Famous Calling Poems by Famous Poets

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

See also:

Against Scoffing and Calling Names

by Isaac Watts
 Our tongues were made to bless the Lord,
And not speak ill of men:
When others give a railing word,
We must not rail again.

Cross words and angry names require
To be chastised at school;
And he's in danger of hell-fire
That calls his brother fool.

But lips that dare be so profane
To mock, and jeer, and scoff
At holy things, or holy men,
The Lord shall cut...Read more of this...

Out oDoors

by Lucy Maud Montgomery
 There's a gypsy wind across the harvest land,
Let us fare forth with it lightly hand in hand;
Where cloud shadows blow across the sunwarm waste,
And the first red leaves are falling let us haste,
For the waning days are lavish of their stores,
And the joy of life is with us out o' doors! 

Let us roam along the ways of golden...Read more of this...

The Ghosts

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
 Never stoops the soaring vulture
On his quarry in the desert,
On the sick or wounded bison,
But another vulture, watching
From his high aerial look-out,
Sees the downward plunge, and follows;
And a third pursues the second,
Coming from the invisible ether,
First a speck, and then a vulture,
Till the air is dark with pinions.
So disasters come not singly;
But as if they watched and waited,
Scanning one...Read more of this...

Hanacker Mill

by Hilaire Belloc
 Sally is gone that was so kindly,
Sally is gone from Ha'nacker Hill
And the Briar grows ever since then so blindly;
And ever since then the clapper is still...
And the sweeps have fallen from Ha'nacker Mill.

Ha'nacker Hill is in Desolation:
Ruin a-top and a field unploughed.
And Spirits that call on a fallen nation,
Spirits that loved her calling aloud,
Spirits abroad in a windy...Read more of this...

Idea LI: Calling to mind since first my love begun

by Michael Drayton
 Calling to mind since first my love begun,
Th' incertain times oft varying in their course,
How things still unexpectedly have run,
As t' please the fates by their resistless force:
Lastly, mine eyes amazedly have seen
Essex' great fall, Tyrone his peace to gain,
The quiet end of that long-living Queen,
This King's fair entrance, and our peace with Spain,
We and the Dutch at length...Read more of this...

On Reformed Gam'ster

by Ben Jonson
XXI. ? ON REFORMED GAMESTER.     Lord, how is GAMESTER chang'd !  his hair close cut, His neck fenced round with ruff, his eyes half shut ! His clothes two fashions off, and poor !  his sword Forbid his side, and nothing, but the word, Quick in his lips !  Who hath this wonder wrought? The late ta'en bastinado.  So I thought. What several ways...Read more of this...

The Pilgrims

by Algernon Charles Swinburne
 Who is your lady of love, O ye that pass
Singing? and is it for sorrow of that which was
That ye sing sadly, or dream of what shall be?
For gladly at once and sadly it seems ye sing.
--Our lady of love by you is unbeholden;
For hands she hath none, nor eyes, nor lips, nor golden
Treasure of hair, nor face nor...Read more of this...

Milking Time

by Robert William Service
 There's a drip of honeysuckle in the deep green lane;
There's old Martin jogging homeward on his worn old wain;
There are cherry petals falling, and a cuckoo calling, calling,
And a score of larks (God bless 'em) . . . but it's all pain, pain.
For you see I am not really there at all, not at all;
For you see I'm in...Read more of this...

Sonnet 04 - Thou hast thy calling to some palace-floor

by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
 Thou hast thy calling to some palace-floor,
Most gracious singer of high poems! where
The dancers will break footing, from the care
Of watching up thy pregnant lips for more.
And dost thou lift this house's latch too poor
For hand of thine? and canst thou think and bear
To let thy music drop here unaware
In folds of golden fulness at my door?
Look up and...Read more of this...

The Hosting Of The Sidhe

by William Butler Yeats
 The host is riding from Knocknarea
And over the grave of Clooth-na-Bare;
Caoilte tossing his burning hair,
And Niamh calling Away, come away:
Empty your heart of its mortal dream.
The winds awaken, the leaves whirl round,
Our cheeks are pale, our hair is unbound,
Our breasts are heaving our eyes are agleam,
Our arms are waving our lips are apart;
And if any gaze on our rushing...Read more of this...

Before the Battle

by Siegfried Sassoon
 Music of whispering trees 
Hushed by a broad-winged breeze 
Where shaken water gleams; 
And evening radiance falling 
With reedy bird-notes calling.
O bear me safe through dark, you low-voiced streams. 

I have no need to pray 
That fear may pass away; 
I scorn the growl and rumble of the fight 
That summons me from cool
Silence of marsh and pool 
And...Read more of this...

A Tale of Christmas Eve

by William Topaz McGonagall
 'Twas Christmastide in Germany,
And in the year of 1850,
And in the city of Berlin, which is most beautiful to the eye;
A poor boy was heard calling out to passers-by. 
"Who'll buy my pretty figures," loudly he did cry,
Plaster of Paris figures, but no one inclined to buy;
His clothes were thin and he was nearly frozen with cold,
And wholly starving...Read more of this...

The Song of the Beasts

by Rupert Brooke
 (Sung, on one night, in the cities, in the darkness.)

