Famous Creed Poems by Famous Poets

These are examples of famous Creed poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous creed poems. These examples illustrate what a famous creed poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).

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A Song before Sailing

by Bliss Carman
 Wind of the dead men's feet,
Blow down the empty street
Of this old city by the sea
With news for me!
Blow me beyond the grime
And pestilence of time!
I am too sick at heart to war
With failure any more.
Thy chill is in my bones;
The moonlight on the stones
Is pale, and palpable, and cold;
I am as one grown old.

I call from room to...Read more of this...

Apostasy

by Charlotte Bronte
 THIS last denial of my faith, 
Thou, solemn Priest, hast heard; 
And, though upon my bed of death,
I call not back a word.
Point not to thy Madonna, Priest,­
Thy sightless saint of stone; 
She cannot, from this burning breast,
Wring one repentant moan. 

Thou say'st, that when a sinless child, 
I duly bent the knee,
And prayed to what in marble smiled...Read more of this...

An Indian Love Song

by Sarojini Naidu
 He

Lift up the veils that darken the delicate moon 
of thy glory and grace,
Withhold not, O love, from the night 
of my longing the joy of thy luminous face,
Give me a spear of the scented keora 
guarding thy pinioned curls, 
Or a silken thread from the fringes 
that trouble the dream of thy glimmering pearls;
Faint grows my soul with...Read more of this...

A Creed

by John Masefield
 I HOLD that when a person dies 
His soul returns again to earth; 
Arrayed in some new flesh-disguise 
Another mother gives him birth. 
With sturdier limbs and brighter brain 
The old soul takes the road again. 

Such is my own belief and trust; 
This hand, this hand that holds the pen, 
Has many a hundred times been dust 
And...Read more of this...

Saltbush Bill on the Patriarchs

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 Come all you little rouseabouts and climb upon my knee; 
To-day, you see, is Christmas Day, and so it’s up to me 
To give you some instruction like—a kind of Christmas tale— 
So name your yarn, and off she goes. What, “Jonah and the Whale”? 
Well, whales is sheep I’ve never shore; I’ve never been to sea, 
So all...Read more of this...

The Fire At Rosss Farm

by Henry Lawson
 The squatter saw his pastures wide 
Decrease, as one by one 
The farmers moving to the west 
Selected on his run; 
Selectors took the water up 
And all the black soil round; 
The best grass-land the squatter had 
Was spoilt by Ross's Ground. 

Now many schemes to shift old Ross 
Had racked the squatter's brains, 
But Sandy had the...Read more of this...

Buddha at Kamakura

by Rudyard Kipling
 1892
"And there is a Japanese idol at Kamakura"

Oye who treated the Narrow Way
By Tophet-flare to Judgment Day,
Be gentle when "the heathen" pray
 To Buddha at Kamakura!

To him the Way, the Law, apart,
Whom Maya held beneath her heart,
Ananda's Lord, the Bodhisat,
 The Buddha of Kamakura.

For though he neither burns nor sees,
Nor hears ye thank your Deities,
Ye have not sinned with...Read more of this...

Heritage

by Countee Cullen
 What is Africa to me:
Copper sun or scarlet sea,
Jungle star or jungle track,
Strong bronzed men, or regal black
Women from whose loins I sprang
When the birds of Eden sang?
One three centuries removed
From the scenes his fathers loved,
Spicy grove, cinnamon tree,
What is Africa to me?

So I lie, who all day long
Want no sound except the song
Sung by wild barbaric birds
Goading massive...Read more of this...

To drink wine and rejoice is my gospel of life. To

by Omar Khayyam
To drink wine and rejoice is my gospel of life. To
be as indifferent to heresy as to religion is my creed. I
asked the bride of the human race [the world] what her
dowry was, and she answered: My dowry consists in the
joy of my heart.
293...Read more of this...

The Church-Builder

by Thomas Hardy
 The church flings forth a battled shade 
Over the moon-blanched sward: 
The church; my gift; whereto I paid 
My all in hand and hoard; 
Lavished my gains 
With stintless pains 
To glorify the Lord. 

I squared the broad foundations in 
Of ashlared masonry; 
I moulded mullions thick and thin, 
Hewed fillet and ogee; 
I circleted 
Each sculptured head 
With...Read more of this...

Poverty And Wealth

by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
 The stork flew over a town one day, 
And back of each wing an infant lay; 
One to a rich man’s home he brought, 
And one he left at a labourer’s cot.
The rich man said, ‘My son shall be
A lordly ruler o’er land and sea.’
The labourer sighed, ‘’Tis the good God’s will
That I have another mouth to fill.’
The rich...Read more of this...

Verse For a Certain Dog

by Dorothy Parker
 Such glorious faith as fills your limpid eyes,
Dear little friend of mine, I never knew.
All-innocent are you, and yet all-wise.
(For Heaven's sake, stop worrying that shoe!)
You look about, and all you see is fair;
This mighty globe was made for you alone.
Of all the thunderous ages, you're the heir.
(Get off the pillow with that dirty bone!)

A skeptic world you face...Read more of this...

