Famous Command Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Command poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous command poems. These examples illustrate what a famous command poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Robert William Service
You may talk o' your lutes and your dulcimers fine,
Your harps and your tabors and cymbals and a',
But here in the trenches jist gie me for mine
The wee penny whistle o' Sandy McGraw.
Oh, it's: "Sandy, ma lad, will you lilt us a tune?"
And Sandy is willin' and trillin' like mad;
Sae silvery sweet that we a' throng...Read more of this...
by
G K Chesterton
Old King Cole
Was a merry old soul
And a merry old soul was he
He called for his pipe
and he called for his bowl
and he called for his fiddlers three
after Lord Tennyson
Cole, that unwearied prince of Colchester,
Growing more gay with age and with long days
Deeper in laughter and desire of life
As that Virginian climber on our...Read more of this...
by
Walt Whitman
THE prairie-grass dividing—its special odor breathing,
I demand of it the spiritual corresponding,
Demand the most copious and close companionship of men,
Demand the blades to rise of words, acts, beings,
Those of the open atmosphere, coarse, sunlit, fresh, nutritious,
Those that go their own gait, erect, stepping with freedom and command—leading, not
following,
Those with a never-quell’d audacity—those with...Read more of this...
by
James Whitcomb Riley
A goddess, with a siren's grace,--
A sun-haired girl on a craggy place
Above a bay where fish-boats lay
Drifting about like birds of prey.
Wrought was she of a painter's dream,--
Wise only as are artists wise,
My artist-friend, Rolf Herschkelhiem,
With deep sad eyes of oversize,
And face of melancholy guise.
I pressed him that he tell to me
This masterpiece's history.
He turned--REturned--and thus beguiled
Me with the...Read more of this...
by
Michael Drayton
Dear, why should you command me to my rest
When now the night doth summon all to sleep?
Methinks this time becometh lovers best;
Night was ordain'd together friends to keep.
How happy are all other living things
Which, though the day disjoin by sev'ral flight,
The quiet ev'ning yet together brings,
And each returns unto his love at night!
O thou that art so courteous else...Read more of this...
by
Constantine P Cavafy
I have almost been reduced to a homeless pauper.
This fatal city, Antioch,
has consumed all my money;
this fatal city with its expensive life.
But I am young and in excellent health.
My command of Greek is superb
(I know all there is about Aristotle, Plato;
orators, poets, you name it.)
I have an idea of military affairs,
and have friends among the mercenary chiefs.
I am on...Read more of this...
by
Thomas Gray
A Pindaric Ode
Awake, Aeolian lyre, awake,
And give to rapture all thy trembling strings.
From Helicon's harmonious springs
A thousand rills their mazy progress take:
The laughing flowers that round them blow
Drink life and fragrance as they flow.
Now the rich stream of Music winds along,
Deep, majestic, smooth, and strong,
Thro' verdant vales, and Ceres' golden reign;
Now rolling down the steep amain,
Headlong, impetuous, see it...Read more of this...
by
Edwin Arlington Robinson
In dreams I crossed a barren land,
A land of ruin, far away;
Around me hung on every hand
A deathful stillness of decay;
And silent, as in bleak dismay
That song should thus forsaken be,
On that forgotten ground there lay
The broken flutes of Arcady.
The forest that was all so grand
When pipes and tabors had...Read more of this...
by
Charles Sorley
I have not brought my Odyssey
With me here across the sea;
But you'll remember, when I say
How, when they went down Sparta way,
To sandy Sparta, long ere dawn
Horses were harnessed, rations drawn,
Equipment polished sparkling bright,
And breakfasts swallowed (as the white
Of eastern heavens turned to gold) -
The dogs barked, swift farewells were told.
The sun springs up, the horses neigh,
Crackles the whip...Read more of this...
by
John Dryden
Ask not the cause why sullen spring
So long delays her flow'rs to bear;
Why warbling birds forget to sing,
And winter storms invert the year?
Chloris is gone; and Fate provides
To make it spring where she resides.
Chloris is gone, the cruel fair;
She cast not back a pitying eye:
But left her lover in despair,
To sigh, to languish, and to...Read more of this...
by
Robert Herrick
Bid me to live, and I will live
Thy Protestant to be;
Or bid me love, and I will give
A loving heart to thee.
A heart as soft, a heart as kind,
A heart as sound and free,
As in the whole world thou canst find,
That heart I'll give to thee.
Bid that heart stay, and it will stay,
To honour thy decree;
Or bid it languish...Read more of this...
by
Delmore Schwartz
Caesar, the amplifier voice, announces
Crime and reparation. In the barber shop
Recumbent men attend, while absently
The barber doffs the naked face with cream.
