Famous Bow Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Song of the Devoted Slave

by Adela Florence Cory Nicolson
   On the wooden deck of the wooden Junk, silent, alone, we lie,
   With silver foam about the bow, and a silver moon in the sky:
   A glimmer of dimmer silver here, from the anklets round your feet,
   Our lips may close on each other's lips, but never our souls may meet.

...Read more of this...

Child of Europe

by Czeslaw Milosz
 1
We, whose lungs fill with the sweetness of day.
Who in May admire trees flowering
Are better than those who perished.

We, who taste of exotic dishes,
And enjoy fully the delights of love,
Are better than those who were buried.

We, from the fiery furnaces, from behind barbed wires
On which the winds of endless autumns howled,
We, who remember battles where the wounded air roared...Read more of this...

Bow down, heaven's tyranny to undergo,

by Omar Khayyam
Bow down, heaven's tyranny to undergo,
Quaff wine to face the world, and all its woe;
Your origin and end are both in earth,
But now you are above earth, not below!...Read more of this...

Tenderness

by Lisa Zaran
 All around me, the sky with its deep shade of dark. 
The stars. 

The moon with its shrunken soul. 
Can I become what I want to become? 

Neither wife or mother. 
I am noone and nobody is my lover. 

I am afraid 
that when I go mad, 
my father will bow his downy head 
into his silver wings and...Read more of this...

Song of Saul Before His Last Battle

by George (Lord) Byron
 Warriors and chiefs! should the shaft or the sword 
Pierce me in leading the host of the Lord, 
Heed not the corse, though a king’s in your path: 
Bury your steel in the bosoms of Gath! 

Thou who art bearing my buckler and bow, 
Should the soldiers of Saul look away from the foe, 
Stretch me that moment in...Read more of this...

Parables And Riddles

by Friedrich von Schiller
 I.

A bridge of pearls its form uprears
High o'er a gray and misty sea;
E'en in a moment it appears,
And rises upwards giddily.

Beneath its arch can find a road
The loftiest vessel's mast most high,
Itself hath never borne a load,
And seems, when thou draw'st near, to fly.

It comes first with the stream, and goes
Soon as the watery flood is dried.
Where may be...Read more of this...

Another

by Thomas Carew
 THIS little vault, this narrow room, 
Of Love and Beauty is the tomb; 
The dawning beam, that 'gan to clear 
Our clouded sky, lies darken'd here, 
For ever set to us: by Death 
Sent to enflame the World Beneath. 
'Twas but a bud, yet did contain 
More sweetness than shall spring again; 
A budding Star, that might have grown...Read more of this...

The Family

by Katherine Mansfield
 Hinemoa, Tui, Maina,
All of them were born together;
They are quite an extra special
Set of babies--wax and leather.

Every day they took an airing;
Mummy made them each a bonnet;
Two were cherry, one was yellow
With a bow of ribbon on it.

Really, sometimes we would slap them,
For if ever we were talking,
They would giggle and be silly,
Saying, "Mamma, take us walking."

But we never...Read more of this...

Vesta

by John Greenleaf Whittier
 O CHRIST of God! whose life and death 
 Our own have reconciled, 
Most quietly, most tenderly 
 Take home thy star-named child! 

Thy grace is in her patient eyes, 
 Thy words are on her tongue; 
The very silence round her seems 
 As if the angels sung. 

Her smile is as a listening child's 
 Who hears...Read more of this...

In Guernsey - To Theodore Watts

by Algernon Charles Swinburne
 The heavenly bay, ringed round with cliffs and moors,
Storm-stained ravines, and crags that lawns inlay,
Soothes as with love the rocks whose guard secures
The heavenly bay.

O friend, shall time take ever this away,
This blessing given of beauty that endures,
This glory shown us, not to pass but stay?

Though sight be changed for memory, love ensures
What memory, changed by love to sight,...Read more of this...

Faith

by Robert William Service
 Since all that is was ever bound to be;
 Since grim, eternal laws our Being bind;
 And both the riddle and the answer find,
And both the carnage and the calm decree;
Since plain within the Book of Destiny
 Is written all the journey of mankind
 Inexorably to the end; since blind
And mortal puppets playing parts are we:

Then let's have faith;...Read more of this...

Upon Julias Ribbon

by Robert Herrick
 As shews the air when with a rain-bow graced,
So smiles that ribbon 'bout my Julia's waist;
Or like----Nay, 'tis that Zonulet of love,
Wherein all pleasures of the world are wove....Read more of this...

Psalm 07

by John Milton
 Aug. 14. 1653.
Upon The Words Of Chush The Benjamite Against Him.


Lord my God to thee I flie
Save me and secure me under
Thy protection while I crie
Least as a Lion (and no wonder)
He hast to tear my Soul asunder
Tearing and no rescue nigh.

