10 Best Famous Favoured Poems

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

• All Famous Favoured Poems

 I ask not that my bed of death
From bands of greedy heirs be free;
For these besiege the latest breath
Of fortune's favoured sons, not me.

I ask not each kind soul to keep
Tearless, when of my death he hears;
Let those who will, if any, weep!
There are worse plagues on earth than tears.

I ask but that my death may find
The freedom to my life denied;
Ask but the folly of mankind,
Then, at last, to quit my side.

Spare me the whispering, crowded room,
The friends who come, and gape, and go;
The ceremonious air of gloom—
All which makes death a hideous show!

Nor bring, to see me cease to live,
Some doctor full of phrase and fame,
To shake his sapient head and give
The ill he cannot cure a name.

Nor fetch, to take the accustomed toll
Of the poor sinner bound for death,
His brother doctor of the soul,
To canvass with official breath

The future and its viewless things—
That undiscovered mystery
Which one who feels death's winnowing wings
Must need read clearer, sure, than he!

Bring none of these; but let me be,
While all around in silence lies,
Moved to the window near, and see
Once more before my dying eyes

Bathed in the sacred dew of morn
The wide aerial landscape spread—
The world which was ere I was born,
The world which lasts when I am dead.

Which never was the friend of one,
Nor promised love it could not give,
But lit for all its generous sun,
And lived itself, and made us live.

There let me gaze, till I become
In soul with what I gaze on wed!
To feel the universe my home;
To have before my mind -instead

Of the sick-room, the mortal strife,
The turmoil for a little breath—
The pure eternal course of life,
Not human combatings with death.

Thus feeling, gazing, let me grow
Composed, refreshed, ennobled, clear;
Then willing let my spirit go
To work or wait elsewhere or here!

 Not for the love of women toil we, we of the craft, 
Not for the people's praise; 
Only because our goddess made us her own and laughed, 
Claiming us all our days, 
Claiming our best endeavour -- body and heart and brain 
Given with no reserve -- 
Niggard is she towards us, granting us little gain: 
Still, we are proud to serve. 

Not unto us is given choice of the tasks we try, 
Gathering grain or chaff; 
One of her favoured servants toils at an epic high, 
One, that a child may laugh. 

Yet if we serve her truly in our appointed place, 
Freely she doth accord 
Unto her faithful servants always this saving grace, 
Work is its own reward!

 The Muse is stern unto her favoured sons,
Giving to some the keys of all the joy
Of the green earth, but holding even that joy
Back from their life;
Bidding them feed on hope,
A plant of bitter growth,
Deep-rooted in the past;
Truth, 'tis a doubtful art
To make Hope sweeten
Time as it flows;
For no man knows
Until the very last,
Whether it be a sovereign herb that he has eaten,
Or his own heart.

O stern, implacable Muse,
Giving to Keats so richly dowered,
Only the thought that he should be
Among the English poets after death;
Letting him fade with that expectancy,
All powerless to unfold the future!
What boots it that our age has snatched him free
From thy too harsh embrace,
Has given his fame the certainty
Of comradeship with Shakespeare's?
He lies alone
Beneath the frown of the old Roman stone
And the cold Roman violets;
And not our wildest incantation
Of his most sacred lines,
Nor all the praise that sets
Towards his pale grave,
Like oceans towards the moon,
Will move the Shadow with the pensive brow
To break his dream,
And give unto him now
One word! --

When the young master reasoned
That our puissant England
Reared her great poets by neglect,
Trampling them down in the by-paths of Life
And fostering them with glory after death,
Did any flame of triumph from his own fame
Fall swift upon his mind; the glow
Cast back upon the bleak and aching air
Blown around his days -- ?
Happily so!
But he, whose soul was mighty as the soul
Of Milton, who held the vision of the world
As an irradiant orb self-filled with light,
Who schooled his heart with passionate control
To compass knowledge, to unravel the dense
Web of this tangled life, he would weigh slight
As thistledown blown from his most fairy fancy
That pale self-glory, against the mystery,
The wonder of the various world, the power
Of "seeing great things in loneliness."
Where bloodroot in the clearing dwells
Along the edge of snow;
Where, trembling all their trailing bells,
The sensitive twinflowers blow;

