Famous Appeal Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Henry the Seventh

by Marriott Edgar
 Henry the Seventh of England
Wasn't out of the Royal top drawer,
The only connection of which he could boast,
He were King's nephew's brother-in-law.

It were after the Wars of the Roses
That he came to the front, as it were,
When on strength of his having slain Richard the Third 
He put himself up as his heir.

T'were a bit of a blow to...Read more of this...

Nothing is enough!

by Laurence Binyon
 No, though our all be spent-- 
Heart's extremest love, 
Spirit's whole intent, 
All that nerve can feel, 
All that brain invent,-- 
Still beyond appeal 
Will Divine Desire 
Yet more excellent 
Precious cost require 
Of this mortal stuff,-- 
Never be content 
Till ourselves be fire. 
Nothing is enough!...Read more of this...

Out Out--

by Robert Frost
 The buzz-saw snarled and rattled in the yard
And made dust and dropped stove-length sticks of wood,
Sweet-scented stuff when the breeze drew across it.
And from there those that lifted eyes could count
Five mountain ranges one behind the other
Under the sunset far into Vermont.
And the saw snarled and rattled, snarled and rattled,
As it ran light, or had to bear a load.
And...Read more of this...

The First Black Flag

by Victor Hugo
 ("Avez-vous oui dire?") 
 
 {LES BURGRAVES, Part I., March, 1843.} 


 JOB. Hast thou ne'er heard men say 
 That, in the Black Wood, 'twixt Cologne and Spire, 
 Upon a rock flanked by the towering mountains, 
 A castle stands, renowned among all castles? 
 And in this fort, on piles of lava built, 
 A burgrave...Read more of this...

The Kiss

by Siegfried Sassoon
 To these I turn, in these I trust; 
Brother Lead and Sister Steel. 
To his blind power I make appeal; 
I guard her beauty clean from rust. 

He spins and burns and loves the air, 
And splits a skull to win my praise; 
But up the nobly marching days 
She glitters naked, cold and fair. 

Sweet Sister, grant your...Read more of this...

Cassidys Epitaph

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 Here lies a bloke who's just gone West, 
A Number One Australian; 
He took his gun and did his best 
To mitigate the alien. 
So long as he could get to work 
He needed no sagacity; 
A German, Austrian, or Turk, 
Were all the same to Cassidy. 
Wherever he could raise "the stuff" 
-- A liquor deleterious -- 
The...Read more of this...

A Panegyric To Sir Lewis Pemberton

by Robert Herrick
 Till I shall come again, let this suffice,
I send my salt, my sacrifice
To thee, thy lady, younglings, and as far
As to thy Genius and thy Lar;
To the worn threshold, porch, hall, parlour, kitchen,
The fat-fed smoking temple, which in
The wholesome savour of thy mighty chines,
Invites to supper him who dines:
Where laden spits, warp'd with large ribs of beef,
Not represent, but...Read more of this...

Preface to Hunting of the Snark

by Lewis Carroll
 PREFACE

If---and the thing is wildly possible---the charge of writing 
nonsense were ever brought against the author of this brief but 
instructive poem, it would be based, I feel convinced, on the line 

``Then the bowsprit got mixed with the rudder sometimes'' 

In view of this painful possibility, I will not (as I might) appeal 
indignantly to my other writings...Read more of this...

Appeal

by Edith Nesbit
 Daphnis dearest, wherefore weave me
Webs of lies lest truth should grieve me?
I could pardon much, believe me:
Dower me, Daphnis, or bereave me,
Kiss me, kill me, love me, leave me,-
Damn me, dear, but don't deceive me!...Read more of this...

Was there in us one fondness

by Emile Verhaeren
Was there in us one fondness, one thought, one gladness, one promise that we had not sown before our footsteps?
Was there a prayer heard in secret whose hands stretched out gently over our bosom we had not clasped?
Was there one appeal, one purpose, one tranquil or violent desire whose pace we had not quickened?
And each loving the other thus, our...Read more of this...

Milton's Appeal To Cromwell

by Victor Hugo
 ("Non! je n'y puis tenir.") 
 
 {CROMWELL, Act III. sc. iv.} 


 Stay! I no longer can contain myself, 
 But cry you: Look on John, who bares his mind 
 To Oliver—to Cromwell, Milton speaks! 
 Despite a kindling eye and marvel deep 
 A voice is lifted up without your leave; 
 For I was never...Read more of this...

Sonnet XXII

by Francesco Petrarch
SONNET XXII. Come va 'l mondo! or mi diletta e piace. HE BLESSES LAURA FOR HER VIRTUE.  How goes the world! now please me and delightWhat most displeased me: now I see and feelMy trials were vouchsafed me for my weal,That peace eternal should brief war requite.O hopes and wishes, ever...Read more of this...

The Ocean's Song

by Victor Hugo
 ("Nous nous promenions à Rozel-Tower.") 
 
 {Bk. VI. iv., October, 1852.} 


 We walked amongst the ruins famed in story 
 Of Rozel-Tower, 
 And saw the boundless waters stretch in glory 
 And heave in power. 
 
