10 Best Famous Commandments Poems

Here is a collection of the top 10 all-time best famous Commandments poems. This is a select list of the best famous Commandments poetry. Reading, writing, and enjoying famous Commandments poetry (as well as classical and contemporary poems) is a great past time. These top poems are the best examples of commandments poems.

• All Famous Commandments Poems

 Each picture is heartbreakingly banal,
a kitten and a ball of yarn,
a dog and bone.
The paper is cheap, easily torn.
A coloring book's authority is derived
from its heavy black lines
as unalterable as the ten commandments
within which minor decisions are possible:
the dog black and white,
the kitten gray.
Under the picture we find a few words,
a title, perhaps a narrative,
a psalm or sermon.
But nowhere do we come upon
a blank page where we might justify
the careless way we scribbled
when we were tired and sad
and could bear no more.

 For all we have and are,
For all our children's fate,
Stand up and take the war.
The Hun is at the gate!
Our world has passed away
In wantonness o'erthrown.
There is nothing left to-day
But steel and fire and stone!
 Tough all we knew depart,
 The old Commandments stand: --
 "In courage keep your heart,
 In strength lift up your hand."

Once more we hear the word
That sickened earth of old: --
"No law except the Sword
Unsheathed and uncontrolled."
Once more it knits mankind,
Once more the nations go
To meet and break and bind
A crazed and driven foe.

Comfort, content, delight,
The ages' slow-bought gain,
They shrivelled in a night.
Only ourselves remain
To face the naked days
In silent fortitude,
Through perils and dismays
Renewed and re-renewed.
 Though all we made depart,
 The old Commandments stand: --
 "In patience keep your heart,
 In strength lift up your hand."

No easy hope or lies
Shall bring us to our goal,
But iron sacrifice
Of body, will, and soul.
There is but one task for all --
One life for each to give.
What stands if Freedom fall?
Who dies if England live?

 The universe expands and contracts like a great heart.
It is expanding, the farthest nebulae
Rush with the speed of light into empty space.
It will contract, the immense navies of stars and galaxies,
 dust clouds and nebulae
Are recalled home, they crush against each other in one
 harbor, they stick in one lump
And then explode it, nothing can hold them down; there is no
 way to express that explosion; all that exists
Roars into flame, the tortured fragments rush away from each 
 other into all the sky, new universes
Jewel the black breast of night; and far off the outer nebulae 
 like charging spearmen again
Invade emptiness.
 No wonder we are so fascinated with 
 fireworks
And our huge bombs: it is a kind of homesickness perhaps for
 the howling fireblast that we were born from.

But the whole sum of the energies
That made and contain the giant atom survives. It will 
 gather again and pile up, the power and the glory--
And no doubt it will burst again; diastole and systole: the 
 whole universe beats like a heart.
Peace in our time was never one of God's promises; but back 
 and forth, live and die, burn and be damned,
The great heart beating, pumping into our arteries His 
 terrible life.
 He is beautiful beyond belief.
And we, God's apes--or tragic children--share in the beauty.
 We see it above our torment, that's what life's for.
He is no God of love, no justice of a little city like Dante's
 Florence, no anthropoid God
Making commandments,: this is the God who does not care
 and will never cease. Look at the seas there
Flashing against this rock in the darkness--look at the
 tide-stream stars--and the fall of nations--and dawn
Wandering with wet white feet down the Caramel Valley to
 meet the sea. These are real and we see their beauty.
The great explosion is probably only a metaphor--I know not
 --of faceless violence, the root of all things.

 Help for a patriot distressed, a spotless spirit hurt,
Help for an honourable clan sore trampled in the dirt!
From Queenstown Bay to Donegal, O listen to my song,
The honourable gentlemen have suffered grievous wrong.

Their noble names were mentioned -- O the burning black disgrace! --
By a brutal Saxon paper in an Irish shooting-case;
They sat upon it for a year, then steeled their heart to brave it,
And "coruscating innocence" the learned Judges gave it.

Bear witness, Heaven, of that grim crime beneath the surgeon's knife,
The honourable gentlemen deplored the loss of life!
Bear witness of those chanting choirs that burk and shirk and snigger,
No man laid hand upon the knife or finger to the trigger!

Cleared in the face of all mankind beneath the winking skies,
Like ph]oenixes from Ph]oenix Park (and what lay there) they rise!
Go shout it to the emerald seas -- give word to Erin now,
Her honourable gentlemen are cleared -- and this is how: --

They only paid the Moonlighter his cattle-hocking price,
They only helped the murderer with counsel's best advice,
But -- sure it keeps their honour white -- the learned Court believes
They never gave a piece of plate to murderers and thieves.

They never told the ramping crowd to card a woman's hide,
They never marked a man for death -- what fault of theirs he died? --
They only said "intimidate", and talked and went away --
By God, the boys that did the work were braver men than they!

Their sin it was that fed the fire -- small blame to them that heard --
The "bhoys" get drunk on rhetoric, and madden at a word --
They knew whom they were talking at, if they were Irish too,
The gentlemen that lied in Court, they knew, and well they knew.

