Famous Bishops Poems by Famous Poets

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

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An Expostulation to Lord King

by Thomas Moore
 How can you, my Lord, thus delight to torment all
The Peers of realm about cheapening their corn,
When you know, if one hasn't a very high rental,
'Tis hardly worth while being very high born?

Why bore them so rudely, each night of your life,
On a question, my Lord, there's so much to abhor in?
A question - like asking one, "How is...Read more of this...

Joy-Bells

by Siegfried Sassoon
 Ring your sweet bells; but let them be farewells 
To the green-vista’d gladness of the past 
That changed us into soldiers; swing your bells 
To a joyful chime; but let it be the last. 

What means this metal in windy belfries hung
When guns are all our need? Dissolve these bells 
Whose tones are tuned for peace: with martial tongue...Read more of this...

The Satin Dress

by Dorothy Parker
 Needle, needle, dip and dart,
Thrusting up and down,
Where's the man could ease a heart
Like a satin gown?

See the stitches curve and crawl
Round the cunning seams-
Patterns thin and sweet and small
As a lady's dreams.

Wantons go in bright brocade;
Brides in organdie;
Gingham's for the plighted maid;
Satin's for the free!

Wool's to line a miser's chest;
Crepe's to calm the old;
Velvet hides an empty breast
Satin's...Read more of this...

Procreation

by Robert William Service
 It hurts my pride that I should be
 The issue of a night of lust;
Yet even Bishops, you'll agree,
 Obey the biologic 'must';
Though no doubt with more dignity
 Than we of layman dust.

I think the Lord made a mistake
 When he designed the human race,
That man and angel in the make
 Should have brutality for base.
Jehovah might have planned...Read more of this...

Gods Judgment on a Wicked Bishop

by Robert Southey
 The summer and autumn had been so wet,
That in winter the corn was growing yet,
'Twas a piteous sight to see all around
The grain lie rotting on the ground.

Every day the starving poor
Crowded around Bishop Hatto's door,
For he had a plentiful last-year's store,
And all the neighbourhood could tell
His granaries were furnish'd well.

At last Bishop Hatto appointed a day
To quiet the...Read more of this...

The Tragic Death of the Rev. A.H. Mackonochie

by William Topaz McGonagall
 Friends of humanity, of high and low degree,
I pray ye all come listen to me;
And truly I will relate to ye,
The tragic fate of the Rev. Alexander Heriot Mackonochie. 

Who was on a visit to the Bishop of Argyle,
For the good of his health, for a short while;
Because for the last three years his memory had been affected,
Which prevented...Read more of this...

Nuremberg

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
IN the valley of the Pegnitz, where across broad meadowlands 
Rise the blue Franconian mountains, Nuremberg, the ancient, stands. 

Quaint old town of toil and traffic, quaint old town of art and song, 
Memories haunt thy pointed gables, like the rooks that round them throng: 

Memories of the Middle Ages, when the emperors, rough and bold, 5 
Had their dwelling...Read more of this...

Godolphin Horne

by Hilaire Belloc
 Who was cursed with the Sin of Pride, and Became a Boot-Black. 

Godolphin Horne was Nobly Born;
He held the Human Race in Scorn,
And lived with all his Sisters where
His father lived, in Berkeley Square.
And oh! The Lad was Deathly Proud!
He never shook your Hand or Bowed,
But merely smirked and nodded thus:
How perfectly ridiculous!
Alas! That such Affected Tricks
Should flourish in...Read more of this...

Holy-Cross Day

by Robert Browning
 ON WHICH THE JEWS WERE FORCED TO
ATTEND AN ANNUAL CHRISTIAN SERMON
IN ROME.

[``Now was come about Holy-Cross Day,
and now must my lord preach his first sermon
to the Jews: as it was of old cared for in tine
merciful bowels of the Church, that, so to
speak, a crumb at least from her conspicuous
table here in Rome should be, though but
once yearly, cast...Read more of this...

Wine and Water

by G K Chesterton
 Old Noah he had an ostrich farm and fowls on the largest scale, 
He ate his egg with a ladle in a egg-cup big as a pail, 
And the soup he took was Elephant Soup and fish he took was Whale, 
But they all were small to the cellar he took when he set out to sail, 
And Noah...Read more of this...

Eddis Service

by Rudyard Kipling
 Eddi, priest of St. Wilfrid
 In his chapel at Manhood End,
Ordered a midnight service
 For such as cared to attend.

But the Saxons were keeping Christmas,
 And the night was stormy as well.
Nobody came to service,
 Though Eddi rang the bell.

