Famous Affections Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Affections poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous affections poems. These examples illustrate what a famous affections poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Anne Bronte
While on my lonely couch I lie,
I seldom feel myself alone,
For fancy fills my dreaming eye
With scenes and pleasures of its own.
Then I may cherish at my breast
An infant's form beloved and fair,
May smile and soothe it into rest
With all a Mother's fondest care.
How sweet to feel its helpless form
Depending thus on me alone!
And while I hold...Read more of this...
by
Edmund Spenser
MOre then most faire, full of the liuing fire,
Kindled aboue vnto the maker neere:
no eies buy ioyes, in which al powers conspire,
that to the world naught else be counted deare.
Thrugh your bright beams doth not ye blinded guest,
shoot out his darts to base affections wound:
but Angels come to lead fraile mindes to rest
in chast desires on heauenly beauty bound.
You...Read more of this...
by
William Strode
Love is a game at tables where the dye
Of mayds affections doth by fancie fly:
If once you catch their fancie in a blott
It's tenne to one if then you enter not:
You being a gamester then may boldly venter,
And if you finde the point lye open enter:
But marke them well, for by false playing then,
Doe what you can they will...Read more of this...
by
Wystan Hugh (W H) Auden
IHe disappeared in the dead of winter:The brooks were frozen, the airports almost deserted,And snow disfigured the public statues;The mercury sank in the mouth of the dying day.What instruments we have agreeThe day of his death was a dark cold day. Far from his illnessThe wolves ran on through the evergreen forests,The peasant river was untempted by the fashionable quays;By...Read more of this...
by
Isaac Watts
Meditation of heaven; or, The joy of faith.
My thoughts surmount these lower skies,
And look within the veil;
There springs of endless pleasure rise,
The waters never fail.
There I behold, with sweet delight,
The blessed Three in One;
And strong affections fix my sight
On God's incarnate Son.
His promise stands for ever firm,
His grace shall ne'er depart;
He binds my name upon his arm,
And seals it...Read more of this...
by
Victor Hugo
("Monseigneur le Duc de Bretagne.")
{VI., October, 1825.}
My lord the Duke of Brittany
Has summoned his barons bold—
Their names make a fearful litany!
Among them you will not meet any
But men of giant mould.
Proud earls, who dwell in donjon keep,
And steel-clad knight and peer,...Read more of this...
by
Friedrich von Schiller
I, too, at length discerned great Hercules' energy mighty,--
Saw his shade. He himself was not, alas, to be seen.
Round him were heard, like the screaming of birds,
the screams of tragedians,
And, with the baying of dogs, barked dramaturgists around.
There stood the giant in all his terrors; his bow was extended,
And the bolt, fixed on the string, steadily aimed at the...Read more of this...
by
Edna St. Vincent Millay
I, having loved ever since I was a child a few things, never having
wavered
In these affections; never through shyness in the houses of the
rich or in the presence of clergymen having denied these
loves;
Never when worked upon by cynics like chiropractors having
grunted or clicked a vertebra to the discredit of those loves;
Never when anxious to land a job having...Read more of this...
by
Robert Burns
IN Tarbolton, ye ken, there are proper young men,
And proper young lasses and a’, man;
But ken ye the Ronalds that live in the Bennals,
They carry the gree frae them a’, man.
Their father’s laird, and weel he can spare’t,
Braid money to tocher them a’, man;
To proper young men, he’ll clink in the hand
Gowd guineas a hunder...Read more of this...
by
Edmund Spenser
LEt not one sparke of filthy lustfull fyre
breake out, that may her sacred peace molest:
ne one light glance of sensuall desyre:
Attempt to work her gentle mindes vnrest.
But pure affections bred in spotlesse brest,
& modest thoughts breathd fro[m] wel te[m]pred sprites
goe visit her in her bowre of rest,
accompanyde with angelick delightes.
There fill your selfe with those most ioyous sights,
the which...Read more of this...
by
Russell Edson
There was a man who would marry his mother, and asked his
father for his mother's hand in marriage, and was told he could
not marry his mother's hand because it was attached to all
the rest of mother, which was all married to his father; that
he'd have to love something else . . .
And so he went into the world...Read more of this...
by
Emile Verhaeren
The gift of the body when the soul is given is but the accomplishment of two affections drawn headlong one towards the other.
You are only happy in your body that is so lovely in its native freshness because in all fervour you may offer it to me wholly as a total alms.
And I give myself to you knowing nothing except...Read more of this...
by
Robert Herrick
Come thou, who art the wine and wit
Of all I've writ;
The grace, the glory, and the best
Piece of the rest;
Thou art of what I did intend
The All, and End;
And what was made, was made to meet.
Thee, thee my sheet.
Come then, and be to my chaste side
Both bed and bride.
