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Famous Withdrawn Poems by Famous Poets

These are examples of famous Withdrawn poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous withdrawn poems. These examples illustrate what a famous withdrawn poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).

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by Smart, Christopher
...ted wild, 
 And all the bloomy beds. 

 LXXIX 
Beauteous the moon full on the lawn; 
And beauteous, when the veil's withdrawn, 
 The virgin to her spouse: 
Beauteous the temple, deck'd and fill'd, 
When to the heav'n of heav'ns they build 
 Their heart-directed vows. 

 LXXX 
Beauteous, yea beauteous more than these, 
The shepherd king upon his knees, 
 For his momentous trust; 
With wish of infinite conceit, 
For man, beast, mute, the small and great, 
 And prostrate...Read more of this...



by Dryden, John
...rs his steady skill commend:
They, like th'unequal ruler of the day,
Misguide the seasons and mistake the way;
While he withdrawn at their mad labour smiles,
And safe enjoys the sabbath of his toils.

These were the chief; a small but faithful band
Of worthies, in the breach who dar'd to stand,
And tempt th'united fury of the land.
With grief they view'd such powerful engines bent,
To batter down the lawful government.
A numerous faction with pretended frights,
In...Read more of this...

by Shelley, Percy Bysshe
...elt and known
In darkness and in light, from herb and stone,
Spreading itself where'er that Power may move
Which has withdrawn his being to its own;
Which wields the world with never-wearied love,
Sustains it from beneath, and kindles it above.

He is a portion of the loveliness
Which once he made more lovely: he doth bear
His part, while the one Spirit's plastic stress
Sweeps through the dull dense world, compelling there
All new successions to the forms they ...Read more of this...

by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
...which recovers
My guts the strings of my eyes and the indigestible portions
Which the leopards reject. The Lady is withdrawn
In a white gown, to contemplation, in a white gown.
Let the whiteness of bones atone to forgetfulness.
There is no life in them. As I am forgotten
And would be forgotten, so I would forget
Thus devoted, concentrated in purpose. And God said
Prophesy to the wind, to the wind only for only
The wind will listen. And the bones sang ...Read more of this...

by Wilde, Oscar
...ning east was tremulous
With the faint fluttering wings of flying dawn,
Ere from the silent sombre shrine his lover had withdrawn.

Down the steep rock with hurried feet and fast
Clomb the brave lad, and reached the cave of Pan,
And heard the goat-foot snoring as he passed,
And leapt upon a grassy knoll and ran
Like a young fawn unto an olive wood
Which in a shady valley by the well-built city stood;

And sought a little stream, which well he knew,
For oftentimes with boy...Read more of this...



by Frost, Robert
...(A Christmas Circular Letter)


THE CITY had withdrawn into itself
And left at last the country to the country;
When between whirls of snow not come to lie
And whirls of foliage not yet laid, there drove
A stranger to our yard, who looked the city,
Yet did in country fashion in that there
He sat and waited till he drew us out
A-buttoning coats to ask him who he was.
He proved to be the city come ag...Read more of this...

by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...the porch were the priest and the notary seated;
There good Benedict sat, and sturdy Basil the blacksmith.
Not far withdrawn from these, by the cider-press and the beehives,
Michael the fiddler was placed, with the gayest of hearts and of waistcoats.
Shadow and light from the leaves alternately played on his snow-white
Hair, as it waved in the wind; and the jolly face of the fiddler
Glowed like a living coal when the ashes are blown from the embers.
Gayly the old...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...hildren; 
The face of an amour, the face of veneration; 
The face as of a dream, the face of an immobile rock;
The face withdrawn of its good and bad, a castrated face; 
A wild hawk, his wings clipp’d by the clipper; 
A stallion that yielded at last to the thongs and knife of the gelder. 

Sauntering the pavement, thus, or crossing the ceaseless ferry, faces, and faces, and
 faces: 
I see them, and complain not, and am content with all.

2
Do you suppose I could be co...Read more of this...

by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
...saw the harbour
Receding, or those who will disembark.
Here between the hither and the farther shore
While time is withdrawn, consider the future
And the past with an equal mind.
At the moment which is not of action or inaction
You can receive this: "on whatever sphere of being
The mind of a man may be intent
At the time of death"—that is the one action
(And the time of death is every moment)
Which shall fructify in the lives of others:
And do not think of the fruit ...Read more of this...

by Whittier, John Greenleaf
...So fallen! so lost! the light withdrawn
     Which once he wore!
The glory from his gray hairs gone
     Forevermore!

Revile him not—the Tempter hath
     A snare for all;
And pitying tears, not scorn and wrath,
     Befit his fall!

