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Famous Way Of Life Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Southey, Robert
...And wouldst thou seek the low abode
Where PEACE delights to dwell?
Pause Traveller on thy way of life!
With many a snare and peril rife
Is that long labyrinth of road:
Dark is the vale of years before
Pause Traveller on thy way!
Nor dare the dangerous path explore
Till old EXPERIENCE comes to lend his leading ray.

Not he who comes with lanthorn light
Shall guide thy groping pace aright
With faltering feet and slow;
No! let him rear the torch...Read more of this...



by Browning, Robert
...
When, through his journey, was the fool at ease? 
I'm at ease now, friend; worldly in this world, 
I take and like its way of life; I think 
My brothers, who administer the means, 
Live better for my comfort--that's good too; 
And God, if he pronounce upon such life, 
Approves my service, which is better still. 
If he keep silence,--why, for you or me 
Or that brute beast pulled-up in to-day's "Times," 
What odds is't, save to ourselves, what life we lead? 

You meet me ...Read more of this...

by Hugo, Victor
...
 When the poor gleaner passed, with kindly look, 
 Quoth he, "Of purpose let some handfuls fall." 
 
 He walked his way of life straight on and plain, 
 With justice clothed, like linen white and clean, 
 And ever rustling towards the poor, I ween, 
 Like public fountains ran his sacks of grain. 
 
 Good master, faithful friend, in his estate 
 Frugal yet generous, beyond the youth 
 He won regard of woman, for in sooth 
 The young man may be fair—the old man's gr...Read more of this...

by Southey, Robert
...ad,
And calls to mind the comforts of his home,
And sighs that he has left them, and resolves
To stray no more: I on my way of life
Muse thus PENATES, and with firmest faith
Devote myself to you. I will not quit
To mingle with the mob your calm abodes,
Where, by the evening hearth CONTENTMENT sits
And hears the cricket chirp; where LOVE delights
To dwell, and on your altars lays his torch
That burns with no extinguishable flame.

Hear me ye POWERS benignant! there is ...Read more of this...

by Betjeman, John
...r voice is as soft and deep
As the Christ Church tenor bell.

But why do I call her "the Mistress"
Who know not her way of life?
Because she has more of a cared-for air
Than many a legal wife.

How elegantly she swings along
In the vapoury incense veil;
The angel choir must pause in song
When she kneels at the altar rail.

The parson said that we shouldn't stare
Around when we come to church,
Or the Unknown God we are seeking
May forever elude our search.

But...Read more of this...



by McKay, Claude
...d my knee. 
Something in me is lost, forever lost, 
Some vital thing has gone out of my heart, 
And I must walk the way of life a ghost 
Among the sons of earth, a thing apart; 
For I was born, far from my native clime, 
Under the white man's menace, out of time....Read more of this...

by Cavafy, Constantine P
...low they'd fallen now, what they'd become,
living and speaking like barbarians,
cut off so disastrously from the Greek way of life....Read more of this...

by Chatterton, Thomas
...Says Tom to Jack, 'tis very odd, 
These representatives of God, 
In color, way of life and evil, 
Should be so very like the devil. 
Jack, understand, was one of those, 
Who mould religion in the rose, 
A red hot methodist; his face 
Was full of puritanic grace, 
His loose lank hair, his slow gradation, 
Declared a late regeneration; 
Among the daughters long renown'd, 
For standing upon holy ground; 
Never in carnal battle bea...Read more of this...

by Arnold, Matthew
...more.

But once, years after, in the country lanes,
Two scholars, whom at college erst he knew,
Met him, and of his way of life enquired;
Whereat he answered, that the gypsy-crew,
His mates, had arts to rule as they desired
The workings of men's brains,
And they can bind them to what thoughts they will.
"And I," he said, "the secret of their art,
When fully learned, will to the world impart;

But it needs heaven-sent moments for this skill."

This said, he left th...Read more of this...

by Tebb, Barry
...and the crowd

Hold me, my camera eye moving in search, in search…

What I’m searching for I don’t know

Searching’s a way of life that has to grow

"All of us who are patients here are searchers after truth"

My son kept saying, his legs shaking from the side effects

Of God-knows- what, pacing the tiny ward kitchen cum smoking room,

Denouncing his ‘illegal section’ and ‘poisonous medication’

To an audience of one.

The prospect of TV, Seroxat and Diazepan fazed me:

...Read more of this...

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