Famous Compassionate Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Compassionate poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous compassionate poems. These examples illustrate what a famous compassionate poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Walt Whitman
1
TO conclude—I announce what comes after me;
I announce mightier offspring, orators, days, and then, for the present, depart.
I remember I said, before my leaves sprang at all,
I would raise my voice jocund and strong, with reference to consummations.
When America does what was promis’d,
When there are plentiful athletic bards, inland and seaboard,
When through These States...Read more of this...
by
Ernest Dowson
All that I had I brought,
Little enough I know;
A poor rhyme roughly wrought,
A rose to match thy snow:
All that I had I brought.
Little enough I sought:
But a word compassionate,
A passing glance, or thought,
For me outside the gate:
Little enough I sought.
Little enough I found:
All...Read more of this...
by
Rudyard Kipling
Once, after long-drawn revel at The Mermaid,
He to the overbearing Boanerges
Jonson, uttered (if half of it were liquor,
Blessed be the vintage!)
Saying how, at an alehouse under Cotswold,
He had made sure of his very Cleopatra,
Drunk with enormous, salvation-con temning
Love for a tinker.
How, while he hid from Sir Thomas's keepers,
Crouched in a ditch and drenched by the midnight
Dews, he...Read more of this...
by
Amy Levy
"To see my love suffices me."
--Ballades in Blue China.
Some men to carriages aspire;
On some the costly hansoms wait;
Some seek a fly, on job or hire;
Some mount the trotting steed, elate.
I envy not the rich and great,
A wandering minstrel, poor and free,
I am contented with my fate --
An omnibus suffices me.
In winter days of rain and mire
I find within...Read more of this...
by
Barry Tebb
I thought of my ‘faculty of poetry’
As of the eye
The bream or white-bait showed
In its hysterical dance of death
When the receding tide
Left it asleep
In a shallow pool on the shore.
Why did I fail to take it?
Was I strangely compassionate
Or merely afraid to touch
The jerking spasm of flesh
With the still eye?
Or was it I on the shore
In the shallow pool,...Read more of this...
by
Francesco Petrarch
SONNET XXXVII. Anima bella, da quel nodo sciolta. HE PRAYS LAURA TO LOOK DOWN UPON HIM FROM HEAVEN. Bright spirit, from those earthly bonds released,The loveliest ever wove in Nature's loom,From thy bright skies compassionate the gloomShrouding my life that once of joy could taste!Each false suggestion of thy heart has...Read more of this...
by
Algernon Charles Swinburne
SHALL I strew on thee rose or rue or laurel,
Brother, on this that was the veil of thee?
Or quiet sea-flower moulded by the sea,
Or simplest growth of meadow-sweet or sorrel,
Such as the summer-sleepy Dryads weave,
Waked up by snow-soft sudden rains at eve?
Or wilt thou rather, as on earth before,...Read more of this...
by
Edna St. Vincent Millay
Aye, but she?
Your other sister and my other soul
Grave Silence, lovelier
Than the three loveliest maidens, what of her?
Clio, not you,
Not you, Calliope,
Nor all your wanton line,
Not Beauty's perfect self shall comfort me
For Silence once departed,
For her the cool-tongued, her the tranquil-hearted,
Whom evermore I follow wistfully,
Wandering Heaven and Earth and Hell and the four seasons through;
Thalia, not you,
Not you, Melpomene,
Not...Read more of this...
by
Conrad Aiken
The round red sun heaves darkly out of the sea.
The walls and towers are warmed and gleam.
Sounds go drowsily up from streets and wharves.
The city stirs like one that is half in dream.
And the mist flows up by dazzling walls and windows,
Where one by one we wake and rise.
We gaze at the pale grey lustrous sea a moment,
We rub...Read more of this...
by
Helen Hunt Jackson
I dreamed that I ws dead and crossed the heavens,--
Heavens after heavens with burning feet and swift,--
And cried: "O God, where art Thou?" I left one
On earth, whose burden I would pray Thee lift."
I was so dead I wondered at no thing,--
Not even that the angels slowly turned
Their faces, speechless, as I hurried...Read more of this...
by
Victor Hugo
("Le cheval galopait toujours.")
{Bk. XV. ii. 10.}
The good steed flew o'er river and o'er plain,
Till far away,—no need of spur or rein.
The child, half rapture, half solicitude,
Looks back anon, in fear to be pursued;
Shakes lest some raging brother of his sire
Leap from those rocks...Read more of this...
by
George Herbert
Lord, I confess my sin is great;
Great is my sin. Oh! gently treat
With thy quick flow'r, thy momentany bloom;
Whose life still pressing
Is one undressing,
A steady aiming at a tomb.
Man's age is two hours' work, or three:
Each day doth round about us see.
Thus are we to delights: but we are all
To sorrows old,
If life be...Read more of this...
by
Robinson Jeffers
The continent's a tamed ox, with all its mountains,
Powerful and servile; here is for plowland, here is
for park and playground, this helpless
Cataract for power; it lies behind us at heel
All docile between this ocean and the other. If
flood troubles the lowlands, or earthquake
Cracks walls, it is only a slave's blunder or the
natural
Shudder of a new made...Read more of this...
by
Edwin Arlington Robinson
Though for your sake I would not have you now
So near to me tonight as now you are,
God knows how much a stranger to my heart
Was any cold word that I may have written;
And you, poor woman that I made my wife,
You have had more of loneliness, I fear,
Than I—though I have been the...Read more of this...
by
Constantine P Cavafy
Partly to verify an era,
partly also to pass the time,
last night I picked up a collection
of Ptolemaic epigrams to read.
The plentiful praises and flatteries
for everyone are similar. They are all brilliant,
glorious, mighty, beneficent;
each of their enterprises the wisest.
If you talk of the women of that breed, they too,
all the Berenices and Cleopatras are admirable.
When I had managed to verify...Read more of this...
by
Algernon Charles Swinburne
Vicisti, Galilæe
I have lived long enough, having seen one thing, that love hath an end;
Goddess and maiden and queen, be near me now and befriend.
Thou art more than the day or the morrow, the seasons that laugh or that weep;
For these give joy and sorrow; but thou, Proserpina, sleep.
Sweet is the treading of wine, and sweet the feet of...Read more of this...
by
Denise Levertov
Rose Red's hair is brown as fur
and shines in firelight as she prepares
supper of honey and apples, curds and whey,
for the bear, and leaves it ready
on the hearth-stone.
Rose White's grey eyes
look into the dark forest.
Rose Red's cheeks are burning,
sign of her ardent, joyful
compassionate heart.
Rose White is pale,
turning away when she hears
the bear's paw on the latch.
When he enters, there...Read more of this...
by
Paul Laurence Dunbar
Oh, wind of the spring-time, oh, free wind of May,
When blossoms and bird-song are rife;
Oh, joy for the season, and joy for the day,
That gave me the roses of life, of life,
[Pg 222]That gave me the roses of life.
Oh, wind of the summer, sing loud in the night,
When flutters my heart like a dove;
One came from thy kingdom,...Read more of this...
by
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
THE MAIDEN.
I'VE seen him before me!
What rapture steals o'er me!
Oh heavenly sight!
He's coming to meet me;
Perplex'd, I retreat me,
With shame take to flight.
My mind seems to wander!
Ye rocks and trees yonder,
Conceal ye my rapture.
Conceal my delight!
THE YOUTH.
'Tis here I must find her,
'Twas here she enshrined her,
Here vanish'd from sight.
She came, as to meet me,
Then fearing to greet me,
With shame...Read more of this...
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