Oh! dumb be passion's stormy rage,
     When he who might
Have lighted up and led his age,
     Falls back in night.

Scorn! would the a...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...of the page; 
For hours on Lara he would fix his glance, 
As all-forgotten in that watchful trance; 
And from his chief withdrawn, he wander'd lone, 
Brief were his answers, and his questions none; 
His walk the wood, his sport some foreign book; 
His resting-place the bank that curbs the brook; 
He seem'd, like him he served, to live apart 
From all that lures the eye, and fills the heart; 
To know no brotherhood; and take from earth 
No gift beyond that bitter boon — our bi...Read more of this...

by Angelou, Maya
...my cheek. On the
occasion, you press
above me, glowing, spouting
readiness, mystery rapes
my reason

When you have withdrawn
your self and the magic, when
only the smell of your
love lingers between
my breasts, then, only
then, can I greedily consume
your presence....Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
..., all
 other
 progress is the needed emblem and sustenance. 

Forever alive, forever forward,
Stately, solemn, sad, withdrawn, baffled, mad, turbulent, feeble, dissatisfied, 
Desperate, proud, fond, sick, accepted by men, rejected by men, 
They go! they go! I know that they go, but I know not where they go; 
But I know that they go toward the best—toward something great. 

15
Allons! whoever you are! come forth!
You must not stay sleeping and dallying there in the hou...Read more of this...

by Lowell, Amy
...br>
He practised every morning and her heart
Followed his bow. But often she would sit,
While he was playing, quite withdrawn apart,
Absently fingering and touching it,
The locket, which now seemed to her a bit
Of some gone youth. His music drew her tears,
And through the notes he played, her dreading ears
Heard Heinrich's voice, saying he had not changed;
Beer merchants had no ecstasies to take
Their minds off love. So far her thoughts had ranged
Away from her st...Read more of this...

by Goldsmith, Oliver
...t all these charms are fled.

Sweet smiling village, loveliest of the lawn,
Thy sports are fled, and all thy charms withdrawn;
Amidst thy bowers the tyrant's hand is seen,
And desolation saddens all thy green:
One only master grasps the whole domain,
And half a tillage stints thy smiling plain:
No more thy glassy brook reflects the day,
But choked with sedges works its weedy way.
Along thy glades, a solitary guest,
The hollow-sounding bittern guards its nest;
Amidst t...Read more of this...

by Nwakanma, Obi
...elievers - down the road to bliss 
Down to the red house, uncertain 
like a beggar's bowl hanging unto the cliff 
of withdrawn pledges, where the well is 
deepest... 

I have dared to live 
beneath the great untamed. 

To every good, to every 
flicker of stars along the pine 
shadows; 
To every tussle with lucid dusk, 
To every moonlit pledge, to 
every turn made to outleap 
silvery pollen, 

I have desired to listen - to listen -
to the ripe...Read more of this...

by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...th wings? 
And o'er his head the Holy Vessel hung 
Redder than any rose, a joy to me, 
For now I knew the veil had been withdrawn. 
Then in a moment when they blazed again 
Opening, I saw the least of little stars 
Down on the waste, and straight beyond the star 
I saw the spiritual city and all her spires 
And gateways in a glory like one pearl-- 
No larger, though the goal of all the saints-- 
Strike from the sea; and from the star there shot 
A rose-red sparkle to the ...Read more of this...

by Scott, Sir Walter
...bleeding lay.
     XXVII.

     She sat beneath the birchen tree,
     Her elbow resting on her knee;
     She had withdrawn the fatal shaft,
     And gazed on it, and feebly laughed;
     Her wreath of broom and feathers gray,
     Daggled with blood, beside her lay.
     The Knight to stanch the life-stream tried,—
     'Stranger, it is in vain!' she cried.
     'This hour of death has given me more
     Of reason's power than years before;
     For, as these e...Read more of this...

by Petrarch, Francesco
...N class=i0>The sweet spring dew which harbingers the dawn,When slumber's veil and visions are withdrawn;When, crown'd with oriental gems, and brightAs newborn day, upon my tranced sightMy Lady lighted from her starry sphere:With kind speech and soft sigh, her hand so dear.So long desired in vain, to mine she press'd,Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...st year of freedom's second dawn 
Died George the Third; although no tyrant, one 
Who shielded tyrants, till each sense withdrawn 
Left him nor mental nor external sun: 
A better farmer ne'er brush'd dew from lawn, 
A worse king never left a realm undone! 
He died — but left his subjects still behind, 
One half as mad — and t'other no less blind. 

IX

He died! his death made no great stir on earth: 
His burial made some pomp; there was profusion 
Of velvet, gilding, bras...Read more of this...

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