Famous Baptismal Poems by Famous Poets

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

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A Fountain a Bottle a Donkeys Ears and Some Books

...You remember
You said you knew the place where once, on Kinsman,
The early Mormons made a settlement
And built a stone baptismal font outdoors—
But Smith, or someone, called them off the mountain
To go West to a worse fight with the desert.
You said you'd seen the stone baptismal font.
Well, take me there."

 Someday I will."

 "Today."

"Huh, that old bathtub, what is that to see?
Let's talk about it."

 "Let's go see the place."

'To shut you up I'll tell you what I'll do:...Read more of this...
by Frost, Robert


A Song To David

.... 

 XLV 
Act simply, as occasion asks; 
Put mellow wine in season'd casks; 
 Till not with ass and bull: 
Remember thy baptismal bond; 
Keep from commixtures foul and fond,
 Nor work thy flax with wool. 

 XLVI 
Distribute: pay the Lord His tithe, 
And make the widow's heart-strings blythe; 
 Resort with those that weep: 
As you from all and each expect, 
For all and each thy love direct, 
 And render as you reap. 

 XLVII 
The slander and its bearer spurn, 
And propagating ...Read more of this...
by Smart, Christopher

Longing

...t with me upon the shore to-day,
And hold my hand in yours as in the days of old,
I think I should not mind the chill baptismal spray,
Nor find my hand and heart and all the world so cold.

If you could walk with me upon the strand to-day,
And tell me that my longing love had won your own,
I think all my sad thoughts would then be put away,
And I could give back laughter for the Ocean’s moan!...Read more of this...
by Laurence Dunbar, Paul

Mother Mind

...perfect, quite.

These children of my soul I keep
Where scarce a mortal man may see,
Yet not unconsecrate, dear friend,
Baptismal rites they claim of thee....Read more of this...
by Howe, Julia Ward

Plutonian Ode

...ive Nemesis were you there at the beginning 
 black dumb tongueless unsmelling blast of Disil-
 lusion?
I manifest your Baptismal Word after four billion years
I guess your birthday in Earthling Night, I salute your
 dreadful presence last majestic as the Gods,
Sabaot, Jehova, Astapheus, Adonaeus, Elohim, Iao, 
 Ialdabaoth, Aeon from Aeon born ignorant in an
 Abyss of Light,
Sophia's reflections glittering thoughtful galaxies, whirl-
 pools of starspume silver-thin as hairs o...Read more of this...
by Ginsberg, Allen


Poem For South African Women

...ey
carousing in ferocious affirmation
of all peaceable and loving amplitude
sound a certainly unbounded heat
from a baptismal smoke where yes
there will be fire

And the babies cease alarm as mothers
raising arms
and heart high as the stars so far unseen
nevertheless hurl into the universe
a moving force
irreversible as light years
traveling to the open
eye

And who will join this standing up
and the ones who stood without sweet company
will sing and sing
b...Read more of this...
by Jordan, June

The Cathedral of Rheims

...y hour,
With thundering bands of fire
And Death is scattered broadcast among men.
And then
That which was splendid with baptismal grace;
The stately arches soaring into space,
The transepts, columns, windows gray and gold,
The organ, in whose tones the ocean rolled,
The crypts, of mighty shades the dwelling places,
The Virgin's gentle hands, the Saints' pure faces,
All, even the pardoning hands of Christ the Lord
Were struck and broken by the wanton sword
Of sacrilegious lust...Read more of this...
by Kilmer, Joyce

The Star-Apple Kingdom

...o Caracas, where penitential archbishops 
washed the feet of paupers (a parenthetical moment 
that made the Caribbean a baptismal font, 
turned butterflies to stone, and whitened like doves 
the buzzards circling municipal garbage), 
the Caribbean was borne like an elliptical basin 
in the hands of acolytes, and a people were absolved 
of a history which they did not commit; 
the slave pardoned his whip, and the dispossessed 
said the rosary of islands for three hundred years...Read more of this...
by Walcott, Derek

The Twins Of Lucky Strike

...erupted joy an' light,
An' set upon the stage them twins was elegant to see,
Like angel cherubs in their robes of pure baptismal white,
Abaskin' in the sunny smile o' Father tim McGee.
Then on the bar stood Santa Claus, says he: "We'll form a Trust;
So all you sourdoughs heft your pokes an' hang 'em on the Tree.
To give them kids a chance in life we'll raise enough or bust!"
"For zem I pray ze Lord to bless," said Montreal Maree.

You never saw a Christmas Tree so swell as t...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William

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