Famous Commands Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Commands poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous commands poems. These examples illustrate what a famous commands poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Victor Hugo
("Là-haut, qui sourit.")
{Bk. VII. vii., September, 1853.}
Who smiles there? Is it
A stray spirit,
Or woman fair?
Sombre yet soft the brow!
Bow, nations, bow;
O soul in air,
Speak—what art thou?
In grief the fair face seems—
What means those sudden gleams?
Our...Read more of this...
by
Isaac Watts
The rich sinner's death, and the saint's resurrection.
Why do the proud insult the poor,
And boast the large estates they have?
How vain are riches to secure
Their haughty owners from the grave!
They can't redeem one hour from death,
With all the wealth in which they trust;
Nor give a dying brother breath,
When God commands him down to dust.
There the dark earth and dismal...Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
In this world, he who commands a loaf of bread and
who can cover his body with any garment whatsoever,
he who is neither master nor servant, tell him to live
content, for he has a sweet existence....Read more of this...
by
Isaac Watts
Hezekiah's song; or, Sickness and recovery.
Isa. 38:9ff.
When we are raised from deep distress,
Our God deserves a song;
We take the pattern of our praise
From Hezekiah's tongue.
The gates of the devouring grave
Are opened wide in vain,
If he that holds the keys of death
Commands them fast again.
Pains of the flesh are wont t' abuse
Our minds with slavish fears:
"Our days are past,...Read more of this...
by
Barry Tebb
Eamer o’ Keefe with your tinge of brogue
And Irish warmth, Daisy and Debjani
With your karma and cool verse, I salute you.
( III )
"Ecoutez la voix du vent" – listen to the wind’s voice
As Milosz commands "All your griefs,
My sad ones, are in vain" but offering
In recompense soaring sonatas which remain unread
Untranslated, relegated to the reserve stock
Of the Institut...Read more of this...
by
Robert Burns
I GAT your letter, winsome Willie;
Wi’ gratefu’ heart I thank you brawlie;
Tho’ I maun say’t, I wad be silly,
And unco vain,
Should I believe, my coaxin billie
Your flatterin strain.
But I’se believe ye kindly meant it:
I sud be laith to think ye hinted
Ironic satire, sidelins sklented
On my poor Musie;
Tho’ in sic phraisin terms ye’ve penn’d it,
I scarce...Read more of this...
by
Isaac Watts
Courage and perseverance under persecution.
ver. 143, 28
When pain and anguish seize me, Lord,
All my support is from thy word:
My soul dissolves for heaviness;
Uphold me with thy strength'ning grace.
ver. 51,69,110
The proud have framed their scoffs and lies,
They watch my feet with envious eyes,
And tempt my soul to snares and sin,
Yet thy commands I ne'er decline.
ver. 161,78
They hate...Read more of this...
by
Isaac Watts
Great God, whose universal sway
The known and unknown worlds obey,
Now give the kingdom to thy Son,
Extend his power, exalt his throne.
The scepter well becomes his hands;
All heaven submits to his commands;
His justice shall avenge the poor,
And pride and rage prevail no more.
With power he vindicates the just,
And treads the oppressor in the dust:
His worship and his fear shall last
Till...Read more of this...
by
Lisel Mueller
Jenny, your mind commands
kingdoms of black and white:
you shoulder the crow on your left,
the snowbird on your right;
for you the cinders part
and let the lentils through,
and noise falls into place
as screech or sweet roo-coo,
while in my own, real, world
gray foxes and gray wolves
bargain eye to eye,
and the amazing dove
takes shelter under the wing
of the raven to keep dry.
Knowing that...Read more of this...
by
Isaac Watts
Providences of God recorded.
Let children hear the mighty deeds
Which God performed of old,
Which in our younger years we saw,
And which our fathers told.
He bids us make his glories known,
His works of power and grace;
And we'll convey his wonders down
Through every rising race.
Our lips shall tell them to our sons,
And they again to theirs;
That generations yet unborn
May teach them to...Read more of this...
by
William Stafford
In line at lunch I cross my fork and spoon
to ward off complicity--the ordered life
our leaders have offered us. Thin as a knife,
our chance to live depends on such a sign
while others talk and The Pentagon from the moon
is bouncing exact commands: "Forget your faith;
be ready for whatever it takes to win: we face
annihilation unless all citizens get in...Read more of this...
by
Alexander Pope
He said, and pass'd with sad presaging heart
To seek his spouse, his soul's far dearer part;
At home he sought her, but he sought in vain:
She, with one maid of all her menial train,
Had thence retir'd; and, with her second joy,
The young Astyanax, the hope of Troy,
Pensive she stood on Ilion's tow'ry height,
Beheld the war, and sicken'd at the sight;
There...Read more of this...
by
Mary Darby Robinson
Farewell, ye coral caves, ye pearly sands,
Ye waving woods that crown yon lofty steep;
Farewell, ye Nereides of the glitt'ring deep,
Ye mountain tribes, ye fawns, ye sylvan bands:
On the bleak rock your frantic minstrel stands,
Each task forgot, save that, to sigh and weep;
In vain the strings her burning fingers sweep,
No more her touch, the Grecian Lyre commands!