Lord my God if I have thought
Or done this, if wickedness
Be in my hands, if I have wrought
Ill...Read more of this...

Jan Kubelik

by Carl Sandburg
 YOUR bow swept over a string, and a long low note
quivered to the air.
(A mother of Bohemia sobs over a new child perfect
learning to suck milk.)

Your bow ran fast over all the high strings fluttering
and wild.
(All the girls in Bohemia are laughing on a Sunday afternoon
in the hills with their lovers.)...Read more of this...

Sonnet XIX: On Cupids Bow

by Sir Philip Sidney
 On Cupid's bow how are my heartstrings bent, 
That see my wrack, and yet embrace the same? 
When most I glory, then I feel most shame: 
I willing run, yet while I run, repent. 

My best wits still their own disgrace invent: 
My very ink turns straight to Stella's name; 
And yet my words, as them my pen doth...Read more of this...

Love and Folly

by William Cullen Bryant
 Love's worshippers alone can know
The thousand mysteries that are his;
His blazing torch, his twanging bow,
His blooming age are mysteries.
A charming science--but the day
Were all too short to con it o'er;
So take of me this little lay,
A sample of its boundless lore.

As once, beneath the fragrant shade
Of myrtles breathing heaven's own air,
The children, Love and Folly, played--
A quarrel rose betwixt...Read more of this...

Would'st thou have fortune bow her neck to thee,

by Omar Khayyam
Would'st thou have fortune bow her neck to thee,
Make it thy care to feed thy soul with glee;
And hold a creed like mine, which is to drain
The cup of wine, not that of misery....Read more of this...

The bow-leg boy

by Eugene Field
 Who should come up the road one day
But the doctor-man in his two-wheel shay!
And he whoaed his horse and he cried "Ahoy!
I have brought you folks a bow-leg boy!
Such a cute little boy!
Such a funny little boy!
Such a dear little bow-leg boy!"

He took out his box and he opened it wide,
And there was the bow-leg boy inside!
And when they...Read more of this...

The Harvest Bow

by Seamus Heaney
 As you plaited the harvest bow
You implicated the mellowed silence in you
In wheat that does not rust
But brightens as it tightens twist by twist
Into a knowable corona,
A throwaway love-knot of straw.

Hands that aged round ashplants and cane sticks
And lapped the spurs on a lifetime of game cocks
Harked to their gift and worked with fine intent
Until your fingers moved somnambulant:
I...Read more of this...

Yee Bow

by Edgar Lee Masters
 They got me into the Sunday-school
In Spoon River
And tried to get me to drop Confucius for Jesus.
I could have been no worse off
If I had tried to get them to drop Jesus for Confucius.
For, without any warning, as if it were a prank,
And sneaking up behind me, Harry Wiley,
The minister's son, caved my ribs into my lungs,
With a blow...Read more of this...

The Ladder

by Aleister Crowley
 [Dedicated to K.M.Ward]


"I will arise and go unto my father"

MALKUTH

Dark, dark all dark! I cower, I cringe.
Only ablove me is a citron tinge
As if some echo of red, gold and lue
Chimed on the night and let its shadow through.
Yet I who am thus prisoned and exiled
Am the right heir of glory, the crowned child.

I match my might against my...Read more of this...

The Surprise

by William Barnes
 As there I left the road in May,
And took my way along a ground,
I found a glade with girls at play,
By leafy boughs close-hemmed around,
And there, with stores of harmless joys,
They plied their tongues, in merry noise:
Though little did they seem to fear
So ***** a stranger might be near;
Teeh-hee! Look here! Hah! ha! Look there!
And oh! so playsome, oh!...Read more of this...

There was an old person of Bow

by Edward Lear
There was an old person of Bow,Whom nobody happened to know;So they gave him some soap, and said coldly, "We hopeYou will go back directly to Bow!" ...Read more of this...

Parnells Funeral

by William Butler Yeats
 I

Under the Great Comedian's tomb the crowd.
A bundle of tempestuous cloud is blown
About the sky; where that is clear of cloud
Brightness remains; a brighter star shoots down;
What shudders run through all that animal blood?
What is this sacrifice? Can someone there
Recall the Cretan barb that pierced a star?

Rich foliage that the starlight glittered through,
A frenzied crowd, and where the branches...Read more of this...

Gods Vagabond

by Robert William Service
 A passion to be free
Has ever mastered me;
To none beneath the sun
Will I bow down,--not one
Shall leash my liberty.

My life's my own; I rise
With glory in my eyes;
And my concept of hell
Is to be forced to sell
Myself to one who buys.

With heart of rebel I
Man's government defy;
With hate of bondage born
Monarch and mob I scorn:
My King the Lord on...Read more of this...

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