Caesar proposes, Caesar promises
Pride, justice, and the sun
Brilliant and strong on everyone,
Speeding one hundred miles an hour across the land:
Caesar declares the will. The barber firmly
Planes the stubble with a steady hand,
While all in barber chairs reclining,
In wet...Read more of this...
by
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
[This Cantata was written for Prince Frederick
of Gotha, and set to music by Winter, the Prince singing the part
of Rinaldo.--See the Annalen.]
(* See Tasso's Gerusalemme Liberata, Canto XVI.)
CHORUS.
To the strand! quick, mount the bark!
If no favouring zephyrs blow,
Ply the oar and nimbly row,
And with zeal your prowess mark!
O'er the sea we thus career.
RINALDO.
Oh, let me linger...Read more of this...
by
Carl Sandburg
I LOVE your faces I saw the many years
I drank your milk and filled my mouth
With your home talk, slept in your house
And was one of you.
But a fire burns in my heart.
Under the ribs where pulses thud
And flitting between bones of skull
Is the push, the endless mysterious command,
Saying:
"I leave you behind--
You for the little hills and the years...Read more of this...
by
Pablo Neruda
The artichoke
With a tender heart
Dressed up like a warrior,
Standing at attention, it built
A small helmet
Under its scales
It remained
Unshakeable,
By its side
The crazy vegetables
Uncurled
Their tendrills and leaf-crowns,
Throbbing bulbs,
In the sub-soil
The carrot
With its red mustaches
Was sleeping,
The grapevine
Hung out to dry its branches
Through which...Read more of this...
by
Isaac Watts
What blest examples do I find
Writ in the Word of Truth
Of children that began to mind
Religion in their youth!
Jesus, who reigns above the sky,
And keeps the world in awe,
Was once a child as young as I,
And kept His Father's law.
At twelve years old he talked with men,
The Jews all wondering stand;
Yet He obeyed his Mother then,
And came at her...Read more of this...
by
Mary Darby Robinson
A farmer's wife, both young and gay,
And fresh as op'ning buds of May;
Had taken to herself, a Spouse,
And plighted many solemn vows,
That she a faithful mate would prove,
In meekness, duty, and in love!
That she, despising joy and wealth,
Would be, in sickness and in health,
His only comfort and his Friend--
But, mark the sequel,--and attend!
This Farmer, as the tale is told--
Was...Read more of this...
by
William Lisle Bowles
O THOU, whose stern command and precepts pure
(Tho' agony in every vein should start,
And slowly drain the blood-drops from the heart)
Have bade the patient spirit still endure;
Thou, who to sorrow hast a beauty lent,
On the dark brow, with resolution clad,
Illumining the dreary traces sad,
Like the cold taper on a monument;
O firm...Read more of this...
by
Aleister Crowley
The mighty sound of forests murmuring
In answer to the dread command;
The stars that shudder when their king
extends his hand,
His awful hand to bless, to curse; or moves
Toward the dimmest den
In the thick leaves, not known of loves
Or nymphs or men;
(Only the sylph's frail gossamer may wave
Their quiet frondage yet,
Only...Read more of this...
by
Jane Austen
When Winchester races first took their beginning
It is said the good people forgot their old Saint
Not applying at all for the leave of Saint Swithin
And that William of Wykeham's approval was faint.
The races however were fixed and determined
The company came and the Weather was charming
The Lords and the Ladies were satine'd and ermined
And nobody saw any future alarming.--...Read more of this...
by
Sir Henry Newbolt
It fell in the year of Mutiny,
At darkest of the night,
John Nicholson by Jal?ndhar came,
On his way to Delhi fight.
And as he by Jal?ndhar came,
He thought what he must do,
And he sent to the Rajah fair greeting,
To try if he were true.
"God grant your Highness length of days,
And friends when...Read more of this...
by
William Topaz McGonagall
'Twas in the year 1715, and on the 10th of November,
Which the people of Scotland have cause to remember;
On that day the Earl of Mar left Perth bound for Sheriffmuir,
At the same time leaving behind a garrison under Colonel Balfour.
Besides leaving a force of about three thousand men quartered in different parts of Fife,
To protect the people's property,...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
How soft a Caterpillar steps --
I fond one on my Hand
From such a velvet world it comes
Such plushes at command
Its soundless travels just arrest
My slow -- terrestrial eye
Intent upon its own career
What use has it for me --...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
I envy not those gay galoots
Who count on dying in their boots;
For that, to tell the sober truth
Sould be the privilege of youth;
But aged bones are better sped
To heaven from a downy bed.
So prop me up with pillows two,
And serve me with the barley brew;
And put a pencil in my hand,
A copy book at my command;
And let my final...Read more of this...
by
Francesco Petrarch
SONNET XIX. Sennuccio mio, benchè doglioso e solo. ON THE DEATH OF HIS FRIEND SENNUCCIO. O friend! though left a wretched pilgrim here,By thee though left in solitude to roam,Yet can I mourn that thou hast found thy home,On angel pinions borne, in bright career?Now thou behold'st the ever-turning sphere,And...Read more of this...
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