Famous Commandment Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Commandment poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous commandment poems. These examples illustrate what a famous commandment poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Burns, Robert
...an, Sir.
This Hal for genius, wit and lore,
Among the first was number’d;
But pious Bob, ’mid learning’s store,
Commandment the tenth remember’d:
Yet simple Bob the victory got,
And wan his heart’s desire,
Which shews that heaven can boil the pot,
Tho’ the devil piss in the fire.
Squire Hal, besides, had in this case
Pretensions rather brassy;
For talents, to deserve a place,
Are qualifications saucy.
So their worships of the Faculty,
Quite sick of meri...Read more of this...
by
Smart, Christopher
...d care, due rest, allow
For her that yields thee milk.
XLIII
Rise up before the hoary head,
And God's benign commandment dread,
Which says thou shalt not die:
"Not as I will, but as Thou wilt,"
Pray'd He Whose conscience knew no guilt;
With Whose bless'd pattern vie.
XLIV
Use all thy passions!—love is thine,
And joy, and jealousy divine;
Thine hope's eternal fort,
And care thy leisure to disturb,
With fear concupiscence to curb,
And rapture to ...Read more of this...
by
Dickinson, Emily
...ear his errand --
A little Boot I know --
Would leap abroad like Antelope --
With just the grant to do --
His weariest Commandment --
A sweeter to obey,
Than "Hide and Seek" --
Or skip to Flutes --
Or all Day, chase the Bee --
Your Servant, Sir, will weary --
The Surgeon, will not come --
The World, will have its own -- to do --
The Dust, will vex your Fame --
The Cold will force your tightest door
Some February Day,
But say my apron bring the sticks
To make your Cottage g...Read more of this...
by
Cowper, William
...Holy Lord God! I love Thy truth,
Nor dare Thy least commandment slight;
Yet pierced by sin the serpent's tooth,
I mourn the anguish of the bite.
But though the poison lurks within,
Hope bids me still with patience wait;
Till death shall set me free from sin,
Free from the only thing I hate.
Had I a throne above the rest,
Where angels and archangels dwell,
One sin, unslain, within my breast,
Would ma...Read more of this...
by
Byron, George (Lord)
...h none to check, and few to point in time
The thousand paths that slope the way to crime;
Then, when he most required commandment, then
Had Lara's daring boyhood govern'd men.
It skills not, boots not, step by step to trace
His youth through all the mazes of its race;
Short was the course his restlessness had run,
But long enough to leave him half undone.
III.
And Lara left in youth his fatherland;
But from the hour he waved his parting hand
Each trac...Read more of this...
by
Marvell, Andrew
...fleet, to threaten--we will grant them all.
The Dutch are then in proclamation shent
For sin against th' eleventh commandment.
Hyde's flippant style there pleasantly curvets,
Still his sharp wit on states and princes whets
(So Spain could not escape his laughter's spleen:
None but himsef must choose the King a Queen),
But when he came the odious clause to pen
That summons up the Parliament again,
His writing master many a time he banned
And wished himself th...Read more of this...
by
Trumbull, John
...y saint,
Whose godlike virtues must with ease
Atone for venial crimes, like these:
Or ye perhaps in scripture spy
A new commandment, "Thou shalt lie;"
If this be so (as who can tell?)
There's no one sure ye keep so well."
Quoth he, "For lies and promise-breaking,"
Ye need not be in such a taking:
For lying is, we know and teach,
The highest privilege of speech;
The universal Magna Charta,
To which all human race is party,
Whence children first, as David says,
Lay claim ...Read more of this...
by
Lehman, David
...The woman said yes she would go to Australia with him
Unless he heard wrong and she said Argentina
Where they could learn the tango and pursue the widows
Of Nazi war criminals unrepentant to the end.
But no, she said Australia. She'd been born in New Zealand.
The difference between the two places was the difference
Between a hamburger and a cho...Read more of this...
by
Bradstreet, Anne
...62 A serpent's sting in pleasing face lay hid;
2.63 A lying tongue as soon as it could speak
2.64 And fifth Commandment do daily break;
2.65 Oft stubborn, peevish, sullen, pout, and cry;
2.66 Then nought can please, and yet I know not why.
2.67 As many was my sins, so dangers too,
2.68 For sin brings sorrow, sickness, death, and woe,
2.69 And though I miss the tossings of the mind,
2.70 Yet griefs in my frail flesh I still do find.
...Read more of this...
by
Kipling, Rudyard
...,
And Dives lent according to their need.
Then Satan said to Dives: -- "Return again with me,
"Who hast broken His Commandment in the day He set thee free,
"Who grindest for thy greed
"Man's belly-pinch and need,
"And the blood of Man to filthy usury!"
Then softly answered Dives where the money-changers sit: --
"My Refuge is Our Master, O My Master in the Pit.
"But behold all Earth is laid
"In the Peace which I have made,
"And behold I wait on thee to trouble it...Read more of this...
by
Field, Eugene
...th their virgin margins white and wide,
And presentation volumes with the author's comps. inside;
I break the tenth commandment with a wild impassioned cry:
Oh, how came Stoddard by these things? Why Stoddard, and not I?
From yonder wall looks Thackeray upon his poet friend,
And underneath the genial face appear the lines he penned;
And here, gadzooks, ben honge ye prynte of marvaillous renowne
Yt shameth Chaucers gallaunt knyghtes in Canterbury towne;
And still more boo...Read more of this...
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