Famous Bidden Poems by Famous Poets

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

See also:

The Maid Of The Mills Repentance

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 YOUTH.

AWAY, thou swarthy witch! Go forth

From out my house, I tell thee!
Or else I needs must, in my wrath,

Expel thee!
What's this thou singest so falsely, forsooth,
Of love and a maiden's silent truth?

Who'll trust to such a story!

GIPSY.

I sing of a maid's repentant fears,

And long and bitter yearning;
Her levity's changed to truth and tears

All-burning.
She dreads no more the threats of...Read more of this...

Freedom And Love

by Thomas Campbell
 How delicious is the winning
Of a kiss at love's beginning,
When two mutual hearts are sighing
For the knot there's no untying!
Yet remember, 'Midst our wooing,
Love has bliss, but Love has ruing;
Other smiles may make you fickle,
Tears for other charms may trickle.
Love he comes, and Love he tarries,
Just as fate or fancy carries;
Longest stays, when sorest chidden;
Laughs and flies, when press'd...Read more of this...

The Revelation

by Robert William Service
 The same old sprint in the morning, boys, to the same old din and smut;
Chained all day to the same old desk, down in the same old rut;
Posting the same old greasy books, catching the same old train:
Oh, how will I manage to stick it all, if I ever get back again?

We've bidden good-bye to life in a cage,...Read more of this...

A Legend of Service

by Henry Van Dyke
 It pleased the Lord of Angels (praise His name!)
To hear, one day, report from those who came
With pitying sorrow, or exultant joy,
To tell of earthly tasks in His employ:
For some were sorry when they saw how slow
The stream of heavenly love on earth must flow;
And some were glad because their eyes had seen,
Along its banks, fresh flowers and living...Read more of this...

By the Aurelian Wall

by Bliss Carman
 In Memory of John Keats
By the Aurelian Wall,
Where the long shadows of the centuries fall
From Caius Cestius' tomb,
A weary mortal seeking rest found room
For quiet burial,
Leaving among his friends
A book of lyrics.
Such untold amends
A traveller might make
In a strange country, bidden to partake
Before he farther wends;

Who slyly should bestow
The foreign reed-flute they had seen him blow
And finger cunningly,
On one...Read more of this...

A Minor Poet

by Amy Levy
 "What should such fellows as I do,
Crawling between earth and heaven?"


Here is the phial; here I turn the key
Sharp in the lock. Click!--there's no doubt it turned.
This is the third time; there is luck in threes--
Queen Luck, that rules the world, befriend me now
And freely I'll forgive you many wrongs!
Just as the draught began to work, first time,
Tom Leigh,...Read more of this...

The Lynching

by Claude McKay
 His Spirit in smoke ascended to high heaven. 
His father, by the cruelest way of pain, 
Had bidden him to his bosom once again; 
The awful sin remained still unforgiven. 
All night a bright and solitary star 
(Perchance the one that ever guided him, 
Yet gave him up at last to Fate's wild whim) 
Hung pitifully o'er the swinging...Read more of this...

The Rape of the Lock: Canto 1

by Alexander Pope
 Nolueram, Belinda, tuos violare capillos;
Sedjuvat, hoc precibus me tribuisse tuis.
(Martial, Epigrams 12.84)
What dire offence from am'rous causes springs, 
What mighty contests rise from trivial things,
I sing--This verse to Caryl, Muse! is due:
This, ev'n Belinda may vouchsafe to view:
Slight is the subject, but not so the praise,
If she inspire, and he approve my lays.
Say what strange motive, Goddess! could compel
A...Read more of this...

Vision Of The Archangels The

by Rupert Brooke
 Slowly up silent peaks, the white edge of the world,
Trod four archangels, clear against the unheeding sky,
Bearing, with quiet even steps, and great wings furled,
A little dingy coffin; where a child must lie,
It was so tiny. (Yet, you had fancied, God could never
Have bidden a child turn from the spring and the sunlight,
And shut him in that lonely shell,...Read more of this...