"'Wicked weather for walking,"
 Said Eddi of Manhood End.
"But I must go on with the service
 For such as care...Read more of this...

Athertons Gambit

by Edwin Arlington Robinson
 The Master played the bishop’s pawn, 
For jest, while Atherton looked on; 
The master played this way and that, 
And Atherton, amazed thereat, 
Said “Now I have a thing in view
That will enlighten one or two, 
And make a difference or so 
In what it is they do not know.” 

The morning stars together sang 
And forth a mighty...Read more of this...

The Duties of an Aide-de-camp

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 Oh, some folk think vice-royalty is festive and hilarious, 
The duties of an A.D.C. are manifold and various, 
So listen, whilst I tell in song 
The duties of an aide-de-cong. 
Whatsoever betide 
To the Governor's side 
We must stick -- or the public would eat him -- 
For each bounder we see 
Says, "Just introduce me 
To His Lordship...Read more of this...

Old St Davids at Radnor

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
 What an image of peace and rest
Is this little church among its graves!
All is so quiet; the troubled breast,
The wounded spirit, the heart oppressed,
Here may find the repose it craves. 

See, how the ivy climbs and expands
Over this humble hermitage,
And seems to caress with its little hands
The rough, gray stones, as a child that stands
Caressing the wrinkled cheeks of...Read more of this...

Prelude

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
 Pleasant it was, when woods were green,
And winds were soft and low,
To lie amid some sylvan scene.
Where, the long drooping boughs between,
Shadows dark and sunlight sheen
Alternate come and go;

Or where the denser grove receives
No sunlight from above,
But the dark foliage interweaves
In one unbroken roof of leaves,
Underneath whose sloping eaves
The shadows hardly move.

Beneath some patriarchal tree
I lay upon the ground;
His...Read more of this...

Come Gather Round Me Parnellites

by William Butler Yeats
 Come gather round me, Parnellites,
And praise our chosen man;
Stand upright on your legs awhile,
Stand upright while you can,
For soon we lie where he is laid,
And he is underground;
Come fill up all those glasses
And pass the bottle round.

And here's a cogent reason,
And I have many more,
He fought the might of England
And saved the Irish poor,
Whatever good a farmer's got
He brought...Read more of this...

Verses on Sir Joshua Reynolds Painted Window at New College Oxford

by Thomas Warton
 Ah, stay thy treacherous hand, forbear to trace
Those faultless forms of elegance and grace!
Ah, cease to spread the bright transparent mass,
With Titian's pencil, o'er the speaking glass!
Nor steal, by strokes of art with truth combin'd,
The fond illusions of my wayward mind!
For long, enamour'd of a barbarous age,
A faithless truant to the classic page;
Long have I lov'd to catch the...Read more of this...

Victoria

by Dorothy Parker
 Dear dead Victoria
Rotted cosily;
In excelsis gloria,
And R. I. P.

And her shroud was buttoned neat,
And her bones were clean and round,
And her soul was at her feet
Like a bishop's marble hound.

Albert lay a-drying,
Lavishly arrayed,
With his soul out flying
Where his heart had stayed.

And there's some could tell you what land
His spirit walks serene
(But I've heard them say in Scotland
It's never been...Read more of this...

Voices Of the Night

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
 PRELUDE.

Pleasant it was, when woods were green,
And winds were soft and low,
To lie amid some sylvan scene,
Where, the long drooping boughs between
Shadows dark and sunlight sheen
Alternate come and go;

Or where the denser grove receives
No sunlight from above
But the dark foliage interweaves
In one unbroken roof of leaves,
Underneath whose sloping eaves
The shadows hardly move.

Beneath some patriarchal tree
I lay upon the ground;
His...Read more of this...

Playing At Priests

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 WITHIN a town where parity
According to old form we see,--
That is to say, where Catholic
And Protestant no quarrels pick,
And where, as in his father's day,
Each worships God in his own way,
We Luth'ran children used to dwell,
By songs and sermons taught as well.
The Catholic clingclang in truth
Sounded more pleasing to our youth,
For all that we encounter'd there,
To us seem'd varied,...Read more of this...

The Grandmother

by Victor Hugo
 ("Dors-tu? mère de notre mère.") 
 
 {III., 1823.} 
 
 "To die—to sleep."—SHAKESPEARE. 


 Still asleep! We have been since the noon thus alone. 
 Oh, the hours we have ceased to number! 
 Wake, grandmother!—speechless say why thou art grown. 
 Then, thy lips are so cold!—the Madonna of stone 
 Is like thee in thy holy...Read more of this...

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