Famous Aid Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Sonnet CXLVI

by Francesco Petrarch
SONNET CXLVI. Geri, quando talor meco s' adira. HE APPEASES HER BY HUMILITY, AND EXHORTS A FRIEND TO DO LIKEWISE.  When my sweet foe, so haughty oft and high,Moved my brief ire no more my sight can thole,One comfort is vouchsafed me lest I die,Through whose sole strength survives my harass'd soul;Read more of this...

Sonnet XIX

by Francesco Petrarch
SONNET XIX. Mille fiate, o dolce mia guerrera. HIS HEART, REJECTED BY LAURA, WILL PERISH, UNLESS SHE RELENT.  A thousand times, sweet warrior, have I tried,Proffering my heart to thee, some peace to gainFrom those bright eyes, but still, alas! in vain,To such low level stoops not thy chaste pride.If others...Read more of this...

The Ballad Of The Leather Medal

by Robert William Service
 Only a Leather Medal, hanging there on the wall,
Dingy and frayed and faded, dusty and worn and old;
Yet of my humble treasures I value it most of all,
And I wouldn't part with that medal if you gave me its weight in gold.

Read the inscription: For Valour - presented to Millie MacGee.
Ah! how in mem'ry it takes me back to...Read more of this...

The Contrast

by Robert William Service
 Fat lady, in your four-wheeled chair,
 Dolled up to beat the band,
At me you arrogantly stare
 With gold lorgnette in hand.
Oh how you differ from the dame
 So shabby, gaunt and grey,
With legs rheumatically lame,
 Who steers you on your way.

Nay, jewelled lady, look not back
 Lest you should be disturbed
To see the skinny hag in black
 Who boosts...Read more of this...

Mac Flecknoe

by John Dryden
 All human things are subject to decay,
And, when Fate summons, monarchs must obey:
This Flecknoe found, who, like Augustus, young
Was call'd to empire, and had govern'd long:
In prose and verse, was own'd, without dispute
Through all the realms of Non-sense, absolute.
This aged prince now flourishing in peace,
And blest with issue of a large increase,
Worn out with business, did at length debate
To...Read more of this...

On The Death Of A Favourite Cat Drowned In A Tub Of Gold Fishes

by Thomas Gray
 'Twas on a lofty vase's side,
Where China's gayest art had dyed
The azure flowers that blow,
Demurest of the tabby kind,
The pensive Selima, reclined,
Gazed on the lake below.

Her conscious tail her joy declared;
The fair round face, the snowy beard,
The velvet of her paws,
Her coat, that with the tortoise vies,
Her ears of jet, and emerald eyes,
She saw; and purred applause.

Still had she...Read more of this...

Psalm 106 part 1

by Isaac Watts
 v.1-5 
L. M.
Praise to God; or, Communion with saints.

To God, the great, the ever-blest,
Let songs of honor be addressed;
His mercy firm for ever stands
Give him the thanks his love demands.

Who knows the wonders of thy ways?
Who shall fulfil thy boundless praise?
Blest are the souls that fear thee still,
And pay their duty to thy will.

Remember what thy mercy did
For Jacob's...Read more of this...

Sonnet 79: Whilst I alone did call upon thy aid

by William Shakespeare
 Whilst I alone did call upon thy aid,
My verse alone had all thy gentle grace,
But now my gracious numbers are decayed,
And my sick Muse doth give an other place.
I grant, sweet love, thy lovely argument
Deserves the travail of a worthier pen,
Yet what of thee thy poet doth invent
He robs thee of, and pays it thee again.
He lends thee virtue,...Read more of this...

Interim

by Edna St. Vincent Millay
 The room is full of you!—As I came in
And closed the door behind me, all at once
A something in the air, intangible,
Yet stiff with meaning, struck my senses sick!—

Sharp, unfamiliar odors have destroyed
Each other room's dear personality.
The heavy scent of damp, funereal flowers,—
The very essence, hush-distilled, of Death—
Has strangled that habitual breath of home
Whose expiration leaves all houses dead;
And...Read more of this...

The Albion Battleship Calamity

by William Topaz McGonagall
 'Twas in the year of 1898, ond on the 21st of June,
The launching of the Battleship Albion caused a great gloom,
Amongst the relatives of many persons who were drowned in the River Thames,
Which their relatives will remember while life remains. 

The vessel was christened by the Duchess of York,
And the spectators' hearts felt light as cork
As the Duchess cut...Read more of this...

The Hostage

by Friedrich von Schiller
 The tyrant Dionys to seek,
Stern Moerus with his poniard crept;
The watchful guard upon him swept;
The grim king marked his changeless cheek:
"What wouldst thou with thy poniard? Speak!"
"The city from the tyrant free!"
"The death-cross shall thy guerdon be."

"I am prepared for death, nor pray,"
Replied that haughty man, "I to live;
Enough, if thou one grace wilt give
For three brief suns the...Read more of this...

Fulfilment

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
I grew a rose once more to please mine eyes.
All things to aid it—dew, sun, wind, fair skies—
Were kindly; and to shield it from despoil,
I fenced it safely in with grateful toil.
No other hand than mine shall pluck this flower, said I,
And I was jealous of the bee that hovered nigh.
It grew for days; I stood hour after hour
To watch...Read more of this...

