Famous Blameless Poems by Famous Poets

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

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A Passer-by

by Robert Seymour Bridges
 Whither, O splendid ship, thy white sails crowding, 
Leaning across the bosom of the urgent West, 
That fearest nor sea rising, nor sky clouding, 
Whither away, fair rover, and what thy quest? 
Ah! soon, when Winter has all our vales opprest, 
When skies are cold and misty, and hail is hurling, 
Wilt thoù glìde on the blue Pacific, or...Read more of this...

The Choral Union

by Siegfried Sassoon
 He staggered in from night and frost and fog 
And lampless streets: he’d guzzled like a hog 
And drunk till he was dazed. And now he came 
To hear—he couldn’t call to mind the name— 
But he’d been given a ticket for the show,
And thought he’d (hiccup) chance his luck and go. 

The hall swam in his eyes, and...Read more of this...

556. Inscription to Jessie Lewars

by Robert Burns
 THINE be the volumes, Jessy fair,
And with them take the Poet’s prayer,
That Fate may, in her fairest page,
With ev’ry kindliest, best presage
Of future bliss, enroll thy name:
With native worth and spotless fame,
And wakeful caution, still aware
Of ill—but chief, Man’s felon snare;


All blameless joys on earth we find,
And all the treasures of the mind—
These be thy guardian and reward;
So prays...Read more of this...

Dedication

by Rainer Maria Rilke
 Dedication 
These to His Memory--since he held them dear, 
Perchance as finding there unconsciously 
Some image of himself--I dedicate, 
I dedicate, I consecrate with tears-- 
These Idylls. 

And indeed He seems to me 
Scarce other than my king's ideal knight, 
`Who reverenced his conscience as his king; 
Whose glory was, redressing human wrong; 
Who spake no slander, no, nor...Read more of this...

A Versemans Apology

by Robert William Service
 Alas! I am only a rhymer,
I don't know the meaning of Art;
But I learned in my little school primer
To love Eugene Field and Bret Harte.
I hailed Hoosier Ryley with pleasure,
To John Hay I took off my hat;
These fellows were right to my measure,
And I've never gone higher than that.

The Classics! Well, most of them bore me,
The Moderns I don't...Read more of this...

The Iliad: Book VI (excerpt)

by Alexander Pope
 He said, and pass'd with sad presaging heart
To seek his spouse, his soul's far dearer part;
At home he sought her, but he sought in vain:
She, with one maid of all her menial train,
Had thence retir'd; and, with her second joy,
The young Astyanax, the hope of Troy,
Pensive she stood on Ilion's tow'ry height,
Beheld the war, and sicken'd at the sight;
There...Read more of this...

Mortua Est

by Mihai Eminescu
Two candles, tall sentry, beside an earth mound, 
A dream with wings broken that trail to the ground,  
Loud flung from the belfry calamitous chime... 
'Tis thus that you passed o'er the bound'ries of time. 

Gone by are the hours when the heavens entire 
Flowed rivers of milk and grew flowers of fire, 
When the thunderous clouds were but...Read more of this...

The Star-Splitter

by Robert Frost
 `You know Orion always comes up sideways.
Throwing a leg up over our fence of mountains,
And rising on his hands, he looks in on me
Busy outdoors by lantern-light with something
I should have done by daylight, and indeed,
After the ground is frozen, I should have done
Before it froze, and a gust flings a handful
Of waste leaves at my smoky lantern chimney
To...Read more of this...

Requiem

by Anna Akhmatova
 Not under foreign skies
 Nor under foreign wings protected -
 I shared all this with my own people
 There, where misfortune had abandoned us.
 [1961]

INSTEAD OF A PREFACE

During the frightening years of the Yezhov terror, I
spent seventeen months waiting in prison queues in
Leningrad. One day, somehow, someone 'picked me out'.
On that occasion there was a woman standing behind me,
her...Read more of this...

Ulysses

by Alfred Lord Tennyson
 It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Matched with an aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.

I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
Life to the lees: all times I have enjoyed
Greatly, have suffered greatly, both with those
That loved me,...Read more of this...

Eros

by Algernon Charles Swinburne
 Eros, from rest in isles far-famed,
With rising Anthesterion rose,
And all Hellenic heights acclaimed
Eros.

The sea one pearl, the shore one rose,
All round him all the flower-month flamed
And lightened, laughing off repose.

Earth's heart, sublime and unashamed,
Knew, even perchance as man's heart knows,
The thirst of all men's nature named
Eros.

II.

Eros, a fire of heart untamed,
A light of spirit in sense that glows,
Flamed heavenward...Read more of this...

If you fancy that your people came of better stock than mine

by Henry Lawson
 If you fancy that your people came of better stock than mine, 
If you hint of higher breeding by a word or by a sign, 
If you're proud because of fortune or the clever things you do -- 
Then I'll play no second fiddle: I'm a prouder man than you! 

If you think that your profession has the more...Read more of this...

A solemn thing -- it was -- I said

by Emily Dickinson
 A solemn thing -- it was -- I said --
A woman -- white -- to be --
And wear -- if God should count me fit --
Her blameless mystery --

A hallowed thing -- to drop a life
Into the purple well --
Too plummetless -- that it return --
Eternity -- until --

I pondered how the bliss would look --
And would it feel...Read more of this...

