Famous Congregation Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Congregation poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous congregation poems. These examples illustrate what a famous congregation poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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...ly does compose him;
Which, by degrees, slips round her neck,
An’s loof upon her bosom,
Unkend that day.
Now a’ the congregation o’er
Is silent expectation;
For Moodie 3 speels the holy door,
Wi’ tidings o’ damnation:
Should Hornie, as in ancient days,
’Mang sons o’ God present him,
The vera sight o’ Moodie’s face,
To ’s ain het hame had sent him
Wi’ fright that day.
Hear how he clears the point o’ faith
Wi’ rattlin and wi’ thumpin!
Now meekly calm, now wild in wr...Read more of this...
by
Burns, Robert
...n black to mask the path they strode
wrapped their ascetic bloodstreams in the holy pages
before which (even today) the congregation cowers
da vinci was an artist scientist (probably a necromancer)
had his own black sun – dabbled in the anti-matter
that official truth hates (creates) – that nurtures riddles
through passageways that breed the ill-reputed answer
(soiled honour’s defence against sly caesar’s fiddles)
hissing its way lightwards through conspiracy chatter
chris...Read more of this...
by
Gregory, Rg
...eting,
Come dripping along in a bathing dress
To the Saturday evening meeting.
Dripping along -
Dripping along -
To the Congregational Hall;
Dripping and still he rose over the sill and faded away in a wall.
There wasn't a man in Oakengates
That hadn't got hold of the tale,
And over the valley in Ironbridge,
And round by Coalbrookdale,
How CAptain Webb the Dawley man,
Captain Webb from Dawley,
Rose rigid and dead from the old canal
That carries the bricks to Lawley.
Rigid an...Read more of this...
by
Betjeman, John
...e Gilfillan of Dundee,
He is the greatest preacher I did ever hear or see.
He is a man of genius bright,
And in him his congregation does delight,
Because they find him to be honest and plain,
Affable in temper, and seldom known to complain.
He preaches in a plain straightforward way,
The people flock to hear him night and day,
And hundreds from the doors are often turn'd away,
Because he is the greatest preacher of the present day.
He has written the life of Sir Waiter Scott...Read more of this...
by
McGonagall, William Topaz
...ed yellow snakes of the island.
When sufficiently distant, the outhouses have a sweetness
like frankincense.
A darker congregation, we think the last days
began when they stripped the postage stamps
of their lies and romance.
The chaff of the hillsides
rises like a cramp, defeating a paring of moon . . . its
hot, modest conjunction of planets . . .
And with this sudden hard rain
the bells on the ferry boat
begin a long elicit angelus.
Two small Turkish boys run out into...Read more of this...
by
Dubie, Norman
...bugles! blow!
Through the windows—through doors—burst like a ruthless force,
Into the solemn church, and scatter the congregation;
Into the school where the scholar is studying;
Leave not the bridegroom quiet—no happiness must he have now with his bride;
Nor the peaceful farmer any peace, plowing his field or gathering his grain;
So fierce you whirr and pound, you drums—so shrill you bugles blow.
2
Beat! beat! drums!—Blow! bugles! blow!
Over the traffic of cities—ove...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...saturnine!
.
And strive to make my steps keep pace with thine.
.
The air is filled with some unknown perfume;
.
The congregation of the dead make room
.
For thee to pass; the votive tapers shine;
.
Like rooks that haunt Ravenna's groves of pine
.
The hovering echoes fly from tomb to tomb.
.
From the confessionals I hear arise
.
Rehearsals of forgotten tragedies,
.
And lamentations from the crypts below;
.
And then a voice celestial that begins
.
With the pathe...Read more of this...
by
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...ay morn, while the bell from its turret
Sprinkled with holy sounds the air, as the priest with his hyssop
Sprinkles the congregation, and scatters blessings upon them,
Down the long street she passed, with her chaplet of beads and her missal,
Wearing her Norman cap and her kirtle of blue, and the ear-rings,
Brought in the olden time from France, and since, as an heirloom,
Handed down from mother to child, through long generations.
But a celestial brightness--a more ethereal b...Read more of this...
by
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...the scene:
(A mirror in the depth of flowery shelves;)
So sweet a spot of earth, you might (I ween,)
Have guess'd some congregation of the elves,
To sport by summer moons, had shaped it for themselves.
Yet wanted not the eye far scope to muse,
Nor vistas open'd by the wandering stream;
Both where at evening Alleghany views
Through ridges burning in her western beam
Lake after lake interminably gleam:
And past those settlers' haunts the eye might roam
Where earth's unliving ...Read more of this...
by
Campbell, Thomas
...belfry, opening their chutes,
circling until the rings of ringing stop.
"Salud!" The paratrooper's glass is raised.