 O ocean vast! we heard thy song with wonder, 
 Whilst waves marked time. 
 "Appeal, O Truth!" thou...Read more of this...

An Appeal

by Algernon Charles Swinburne
 Art thou indeed among these,
Thou of the tyrannous crew,
The kingdoms fed upon blood,
O queen from of old of the seas,
England, art thou of them too
That drink of the poisonous flood,
That hide under poisonous trees?



Nay, thy name from of old,
Mother, was pure, or we dreamed
Purer we held thee than this,
Purer fain would we hold;
So goodly a glory it seemed,
A fame...Read more of this...

The Torture of Cuauhtemoc

by Alan Seeger
 Their strength had fed on this when Death's white arms 
Came sleeved in vapors and miasmal dew, 
Curling across the jungle's ferny floor, 
Becking each fevered brain. On bleak divides, 
Where Sleep grew niggardly for nipping cold 
That twinged blue lips into a mouthed curse, 
Not back to Seville and its sunny plains 
Winged their brief-biding dreams, but once...Read more of this...

The Boola-Boola Maid

by Robert William Service
 In the wilds of Madagascar, Dwelt a Boola-boola maid;
For her hand young men would ask her, But she always was afraid.
Oh that Boola-boola maid She was living in the shade Of a spreading Yum-yum tree;
And - when the day was done At the setting of the sun, She would make this melodee: 

As this ditty she was cooing, Came...Read more of this...

Appeal

by Anne Bronte
 Oh, I am very weary,
Though tears no longer flow;
My eyes are tires of weeping,
My heart is sick of woe;

My life is very lonely,
My days pass heavily,
I'm wearing of repining,
Wilt thou not come to me?

Oh, didst thou know my longings
For thee, from day to day,
My hopes, so often blighted,
Thou wouldst not thus delay!...Read more of this...

The Appeal

by D. H. Lawrence
You, Helen, who see the stars
As mistletoe berries burning in a black tree,
You surely, seeing I am a bowl of kisses,
Should put your mouth to mine and drink of me.

Helen, you let my kisses steam
Wasteful into the night's black nostrils; drink
Me up I pray; oh you who are Night's Bacchante,
How can you from my bowl of kisses shrink!...Read more of this...

Meditation under Stars

by George Meredith
 What links are ours with orbs that are
So resolutely far:
The solitary asks, and they
Give radiance as from a shield:
Still at the death of day,
The seen, the unrevealed.
Implacable they shine
To us who would of Life obtain
An answer for the life we strain
To nourish with one sign.
Nor can imagination throw
The penetrative shaft: we pass
The breath of thought, who would divine
If haply...Read more of this...

And do you think that love itself

by Edna St. Vincent Millay
 And do you think that love itself,
Living in such an ugly house,
Can prosper long?
  We meet and part;
Our talk is all of heres and nows,
Our conduct likewise; in no act
Is any future, any past;
Under our sly, unspoken pact,
I KNOW with whom I saw you last,
But I say nothing; and you know
At six-fifteen to whom I go— 
Can even...Read more of this...

Mahomed Akram's Appeal to the Stars

by Adela Florence Cory Nicolson
   Oh, Silver Stars that shine on what I love,
     Touch the soft hair and sparkle in the eyes,—
   Send, from your calm serenity above,
     Sleep to whom, sleepless, here, despairing lies.

   Broken, forlorn, upon the Desert sand
     That sucks these tears,...Read more of this...

The Necessitarian

by Rudyard Kipling
 I know not in Whose hands are laid
 To empty upon earth
From unsuspected ambuscade
 The very Urns of Mirth;

Who bids the Heavenly Lark arise
 And cheer our solemn round--
The Jest beheld with streaming eyes
 And grovellings on the ground;

Who joins the flats of Time and Chance
 Behind the prey preferred,
And thrones on Shrieking Circumstance
 The Sacredly Absurd,

Till Laughter, voiceless...Read more of this...

Accordion

by Robert William Service
 Some carol of the banjo, to its measure keeping time;
Of viol or of lute some make a song.
My battered old accordion, you're worthy of a rhyme,
You've been my friend and comforter so long.
Round half the world I've trotted you, a dozen years or more;
You've given heaps of people lots of fun;
You've set a host of happy feet a-tapping on...Read more of this...

A Hymn to the Name and Honour of the Admirable Saint Teresa

by Richard Crashaw
 LOVE, thou are absolute, sole Lord
Of life and death. To prove the word,
We'll now appeal to none of all
Those thy old soldiers, great and tall,
Ripe men of martyrdom, that could reach down
With strong arms their triumphant crown:
Such as could with lusty breath
Speak loud, unto the face of death,
Their great Lord's glorious name; to none
Of those whose spacious bosoms spread...Read more of this...

Work And Contemplation

by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
 The woman singeth at her spinning-wheel
A pleasant chant, ballad or barcarole;
She thinketh of her song, upon the whole,
Far more than of her flax; and yet the reel
Is full, and artfully her fingers feel
With quick adjustment, provident control,
The lines--too subtly twisted to unroll--
Out to a perfect thread. I hence appeal
To the dear Christian Church--that we may do
Our Father's business in...Read more of this...

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