Famous Acts Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Acts poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous acts poems. These examples illustrate what a famous acts poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Emile Verhaeren
To see beauty in all, is to lift our own Soul
Up to loftier heights than do chose who aspire
Through culpable suffering, vanquished desire.
Harsh Reality, dread and ineffable Whole,
Distils her red draught, enough tonic and stern
To intoxicate heads and to make the heart burn.
O clean and pure grain, whence are purged all the tares!
Clear torch, chosen out amid many whose flame;
Though...Read more of this...
by
Thomas Blackburn
'Of course,' I said, 'we cannot hope to find
What we are looking for in anyone;
They glitter, maybe, but are not the sun,
This pebble here, that bit of apple rind.
Still, it's the Alpine sun that makes them burn,
And what we're looking for, some indirect
Glint of itself each of us may reflect,
And so shed light about us as we turn.'
Sideways she...Read more of this...
by
Constantine P Cavafy
From all I've done and all I've said
let them not seek to find who I've been.
An obstacle stood and transformed
my acts and way of my life.
An obstacle stood and stopped me
many a time as I was going to speak.
My most unobserved acts,
and my writitings the most covered --
thence only they will feel me.
But mayhaps it is not worth to...Read more of this...
by
John Milton
Captain, or colonel, or knight in arms,
Whose chance on these defenceless doors may seize,
If deed of honour did thee ever please,
Guard them, and him within protect from harms.
He can requite thee, for he knows the charms
That call fame on such gentle acts as these,
And he can spread thy name o’er lands and seas,
Whatever...Read more of this...
by
Charles Bukowski
at their best, there is gentleness in Humanity.
some understanding and, at times, acts of
courage
but all in all it is a mass, a glob that doesn't
have too much.
it is like a large animal deep in sleep and
almost nothing can awaken it.
when activated it's best at brutality,
selfishness, unjust judgments, murder.
what can we do with it, this Humanity?
nothing.
avoid the...Read more of this...
by
Barry Tebb
A thousand visits to the supermarket
A thousand acts of sexual intimacy
Spread over forty years.
Your essence was quite other
A smile of absolute connection
Repeated a thousand times.
Your daily visits to the outside lavatory
While I stood talking outside,
An intimacy I have sought
With no other.
My greatest fear is that you might
Have changed beyond recognition,
Submerged in trivia and the
Minutiae of the quotidian.
At ten my...Read more of this...
by
Denise Levertov
From the tawny light
from the rainy nights
from the imagination finding
itself and more than itself
alone and more than alone
at the bottom of the well where the moon lives,
can you pull me
into December? a lowland
of space, perception of space
towering of shadows of clouds blown upon
clouds over new ground, new made
under heavy December footsteps? the only
way to live?
The flawed moon acts on...Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
When Allah mixed my clay, He knew full well
My future acts, and could each one foretell;
Without His will no act of mine was wrought;
Is it then just to punish me in hell?...Read more of this...
by
Gerard Manley Hopkins
As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame;
As tumbled over rim in roundy wells
Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell's
Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;
Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:
Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;
Selves — goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,
Crying, What I do is me:...Read more of this...
by
John Milton
Lord God that dost me save and keep,
All day to thee I cry;
And all night long, before thee weep
Before thee prostrate lie.
Into thy presence let my praier
With sighs devout ascend
And to my cries, that ceaseless are,
Thine ear with favour bend.
For cloy'd with woes and trouble store
Surcharg'd my Soul doth lie,
My life at death's uncherful dore
Unto the grave draws...Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
Thou that drinkest not wine shouldst not for this reason
blame the drunkard, for I am ready to renounce God,
myself, should He order me to renounce wine. Thou
glorifiest thyself for not drinking wine, but such glory
but ill befits those who commit acts a hundredfold more
reprehensible than drunkenness.
282...Read more of this...
by
Andrew Marvell
To the Lord Fairfax.
See how the arched Earth does here
Rise in a perfect Hemisphere!
The stiffest Compass could not strike
A line more circular and like;
Nor softest Pensel draw a Brow.
So equal as this Hill does bow.
It seems as for a Model laid,
And that the World by it was made.
Here learn ye Mountains more unjust,
Which to abrupter greatness thrust,
That do with...Read more of this...
by
Andrew Barton Paterson
Parliament's a stage,
And all the Politicians merely players!
They have their exits and entrances,
And Wise doth in his time play many parts,
His acts being seven changes.
First the Runner,
With spiked shoe he spurns the cinder track,
And just for once runs straight.
