Famous Ceasing Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Power of Love

by Anne Bronte
 Love, indeed thy strength is mighty
Thus, alone, such strife to bear --
Three 'gainst one, and never ceasing --
Death, and Madness, and Despair! 
'Tis not my own strength has saved me;
Health, and hope, and fortitude,
But for love, had long since failed me;
Heart and soul had sunk subdued.

Often, in my wild impatience,
I have lost my trust in Heaven,
And my soul has...Read more of this...

Psalm 120

by Isaac Watts
 Complaint of quarrelsome neighbors; or, A devout wish for peace.

Thou God of love, thou ever-blest,
Pity my suff'ring state;
When wilt thou set my soul at rest
From lips that love deceit?

Hard lot of mine! my days are cast
Among the sons of strife,
Whose never-ceasing brawling waste
My golden hours of life.

O might I fly to change my place,
How would I choose to dwell
In...Read more of this...

from Venus and Adonis

by William Shakespeare
 But, lo! from forth a copse that neighbours by,
A breeding jennet, lusty, young, and proud,
Adonis' trampling courser doth espy,
And forth she rushes, snorts and neighs aloud;
The strong-neck'd steed, being tied unto a tree,
Breaketh his rein, and to her straight goes he.

Imperiously he leaps, he neighs, he bounds,
And now his woven girths he breaks asunder;
The bearing earth with his hard...Read more of this...

Centenarian's Story The

by Walt Whitman
 GIVE me your hand, old Revolutionary; 
The hill-top is nigh—but a few steps, (make room, gentlemen;) 
Up the path you have follow’d me well, spite of your hundred and extra years; 
You can walk, old man, though your eyes are almost done; 
Your faculties serve you, and presently I must have them serve me.

Rest, while I tell what the...Read more of this...

Israfel

by Edgar Allan Poe
In Heaven a spirit doth dwell
"Whose heart-strings are a lute";
None sing so wildly well
As the angel Israfel 
And the giddy stars (so legends tell) 
Ceasing their hymns attend the spell
Of his voice all mute.

Tottering above
In her highest noon 
The enamored moon
Blushes with love 
While to listen the red levin
(With the rapid Pleiads even 
Which were seven )
Pauses in Heaven.

And they...Read more of this...

I do not know what truth the false untruth

by Fernando Pessoa
I do not know what truth the false untruth

Of this sad sense of the seen world may own,

Or if this flowered plant bears also a fruit

Unto the true reality unknown.

But as the rainbow, neither earth's nor sky's,

Stands in the dripping freshness of lulled rain,

A hope, not real yet not fancy's, lies

Athwart the moment of our ceasing pain.

Somehow, since pain is...Read more of this...

Night

by William Blake
THE sun descending in the west  
The evening star does shine; 
The birds are silent in their nest. 
And I must seek for mine. 
The moon like a flower 5 
In heaven's high bower  
With silent delight 
Sits and smiles on the night. 

Farewell green fields and happy grove  
Where flocks have took delight: 10 
Where lambs...Read more of this...

Do you wish the universe to submit itself to your will?

by Omar Khayyam
Do you wish the universe to submit itself to your will?
Occupy yourself without ceasing in fortifying your soul.
Share my mood, which consists in drinking wine and
never taking to myself the cares of things here below....Read more of this...

Autumn Feelings

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 FLOURISH greener, as ye clamber,
Oh ye leaves, to seek my chamber,

Up the trellis'd vine on high!
May ye swell, twin-berries tender,
Juicier far,--and with more splendour

Ripen, and more speedily!
O'er ye broods the sun at even
As he sinks to rest, and heaven

Softly breathes into your ear
All its fertilising fullness,
While the moon's refreshing coolness,

Magic-laden, hovers near;
And, alas! ye're watered ever

By a stream of...Read more of this...

Recollection of the Arabian Nights

by Alfred Lord Tennyson
 WHEN the breeze of a joyful dawn blew free 
In the silken sail of infancy, 
The tide of time flow'd back with me, 
The forward-flowing tide of time; 
And many a sheeny summer-morn, 
Adown the Tigris I was borne, 
By Bagdat's shrines of fretted gold, 
High-walled gardens green and old; 
True Mussulman was I and sworn, 
For it was...Read more of this...

On The Grasshopper And Cricket

by John Keats
 The poetry of earth is never dead:
 When all the birds are faint with the hot sun,
 And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run
From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead;
That is the Grasshopper's—he takes the lead
 In summer luxury,—he has never done
 With his delights; for when tired out with fun
He rests at ease beneath some...Read more of this...

Passer-By These Are Words

by Yves Bonnefoy
 Passer-by, these are words. But instead of reading
 I want you to listen: to this frail
 Voice like that of letters eaten by grass.

Lend an ear, hear first of all the happy bee
Foraging in our almost rubbed-out names.
 It flits between two sprays of leaves,
Carrying the sound of branches that are real
 To those that filigree the still unseen.

Then...Read more of this...