They only took the Judas-gold from Fenians out of jail,
They only fawned for dollars on the blood-dyed Clanna-Gael.
If black is black or white is white, in black and white it's down,
They're only traitors to the Queen and rebels to the Crown.

"Cleared", honourable gentlemen! Be thankful it's no more: --
The widow's curse is on your house, the dead are at your door.
On you the shame of open shame, on you from North to South
The hand of every honest man flat-heeled across your mouth.

"Less black than we were painted"? -- Faith, no word of black was said;
The lightest touch was human blood, and that, you know, runs red.
It's sticking to your fist to-day for all your sneer and scoff,
And by the Judge's well-weighed word you cannot wipe it off.

Hold up those hands of innocence -- go, scare your sheep together,
The blundering, tripping tups that bleat behind the old bell-wether;
And if they snuff the taint and break to find another pen,
Tell them it's tar that glistens so, and daub them yours again!

"The charge is old"? -- As old as Cain -- as fresh as yesterday;
Old as the Ten Commandments -- have ye talked those laws away?
If words are words, or death is death, or powder sends the ball,
You spoke the words that sped the shot -- the curse be on you all.

"Our friends believe"? -- Of course they do -- as sheltered women may;
But have they seen the shrieking soul ripped from the quivering clay?
They! -- If their own front door is shut,
 they'll swear the whole world's warm;
What do they know of dread of death or hanging fear of harm?

The secret half a county keeps, the whisper in the lane,
The shriek that tells the shot went home behind the broken pane,
The dry blood crisping in the sun that scares the honest bees,
And shows the "bhoys" have heard your talk -- what do they know of these?

But you -- you know -- ay, ten times more; the secrets of the dead,
Black terror on the country-side by word and whisper bred,
The mangled stallion's scream at night, the tail-cropped heifer's low.
Who set the whisper going first? You know, and well you know!

My soul! I'd sooner lie in jail for murder plain and straight,
Pure crime I'd done with my own hand for money, lust, or hate,
Than take a seat in Parliament by fellow-felons cheered,
While one of those "not provens" proved me cleared as you are cleared.

Cleared -- you that "lost" the League accounts -- go, guard our honour still,
Go, help to make our country's laws that broke God's law at will --
One hand stuck out behind the back, to signal "strike again";
The other on your dress-shirt-front to show your heart is clane.

If black is black or white is white, in black and white it's down,
You're only traitors to the Queen and rebels to the Crown.
If print is print or words are words, the learned Court perpends: --
We are not ruled by murderers, but only -- by their friends.

 By the old Moulmein Pagoda, lookin' eastward to the sea,
There's a Burma girl a-settin', and I know she thinks o' me;
For the wind is in the palm-trees, and the temple-bells they say:
"Come you back, you British soldier; come you back to Mandalay!"
 Come you back to Mandalay,
 Where the old Flotilla lay:
 Can't you 'ear their paddles chunkin' from Rangoon to Mandalay?
 On the road to Mandalay,
 Where the flyin'-fishes play,
 An' the dawn comes up like thunder outer China 'crost the Bay!

'Er petticoat was yaller an' 'er little cap was green,
An' 'er name was Supi-yaw-lat -- jes' the same as Theebaw's Queen,
An' I seed her first a-smokin' of a whackin' white cheroot,
An' a-wastin' Christian kisses on an 'eathen idol's foot:
 Bloomin' idol made o'mud --
 Wot they called the Great Gawd Budd --
 Plucky lot she cared for idols when I kissed 'er where she stud!
 On the road to Mandalay . . .

When the mist was on the rice-fields an' the sun was droppin' slow,
She'd git 'er little banjo an' she'd sing "Kulla-lo-lo!"
With 'er arm upon my shoulder an' 'er cheek agin' my cheek
We useter watch the steamers an' the hathis pilin' teak.
 Elephints a-pilin' teak
 In the sludgy, squdgy creek,
 Where the silence 'ung that 'eavy you was 'arf afraid to speak!
 On the road to Mandalay . . .

But that's all shove be'ind me -- long ago an' fur away,
An' there ain't no 'busses runnin' from the Bank to Mandalay;
An' I'm learnin' 'ere in London what the ten-year soldier tells:
"If you've 'eard the East a-callin', you won't never 'eed naught else."
 No! you won't 'eed nothin' else
 But them spicy garlic smells,
 An' the sunshine an' the palm-trees an' the tinkly temple-bells;
 On the road to Mandalay . . .

I am sick o' wastin' leather on these gritty pavin'-stones,
An' the blasted Henglish drizzle wakes the fever in my bones;
Tho' I walks with fifty 'ousemaids outer Chelsea to the Strand,
An' they talks a lot o' lovin', but wot do they understand?
 Beefy face an' grubby 'and --
 Law! wot do they understand?
 I've a neater, sweeter maiden in a cleaner, greener land!
 On the road to Mandalay . . .