Where, searching through the ferny breaks,
The moose-fawns find the springs;
Where the loon laughs and diving takes
Her young beneath her wings;

Where flash the fields of arctic moss
With myriad golden light;
Where no dream-shadows ever cross
The lidless eyes of night;

Where, cleaving a mountain storm, the proud
Eagles, the clear sky won,
Mount the thin air between the loud
Slow thunder and the sun;

Where, to the high tarn tranced and still
No eye has ever seen,
Comes the first star its flame to chill
In the cool deeps of green; --
Spirit of Keats, unfurl thy wings,
Far from the toil and press,
Teach us by these pure-hearted things,
Beauty in loneliness.

Where, in the realm of thought, dwell those
Who oft in pain and penury
Work in the void,
Searching the infinite dark between the stars,
The infinite little of the atom,
Gathering the tears and terrors of this life,
Distilling them to a medicine for the soul;
(And hated for their thought
Die for it calmly;
For not their fears,
Nor the cold scorn of men,
Fright them who hold to truth:)
They brood alone in the intense serene
Air of their passion,
Until on some chill dawn
Breaks the immortal form foreshadowed in their dream,
And the distracted world and men
Are no more what they were.
Spirit of Keats, unfurl thy deathless wings,
Far from the wayward toil, the vain excess,
Teach us by such soul-haunting things
Beauty in loneliness.

The minds of men grow numb, their vision narrows,
The clogs of Empire and the dust of ages,
The lust of power that fogs the fairest pages,
Of the romance that eager life would write,
These war on Beauty with their spears and arrows.
But still is Beauty and of constant power;
Even in the whirl of Time's most sordid hour,
Banished from the great highways,
Afflighted by the tramp of insolent feet,
She hangs her garlands in the by-ways;
Lissome and sweet
Bending her head to hearken and learn
Melody shadowed with melody,
Softer than shadow of sea-fern,
In the green-shadowed sea:
Then, nourished by quietude,
And if the world's mood
Change, she may return
Even lovelier than before. --

The white reflection in the mountain lake
Falls from the white stream
Silent in the high distance;
The mirrored mountains guard
The profile of the goddess of the height,
Floating in water with a curve of crystal light;
When the air, envious of the loveliness,
Rushes downward to surprise,
Confusion plays in the contact,
The picture is overdrawn
With ardent ripples,
But when the breeze, warned of intrusion,
Draws breathless upward in flight,
The vision reassembles in tranquillity,
Reforming with a gesture of delight,
Reborn with the rebirth of calm.

Spirit of Keats, lend us thy voice,
Breaking like surge in some enchanted cave
On a dream-sea-coast,
To summon Beauty to her desolate world.
For Beauty has taken refuge from our life
That grew too loud and wounding;
Beauty withdraws beyond the bitter strife,
Beauty is gone, (Oh where?)
To dwell within a precinct of pure air
Where moments turn to months of solitude;
To live on roots of fern and tips of fern,
On tender berries flushed with the earth's blood.
Beauty shall stain her feet with moss
And dye her cheek with deep nut-juices,
Laving her hands in the pure sluices
Where rainbows are dissolved.
Beauty shall view herself in pools of amber sheen
Dappled with peacock-tints from the green screen
That mingles liquid light with liquid shadow.
Beauty shall breathe the fairy hush
With the chill orchids in their cells of shade,
And hear the invocation of the thrush
That calls the stars into their heaven,
And after even
Beauty shall take the night into her soul.
When the thrill voice goes crying through the wood,
(Oh, Beauty, Beauty!)
Troubling the solitude
With echoes from the lonely world,
Beauty will tremble like a cloistered thing
That hears temptation in the outlands singing,
Will steel her dedicated heart and breathe
Into her inner ear to firm her vow: --
"Let me restore the soul that ye have marred.
O mortals, cry no more on Beauty,
Leave me alone, lone mortals,
Until my shaken soul comes to its own,
Lone mortals, leave me alone!"
(Oh Beauty, Beauty, Beauty!)
All the dim wood is silent as a dream
That dreams of silence.

