion to reality. She says I'm like the child who
Buries he...Read more of this...
by
Gluck, Louise
...et
suffers my eyes
to be filled with vermilion tears
2
how much greater danger
from occasion and pain is my vitality
yielding like a tree on fire!--
for every day is another view
of the tentative past
grown secure in its foundry of shimmering
that's not even historical;it's just me.
3
And the other half
of me where I master the root
of my every idiosyncrasy
and fit my ribs like a glove
4
is that me who accepts betrayal
in the abstract as if...Read more of this...
by
O'Hara, Frank
...the gibbets—those hearts pierc’d by the gray lead,
Cold and motionless as they seem, live elsewhere with unslaughter’d vitality.
They live in other young men, O kings!
They live in brothers, again ready to defy you!
They were purified by death—they were taught and exalted.
Not a grave of the murder’d for freedom, but grows seed for freedom, in its turn to
bear
seed,
Which the winds carry afar and re-sow, and the rains and the snows nourish.
Not a disembodied spirit...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...son, Earth is short --
And Anguish -- absolute --
And many hurt,
But, what of that?
I reason, we could die --
The best Vitality
Cannot excel Decay,
But, what of that?
I reason, that in Heaven --
Somehow, it will be even --
Some new Equation, given --
But, what of that?...Read more of this...
by
Dickinson, Emily
...opped my Brain -- My Soul is numb --
The Veins that used to run
Stop palsied -- 'tis Paralysis
Done perfecter on stone
Vitality is Carved and cool.
My nerve in Marble lies --
A Breathing Woman
Yesterday -- Endowed with Paradise.
Not dumb -- I had a sort that moved --
A Sense that smote and stirred --
Instincts for Dance -- a caper part --
An Aptitude for Bird --
Who wrought Carrara in me
And chiselled all my tune
Were it a Witchcraft -- were it Death --
I've still a chance...Read more of this...
by
Dickinson, Emily
...nce
Has human nature been.
Not deeming of his dread abode
Till laboring to flee
A grasp on comprehension laid
Detained vitality.
Returning is a different route
The Spirit could not show
For breathing is the only work
To be enacted now.
"Am not consumed," old Moses wrote,
"Yet saw him face to face" --
That very physiognomy
I am convinced was this....Read more of this...
by
Dickinson, Emily
...n THE STUDIO
We are in search of
the force that is direct pure sober
UNIQUE we are in search of NOTHING
we affirm the VITALITY of every IN-
STANT
the anti-philosophy of spontaneous acrobatics
At this moment I hate the man who whispers
before the intermission-eau de cologne-
sour theatre. THE JOYOUS WIND
If each man says the opposite it is because he is
right
Get ready for the action of the geyser of our blood
-submarine formation of transchromatic aero-
planes, cellula...Read more of this...
by
Tzara, Tristan
...rk
My own had just begun.
I strove to weary Brain and Bone --
To harass to fatigue
The glittering Retinue of nerves --
Vitality to clog
To some dull comfort Those obtain
Who put a Head away
They knew the Hair to --
And forget the color of the Day --
Affliction would not be appeased --
The Darkness braced as firm
As all my stratagem had been
The Midnight to confirm --
No Drug for Consciousness -- can be --
Alternative to die
Is Nature's only Pharmacy
For Being's Malady --...Read more of this...
by
Dickinson, Emily
...Struck, was I, not yet by Lightning --
Lightning -- lets away
Power to perceive His Process
With Vitality.
Maimed -- was I -- yet not by Venture --
Stone of stolid Boy --
Nor a Sportsman's Peradventure --
Who mine Enemy?
Robbed -- was I -- intact to Bandit --
All my Mansion torn --
Sun -- withdrawn to Recognition --
Furthest shining -- done --
Yet was not the foe -- of any --
Not the smallest Bird
In the nearest Orchard dwelling
Be of Me -- afraid.
...Read more of this...
by
Dickinson, Emily
...e wings all right."
Then tenderly from off its back
He raised, despite its feline fears,
Appendages that seemed to lack
Vitality - like rabbit's ears.
And then the vision that I had
Of Tabbie soaring through the night,
Quick vanished, and I felt so sad
For that poor pussy's piteous plight.
For though frustration has it stings,
Its mockeries in Hope's despite,
The hell of hells is to have wings
Yet be denied the bliss of flight....Read more of this...
by
Service, Robert William
...See the flying French depart
Like the bees of Bonaparte,
Swarming up with a most venomous vitality.
Over Baden and Bavaria,
And Brighton and Bulgaria,
Thus violating Belgian neutrality.
And the injured Prussian may
Not unreasonably say
"Why, it cannot be so small a nationality
Since Brixton and Batavia,
Bolivia and Belgravia,
Are bursting with the Belgian neutrality."
By pure Alliteration
You may trace this curious nation,
And respect this some...Read more of this...
by
Chesterton, G K
...planation.
37. Gay girl: As applied to a young woman of light manners,
this euphemistic phrase has enjoyed a wonderful vitality.
38. Viretote: Urry reads "meritote," and explains it from
Spelman as a game in which children made themselves giddy by
whirling on ropes. In French, "virer" means to turn; and the
explanation may, therefore, suit either reading. In modern slang
parlance, Gerveis would probably have said, "on the rampage,"
or "on the swing" -- not very far from Spe...Read more of this...
by
Chaucer, Geoffrey
...ssed -- by power
Of Opposite -- to balance Odd --
If White -- a Red -- must be!
Paralysis -- our Primer -- dumb --
Unto Vitality!...Read more of this...
by
Dickinson, Emily
...lying there --
And he will tell you -- skill is late --
A Mightier than He --
Has ministered before Him --
There's no Vitality....Read more of this...
by
Dickinson, Emily
...ble are the Loved to die
For Love is Immortality,
Nay, it is Deity --
Unable they that love -- to die
For Love reforms Vitality
Into Divinity....Read more of this...
by
Dickinson, Emily
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