In Circe's cave my...Read more of this...
by
Delmore Schwartz
Poem Faithful to your commands, o consciousness, o
Beating wings, I studied
the roses and the muses of reality,
the deceptions and the deceptive elation of the redness of the growing morning,
and all the greened and thomed variety of the vines of error, which begin by promising
Everything and more than everything, and then suddenly,
At the height of noon seem to rise...Read more of this...
by
George Meredith
Here Jack and Tom are paired with Moll and Meg.
Curved open to the river-reach is seen
A country merry-making on the green.
Fair space for signal shakings of the leg.
That little screwy fiddler from his booth,
Whence flows one nut-brown stream, commands the joints
Of all who caper here at various points.
I have known rustic revels...Read more of this...
by
Elizabeth Bishop
At four o'clock
in the gun-metal blue dark
we hear the first crow of the first cock
just below
the gun-metal blue window
and immediately there is an echo
off in the distance,
then one from the backyard fence,
then one, with horrible insistence,
grates like a wet match
from the broccoli patch,
flares,and all over town begins to catch.
Cries galore
come from the water-closet door,
from the dropping-plastered henhouse floor,
where...Read more of this...
by
Francesco Petrarch
CANZONE XV. In quella parte dov' Amor mi sprona. HE FINDS HER IMAGE EVERYWHERE. When Love, fond Love, commands the strain,The coyest muse must sure obey;Love bids my wounded breast complain,And whispers the melodious lay:Yet when such griefs restrain the muse's wing,How shall she dare to soar, or how attempt...Read more of this...
by
Robert Browning
That's my last duchess painted on the wall,
Looking as if she were alive. I call
That piece a wonder, now: Frà Pandolf's hands
Worked busily a day, and there she stands.
Will't please you sit and look at her? I said
"Frà Pandolf" by design, for never read
Strangers like you that pictured countenance,
The depth and passion...Read more of this...
by
Rudyard Kipling
To the Heavens above us
O look and behold
The Planets that love us
All harnessed in gold!
What chariots, what horses
Against us shall bide
While the Stars in their courses
Do fight on our side?
All thought, all desires,
That are under the sun,
Are one with their fires,
As we also are one:
All matter, all spirit,
All fashion, all frame,
Receive and inherit
Their strength from the same.
(Oh, man that...Read more of this...
by
Isaac Watts
Breathing after holiness.
ver. 5,33
O that the Lord would guide my ways
To keep his statutes still!
O that my God would grant me grace
To know and do his will!
ver. 29
O send thy Spirit down to write
Thy law upon my heart!
Nor let my tongue indulge deceit,
Nor act the liar's part.
ver. 37,36
From vanity turn off my eyes;
Let no corrupt design,
Nor...Read more of this...
by
Donald Justice
But these maneuverings to avoid
The touching of hands,
These shifts to keep the eyes employed
On objects more or less neutral
(As honor, for time being, commands)
Will hardly prevent their downfall.
Stronger medicines are needed.
Already they find
None of their strategems have succeeded,
Nor would have, no,
Not had their eyes been stricken blind,
Hands cut off at the elbow....Read more of this...
by
Rudyard Kipling
(Non-commissioned Officers in Charge of Prisoners)
When by the labor of my 'ands
I've 'elped to pack a transport tight
With prisoners for foreign lands,
I ain't transported with delight.
I know it's only just an' right,
But yet it somehow sickens me,
For I 'ave learned at Waterval
The meanin' of captivity.
Be'ind the pegged barb-wire strands,
Beneath the tall...Read more of this...
by
Isaac Watts
The apostles' commission.
Mark 16:15ff; Matt. 28:18ff.
"O preach my gospel," saith the Lord,
"Bid the whole earth my grace receive;
He shall be saved that trusts my word,
He shall be damned that won't believe.
"I'll make your great commission known,
And ye shall prove my gospel true,
By all the works that I have done,
By all the wonders ye shall do.
"Go heal the sick,...Read more of this...
by
Robert Burns
MY 1 heart is wae, and unco wae,
To think upon the raging sea,
That roars between her gardens green
An’ the bonie Lass of Albany.
This lovely maid’s of royal blood
That ruled Albion’s kingdoms three,
But oh, alas! for her bonie face,
They’ve wrang’d the Lass of Albany.
In the rolling tide of spreading Clyde
There sits an isle of high...Read more of this...
by
John Berryman
Bats have no bankers and they do not drink
and cannot be arrested and pay no tax
and, in general, bats have it made.
Henry for joining the human race is bats,
known to be so, by few them who think,
out of the cave.
Instead of the cave! ah lovely-chilly, dark,
ur-moist his cousins hang in hundreds or swerve
with personal radar,
crisisless, kid. Instead of the...Read more of this...
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