 A Brother and Sister


O I admire and sorrow! The heart’s eye grieves 
Discovering you, dark tramplers, tyrant years. 
A juice rides rich through bluebells, in vine leaves, 
And beauty’s dearest veriest vein is tears. 

Happy the father, mother of these! Too fast:
Not that, but thus far, all with frailty, blest 
In one fair fall; but, for time’s aftercast, 
Creatures all heft, hope, hazard, interest. 

And are they thus? The fine, the fingering beams
Their young delightful hour do feature down
That fleeted else like day-dissolv?d dreams 
Or ringlet-race on burling Barrow brown. 

She leans on him with such contentment fond 
As well the sister sits, would well the wife; 
His looks, the soul’s own letters, see beyond,
Gaze on, and fall directly forth on life. 

But ah, bright forelock, cluster that you are 
Of favoured make and mind and health and youth, 
Where lies your landmark, seamark, or soul’s star? 
There’s none but truth can stead you. Christ is truth.

There ’s none but good can b? good, both for you 
And what sways with you, maybe this sweet maid; 
None good but God—a warning wav?d to 
One once that was found wanting when Good weighed. 

Man lives that list, that leaning in the will
No wisdom can forecast by gauge or guess, 
The selfless self of self, most strange, most still, 
Fast furled and all foredrawn to No or Yes. 

Your feast of; that most in you earnest eye 
May but call on your banes to more carouse.
Worst will the best. What worm was here, we cry, 
To have havoc-pocked so, see, the hung-heavenward boughs?

Enough: corruption was the world’s first woe. 
What need I strain my heart beyond my ken? 
O but I bear my burning witness though
Against the wild and wanton work of men.
. . . . . . .

 You may rejoice to think yourselves secure;
You may be grateful for the gift divine --
That grace unsought, which made your black hearts pure,
And fits your earth-born souls in Heaven to shine. 
But, is it sweet to look around, and view
Thousands excluded from that happiness,
Which they deserved, at least, as much as you, --
Their faults not greater, nor their virtues less? 

And, wherefore should you love your God the more,
Because to you alone his smiles are given;
Because he chose to pass the many o'er,
And only bring the favoured few to Heaven? 

And, wherefore should your hearts more grateful prove,
Because for ALL the Saviour did not die?
Is yours the God of justice and of love
And are your bosoms warm with charity? 

Say, does your heart expand to all mankind?
And, would you ever to your neighbour do --
The weak, the strong, the enlightened, and the blind -­
As you would have your neighbour do to you? 

And, when you, looking on your fellow-men,
Behold them doomed to endless misery,
How can you talk of joy and rapture then? --
May God withhold such cruel joy from me! 

That none deserve eternal bliss I know;
Unmerited the grace in mercy given:
But, none shall sink to everlasting woe,
That have not well deserved the wrath of Heaven. 

And, Oh! there lives within my heart
A hope, long nursed by me;
(And, should its cheering ray depart,
How dark my soul would be!) 

That as in Adam all have died,
In Christ shall all men live;
And ever round his throne abide,
Eternal praise to give.

That even the wicked shall at last
Be fitted for the skies;
And, when their dreadful doom is past,
To life and light arise. 

I ask not, how remote the day,
Nor what the sinner's woe,
Before their dross is purged away;
Enough for me, to know

That when the cup of wrath is drained,
The metal purified,
They'll cling to what they once disdained,
And live by Him that died.