The congregation rises to its feet
like a patrol, with scuffling shoes and boots,
repeating orders as the organ thumps:
"Praise Ye the Lord. The Lord's name be praised."
You cannot hear, beyond the quiet harbor,
the breakers cannonading on the bruised
horizon, or the charter engines gunning for
Buck Island. The only war here is a war
of silence between blue sky...Read more of this...
by
Walcott, Derek
...aindrop Church, which was of God's own colouring.
For it was the benevolence of a virgin shewn to me before the whole congregation.
For the blessing of God upon the grass is in shades of Green visible to a nice observer as they light upon the surface of the earth.
For the blessing of God unto perfection in all bloom and fruit is by colouring.
For from hence something in the spirit may be taken off by painters.
For Painting is a species of idolatry, tho' not so gross...Read more of this...
by
Smart, Christopher
...,
With my Bible under my arm
Till I was gray and old;
Unwedded, alone in the world,
Finding brothers and sisters in the congregation,
And children in the church.
I know they laughed and thought me *****.
I knew of the eagle souls that flew high in the sunlight,
Above the spire of the church, and laughed at the church,
Disdaining me, not seeing me.
But if the high air was sweet to them, sweet was the church to me.
It was the vision, vision, vision of the poets
Democratized!...Read more of this...
by
Masters, Edgar Lee
...rangued the rumbling of the seas,
Held forth with elocution grave,
To audience loud of wind and wave;
And had a stiller congregation,
Than Tories are, to hear th' oration.
The uproar now grew high and louder,
As nearer thund'rings of a cloud are,
And every soul with heart and voice
Supplied his quota of the noise.
Each listening ear was set on torture,
Each Tory bellowing, "Order, Order;"
And some, with tongue not low or weak,
Were clam'ring fast, for leave to speak;
The Mode...Read more of this...
by
Trumbull, John
...haps, or buttered bum -
Orders the usual sex-ersatz, and, nervous,
Glances around - Will she or won't she come?
The congregation dissected into pews
Gulping their strip teas in the luminous cavern
Agape's sacamental berry stews;
The nickel-plated light and clatter of heaven
Receive him, temporary Tantalus
Into the Lookingglassland's firescape.
Suckled on Jungfraumilch his eyes discuss,
The werwolf twins, their mock Sabellian rape.
This is their time to reap the ...Read more of this...
by
Hope, Alec Derwent (A D)
...l equality with God,
In imitation of that mount whereon
Messiah was declared in sight of Heaven,
The Mountain of the Congregation called;
For thither he assembled all his train,
Pretending so commanded to consult
About the great reception of their King,
Thither to come, and with calumnious art
Of counterfeited truth thus held their ears.
Thrones, Dominations, Princedoms, Virtues, Powers;
If these magnifick titles yet remain
Not merely titular, since by decree
Anot...Read more of this...
by
Milton, John
...te
subjects include the horses
and the stock market he
knows the odds the women
are seated upstairs this is
an orthodox congregation
very serious I make
eye contact with the wife
of Menelaus who runs off
with Paris confident I'm Paris....Read more of this...
by
Lehman, David
...
BOTH LEADERS:
King Solomon he had four hundred oxen.
[They stagger forward as through carrying a yoke together.]
CONGREGATION:
We were the oxen.
BOTH LEADERS:
You shall feel goads no more.
[Here King and Queen pause at the footlights.]
Walk dreadful roads no more,
[They walk backward, throwing off the yoke and rejoicing.]
Free from your loads
For ten thousand years.
BOTH LEADERS:
King Solomon he had four hundred sweethearts.
[The men's leader goes forward, ...Read more of this...
by
Lindsay, Vachel
...hurch filled the pews on the right,
Which was a very impressive and solemn sight;
And psalms and hymns were sung by the congregation,
And the Rev. W. I. Cox concluded the service with great veneration.
Then the coffin was carried from the church and placed in the hearse,
While the congregation allowed the friends to disperse,
Then followed the congregation without delay,
Some to join the procession, while others went home straightaway.
The procession consisted of the hear...Read more of this...
by
McGonagall, William Topaz
...at twelve per cent,
And after I've preached for a decent while
I clear for 'home' with a lordly pile.
I frighten my congregation well
With fear of torment and threats of hell,
Although I know that the scientists
Can't find that any such place exists.
And when they prove it beyond mistake
That the world took millions of years to make,
And never was built by the seventh day
I say in a pained and insulted way
that 'Thomas also presumed to doubt',
And thus do I rub m...Read more of this...
by
Paterson, Andrew Barton
...Trying to turn into jelly.
In April days in this cemetery
The dead people gathered all about me,
And grew still, like a congregation in silent prayer.
I never knew whether I was a part of the earth
With flowers growing in me, or whether I walked --
Now I know....Read more of this...
by
Masters, Edgar Lee
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