Ship me somewheres east of Suez, where the best is like the worst,
Where there aren't no Ten Commandments an' a man can raise a thirst;
For the temple-bells are callin', an' it's there that I would be --
By the old Moulmein Pagoda, looking lazy at the sea;
 On the road to Mandalay,
 Where the old Flotilla lay,
 With our sick beneath the awnings when we went to Mandalay!
 On the road to Mandalay,
 Where the flyin'-fishes play,
 An' the dawn comes up like thunder outer China 'crost the Bay!

 Across the wet November night
The church is bright with candlelight
And waiting Evensong.
A single bell with plaintive strokes
Pleads louder than the stirring oaks
The leafless lanes along.

It calls the hoirboys from their tea
And villagers, the two or three,
Damp down the kitchen fire,
Let out the cat, and up the lane
Go paddling through the gentle rain
Of misty Oxfordshire.

How warm the many candles shine
Of Samuel Dowbiggin's design
For this interior neat,
These high box pews of Georgian days
Which screen us from the public gaze
When we make answer meet;

How gracefully their shadow falls
On bold pilasters down the walls
And on the pulpit high.
The chandeliers would twinkle gold
As pre-Tractarian sermons roll'd
Doctrinal, sound and dry.

From that west gallery no doubt
The viol and serpent tooted out
The Tallis tune to Ken,
And firmly at the end of prayers
The clerk below the pulpit stairs
Would thunder out "Amen."

But every wand'ring thought will cease
Before the noble alterpiece
With carven swags array'd,
For there in letters all may read
The Lord's Commandments, Prayer and Creed,
And decently display'd.

On country morningd sharp and clear
The penitent in faith draw near
And kneeling here below
Partake the heavenly banquet spread
Of sacremental Wine and Bread
And Jesus' presence know.

And must that plaintive bell in vain
Plead loud along the dripping lane?
And must the building fall?
Not while we love the church and live
And of our charity will give
Our much, our more, our all.

 The heavenly frame sets forth the fame 
Of him that only thunders; 
The firmament, so strangely bent, 
Shows his handworking wonders. 

Day unto day doth it display, 
Their course doth it acknowledge, 
And night to night succeeding right 
In darkness teach clear knowledge. 

There is no speech, no language which 
Is so of skill bereaved, 
But of the skies the teaching cries 
They have heard and conceived. 

There be no eyen but read the line 
From so fair book proceeding, 
Their words be set in letters great 
For everybody's reading. 

Is not he blind that doth not find 
The tabernacle builded 
There by His Grace for sun's fair face 
In beams of beauty gilded? 

Who forth doth come, like a bridegroom, 
From out his veiling places, 
As glad is he, as giants be 
To run their mighty races. 

His race is even from ends of heaven; 
About that vault he goeth; 
There be no realms hid from his beams; 
His heat to all he throweth. 

O law of His, how perfect 'tis 
The very soul amending; 
God's witness sure for aye doth dure 
To simplest wisdom lending. 

God's dooms be right, and cheer the sprite, 
All His commandments being 
So purely wise it gives the eyes 
Both light and force of seeing. 

Of Him the fear doth cleanness bear 
And so endures forever, 
His judgments be self verity, 
They are unrighteous never. 

Then what man would so soon seek gold 
Or glittering golden money? 
By them is past in sweetest taste, 
Honey or comb of honey. 

By them is made Thy servants' trade 
Most circumspectly guarded, 
And who doth frame to keep the same 
Shall fully be rewarded. 

Who is the man that ever can 
His faults know and acknowledge? 
O Lord, cleanse me from faults that be 
Most secret from all knowledge. 

Thy servant keep, lest in him creep 
Presumtuous sins' offenses; 
Let them not have me for their slave 
Nor reign upon my senses. 

So shall my sprite be still upright 
In thought and conversation, 
So shall I bide well purified 
From much abomination. 

So let words sprung from my weak tongue 
And my heart's meditation, 
My saving might, Lord, in Thy sight, 
Receive good acceptation!

 Faithful to your commandments, o consciousness, o

Holy bird of words soaring ever whether to nothingness or
 to inconceivable fulfillment slowly:

And still I follow you, awkward as that dandy of ontology
 and as awkward as his albatross and as

another dandy of ontology before him, another shepherd
 and watchdog of being, the one who

Talked forever of forever as if forever of having been
 and being an ancient mariner,

Hesitant forever as if forever were the albatross 

Hung round his neck by the seven seas of the seven muses,

and with as little conclusion, since being never concludes,

Studying the sibilance and the splashing of the seas and of
 seeing and of being's infinite seas,

Staring at the ever-blue and the far small stars and 
 the faint white endless curtain of the
 twinkling play's endless seasons.

 He protested all his life long
The newspapers lied about him villainously;
That he was not at fault for Minerva's fall,
But only tried to help her.
Poor soul so sunk in sin he could not see
That even trying to help her, as he called it,
He had broken the law human and divine.
Passers by, an ancient admonition to you:
If your ways would be ways of pleasantness,
And all your pathways peace,
Love God and keep his commandments.