 Westward, hit a low note, for a roarer lost
across the Sound but north from Bremerton,
hit a way down note.
And never cadenza again of flowers, or cost.
Him who could really do that cleared his throat
& staggered on.

The bluebells, pool-shallows, saluted his over-needs,
while the clouds growled, heh-heh, & snapped, & crashed.

No stunt he'll ever unflinch once more will fail
(O lucky fellow, eh Bones?)-”drifted off upstairs,
downstairs, somewheres.
No more daily, trying to hit the head on the nail:
thirstless: without a think in his head:
back from wherever, with it said.

Hit a high long note, for a lover found
needing a lower into friendlier ground
to bug among worms no more
around um jungles where ah blurt 'What for?'
Weeds, too, he favoured as most men don't favour men.
The Garden Master's gone.

De times is mighty stirrin' 'mong de people up ouah way,
Dey 'sputin' an' dey argyin' an' fussin' night an' day;
An' all dis monst'ous trouble dat hit meks me tiahed to tell
Is 'bout dat Lucy Jackson dat was sich a mighty belle.
She was de preachah's favoured, an' he tol' de chu'ch one night
Dat she travelled thoo de cloud o' sin a-bearin' of a light;
But, now, I 'low he t'inkin' dat she mus' 'a' los' huh lamp,
Case Lucy done backslided an' dey trouble in de camp.
Huh daddy wants to beat huh, but huh mammy daihs him to,
Fu' she lookin' at de question f'om a ooman's pint o' view;
An' she say dat now she would n't have it diff'ent ef she could;
Dat huh darter only acted jes' lak any othah would.
Cose you know w'en women argy, dey is mighty easy led
By dey hea'ts an' don't go foolin' 'bout de reasons of de haid.
So huh mammy laid de law down (she ain' reckernizin' wrong),
But you got to mek erlowance fu' de cause dat go along.
Now de cause dat made Miss Lucy fu' to th'ow huh grace away
I 's afeard won't baih no 'spection w'en hit come to jedgement day;
Do' de same t'ing been a-wo'kin' evah sence de worl' began,—
De ooman disobeyin' fu' to 'tice along a man.
Ef you 'tended de revivals which we held de wintah pas',
You kin rickolec' dat convuts was a-comin' thick an' fas';
But dey ain't no use in talkin', dey was all lef' in de lu'ch
W'en ol' Mis' Jackson's dartah foun' huh peace an' tuk de chu'ch.
W'y, she shouted ovah evah inch of Ebenezah's flo';
Up into de preachah's pulpit an' f'om dah down to de do';
Den she hugged an' squeezed huh mammy, an' she hugged an' kissed huh dad,
An' she struck out at huh sistah, people said, lak she was mad.[Pg 159]
I has 'tended some revivals dat was lively in my day,
An' I 's seed folks git 'uligion in mos' evah kin' o' way;
But I tell you, an' you b'lieve me dat I 's speakin' true indeed,
Dat gal tuk huh 'ligion ha'dah dan de ha'dest yit I 's seed.
Well, f'om dat, 't was "Sistah Jackson, won't you please do dis er dat?"
She mus' allus sta't de singin' w'en dey 'd pass erroun' de hat,
An' hit seemed dey was n't nuffin' in dat chu'ch dat could go by
'Dout sistah Lucy Jackson had a finger in de pie.
But de sayin' mighty trufeful dat hit easiah to sail
W'en de sea is ca'm an' gentle dan to weathah out a gale.
Dat 's whut made dis ooman's trouble; ef de sto'm had kep' away,
She 'd 'a' had enough 'uligion fu' to lasted out huh day.
Lucy went wid 'Lishy Davis, but w'en she jined chu'ch, you know
Dah was lots o' little places dat, of cose, she could n't go;
An' she had to gin up dancin' an' huh singin' an' huh play.—
Now hit's nachul dat sich goin's-on 'u'd drive a man away.
