Famous Commandments Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Commandments poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous commandments poems. These examples illustrate what a famous commandments poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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...listens so, and daub them yours again!
"The charge is old"? -- As old as Cain -- as fresh as yesterday;
Old as the Ten Commandments -- have ye talked those laws away?
If words are words, or death is death, or powder sends the ball,
You spoke the words that sped the shot -- the curse be on you all.
"Our friends believe"? -- Of course they do -- as sheltered women may;
But have they seen the shrieking soul ripped from the quivering clay?
They! -- If their own front door is sh...Read more of this...
by
Kipling, Rudyard
...aper is cheap, easily torn.
A coloring book's authority is derived
from its heavy black lines
as unalterable as the ten commandments
within which minor decisions are possible:
the dog black and white,
the kitten gray.
Under the picture we find a few words,
a title, perhaps a narrative,
a psalm or sermon.
But nowhere do we come upon
a blank page where we might justify
the careless way we scribbled
when we were tired and sad
and could bear no more....Read more of this...
by
Wanek, Connie
...n wantonness o'erthrown.
There is nothing left to-day
But steel and fire and stone!
Tough all we knew depart,
The old Commandments stand: --
"In courage keep your heart,
In strength lift up your hand."
Once more we hear the word
That sickened earth of old: --
"No law except the Sword
Unsheathed and uncontrolled."
Once more it knits mankind,
Once more the nations go
To meet and break and bind
A crazed and driven foe.
Comfort, content, delight,
The ages' slow-bought gain,...Read more of this...
by
Kipling, Rudyard
...et Lister, house of Lister rejoice with Craterites a very hard stone. The Lord hear my prayer even as I attend unto his commandments.
Let Ash, house of Ash rejoice with Callaica a green gem. God be gracious to Miss Leroche my fellow traveler from Calais.
Let Baily, house of Baily rejoice with Catopyrites of Cappadocia. God be gracious to the immortal soul of Lewes Baily author of the Practice of Piety.
Let Glover, house of Glover rejoice with Capnites a kind of Jasper -...Read more of this...
by
Smart, Christopher
...he road to Mandalay . . .
Ship me somewheres east of Suez, where the best is like the worst,
Where there aren't no Ten Commandments an' a man can raise a thirst;
For the temple-bells are callin', an' it's there that I would be --
By the old Moulmein Pagoda, looking lazy at the sea;
On the road to Mandalay,
Where the old Flotilla lay,
With our sick beneath the awnings when we went to Mandalay!
On the road to Mandalay,
Where the flyin'-fishes play,
An' the dawn comes up ...Read more of this...
by
Kipling, Rudyard
...cient admonition to you:
If your ways would be ways of pleasantness,
And all your pathways peace,
Love God and keep his commandments....Read more of this...
by
Masters, Edgar Lee
...mpious condition.
But I endure the time, till which expired
Thou hast permission on me. It is written,
The first of all commandments, 'Thou shalt worship
The Lord thy God, and only Him shalt serve.'
And dar'st thou to the Son of God propound
To worship thee, accursed? now more accursed
For this attempt, bolder than that on Eve,
And more blasphemous; which expect to rue.
The kingdoms of the world to thee were given!
Permitted rather, and by thee usurped;
Other donation none t...Read more of this...
by
Milton, John
...Faithful to your commandments, o consciousness, o
Holy bird of words soaring ever whether to nothingness or
to inconceivable fulfillment slowly:
And still I follow you, awkward as that dandy of ontology
and as awkward as his albatross and as
another dandy of ontology before him, another shepherd
and watchdog of being, the one who
Talked forever of forever as if foreve...Read more of this...
by
Schwartz, Delmore
...od's witness sure for aye doth dure
To simplest wisdom lending.
God's dooms be right, and cheer the sprite,
All His commandments being
So purely wise it gives the eyes
Both light and force of seeing.
Of Him the fear doth cleanness bear
And so endures forever,
His judgments be self verity,
They are unrighteous never.
Then what man would so soon seek gold
Or glittering golden money?
By them is past in sweetest taste,
Honey or comb of honey.
By them is made Thy...Read more of this...
by
Sidney, Sir Philip
...isen sick and lain down pinched
And borne it all and never flinched;
But to see him, the town's disgrace,
With God's commandments broke in's face,
Who never worked, not he, nor earned,
Nor will do till the seas are burned,
Who never did since he was whole
A hand's turn for a human soul,
But poached and stole and gone with women,
And swilled down gin enough to swim in,
To see him only lift a finger
To make my little Jimmy linger.
In spite of all his mother's prayer...Read more of this...
by
Masefield, John
...t's what life's for.
He is no God of love, no justice of a little city like Dante's
Florence, no anthropoid God
Making commandments,: this is the God who does not care
and will never cease. Look at the seas there
Flashing against this rock in the darkness--look at the
tide-stream stars--and the fall of nations--and dawn
Wandering with wet white feet down the Caramel Valley to
meet the sea. These are real and we see their beauty.
The great explosion is probably only a meta...Read more of this...
by
Jeffers, Robinson
...ter, is not God One? & is not he visible in Jesus
Christ? and has not Jesus Christ given his sanction to the law of
ten commandments and are not all other men fools, sinners, &
nothings?
The Devil answer'd; bray a fool in a morter with wheat. yet
shall not his folly be beaten out of him: if Jesus Christ is the
greatest man, you ought to love him in the greatest degree; now
hear how he has given his sanction to the law of ten
commandments: did he not mock at the sabbath, and s...Read more of this...
by
Blake, William
...thought will cease
Before the noble alterpiece
With carven swags array'd,
For there in letters all may read
The Lord's Commandments, Prayer and Creed,
And decently display'd.
On country morningd sharp and clear
The penitent in faith draw near
And kneeling here below
Partake the heavenly banquet spread
Of sacremental Wine and Bread
And Jesus' presence know.
And must that plaintive bell in vain
Plead loud along the dripping lane?
And must the building fall?
Not while we love...Read more of this...
by
Betjeman, John
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