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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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by Davidson, John
...'A letter from my love to-day!
Oh, unexpected, dear appeal!'
She struck a happy tear away,
And broke the crimson seal.

'My love, there is no help on earth,
No help in heaven; the dead-man's bell
Must toll our wedding; our first hearth
Must be the well-paved floor of hell.'

The colour died from out her face,
Her eyes like ghostly candles shone;
She cast dread looks about the place,
Then clenched her ...Read more of this...



by Stafford, William
...e park,
I call it cruel and maybe the root of all cruelty
to know what occurs but not recognize the fact.

And so I appeal to a voice, to something shadowy,
a remote important region in all who talk:
though we could fool each other, we should consider--
lest the parade of our mutual life get lost in the dark.

For it is important that awake people be awake,
or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep;
the signals we give--yes or no, or maybe--
should be clear...Read more of this...

by Service, Robert William
...Haussa at a hundred in the shade.
The ****** on the levee, and the Dinka by the Nile
have shuffled to your insolent appeal.
I've rocked with glee the chimpanzee, and mocked the crocodile,
And shocked the pompous penquin and the seal.

I've set the yokels singing in a little Surrey pub,
Apaches swinging in a Belville bar.
I've played an obligato to the tom-tom's rub-a-dub,
And the throb of Andalusian guitar.
From the Horn to Honolulu, from the Cape to Kalam...Read more of this...

by Swinburne, Algernon Charles
...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 se...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...odours o'er 
The pictured roof and marble floor: [16] 
The drops, that through his glittering vest 
The playful girl's appeal address'd, 
Unheeded o'er his bosom flew, 
As if that breast were marble too. 
"What sullen yet? it must not be — 
Oh! gentle Selim, this from thee!" 
She saw in curious order set 
The fairest flowers of Eastern land — 
"He loved them once; may touch them yet 
If offer'd by Zuleika's hand." 
The childish thought was hardly breathed 
Before the...Read more of this...



by Petrarch, Francesco
...t to vindicate, the weak redress;And now, when gratitude,When piety appeal, shall she do lessTo avenge the injury and end the scornBy blessed Mary's glorious offspring borne?What fear we, while the heathen for successConfide in human powers,If, on the adverse side, be Christ, and his side ours?Read more of this...

by Robinson, Edwin Arlington
...y of all those
Who boil elsewhere with such a lyric yeast
Of love that you will hear them at a feast
Where demons would appeal for some repose,
Still clamoring where the chalice overflows
And crying wildest who have drunk the least.

Passion is here a soilure of the wits,
We're told, and Love a cross for them to bear;
Joy shivers in the corner where she knits
And Conscience always has the rocking-chair,
Cheerful as when she tortured into fits
The first cat that was ever k...Read more of this...

by Seeger, Alan
...t loveliness, 


As guiding Gaby or Lucile she dances, emulating them 
In each disturbing stratagem and each lascivious appeal. 


Each turn a challenge, every pose an invitation to compete, 
Along the maze of whirling feet the grave-eyed little wanton goes, 


And, flaunting all the hue that lies in childish cheeks and nubile waist, 
She passes, charmingly unchaste, illumining ignoble eyes. . . . 


But now the blood from every heart leaps madder through ...Read more of this...

by Bronte, Charlotte
.... 

I do not weep for Pilate­who could prove 
Regret for him whose cold and crushing sway 
No prayer can soften, no appeal can move;
Who tramples hearts as others trample clay, 
Yet with a faltering, an uncertain tread, 
That might stir up reprisal in the dead. 

Forced to sit by his side and see his deeds; 
Forced to behold that visage, hour by hour, 
In whose gaunt lines, the abhorrent gazer reads 
A triple lust of gold, and blood, and power; 
A soul whom motives, f...Read more of this...

by Carroll, Lewis
...`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 as a proof that I am incapable of 
such a deed: I will not (as I might) point to the strong moral 
purpose of this poem itself, to the arithmetical principles so 
cautiously inculcated in it, or to its noble teachings in Natural 
History---I will take the more prosaic course of simply explaining 
how it happened. ...Read more of this...

by Dryden, John
...nd virtue suffers here,
(A brand that sovereign justice cannot bear;)
Our reason prompts us to a future state:
The last appeal from fortune, and from fate:
Where God's all-righteous ways will be declar'd;
The bad meet punishment, the good, reward.