Merlin I

by Ralph Waldo Emerson
 Thy trivial harp will never please
Or fill my craving ear;
Its chords should ring as blows the breeze,
Free, peremptory, clear.
No jingling serenader's art,
Nor tinkle of piano strings,
Can make the wild blood start
In its mystic springs.
The kingly bard
Must smite the chords rudely and hard,
As with hammer or with mace,
That they may render back
Artful thunder that conveys
Secrets of the solar track,
Sparks of...Read more of this...

Those Who Fought For The Achaean League

by Constantine P Cavafy
 Valiant are you who fought and fell gloriously;
fearless of those who were everywhere victorious.
Blameless, even if Diaeos and Critolaos were at fault.
When the Greeks want to boast,
"Our nation turns out such men" they will say
of you. And thus marvellous will be your praise. --

Written in Alexandria by an Achaean;
in the seventh year of Ptolemy Lathyrus....Read more of this...

Because the Bee may blameless hum

by Emily Dickinson
 Because the Bee may blameless hum
For Thee a Bee do I become
List even unto Me.

Because the Flowers unafraid
May lift a look on thine, a Maid
Alway a Flower would be.

Nor Robins, Robins need not hide
When Thou upon their Crypts intrude
So Wings bestow on Me
Or Petals, or a Dower of Buzz
That Bee to ride, or Flower of Furze
I that way worship...Read more of this...

In the Depths

by Arthur Hugh Clough
 It is not sweet content, be sure,
That moves the nobler Muse to song,
Yet when could truth come whole and pure
From hearts that inly writhe with wrong?

'T is not the calm and peaceful breast
That sees or reads the problem true;
They only know, on whom 't has prest
Too hard to hope to solve it too.

Our ills are worse than at their...Read more of this...

Bloom upon the Mountain -- stated --

by Emily Dickinson
 Bloom upon the Mountain -- stated --
Blameless of a Name --
Efflorescence of a Sunset --
Reproduced -- the same --

Seed, had I, my Purple Sowing
Should endow the Day --
Not a Topic of a Twilight --
Show itself away --

Who for tilling -- to the Mountain
Come, and disappear --
Whose be Her Renown, or fading,
Witness, is not here --

While I state -- the...Read more of this...

Merlin

by Ralph Waldo Emerson
 I
Thy trivial harp will never please 
Or fill my craving ear; 
Its chords should ring as blows the breeze, 
Free, peremptory, clear. 
No jingling serenader's art, 
Nor tinkle of piano strings, 
Can make the wild blood start 
In its mystic springs. 
The kingly bard 
Must smile the chords rudely and hard, 
As with hammer or with mace; 
That they...Read more of this...

Those cattle smaller than a Bee

by Emily Dickinson
 Those cattle smaller than a Bee
That herd upon the eye --
Whose tillage is the passing Crumb --
Those Cattle are the Fly --
Of Barns for Winter -- blameless --
Extemporaneous stalls
They found to our objection --
On eligible walls --
Reserving the presumption
To suddenly descend
And gallop on the Furniture --
Or odiouser offend --
Of their peculiar calling
Unqualified to judge
To Nature we remand them
To justify...Read more of this...

The Eye-Mote

by Sylvia Plath
 Blameless as daylight I stood looking
At a field of horses, necks bent, manes blown,
Tails streaming against the green
Backdrop of sycamores. Sun was striking
White chapel pinnacles over the roofs,
Holding the horses, the clouds, the leaves

Steadily rooted though they were all flowing
Away to the left like reeds in a sea
When the splinter flew in and stuck my eye,
Needling it dark. Then...Read more of this...

To Eva

by Ralph Waldo Emerson
O FAIR and stately maid whose eyes 
Were kindled in the upper skies 
At the same torch that lighted mine; 
For so I must interpret still 
Thy sweet dominion o'er my will 5 
A sympathy divine. 

Ah! let me blameless gaze upon 
Features that seem at heart my own; 
Nor fear those watchful sentinels  
Who charm the more their...Read more of this...

Hymn 54

by Isaac Watts
 Electing grace; or, Saints beloved in Christ.

Eph. 1:3ff. 

Jesus, we bless thy Father's name;
Thy God and ours are both the same;
What heav'nly blessings from his throne
Flow down to sinners through his Son!

"Christ be my first elect," he said,
Then chose our souls in Christ our head,
Before he gave the mountains birth,
Or laid foundations for the earth.

Thus did eternal love begin
To...Read more of this...

The pleasures of Lucretilis (VELOX AMOENUM)

by Horace
     The pleasures of Lucretilis
       Tempt Faunus from his Grecian seat;
     He keeps my little goats in bliss
       Apart from wind, and rain, and heat.
     In safety rambling o'er the sward
     ...Read more of this...

I Knew A Man By Sight

by Henry David Thoreau
 I knew a man by sight, 
A blameless wight, 
Who, for a year or more, 
Had daily passed my door, 
Yet converse none had had with him. 
I met him in a lane, 
Him and his cane, 
About three miles from home, 
Where I had chanced to roam, 
And volumes stared at him, and he at me. 

In a...Read more of this...

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