Famous Benevolence Poems by Famous Poets

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

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I am such as Thy power has made me. I have lived a

by Omar Khayyam
I am such as Thy power has made me. I have lived a
hundred years filled with Thy benevolence and benefits.
I would like still a hundred years to commit sin and to
see if the sum of my faults outweighed Thy pity....Read more of this...

The Missionary

by Charlotte Bronte
 Lough, vessel, plough the British main,
Seek the free ocean's wider plain; 
Leave English scenes and English skies,
Unbind, dissever English ties; 
Bear me to climes remote and strange, 
Where altered life, fast-following change,
Hot action, never-ceasing toil, 
Shall stir, turn, dig, the spirit's soil; 
Fresh roots shall plant, fresh seed shall sow, 
Till a new garden there shall grow, 
Cleared of...Read more of this...

Prosopopoia: or Mother Hubbards Tale

by Edmund Spenser
 By that he ended had his ghostly sermon,
The fox was well induc'd to be a parson,
And of the priest eftsoons gan to inquire,
How to a benefice he might aspire.
"Marry, there" (said the priest) "is art indeed:
Much good deep learning one thereout may read;
For that the ground-work is, and end of all,
How to obtain a beneficial.
First, therefore, when ye have...Read more of this...

It is we who have confidence in the divine goodness,

by Omar Khayyam
It is we who have confidence in the divine goodness,
who have shaken off the ideas of obedience and sin; for
where Thy benevolence exists, O God, he who has done
nothing is equal to him who has done something....Read more of this...

from Jubilate Agno Fragment B lines 695-768

by Christopher Smart
 For I will consider my Cat Jeoffry.
For he is the servant of the Living God, duly and daily serving him.
For at the first glance of the glory of God in the East he worships in his way.
For is this done by wreathing his body seven times round with elegant quickness.
For then he leaps up to catch the musk, which...Read more of this...

On Receiving a Crown of Ivy from John Keats

by James Henry Leigh Hunt
 It is a lofty feeling, yet a kind, 
Thus to be topped with leaves;--to have a sense 
Of honour-shaded thought,--an influence 
As from great nature's fingers, and be twined 
With her old, sacred, verdurous ivy-bind, 
As though she hallowed with that sylvan fence 
A head that bows to her benevolence, 
Midst pomp of fancied trumpets in the wind. 

It...Read more of this...

Benevolence

by Allama Muhammad Iqbal
On the bough of a tree was seated
A nightingale that was saddened

Saying that-
Over me the night is past
And in pecking day is lost!

Towards their nest
How will they (birds) reach
When the shadow of dark
Has fastened its glitch

When heard this yell and wail
Of the nightingale
Said the glowworm
In a voice so calm

With my heart and soul
To you I am of avail
So what if...Read more of this...

Thy pity being promised me, I have no fear of sin

by Omar Khayyam
Thy pity being promised me, I have no fear of sin.
With the provision that Thou possessest, I have no disquiet
about the journey. Thy benevolence renders my
visage white and of the black book I have no fear....Read more of this...

Jubilate Agno (excerpt)

by Christopher Smart
 For I will consider my Cat Jeoffry. 
For he is the servant of the Living God duly and daily serving him.
For at the first glance of the glory of God in the East he worships in his way.
For this is done by wreathing his body seven times round with elegant quickness.
For then he leaps up to catch the musk,...Read more of this...

Excelsior

by Walt Whitman
 WHO has gone farthest? For lo! have not I gone farther? 
And who has been just? For I would be the most just person of the earth; 
And who most cautious? For I would be more cautious; 
And who has been happiest? O I think it is I! I think no one was ever happier than I; 
And who...Read more of this...

To His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor

by Phillis Wheatley
 All-Conquering Death! by thy resistless pow'r,
Hope's tow'ring plumage falls to rise no more!
Of scenes terrestrial how the glories fly,
Forget their splendors, and submit to die!
Who ere escap'd thee, but the saint of old
Beyond the flood in sacred annals told,
And the great sage, whom fiery coursers drew
To heav'n's bright portals from Elisha's view;
Wond'ring he gaz'd at the refulgent car,

Then snatch'd...Read more of this...

The Intruder

by Carolyn Kizer
 My mother-- preferring the strange to the tame:
Dove-note, bone marrow, deer dung,
Frog's belly distended with finny young,
Leaf-mould wilderness, hare-bell, toadstool,
Odd, small snakes loving through the leaves,
Metallic beetles rambling over stones: all
Wild and natural -flashed out her instinctive love,
and quick, she
Picked up the fluttering. bleeding bat the cat laid at her feet,
And held the little horror to the mirror, where
He...Read more of this...

For I Will Consider My Cat Jeoffry (excerpt Jubilate Agno)

by Christopher Smart
 For I will consider my Cat Jeoffry. 
For he is the servant of the Living God duly and daily serving him.
For at the first glance of the glory of God in the East he worships in his way.
For this is done by wreathing his body seven times round with elegant quickness.
For then he leaps up to catch the musk,...Read more of this...

Women

by Louise Bogan
 Women have no wilderness in them, 
They are provident instead, 
Content in the tight hot cell of their hearts 
To eat dusty bread. 

They do not see cattle cropping red winter grass,
They do not hear 
Snow water going down under culverts 
Shallow and clear. 

They wait, when they should turn to journeys, 
They stiffen, when they should bend. 
They...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...

A slave in dire revolt am I: where is Thy will? Black

by Omar Khayyam
A slave in dire revolt am I: where is Thy will? Black
with all sin my heart: where is Thy light and Thy control?
If Thou giv'st Paradise to our obedience alone
[to Thy laws], it is a debt of which Thou quit'st
Thyself and in such case we need Thy pity and benevolence....Read more of this...

Bombay

by John Matthew
 In your bosom we wake up with fear,
In your sky there’s only unending tears,
You always roar, but within,
Hangs silence like a shroud of death.

You are rocked, periodically, by bombs,
Yet, we go about our business,
As if nothing happened, all’s well,
Are we too dazed to protest?

In your hungry, convoluted entrails, 
Lie pauper and millionaire,
Separated only by the whimsy,
Of your very partial...Read more of this...

Elegy on the Death of Lady Middleton

by Mary Darby Robinson
 THE knell of death, that on the twilight gale, 
Swells its deep murmur to the pensive ear; 
In awful sounds repeats a mournful tale, 
And claims the tribute of a tender tear. 

The dreadful hour is past ! the mandate giv'n! 
The gentle MIDDLETON shall breathe no more, 
Yet who shall blame the wise decrees of Heaven, 
Or the...Read more of this...

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