89. The Ordination

by Robert Burns
 KILMARNOCK wabsters, fidge an’ claw,
 An’ pour your creeshie nations;
An’ ye wha leather rax an’ draw,
 Of a’ denominations;
Swith to the Ligh Kirk, ane an’ a’
 An’ there tak up your stations;
Then aff to Begbie’s in a raw,
 An’ pour divine libations
 For joy this day.


Curst Common-sense, that imp o’ hell,
 Cam in wi’ Maggie Lauder; 1
But Oliphant 2...Read more of this...

Christ of Everywhere

by Henry Van Dyke
 "Christ of the Andes," Christ of Everywhere, 
Great lover of the hills, the open air, 
And patient lover of impatient men 
Who blindly strive and sin and strive again, -- 
Thou Living Word, larger than any creed, 
Thou Love Divine, uttered in human deed, -- 
Oh, teach the world, warring and wandering still, 
Thy way of Peace, the foot...Read more of this...

My law it is in pleasure's paths to stray,

by Omar Khayyam
My law it is in pleasure's paths to stray,
My creed to shun the theologic fray;
I wedded Luck, and offered her a dower,
She said, «I want none, so thy heart be gay.»...Read more of this...

Would'st thou have fortune bow her neck to thee,

by Omar Khayyam
Would'st thou have fortune bow her neck to thee,
Make it thy care to feed thy soul with glee;
And hold a creed like mine, which is to drain
The cup of wine, not that of misery....Read more of this...

Henry Phipps

by Edgar Lee Masters
 I was the Sunday school superintendent,
The dummy president of the wagon works
And the canning factory,
Acting for Thomas Rhodes and the banking clique;
My son the cashier of the bank,
Wedded to Rhodes' daughter,
My week day spent in making money,
My Sundays at church and in prayer.
In everything a cog in the wheel of things-as-they-are:
Of money, master and man, made white
With the paint...Read more of this...

Holy-Cross Day

by Robert Browning
 ON WHICH THE JEWS WERE FORCED TO
ATTEND AN ANNUAL CHRISTIAN SERMON
IN ROME.

[``Now was come about Holy-Cross Day,
and now must my lord preach his first sermon
to the Jews: as it was of old cared for in tine
merciful bowels of the Church, that, so to
speak, a crumb at least from her conspicuous
table here in Rome should be, though but
once yearly, cast...Read more of this...

To The South

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
Heart of the Southland, heed me pleading now,
Who bearest, unashamed, upon my brow
The long kiss of the loving tropic sun,
And yet, whose veins with thy red current run.
Borne on the bitter winds from every hand,
Strange tales are flying over all the land,
And Condemnation, with his pinions foul,
Glooms in the place where broods the midnight owl.
What art thou, that the world...Read more of this...

To Mr James Scrymgeour Dundee

by William Topaz McGonagall
 Success to James Scrymgeour,
He's a very good man,
And to gainsay it,
There's few people can; 

Because he makes the hearts
Of the poor o'erjoyed
By trying to find work for them
When they're unemployed. 

And to their complaints
He has always an attentive ear,
And ever ready to help them
When unto him they draw near. 

And no matter what your occupation is.
Or what is your...Read more of this...

Diversity of creed divides the human race into about

by Omar Khayyam
Diversity of creed divides the human race into about
seventy-two sects. Amongst all these dogmas, I have
chosen that of Thy love. What signify these words:
Impiety, Islamism, creed, sin? My true aim is to seek
Thee. Far be from me all these vain, indifferent pretexts.
341...Read more of this...

Each and All

by Ralph Waldo Emerson
 Little thinks, in the field, yon red-cloaked clown
Of thee from the hill-top looking down;
The heifer that lows in the upland farm,
Far-heard, lows not thine ear to charm;
The wexton, tolling his bell at noon,
Deems not that great Napoleon
Stops his horse, and lists with delight,
Whilst his files sweep round yon Alpine height;
Nor knowest thou what argument
Thy life to thy neighbor's creed...Read more of this...

The Old Arm-chair

by Eliza Cook
 I LOVE it, I love it ; and who shall dare
To chide me for loving that old Arm-chair ?
I've treasured it long as a sainted prize ;
I've bedewed it with tears, and embalmed it with sighs.
' Tis bound by a thousand bands to my heart ;
Not a tie will break, not a link will start.
Would ye learn the spell...Read more of this...

The Missionary

by Charlotte Bronte
 Lough, vessel, plough the British main,
Seek the free ocean's wider plain; 
Leave English scenes and English skies,
Unbind, dissever English ties; 
Bear me to climes remote and strange, 
Where altered life, fast-following change,
Hot action, never-ceasing toil, 
Shall stir, turn, dig, the spirit's soil; 
Fresh roots shall plant, fresh seed shall sow, 
Till a new garden there shall grow, 
Cleared of...Read more of this...

The Necessitarian

by Rudyard Kipling
 I know not in Whose hands are laid
 To empty upon earth
From unsuspected ambuscade
 The very Urns of Mirth;

Who bids the Heavenly Lark arise
 And cheer our solemn round--
The Jest beheld with streaming eyes
 And grovellings on the ground;

Who joins the flats of Time and Chance
 Behind the prey preferred,
And thrones on Shrieking Circumstance
 The Sacredly Absurd,

Till Laughter, voiceless...Read more of this...

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