56. Epistle to Davie A Brother Poet

by Robert Burns
 WHILE winds frae aff Ben-Lomond blaw,
An’ bar the doors wi’ driving snaw,
 An’ hing us owre the ingle,
I set me down to pass the time,
An’ spin a verse or twa o’ rhyme,
 In hamely, westlin jingle.
While frosty winds blaw in the drift,
 Ben to the chimla lug,
I grudge a wee the great-folk’s gift,
 That live sae bien an’ snug:
...Read more of this...

Scholfield Huxley

by Edgar Lee Masters
 God! ask me not to record your wonders,
I admit the stars and the suns
And the countless worlds.
But I have measured their distances
And weighed them and discovered their substances.
I have devised wings for the air,
And keels for water,
And horses of iron for the earth.
I have lengthened the vision you gave me a million times,
And the hearing you gave me a...Read more of this...

Aspens

by Edward Thomas
 All day and night, save winter, every weather,
Above the inn, the smithy and the shop, 
The aspens at the cross-roads talk together
Of rain, until their last leaves fall from the top.

Out of the blacksmith's cavern comes the ringing
Of hammer, shoe and anvil; out of the inn
The clink, the hum, the roar, the random singing -
The sounds that for these...Read more of this...

Richard Coeur de Lion

by Marriott Edgar
 Richard the First, Coeur-de-Lion, 
Is a name that we speak of with pride, 
Though he only lived six months in England
From his birth to the day that he died. 

He spent all his time fighting battles, 
Dressed up in most rigid attire, 
For he had his suits made by the Blacksmith, 
And his underwear knitted of wire. 

He married...Read more of this...

The Missionary

by Charlotte Bronte
 Lough, vessel, plough the British main,
Seek the free ocean's wider plain; 
Leave English scenes and English skies,
Unbind, dissever English ties; 
Bear me to climes remote and strange, 
Where altered life, fast-following change,
Hot action, never-ceasing toil, 
Shall stir, turn, dig, the spirit's soil; 
Fresh roots shall plant, fresh seed shall sow, 
Till a new garden there shall grow, 
Cleared of...Read more of this...

Although wine be prohibited, drink it without ceasing,

by Omar Khayyam
Although wine be prohibited, drink it without ceasing,
drink it in the evening and in the morning, drink it to
the noise of songs and to the sound of the harp. When
you can, procure that which sparkles like the ruby, throw
a drop on the earth and drink all the rest....Read more of this...

Night

by Sidney Lanier
 The sun descending in the west.
The evening star does shine.
The birds are silent in their nest,
And I must seek for mine,
The moon like a flower,
In heavens high bower;
With silent delight,
Sits and smiles on the night.

Farewell green fields and happy groves,
Where flocks have took delight;
Where lambs have nibbled, silent moves
The feet of angels bright;
Unseen they pour blessing,
And joy without ceasing,
On...Read more of this...

Trilogy of Passion: II. ELEGY

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 When man had ceased to utter his lament,

 A god then let me tell my tale of sorrow.

WHAT hope of once more meeting is there now
In the still-closed blossoms of this day?
Both heaven and hell thrown open seest thou;
What wav'ring thoughts within the bosom play
No longer doubt! Descending from the sky,
She lifts thee in her arms to realms on...Read more of this...

Madelaine

by Victor Hugo
 ("Ecoute-moi, Madeline.") 
 
 {IX., September, 1825.} 


 List to me, O Madelaine! 
 Now the snows have left the plain, 
 Which they warmly cloaked. 
 Come into the forest groves, 
 Where the notes that Echo loves 
 Are from horns evoked. 
 
 Come! where Springtide, Madelaine, 
 Brings a sultry breath from Spain, 
 Giving...Read more of this...

Psalm 89 part 1

by Isaac Watts
 The faithfulness of God.

My never-ceasing songs shall show
The mercies of the Lord;
And make succeeding ages know
How faithful is his word.

The sacred truths his lips pronounce
Shall firm as heav'n endure;
And if he speak a promise once,
Th' eternal grace is sure.

How long the race of David held
The promised Jewish throne!
But there's a nobler cov'nant sealed
To David's greater Son.

His seed for ever...Read more of this...

A Vision

by Oscar Wilde
 Two crowned Kings, and One that stood alone
With no green weight of laurels round his head,
But with sad eyes as one uncomforted,
And wearied with man's never-ceasing moan
For sins no bleating victim can atone,
And sweet long lips with tears and kisses fed.
Girt was he in a garment black and red,
And at his feet I marked a broken stone
Which sent up...Read more of this...

The Hymn

by Anne Kingsmill Finch
 To the Almighty on his radiant Throne, 
Let endless Hallelujas rise! 
Praise Him, ye wondrous Heights to us unknown, 
Praise Him, ye Heavens unreach'd by mortal Eyes, 
Praise Him, in your degree, ye sublunary Skies! 

Praise Him, you Angels that before him bow, 
You Creatures of Celestial frame, 
Our Guests of old, our wakeful Guardians now, 
Praise Him, and...Read more of this...

The Old Woman Of Gloucester

by Mother Goose
There was an old woman of Gloucester,
Whose parrot two guineas it cost her,
    But its tongue never ceasing,
    Was vastly displeasing
To the talkative woman of Gloucester....Read more of this...

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