My New-Cut Ashler

by Rudyard Kipling
 My New-Cut ashlar takes the light
Where crimson-blank the windows flare.
By my own work before the night,
Great Overseer, I make my prayer.

If there be good in that I wrought
Thy Hand compelled it, Master, Thine--
Where I have failed to meet Thy Thought
I know, through Thee, the blame was mine.

The depth and dream of my desire,
The bitter paths wherein I stray--
Thou knowest...Read more of this...

Hymn 27

by Isaac Watts
 Assurance of heaven.

2 Tim. 4:68,18. 

[Death may dissolve my body now,
And bear my spirit home;
Why do my minutes move so slow,
Nor my salvation come?

With heav'nly weapons I have fought
The battles of the Lord;
Finished my course, and kept the faith,
And wait the sure reward.]

God has laid up in heav'n for me
A crown which cannot fade;
The righteous Judge at that great...Read more of this...

The Cymbaleer's Bride

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...

The Castaway

by William Cowper
 Obscurest night involv'd the sky,
Th' Atlantic billows roar'd,
When such a destin'd wretch as I,
Wash'd headlong from on board,
Of friends, of hope, of all bereft,
His floating home for ever left.

No braver chief could Albion boast
Than he with whom he went,
Nor ever ship left Albion's coast,
With warmer wishes sent.
He lov'd them both, but both in vain,
Nor him beheld, nor her again.

Not...Read more of this...

There was a Young Lady of Poole

by Edward Lear
There was a Young Lady of Poole,Whose soup was excessively cool;So she put it to boil by the aid of some oil,That ingenious Young Lady of Poole. ...Read more of this...

The Gentian has a parched Corolla --

by Emily Dickinson
 The Gentian has a parched Corolla --
Like azure dried
'Tis Nature's buoyant juices
Beatified --
Without a vaunt or sheen
As casual as Rain
And as benign --

When most is part -- it comes --
Nor isolate it seems
Its Bond its Friend --
To fill its Fringed career
And aid an aged Year
Abundant end --

Its lot -- were it forgot --
This Truth endear --
Fidelity is gain
Creation is...Read more of this...

I lived on dread; to those who know

by Emily Dickinson
I lived on dread; to those who know
The stimulus there is
In danger, other impetus
Is numb and vital-less.

As't were a spur upon the soul,
A fear will urge it where
To go without the spectre's aid
Were challenging despair....Read more of this...

The Field of Glory

by Edwin Arlington Robinson
 War shook the land where Levi dwelt, 
And fired the dismal wrath he felt, 
That such a doom was ever wrought 
As his, to toil while others fought; 
To toil, to dream -- and still to dream, 
With one day barren as another; 
To consummate, as it would seem 
The dry despair of his old mother. 

Far off one...Read more of this...

231. Epistle to Robert Graham Esq. of Fintry

by Robert Burns
 WHEN Nature her great master-piece design’d,
And fram’d her last, best work, the human mind,
Her eye intent on all the mazy plan,
She form’d of various parts the various Man.


 Then first she calls the useful many forth;
Plain plodding Industry, and sober Worth:
Thence peasants, farmers, native sons of earth,
And merchandise’ whole genus take their birth:
Each prudent cit a warm existence finds,
And...Read more of this...

The Legend of Mirth

by Rudyard Kipling
 The Four Archangels, so the legends tell,
Raphael, Gabriel, Michael, Azrael,
Being first of those to whom the Power was shown
Stood first of all the Host before The Throne,
And, when the Charges were allotted, burst
Tumultuous-winged from out the assembly first.
Zeal was their spur that bade them strictly heed
Their own high judgment on their lightest deed.
Zeal was their spur that, when relief...Read more of this...

Sonnet CXLI

by Francesco Petrarch
SONNET CXLI. Fera stella (se 'l cielo ha forza in noi). TO PINE FOR HER IS BETTER THAN TO ENJOY HAPPINESS WITH ANY OTHER.  Ill-omen'd was that star's malignant gleamThat ruled my hapless birth; and dim the mornThat darted on my infant eyes the beam;And harsh the wail, that told a man...Read more of this...

To A Clergyman On The Death Of His Lady

by Phillis Wheatley
 WHERE contemplation finds her sacred spring,
Where heav'nly music makes the arches ring,
Where virtue reigns unsully'd and divine,
Where wisdom thron'd, and all the graces shine,
There sits thy spouse amidst the radiant throng,
While praise eternal warbles from her tongue;
There choirs angelic shout her welcome round,
With perfect bliss, and peerless glory crown'd.
While thy dear mate, to flesh no more confin'd,
Exults a blest,...Read more of this...

Sonnet LXXXVI

by William Shakespeare
 Was it the proud full sail of his great verse,
Bound for the prize of all too precious you,
That did my ripe thoughts in my brain inhearse,
Making their tomb the womb wherein they grew?
Was it his spirit, by spirits taught to write
Above a mortal pitch, that struck me dead?
No, neither he, nor his compeers by night
Giving him aid, my verse...Read more of this...

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