So, w'en Lucy got so solemn, Ike he sta'ted fu' to go
Wid a gal who was a sinnah an' could mek a bettah show.
Lucy jes' went on to meetin' lak she did n't keer a rap,
But my 'sperunce kep' me t'inkin dah was somep'n' gwine to drap.
Fu' a gal won't let 'uligion er no othah so't o' t'ing
Stop huh w'en she teks a notion dat she wants a weddin' ring.
You kin p'omise huh de blessin's of a happy aftah life
(An' hit's nice to be a angel), but she 'd ravah be a wife.
So w'en Chrismus come an' mastah gin a frolic on de lawn,
Did n't 'sprise me not de littlest seein' Lucy lookin' on.
An' I seed a wa'nin' lightnin' go a-flashin' f'om huh eye
Jest ez 'Lishy an' his new gal went a-gallivantin' by.
An' dat Tildy, umph! she giggled, an' she gin huh dress a flirt
Lak de people she was passin' was ez common ez de dirt;
An' de minit she was dancin', w'y dat gal put on mo' aihs
Dan a cat a-tekin' kittens up a paih o' windin' staihs.[Pg 160]
She could 'fo'd to show huh sma'tness, fu' she could n't he'p but know
Dat wid jes' de present dancahs she was ownah of de flo';
But I t'ink she 'd kin' o' cooled down ef she happened on de sly
Fu' to noticed dat 'ere lightnin' dat I seed in Lucy's eye.
An' she would n't been so 'stonished w'en de people gin a shout,
An' Lucy th'owed huh mantle back an' come a-glidin' out.
Some ahms was dah to tek huh an' she fluttahed down de flo'
Lak a feddah f'om a bedtick w'en de win' commence to blow.
Soon ez Tildy see de trouble, she jes' tu'n an' toss huh haid,
But seem lak she los' huh sperrit, all huh darin'ness was daid.
Did n't cut anothah capah nary time de blessid night;
But de othah one, hit looked lak could n't git enough delight.
W'en you keeps a colt a-stan'nin' in de stable all along,
W'en he do git out hit 's nachul he 'll be pullin' mighty strong.
Ef you will tie up yo' feelin's, hyeah 's de bes' advice to tek,
Look out fu' an awful loosin' w'en de string dat hol's 'em brek.
Lucy's mammy groaned to see huh, an' huh pappy sto'med an' to',
But she kep' right on a-hol'in' to de centah of de flo'.
So dey went an' ast de pastoh ef he could n't mek huh quit,
But de tellin' of de sto'y th'owed de preachah in a fit.
Tildy Taylor chewed huh hank'cher twell she 'd chewed it in a hole,—
All de sinnahs was rejoicin' 'cause a lamb had lef de fol',
An' de las' I seed o' Lucy, she an' 'Lish was side an' side:
I don't blame de gal fu' dancin', an' I could n't ef I tried.
Fu' de men dat wants to ma'y ain't a-growin' 'roun' on trees,
An' de gal dat wants to git one sholy has to try to please.
Hit's a ha'd t'ing fu' a ooman fu 'to pray an' jes' set down,
An' to sacafice a husban' so 's to try to gain a crown.
Now, I don' say she was justified in follerin' huh plan;
But aldough she los' huh 'ligion, yit she sholy got de man.
Latah on, w'en she is suttain dat de preachah 's made 'em fas'
She kin jes' go back to chu'ch an' ax fu'giveness fu' de pas'![Pg 161]

 Blessed with a joy that only she
Of all alive shall ever know,
She wears a proud humility
For what it was that willed it so -
That her degree should be so great
Among the favoured of the Lord
That she may scarcely bear the weight
Of her bewildering reward.

As one apart, immune, alone,
Or featured for the shining ones,
And like to none that she has known
Of other women's other sons -
The firm fruition of her need,
He shines anointed; and he blurs
Her vision, till it seems indeed
A sacrilege to call him hers.

