Famous Contrition Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Contrition poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous contrition poems. These examples illustrate what a famous contrition poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Southey, Robert
...beldames to affrighten babes!
I have been guilty, yet my mind can bear
The retrospect of guilt, yet in the hour
Of deep contrition to THE ETERNAL look
For mercy! for the child of Poverty,
And "disinherited of happiness,"
What if I warr'd upon the world? the world
Had wrong'd me first: I had endur'd the ills
Of hard injustice; all this goodly earth
Was but to me one wild waste wilderness;
I had no share in Nature's patrimony,
Blasted were all my morning hopes of Youth,
Dark D...Read more of this...
by
Wilcox, Ella Wheeler
...eed;
I heard the strife of race with race, all sprung from one God-seed.
And then I bowed my head in shame, and in contrition cried –
‘Lo, after nineteen hundred years, Christ still is crucified.’...Read more of this...
by
Matthew, John
...You hide your face in shame,
But I can see your private parts,
Have you no contrition,
To expose yourself, shamelessly, thus?
Tell me what does it feel,
To be watched while you strain?
Is that why you hang your head in shame;
Has all embarrassment left you?
I know it’s hard; you need your money,
But couldn’t you put the money —
You spend on spirits and tobacco,
To use that public facility on the street corner?
Is it communion wi...Read more of this...
by
Bosselaar, Laure-Anne
...pense
still bitter-sweet today as I roll, bend and shape
English in my mouth, repeating its syllables
like acts of contrition, then sticking out my new tongue —
flavored and sharp — to the ambiguities of meaning....Read more of this...
by
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...y, 'O Father, forgive them!'"
Few were his words of rebuke, but deep in the hearts of his people
Sank they, and sobs of contrition succeeded the passionate outbreak,
While they repeated his prayer, and said, "O Father, forgive them!"
Then came the evening service. The tapers gleamed from the altar.
Fervent and deep was the voice of the priest and the people responded,
Not with their lips alone, but their hearts; and the Ave Maria
Sang they, and fell on their knees, a...Read more of this...
by
Donne, John
...unnaturally hath begot
A constant habit; that when I would not
I change in vows, and in devotion.
As humorous is my contrition
As my profane love, and as soon forgot:
As riddlingly distempered, cold and hot,
As praying, as mute; as infinite, as none.
I durst not view heaven yesterday; and today
In prayers and flattering speeches I court God:
Tomorrow I quake with true fear of his rod.
So my devout fits come and go away
Like a fantastic ague; save that here
Those a...Read more of this...
by
Gibran, Kahlil
...r>
Love's procession is moving;
Beauty is waving her banner;
Youth is sounding the trumpet of joy;
Disturb not my contrition, my blamer.
Let me walk, for the path is rich
With roses and mint, and the air
Is scented with cleanliness.
Relate not the tales of wealth and
Greatness, for my soul is rich
With bounty and great with God's glory.
Speak not of peoples and laws and
Kingdoms, for the whole earth is
My birthplace and all humans are
My brother...Read more of this...
by
Dickinson, Emily
...Could Prospect taste of Retrospect
The tyrannies of Men
Were Tenderer -- diviner
The Transitive toward.
A Bayonet's contrition
Is nothing to the Dead....Read more of this...
by
Kenyon, Jane
...one's own eye in the mirror,
there are no bad books, no plastic,
no insurance premiums, and of course
no illness. Contrition
does not exist, nor gnashing
of teeth. No one howls as the first
clod of earth hits the casket.
The poor we no longer have with us.
Our calm hearts strike only the hour,
and God, as promised, proves
to be mercy clothed in light....Read more of this...
by
Milton, John
...n censer mixed
With incense, I thy priest before thee bring;
Fruits of more pleasing savour, from thy seed
Sown with contrition in his heart, than those
Which, his own hand manuring, all the trees
Of Paradise could have produced, ere fallen
From innocence. Now therefore, bend thine ear
To supplication; hear his sighs, though mute;
Unskilful with what words to pray, let me
Interpret for him; me, his advocate
And propitiation; all his works on me,
Good, or not go...Read more of this...
by
Watts, Isaac
...