My Last Dance

by Julia Ward Howe
 The shell of objects inwardly consumed
Will stand, till some convulsive wind awakes;
Such sense hath Fire to waste the heart of things,
Nature, such love to hold the form she makes.
Thus, wasted joys will show their early bloom,
Yet crumble at the breath of a caress;
The golden fruitage hides the scathèd bough,
Snatch it, thou scatterest wide its emptiness.
For pleasure bidden, I went...Read more of this...

The Church-Builder

by Thomas Hardy
 The church flings forth a battled shade 
Over the moon-blanched sward: 
The church; my gift; whereto I paid 
My all in hand and hoard; 
Lavished my gains 
With stintless pains 
To glorify the Lord. 

I squared the broad foundations in 
Of ashlared masonry; 
I moulded mullions thick and thin, 
Hewed fillet and ogee; 
I circleted 
Each sculptured head 
With...Read more of this...

The Talisman

by Alexander Pushkin
 Where the sea forever dances
Over lonely cliff and dune,
Where sweet twilight's vapor glances
In a warmer-glowing moon,
Where with the seraglio's graces
Daylong toys the Mussulman,
An enchantress 'mid embraces
Handed me a talisman.

'Mid embraces I was bidden:
"Guard this talisman of mine:
In it secret power is hidden!
Love himself has made it thine.
Neither death nor ills nor aging,
My beloved, does it ban,
Nor in gales and...Read more of this...

The Miner

by Henrik Ibsen
 BEETLING rock, with roar and smoke 
Break before my hammer-stroke! 
Deeper I must thrust and lower 
Till I hear the ring of ore. 

From the mountain's unplumbed night, 
Deep amid the gold-veins bright, 
Diamonds lure me, rubies beckon, 
Treasure-hoard that none may reckon. 

There is peace within the deep-- 
Peace and immemorial sleep; 
Heavy hammer, burst as bidden, 
To...Read more of this...

Lycidas

by John Milton
 In this Monody the author bewails a learned Friend, unfortunately
drowned in his passage from Chester on the Irish Seas, 1637;
and, by occasion, foretells the ruin of our corrupted Clergy, 
then in their height.


YET once more, O ye laurels, and once more,
Ye myrtles brown, with ivy never sere,
I come to pluck your berries harsh and crude,
And with forced fingers rude
Shatter...Read more of this...

Chorus of Eden Spirits

by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
 HEARKEN, oh hearken! let your souls behind you 
Turn, gently moved! 
Our voices feel along the Dread to find you, 
O lost, beloved! 
Through the thick-shielded and strong-marshalled angels, 
They press and pierce: 
Our requiems follow fast on our evangels,— 
Voice throbs in verse. 
We are but orphaned spirits left in Eden 
A time ago: 
God gave us golden...Read more of this...

The Vision of the Archangels

by Rupert Brooke
 Slowly up silent peaks, the white edge of the world,
Trod four archangels, clear against the unheeding sky, 
Bearing, with quiet even steps, and great wings furled, 
A little dingy coffin; where a child must lie, 
It was so tiny. (Yet, you had fancied, God could never
Have bidden a child turn from the spring and the sunlight,
And shut him in...Read more of this...

Lily-Bell and Thistledown Song I

by Louisa May Alcott
 Awake! Awake! for the earliest gleam 
Of golden sunlight shines 
On the rippling waves, that brightly flow 
Beneath the flowering vines. 
Awake! Awake! for the low, sweet chant 
Of the wild-birds' morning hymn 
Comes floating by on the fragrant air, 
Through the forest cool and dim; 
Then spread each wing, 
And work, and sing, 
Through the long, bright sunny...Read more of this...

Lovers Gifts LVIII: Things Throng and Laugh

by Rabindranath Tagore
 Things throng and laugh loud in the sky; the sands and dust dance
and whirl like children. Man's mind is aroused by their shouts; his
thoughts long to be the playmates of things.
Our dreams, drifting in the stream of the vague, stretch their
arms to clutch the earth, -their efforts stiffen into bricks and
stones, and thus the city of man is built.
Voices...Read more of this...

Dont forget to view our wonderful member Bidden poems.

Get a Premium Membership
Turn off ads, get more exposure for your poetry, and get more features with a Premium Membership.
Book: Diverse Voices: The Poetry of Human Rights and the Pursuit of Peace