She fears a little for so much
Of what is best, and hardly dares
To think of him as one to touch
With aches, indignities, and cares;
She sees him rather at the goal,
Still shining; and her dream foretells
The proper shining of a soul
Where nothing ordinary dwells.

Perchance a canvass of the town
Would find him far from flags and shouts,
And leave him only the renown
Of many smiles and many doubts;
Perchance the crude and common tongue
Would havoc strangely with his worth;
But she, with innocence unwrung,
Would read his name around the earth.

And others, knowing how this youth
Would shine, if love could make him great,
When caught and tortured for the truth
Would only writhe and hesitate;
While she, arranging for his days
What centuries could not fulfil,
Transmutes him with her faith and praise,
And has him shining where she will.

She crowns him with her gratefulness,
And says again that life is good;
And should the gift of God be less
In him than in her motherhood,
His fame, though vague, will not be small
As upward through her dream he fares,
Half clouded with a crimson fall
Of roses thrown on marble stairs.

 You may rejoice to think yourselves secure,
You may be grateful for the gift divine,
That grace unsought which made your black hearts pure
And fits your earthborn souls in Heaven to shine. 
But is it sweet to look around and view
Thousands excluded from that happiness,
Which they deserve at least as much as you,
Their faults not greater nor their virtues less? 

And wherefore should you love your God the more
Because to you alone his smiles are given,
Because He chose to pass the many o'er
And only bring the favoured few to Heaven? 

And wherefore should your hearts more grateful prove
Because for all the Saviour did not die?
Is yours the God of justice and of love
And are your bosoms warm with charity? 

Say does your heart expand to all mankind
And would you ever to your neighbour do,
-- The weak, the strong, the enlightened and the blind -­
As you would have your neighbour do to you? 

And, when you, looking on your fellow men
Behold them doomed to endless misery,
How can you talk of joy and rapture then?
May God withhold such cruel joy from me! 

That none deserve eternal bliss I know:
Unmerited the grace in mercy given,
But none shall sink to everlasting woe
That have not well deserved the wrath of Heaven. 

And, O! there lives within my heart
A hope long nursed by me,
(And should its cheering ray depart
How dark my soul would be) 

That as in Adam all have died
In Christ shall all men live
And ever round his throne abide
Eternal praise to give; 

That even the wicked shall at last
Be fitted for the skies
And when their dreadful doom is past
To life and light arise. 

I ask not how remote the day
Nor what the sinner's woe
Before their dross is purged away,
Enough for me to know 

That when the cup of wrath is drained,
The metal purified,
They'll cling to what they once disdained,
And live by Him that died.

 The mountains in fantastic lines
Sweep, blue-white, to the sky, which shines
Blue as blue gems; athwart the pines
The lake gleams blue.

We three were here, three years gone by;
Our Poet, with fine-frenzied eye,
You, stepped in learned lore, and I,
A poet too.

Our Poet brought us books and flowers,
He read us Faust; he talked for hours
Philosophy (sad Schopenhauer's),
Beneath the trees:

And do you mind that sunny day,
When he, as on the sward he lay,
Told of Lassalle who bore away
The false Louise?

Thrice-favoured bard! to him alone
That green and snug retreat was shown,
Where to the vulgar herd unknown,
Our pens we plied.

(For, in those distant days, it seems,
We cherished sundry idle dreams,
And with our flowing foolscap reams
The Fates defied.)

And after, when the day was gone,
And the hushed, silver night came on,
He showed us where the glow-worm shone;--
We stooped to see.

There, too, by yonder moon we swore
Platonic friendship o'er and o'er;
No folk, we deemed, had been before
So wise and free.


* * * * * * *

And do I sigh or smile to-day?
Dead love or dead ambition, say,
Which mourn we most? Not much we weigh
Platonic friends.

On you the sun is shining free;
Our Poet sleeps in Italy,
Beneath an alien sod; on me
The cloud descends.