To humble souls and broken hearts
God with his grace is ever nigh;
Pardon and hope his love imparts,
When men in deep contrition lie.
He tells their tears, he counts their groans,
His Son redeems their souls from death;
His Spirit heals their broken bones,
They in his praise employ their breath....Read more of this...
by
Shelley, Percy Bysshe
...; but thou art
More wretched. Sweet, we will not part
Henceforth, if death be not division;
If so, the dead feel no contrition.
But wilt thou hear, since last we parted,
All that has left me broken-hearted?
ROSALIND
Yes, speak. The faintest stars are scarcely shorn
Of their thin beams by that delusive morn
Which sinks again in darkness, like the light
Of early love, soon lost in total night.
HELEN
Alas! Italian winds are mild,
But my bosom is cold--wintry c...Read more of this...
by
Emerson, Ralph Waldo
...ublime."
And yet it seemeth not to me
That the high gods love tragedy;
For Saadi sat in the sun,
And thanks was his contrition;
For haircloth and for bloody whips,
Had active hands and smiling lips;
And yet his runes he rightly read,
And to his folk his message sped.
Sunshine in his heart transferred
Lighted each transparent word;
And well could honoring Persia learn
What Saadi wished to say;
For Saadi's nightly stars did burn
Brighter than Dschami's day.
Whisper...Read more of this...
by
Bridges, Robert Seymour
...t and kept back none;
Kindness and gentleness, truth without peer,
And beauty that my fancy fed upon?
Now not my life's contrition for my fault
Can blot that day, nor work me recompence,
Tho' I might worthily thy worth exalt,
Making thee long amends for short offence.
For surely nowhere, love, if not in thee
Are grace and truth and beauty to be found;
And all my praise of these can only be
A praise of thee, howe'er by thee disown'd:
While still thou must be mine tho' far...Read more of this...
by
Parker, Dorothy
...
And the bitter outmeasured the sweet,
I should certainly do as I then did,
Were I given the chance to repeat.
For contrition is hollow and wraithful,
And regret is no part of my plan,
And I think (if my memory's faithful)
There was nothing more fun than a man!...Read more of this...
by
Browning, Elizabeth Barrett
...'neath the morning sun ?
And do thy kisses, like the rest, betray ?
The cock crows coldly.--GO, and manifest
A late contrition, but no bootless fear !
For when thy final need is dreariest,
Thou shalt not be denied, as I am here;
My voice to God and angels shall attest,
Because I KNOW this man, let him be clear.'...Read more of this...
by
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...sainted
Figures on the casement painted,
And exclaimed the shuddering baron,
"Miserere, Domine!"
In that hour of deep contrition
He beheld, with clearer vision,
Through all outward show and fashion,
Justice, the Avenger, rise.
All the pomp of earth had vanished,
Falsehood and deceit were banished,
Reason spake more loud than passion,
And the truth wore no disguise.
Every vassal of his banner,
Every serf born to his manor,
All those wronged and wretched creatures,
...Read more of this...
by
Robinson, Edwin Arlington
...son o two,
Discouraging a further dialectic
Regarding what was new;
And after their unstudied admonition
Occasional contrition
For their old-fashioned ways
May have reduced their doubts, and in addition
Softened their final days.
Farther away than feet shall ever travel.
Are the vague towers of our unbuilded State;
But there are mightier things than we to lead us,
That will not let us wait.
And we go on with none to tell us whether
Or not we’ve each a ...Read more of this...
by
Lowell, Robert
...backwash, roil the salt and sand
Lashing earth's scaffold, rock
Our warships in the hand
Of the great God, where time's contrition blues
Whatever it was these Quaker sailors lost
In the mad scramble of their lives. They died
When time was open-eyed,
Wooden and childish; only bones abide
There, in the nowhere, where their boats were tossed
Sky-high, where mariners had fabled news
Of IS, the whited monster. What it cost
Them is their secret. In the sperm-whale's sli...Read more of this...
by
Levertov, Denise
...ving,
dark strand with light:
designed, beyond
all spiderly contrivance,
to link, not to entrap:
elation, grief, joy, contrition, entwined;
shaking, changing,
forever
forming,
transforming:
all praise,
all praise to the
great web....Read more of this...
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