We two, as reliques left, will have
One rest, one grave;
And, hugging...Read more of this...
by
Thomas Godfrey
From me, my Dear, O seek not to receive
What e'en deep-read Experience cannot give.
We may, indeed, from the Physician's skill
Some Med'cine find to cure the body's ill.
But who e'er found the physic for the soul,
Or made th' affections bend to his controul?
When thro' the blaze of passion objects show
How dark 's the shade! how bright the colours glow!
All the...Read more of this...
by
Ben Jonson
XIII. — EPISTLE TO KATHARINE LADY AUBIGNY. As what they have lost t' expect, they dare deride. So both the prais'd and praisers suffer ; yet, For others ill ought none their good forget. I therefore, who profess myself in love With every virtue, wheresoe'er it move, And howsoever ; as I am at feudBy arts, and practice of the...Read more of this...
by
Edmund Spenser
BVt if ye saw that which no eyes can see,
The inward beauty of her liuely spright,
Garnisht with heauenly guifts of high degree,
Much more then would ye wonder at that sight,
And stand astonisht lyke to those which red
Medusaes mazeful hed.
There dwels sweet loue and constant chastity,
Vnspotted fayth and comely womanhood,
Regard of honour and mild modesty,
There vertue raynes as Queene in...Read more of this...
by
William Shakespeare
Alas, 'tis true I have gone here and there
And made myself a motley to the view,
Gor'd mine own thoughts, sold cheap what is most dear,
Made old offences of affections new.
Most true it is that I have look'd on truth
Askance and strangely: but, by all above,
These blenches gave my heart another youth,
And worse essays prov'd thee my best of love.
Now...Read more of this...
by
Mary Darby Robinson
HAIL! GODDESS of persuasive art!
The magic of whose tuneful tongue
Lulls to soft harmony the wand'ring heart
With fascinating song;
O, let me hear thy heav'n-taught strain,
As thro' my quiv'ring pulses steal
The mingling throbs of joy and pain,
Which only sensate minds can feel;
Ah ! let me taste the bliss supreme,
Which thy warm touch...Read more of this...
by
Isaac Watts
Love to God and our neighbor.
Matt. 22:37-40.
Thus saith the first, the great command,
"Let all thy inward powers unite
To love thy Maker and thy God
With utmost vigor and delight.
"Then shall thy neighbor next in place
Share thine affections and esteem,
And let thy kindness to thyself
Measure and rule thy love to him."
This is the sense that Moses spoke,
This did the prophets...Read more of this...
by
Samuel Johnson
CONDEMN'D to Hope's delusive mine,
As on we toil from day to day,
By sudden blasts or slow decline
Our social comforts drop away.
Well tried through many a varying year,
See Levet to the grave descend,
Officious, innocent, sincere,
Of every friendless name the friend.
Yet still he fills affection's eye,
Obscurely wise and coarsely kind;
Nor, letter'd Arrogance, deny
Thy praise to merit unrefined.
When fainting nature call'd for...Read more of this...
by
George (Lord) Byron
There is a mystic thread of life
So dearly wreath'd with mine alone,
That Destiny's relentless knife
At once must sever both, or none.
There is a Form on which these eyes
Have fondly gazed with such delight---
By day, that Form their joy supplies,
And Dreams restore it, through the night.
There is a Voice whose tones inspire
Such softened feelings in my breast,
I would not hear...Read more of this...
by
Thomas Moore
Avenging and bright fall the swift sword of Erin
On him who the brave sons of Usna betray'd! --
For every fond eye he hath waken'd a tear in
A drop from his heart-wounds shall weep o'er her blade.
By the red cloud that hung over Conor's dark dwelling,
When Ulad's three champions lay sleeping in gore --
By the billows...Read more of this...
by
Isaac Watts
The love of Christ to the church, in his language to her,
and provisions for her.
SS 7:5-13.
Now in the galleries of his grace
Appears the King, and thus he says,
"How fair my saints are in my sight!
My love how pleasant for delight!"
Kind is thy language, sovereign Lord,
There's heav'nly grace in every word;
From that dear mouth a stream divine
Flows sweeter...Read more of this...
by
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
I.
Dead ! One of them shot by the sea in the east,
And one of them shot in the west by the sea.
Dead ! both my boys ! When you sit at the feast
And are wanting a great song for Italy free,
Let none look at me !
II.
Yet I was a poetess only last year,
And good at my art, for a...Read more of this...
by
Henry Kendall
TOWARDS the hills of Jamberoo
Some few fantastic shadows haste,
Uplit with fires
Like castle spires
Outshining through a mirage waste.
Behold, a mournful glory sits
On feathered ferns and woven brakes,
Where sobbing wild like restless child
The gusty breeze of evening wakes!
Methinks I hear on every breath
A lofty tone go passing by,
That whispers - ``Weave,...Read more of this...
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