Famous Awakes Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Psalm LXXIII: Now Im Convinced the Lord Is Kind

by Isaac Watts
 Now I 'm convinced the Lord is kind
To men of heart sincere;
Yet once my foolish thoughts repined,
And bordered on despair.

I grieved to see the wicked thrive,
And spoke with angry breath,
"How pleasant and profane they live !
How peaceful is their death !

"With well-fed flesh and haughty eyes,
They lay their fears to sleep;
Against the heav'ns their slanders rise,
While saints in silence...Read more of this...

Wild Dreams Of A New Beginning

by Lawrence Ferlinghetti
 There's a breathless hush on the freeway tonight
Beyond the ledges of concrete
restaurants fall into dreams
with candlelight couples
Lost Alexandria still burns
in a billion lightbulbs
Lives cross lives
idling at stoplights
Beyond the cloverleaf turnoffs
'Souls eat souls in the general emptiness'
A piano concerto comes out a kitchen window
A yogi speaks at Ojai
'It's all taking pace in one mind'
On the lawn among the trees
lovers are...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...

Beyond

by Fannie Isabelle Sherrick
Beyond yon dim old mountain's shadowy height,
  The restless sun droops low his grand old face;
While downward sweeps the trembling veil of night,
  To hide the earth; the frost king's filmy lace
Rests on the mountain's hoary snow-crowned head,
  And adds to it a softened grace; the light
Which dies afar in faint and fading red
  In purple...Read more of this...

Ode to Reflection

by Mary Darby Robinson
 O THOU, whose sober precepts can controul 
The wild impatience of the troubled soul, 
Sweet Nymph serene ! whose all-consoling pow'r 
Awakes to calm delight the ling'ring hour; 
O hear thy suppliant's ardent pray'r ! 
Chase from my pensive mind corroding care, 
Steal thro' the heated pulses of the brain, 
Charm sorrow to repose­and lull the throb of pain....Read more of this...

Hymn 147

by Isaac Watts
 The names and titles of Christ. From several scriptures.

['Tis from the treasures of his word
I borrow titles for my Lord;
Nor art nor nature can supply
Sufficient forms of majesty.

Bright image of the Father's face,
Shining with undiminished rays;
Th' eternal God's eternal Son,
The heir and partner of his throne.]

The King of kings, the Lord most high,
Writes his own name upon his thigh
He...Read more of this...

Psalm 50

by Isaac Watts
 The last judgment.

The Lord, the Sovereign, sends his summons forth,
Calls the south nations and awakes the north;
From east to west the sounding orders spread,
Through distant worlds and regions of the dead:
No more shall atheists mock his long delay;
His vengeance sleeps no more: behold the day!

Behold, the Judge descends, his guards are nigh;
Tempest and fire attend him down the sky:
Heav'n,...Read more of this...

This Compost

by Walt Whitman
 1
SOMETHING startles me where I thought I was safest; 
I withdraw from the still woods I loved; 
I will not go now on the pastures to walk; 
I will not strip the clothes from my body to meet my lover the sea; 
I will not touch my flesh to the earth, as to other flesh, to renew me.

O how...Read more of this...

Hymn on Solitude

by James Thomson
 Hail, mildly pleasing solitude,
Companion of the wise and good;
But, from whose holy, piercing eye,
The herd of fools, and villains fly.
Oh! how I love with thee to walk,
And listen to thy whisper'd talk,
Which innocence, and truth imparts,
And melts the most obdurate hearts. 

A thousand shapes you wear with ease,
And still in every shape you please.
Now wrapt in some mysterious dream,
A...Read more of this...

Odysseus

by Friedrich von Schiller
 Seeking to find his home, Odysseus crosses each water;
Through Charybdis so dread; ay, and through Scylla's wild yells,
Through the alarms of the raging sea, the alarms of the land too,--
E'en to the kingdom of hell leads him his wandering course.
And at length, as he sleeps, to Ithaca's coast fate conducts him;
There he awakes, and, with grief, knows not his...Read more of this...

The Morning-Watch

by Henry Vaughan
 1 O joys! infinite sweetness! with what flow'rs
2 And shoots of glory my soul breaks and buds!
3 All the long hours
4 Of night, and rest,
5 Through the still shrouds
6 Of sleep, and clouds,
7 This dew fell on my breast;
8 Oh, how it bloods
9 And spirits all my earth! Hark! In what rings
10 And hymning circulations the quick world
11 Awakes...Read more of this...

Hymn 148

by Isaac Watts
 The names and titles of Christ. From several scriptures.

With cheerful voice I sing
The titles of my Lord,
And borrow all the names
Of honor from his word:
Nature and art can ne'er supply
Sufficient forms of majesty.

In Jesus we behold
His Father's glorious face,
Shining for ever bright,
With mild and lovely rays
Th' eternal God's eternal Son
Inherits and partakes the throne.]

The sovereign King of kings,
The Lord...Read more of this...

Burial of the Minnisink

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
 On sunny slope and beechen swell,
The shadowed light of evening fell;
And, where the maple's leaf was brown,
With soft and silent lapse came down,
The glory, that the wood receives,
At sunset, in its golden leaves.