 Thus man by his own strength to Heaven would soar:
And would not be oblig'd to God for more.
Vain, wretched creature, how art thou misled
To think thy wit these god-like notions bred!
These truths are not the product of th...Read more of this...

by Spenser, Edmund
...> 
Thrice having seen under the heavens' vail 
Your tomb's devoted compass over all, 
Thrice unto you with loud voice I appeal, 
And for your antique fury here do call, 
The whiles that I with sacred horror sing, 
Your glory, fairest of all earthly thing. 


2 

Great Babylon her haughty walls will praise, 
And sharpèd steeples high shot up in air; 
Greece will the old Ephesian buildings blaze; 
And Nylus' nurslings their Pyramids fair; 
The same yet vaunting Greece will ...Read more of this...

by Hopkins, Gerard Manley
...I saw them, thrice or four times turning;
Round and round they came and flashed towards heaven: O there,
There they did appeal. Therefore airy vengeances
Are afoot; heaven-vault fast purpling portends, and what first lightning
Any instant falls means me. And I do not repent;
I do not and I will not repent, not repent.
The blame bear who aroused me. What I have done violent
I have like a lion done, lionlike done,
Honouring an uncontrolled royal wrathful nature,...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...odours o'er 
The pictured roof and marble floor: [16] 
The drops, that through his glittering vest 
The playful girl's appeal address'd, 
Unheeded o'er his bosom flew, 
As if that breast were marble too. 
"What sullen yet? it must not be — 
Oh! gentle Selim, this from thee!" 
She saw in curious order set 
The fairest flowers of Eastern land — 
"He loved them once; may touch them yet 
If offer'd by Zuleika's hand." 
The childish thought was hardly breathed 
Before the...Read more of this...

by Seeger, Alan
...k of one then who had the lust to feel,
And, from the hues that far horizons take,
And cloud and sunset, drank the wild appeal,
Too deep to live for aught but life's sweet sake,
Whose only motive was the will to kneel
Where Beauty's purest benediction spake,
Who only coveted what grove and field
And sunshine and green Earth and tender arms could yield---

A nympholept, through pleasant days and drear
Seeking his faultless adolescent dream,
A pilgrim down the paths that disapp...Read more of this...

by Hood, Thomas
...flags so dull and livid,
The banner of the bloody hand shone out
So ominously vivid.

Some key to that inscrutable appeal
Which made the very frame of Nature quiver,
And every thrilling nerve and fiber feel
So ague-like a shiver.

For over all there hung a cloud of fear,
A sense of mystery the spirit daunted,
And said, as plain as whisper in the ear,
The place is haunted!

Prophetic hints that filled the soul with dread,
But through one gloomy entrance pointing mostl...Read more of this...

by Carroll, Lewis
...n 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 as a proof that I am incapable of such a deed: I will not (as I might) point to the strong moral purpose of this poem itself, to the arithmetical principles so cautiously inculcated in it, or to its noble teachings in Natural History--I will take the more prosaic course of simply explaining how it happened. 

The B...Read more of this...

by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...babbling laughter, and to dance 
Its body, and reach its fatling innocent arms 
And lazy lingering fingers. She the appeal 
Brooked not, but clamouring out 'Mine--mine--not yours, 
It is not yours, but mine: give me the child' 
Ceased all on tremble: piteous was the cry: 
So stood the unhappy mother open-mouthed, 
And turned each face her way: wan was her cheek 
With hollow watch, her blooming mantle torn, 
Red grief and mother's hunger in her eye, 
And down dead-heavy sa...Read more of this...

by Seeger, Alan
...n, 
Convulsed in every limb, and all his face 
Wrought to distortion with the agony, 
Turned on his lord a look of wild appeal, 
The secret half atremble on his lips, 
Livid and quivering, that waited yet 
For leave -- for leave to utter it -- one sign -- 
One word -- one little word -- to ease his pain. 


As one reclining in the banquet hall, 
Propped on an elbow, garlanded with flowers, 
Saw lust and greed and boisterous revelry 
Surge round him on the tides of wine, b...Read more of this...

by Browning, Elizabeth Barrett
...ith 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 these temples mirk,
Thus swift and steadfast, thus intent and strong;
While thus, apart from toil, our souls pursue
Some high calm spheric tune, and prove our work
The better for the sweetness of our song....Read more of this...

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