The next the Student,
Burning the midnight oil with Adam Smith
For Cobden...Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
Dame Fortune! all your acts and deeds confess
That you are foul oppression's votaress;
You cherish bad men, and annoy the good;
Is this from dotage, or sheer foolishness?...Read more of this...
by
Ben Jonson
THE TURN
Brave infant of Saguntum, clear
Thy coming forth in that great year,
When the prodigious Hannibal did crown
His rage with razing your immortal town.
Thou looking then about,
Ere thou wert half got out,
Wise child, didst hastily return,
And mad'st thy mother's womb thine urn.
How summ'd a circle didst thou leave mankind
Of deepest lore, could we the centre find!
THE COUNTER-TURN
Did wiser nature draw...Read more of this...
by
John Dryden
Consecrated to the Glorious Memory of His
Most Serene and Renowned Highness, Oliver,
Late Lord Protector of This Commonwealth, etc.
(Oliver Cromwell)
Written After the Celebration of his Funeral
1
And now 'tis time; for their officious haste,
Who would before have borne him to the sky,
Like eager Romans ere all rites were past
Did let too soon the sacred eagle fly....Read more of this...
by
Rudyard Kipling
"And Gallio cared for none of these things."-- Acts xviii. 17 "Little Foxes"-- Actions and Reactions.
All day long to the judgment-seat
The crazed Provincials drew--
All day long at their ruler's feet
Howled for the blood of the Jew.
Insurrection with one accord
Banded itself and woke,
And Paul was about to open his mouth
When Achaia's Deputy spoke--
"Whether the God descend from above
Or the Man...Read more of this...
by
Robert Burns
O LEAVE novels, 1 ye Mauchline belles,
Ye’re safer at your spinning-wheel;
Such witching books are baited hooks
For rakish rooks, like Rob Mossgiel;
Your fine Tom Jones and Grandisons,
They make your youthful fancies reel;
They heat your brains, and fire your veins,
And then you’re prey for Rob Mossgiel.
Beware a tongue that’s smoothly hung,
A heart that warmly seems to...Read more of this...
by
Percy Bysshe Shelley
"Throughout these infinite orbs of mingling light,
Of which yon earth is one, is wide diffus'd
A Spirit of activity and life,
That knows no term, cessation, or decay;
That fades not when the lamp of earthly life,
Extinguish'd in the dampness of the grave,
Awhile there slumbers, more than when the babe
In the dim newness of its being feels
The impulses of sublunary things,
And...Read more of this...
by
Isaac Watts
Children devoted to God. [For those who practise infant Baptism.]
Gen. 17:7,10; Acts 16:14,15,33.
Thus saith the mercy of the Lord,
"I'll be a God to thee;
I'll bless thy num'rous race, and they
Shall be a seed for me."
Abram believed the promised grace,
And gave his sons to God;
But water seals the blessing now,
That once was sealed with blood.
Thus Lydia sanctified her house,
When...Read more of this...
by
William Blake
In seed time learn, in harvest teach, in winter enjoy.
Drive your cart and your plow over the bones of the dead.
The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.
Prudence is a rich, ugly old maid courted by Incapacity.
He who desires but acts not, breeds pestilence.
The cut worm forgives the plow.
Dip him in the river who loves water.
A fool...Read more of this...
by
Robert Herrick
Come pity us, all ye who see
Our harps hung on the willow-tree;
Come pity us, ye passers-by,
Who see or hear poor widows' cry;
Come pity us, and bring your ears
And eyes to pity widows' tears.
CHOR. And when you are come hither,
Then we will keep
A fast, and weep
Our eyes out all together,
For Tabitha; who dead lies here,
Clean wash'd, and laid out for...Read more of this...
by
Delmore Schwartz
The riches of the poet are equal to his poetry
His power is his left hand
It is idle weak and precious
His poverty is his wealth, a wealth which may destroy him
like Midas Because it is that laziness which is a form of impatience
And this he may be destroyed by the gold of the light
which never...Read more of this...
by
Coventry Patmore
Not in the crisis of events
Of compass'd hopes, or fears fulfill'd,
Or acts of gravest consequence,
Are life's delight and depth reveal'd.
The day of days was not the day;
That went before, or was postponed;
The night Death took our lamp away
Was not the night on which we groan'd.
I drew my bride, beneath the moon,
Across my threshold; happy hour!
But, ah, the walk that...Read more of this...
by
Walt Whitman
YEARS of the modern! years of the unperform’d!
Your horizon rises—I see it parting away for more august dramas;
I see not America only—I see not only Liberty’s nation, but other nations
preparing;
I see tremendous entrances and exits—I see new combinations—I see the solidarity
of
races;
I see that force advancing with irresistible power on the world’s stage;
(Have...Read more of this...
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