Far upward in the mellow light
Rose the blue hills. One cloud of white,
Around a far uplifted cone,
In the warm blush of evening shone;
An image of the silver...Read more of this...

Illusion

by George William Russell
 WHAT is the love of shadowy lips
That know not what they seek or press,
From whom the lure for ever slips
And fails their phantom tenderness?


The mystery and light of eyes
That near to mine grow dim and cold;
They move afar in ancient skies
Mid flame and mystic darkness rolled.


O beauty, as thy heart o’erflows
In tender yielding unto me,
A vast desire awakes and...Read more of this...

The Count Of Hapsburg

by Friedrich von Schiller
 At Aix-la-Chapelle, in imperial array,
In its halls renowned in old story,
At the coronation banquet so gay
King Rudolf was sitting in glory.
The meats were served up by the Palsgrave of Rhine,
The Bohemian poured out the bright sparkling wine,
And all the Electors, the seven,
Stood waiting around the world-governing one,
As the chorus of stars encircle the sun,
That honor might duly be given.

And...Read more of this...

Proximity Of The Beloved One

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 I THINK of thee, whene'er the sun his beams

O'er ocean flings;
I think of thee, whene'er the moonlight gleams

In silv'ry springs.

I see thee, when upon the distant ridge

The dust awakes;
At midnight's hour, when on the fragile bridge

The wanderer quakes.

I hear thee, when yon billows rise on high,

With murmur deep.
To tread the silent grove oft wander I,

When all's asleep.

I'm near thee,...Read more of this...

Phoebus with Admetus

by George Meredith
 WHEN by Zeus relenting the mandate was revoked, 
 Sentencing to exile the bright Sun-God, 
Mindful were the ploughmen of who the steer had yoked, 
 Who: and what a track show'd the upturn'd sod! 
Mindful were the shepherds, as now the noon severe 
 Bent a burning eyebrow to brown evetide, 
How the rustic flute drew the silver...Read more of this...

The Yellow Violet

by William Cullen Bryant
 When beechen buds begin to swell, 
And woods the blue-bird's warble know, 
The yellow violet's modest bell 
Peeps from last-year's leaves below.

Ere russet fields their green resume, 
Sweet flower, I love, in forest bare, 
To meet thee, when thy faint perfume 
Alone is in the virgin air.

Of all her train, the hands of Spring 
First plant thee in the...Read more of this...

Sonnet XV

by Francesco Petrarch
SONNET XV. Discolorato hai, Morte, il più bel volto. HER PRESENCE IN VISIONS IS HIS ONLY CONSOLATION.  Death, thou of fairest face hast 'reft the hue,And quench'd in deep thick night the brightest eyes,[Pg 247]And loosed from all its tenderest, closest tiesA spirit to faith and ardent virtue true.Read more of this...

Sonnet XLIII

by Francesco Petrarch
SONNET XLIII. Quel rosignuol che sì soave piagne. THE SONG OF THE NIGHTINGALE REMINDS HIM OF HIS UNHAPPY LOT.  Yon nightingale, whose bursts of thrilling tone,Pour'd in soft sorrow from her tuneful throat,Haply her mate or infant brood bemoan,Filling the fields and skies with pity's note;Here lingering till the long long...Read more of this...

The White Bees

by Henry Van Dyke
 I 

LEGEND 

Long ago Apollo called to Aristæus, 
youngest of the shepherds,
Saying, "I will make you keeper of my bees." 
Golden were the hives, and golden was the honey;
golden, too, the music,
Where the honey-makers hummed among the trees. 

Happy Aristæus loitered in the garden, wandered
in the orchard,
Careless and contented, indolent and free; 
Lightly took his labour, lightly took his...Read more of this...

Psalm 69 part 1

by Isaac Watts
 v.1-14 
C. M.
The sufferings of Christ for our salvation.

"Save me, O God, the swelling floods
Break in upon my soul;
I sink, and sorrows o'er my head
Like mighty waters roll.

"I cry till all my voice be gone,
In tears I waste the day:
My God, behold my longing eyes,
And shorten thy delay.

"They hate my soul without a cause,
And still their number grows
More than...Read more of this...

On - On - Poet

by Aleister Crowley
 I to the open road,
You to the hunchbacked street -
Which of us two
Shall the earlier rue
That day we chanced to meet?


I with a heart that's sound,
You with sick fancies of pain -
Which of us two
Would the earlier rue
If we chanced to meet again?

I jingle homely lore,
While you rhyme is with kiss -
Which of us two
Will the earlier rue
The love...Read more of this...

Sonnet LXXXII

by Francesco Petrarch
SONNET LXXXII. Dicemi spesso il mio fidato speglio. HE AWAKES TO A CONVICTION OF THE NEAR APPROACH OF DEATH.  My faithful mirror oft to me has told—My weary spirit and my shrivell'd skinMy failing powers to prove it all begin—"Deceive thyself no longer, thou art old."Man is in all by Nature...Read more of this...

Communism

by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
 When my blood flows calm as a purling river, 
When my heart is asleep and my brain has sway, 
It is then that I vow we must part for ever, 
That I will forget you, and put you away
Out of my life, as a dream is banished
Out of the mind when the dreamer awakes; 
That I know it will...Read more of this...

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