Come away! Come away!
Ye are sober and dull through the common day,
But now it is night!
It is shameful night, and God is asleep!
(Have you not felt the quick fires that creep
Through the hungry flesh, and the lust of delight,
And hot secrets of dreams that day cannot say?).
The house is dumb;
The...Read more of this...

Ages and Ages Returning at Intervals

by Walt Whitman
 AGES and ages, returning at intervals, 
Undestroy’d, wandering immortal, 
Lusty, phallic, with the potent original loins, perfectly sweet, 
I, chanter of Adamic songs, 
Through the new garden, the West, the great cities calling,
Deliriate, thus prelude what is generated, offering these, offering myself, 
Bathing myself, bathing my songs in Sex, 
Offspring of my loins....Read more of this...

A Fit of Rhyme against Rhyme

by Ben Jonson
 Rhyme, the rack of finest wits,
That expresseth but by fits
True conceit,
Spoiling senses of their treasure,
Cozening judgment with a measure,
But false weight;
Wresting words from their true calling,
Propping verse for fear of falling
To the ground;
Jointing syllabes, drowning letters,
Fast'ning vowels as with fetters
They were bound!
Soon as lazy thou wert known,
All good poetry hence was flown,
And art banish'd.
For a thousand years together
All Parnassus'...Read more of this...

They Feed They Lion

by Philip Levine
 Out of burlap sacks, out of bearing butter,
Out of black bean and wet slate bread,
Out of the acids of rage, the candor of tar,
Out of creosote, gasoline, drive shafts, wooden dollies,
They Lion grow. 

 Out of the gray hills
Of industrial barns, out of rain, out of bus ride, 
West Virginia to Kiss My Ass, out of buried aunties,
Mothers hardening...Read more of this...

Lost

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 "He ought to be home," said the old man, "without there's something amiss. 
He only went to the Two-mile -- he ought to be back by this. 
He would ride the Reckless filly, he would have his wilful way; 
And, here, he's not back at sundown -- and what will his mother say? 
"He was always his mother's idol,...Read more of this...

307. Elegy on Captain Matthew Henderson

by Robert Burns
 O DEATH! thou tyrant fell and bloody!
The meikle devil wi’ a woodie
Haurl thee hame to his black smiddie,
 O’er hurcheon hides,
And like stock-fish come o’er his studdie
 Wi’ thy auld sides!


He’s gane, he’s gane! he’s frae us torn,
The ae best fellow e’er was born!
Thee, Matthew, Nature’s sel’ shall mourn,
 By wood and wild,
Where haply, Pity strays forlorn,
 Frae man...Read more of this...

Birds Calling in the Ravine

by Wang Wei
 I'm idle, as osmanthus flowers fall,
This quiet night in spring, the hill is empty.
The moon comes out and startles the birds on the hill,
They don't stop calling in the spring ravine....Read more of this...

Broadway

by Carl Sandburg
 I SHALL never forget you, Broadway
Your golden and calling lights.

I'll remember you long,
Tall-walled river of rush and play.

Hearts that know you hate you
And lips that have given you laughter
Have gone to their ashes of life and its roses,
Cursing the dreams that were lost
In the dust of your harsh and trampled stones....Read more of this...

Hatteras Calling

by Conrad Aiken
 Southeast, and storm, and every weathervane 
shivers and moans upon its dripping pin, 
ragged on chimneys the cloud whips, the rain 
howls at the flues and windows to get in, 
the golden rooster claps his golden wings 
and from the Baptist Chapel shrieks no more, 
the golden arrow in the southeast sings 
and hears on the roof the Atlantic...Read more of this...

Calling

by Lam Quang My
At midnight I was woken
By sounds of wind around
A calling comes to me 
A voice from far home lands

Unclear voices question 
Call from many years
As such voices will 
Arising from my heart

Perhaps this trace forgotten 
Torn childhoods
Exile voice of soul
Shadow crawl of days

No sun can shine those mornings
Nor can I hear one bird 
But never silence falls
On the storm within...Read more of this...

Sonnet LI: Calling to Mind

by Michael Drayton
 Calling to mind, since first my love begun, 
Th'uncertain times oft varying in their course, 
How things still unexpectedly have run, 
As it please the Fates, by their resistless force. 
Lastly mine eyes amazedly have seen 
Essex' great fall, Tyrone his peace to gain; 
The quiet end of that long-living Queen; 
This King's fair entrance; and our peace with...Read more of this...

To a Contemporary Bunkshooter

by Carl Sandburg
 YOU come along. . . tearing your shirt. . . yelling about
Jesus.
Where do you get that stuff?
What do you know about Jesus?
Jesus had a way of talking soft and outside of a few
bankers and higher-ups among the con men of Jerusalem
everybody liked to have this Jesus around because
he never made any fake passes and everything
he said went and he...Read more of this...

When Dawn Comes to the City

by Claude McKay
 The tired cars go grumbling by, 
The moaning, groaning cars, 
And the old milk carts go rumbling by 
Under the same dull stars. 
Out of the tenements, cold as stone, 
Dark figures start for work; 
I watch them sadly shuffle on, 
'Tis dawn, dawn in New York. 

But I would be on the island of the sea, 
In the...Read more of this...

Dont forget to view our wonderful member Calling 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