Famous Deed Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Deed poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous deed poems. These examples illustrate what a famous deed poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Robert William Service
A bonny bird I found today
Mired in a melt of tar;
Its silky breast was silver-grey,
Its wings were cinnabar.
So still it lay right in the way
Of every passing car.
Yet as I gently sought to pry
It loose, it glared at me;
You would have thought its foe was I,
It pecked so viciously;
So fiercely fought, as soft I sought
From death to set it...Read more of this...
by
Kahlil Gibran
Part One
The power of charity sows deep in my heart, and I reap and gather the wheat in bundles and give them to the hungry.
My soul gives life to the grapevine and I press its bunches and give the juice to the thirsty.
Heaven fills my lamp with oil and I place it at my window to direct...Read more of this...
by
Gerard Manley Hopkins
Yes. Why do we ?ll, seeing of a soldier, bless him? bless
Our redcoats, our tars? Both these being, the greater part,
But frail clay, nay but foul clay. Here it is: the heart,
Since, proud, it calls the calling manly, gives a guess
That, hopes that, makesbelieve, the men must be no less;
It fancies, feigns, deems, dears the artist after his art;
And...Read more of this...
by
Anne Killigrew
I.
HOw comes the Day orecast ? the Flaming Sun
Darkn'd at Noon, as if his Course were run ?
He never rose more proud, more glad, more gay,
Ne're courted Daphne with a brighter Ray !
And now in Clouds he wraps his Head,
As if not Daphne, but himself were dead !
And all the little...Read more of this...
by
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Wife
Reach out your arms, and hold me close and fast.
Tell me there are no memories of your past
That mar this love of ours, so great, so vast.
Husband
Some truths are cheapened when too oft averred.
Does not the deed speak louder than the word?
(dear God, that old dream woke again and stirred.)
Wife
As you love me, you never loved before?
Though oft...Read more of this...
by
William Topaz McGonagall
Ye Sons of Mars, it gives me great content
To think there has been erected a handsome monument
In memory of the Black Watch, which is magnificent to see,
Where they first were embodied at Aberfeldy.
And as a Highland regiment they are worthy of what has been done for them,
Because a more courageous regiment we cannot find of men
Who have bravely...Read more of this...
by
Thomas Hood
'Twas in the prime of summer-time
An evening calm and cool,
And four-and-twenty happy boys
Came bounding out of school:
There were some that ran and some that leapt,
Like troutlets in a pool.
Away they sped with gamesome minds,
And souls untouched by sin;
To a level mead they came, and there
They drave the wickets in:
Pleasantly shone...Read more of this...
by
George Eliot
If you sit down at set of sun
And count the acts that you have done,
And, counting, find
One self-denying deed, one word
That eased the heart of him who heard,
One glance most kind
That fell like sunshine where it went --
Then you may count that day well spent.
But if, through all the livelong day,
You've cheered no heart, by yea or nay...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
Because I was a woman lone
And had of friends so few,
I made two little ones my own,
Whose parents no one knew;
Unwanted foundlings of the night,
Left at the convent door,
Whose tiny hands in piteous plight
Seemed to implore.
By Deed to them I gave my name,
And never will they know
That from the evil slums they came,
Two...Read more of this...
by
William Butler Yeats
Bid a strong ghost stand at the head
That my Michael may sleep sound,
Nor cry, nor turn in the bed
Till his morning meal come round;
And may departing twilight keep
All dread afar till morning's back.
That his mother may not lack
Her fill of sleep.
Bid the ghost have sword in fist:
Some there are, for I avow
Such devilish things exist,
Who have planned his murder,...Read more of this...
by
Francesco Petrarch
SONNET LXXXIII. L' aspettata virtù che 'n voi fioriva. TO PAUDOLFO MALATESTA, LORD OF RIMINI. Sweet virtue's blossom had its promise shedWithin thy breast (when Love became thy foe);Fair as the flower, now its fruit doth glow,And not by visions hath my hope been fed.To hail thee thus, I by my...Read more of this...
by
Robert Burns
’TWAS in the seventeen hunder year
O’ grace, and ninety-five,
That year I was the wae’est man
Of ony man alive.
In March the three-an’-twentieth morn,
The sun raise clear an’ bright;
But oh! I was a waefu’ man,
Ere to-fa’ o’ the night.
Yerl Galloway lang did rule this land,
Wi’ equal right and fame,
And thereto was his kinsmen join’d,
The Murray’s...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
This is the yarn he told me
As we sat in Casey's Bar,
That Rooshun mug who scammed from the jug
In the Land of the Crimson Star;
That Soviet guy with the single eye,
And the face like a flaming scar.
Where Lenin lies the red flag flies, and the rat-grey workers wait
To tread the gloom of Lenin's Tomb,...Read more of this...
by
Sir Philip Sidney
Alas, have I not pain enough, my friend,
Upon whose breast a fiercer gripe doth tire,
Than did on him who first stole down the fire,
While Love on me doth all his quiver spend,
But with your rhubarb words you must contend,
To grieve me worse, in saying that desire
Doth plunge my well-form'd soul even in the...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
A Deed knocks first at Thought
And then -- it knocks at Will --
That is the manufacturing spot
And Will at Home and well
It then goes out an Act
Or is entombed so still
That only to the ear of God
Its Doom is audible --...Read more of this...
by
Joyce Kilmer
(For Alden March)
With drooping sail and pennant
That never a wind may reach,
They float in sunless waters
Beside a sunless beach.
Their mighty masts and funnels
Are white as driven snow,
And with a pallid radiance
Their ghostly bulwarks glow.
Here is a Spanish galleon
That once with gold was gay,
Here is a Roman trireme
Whose hues outshone the day.
But Tyrian dyes have faded,
And prows that once were...Read more of this...
by
Ben Jonson
LXVI. — TO SIR HENRY CARY. That neither fame, nor love might wanting be To greatness, CARY, I sing that and thee ; Whose house, if it no other honor had, In only thee, might be both great and glad : Who, to upbraid the sloth of this our time, Durst valor make, almost, but not a crime. Which deed I...Read more of this...
by
George William Russell
THIS is the hero-heart of the enchanted isle,
Whom now the twilight children tenderly enfold,
Pat with their pearly palms and crown with elfin gold,
While in the mountain’s breast his brothers watch and smile.
Who now of Dana’s host may guide these dancing feet?
What bright immortal hides and through a child’s light breath
Laughs an immortal joy—Angus of love and death
Returned to make...Read more of this...
by
Edgar Lee Masters
It was only a little house of two rooms --
Almost like a child's play-house --
With scarce five acres of ground around it;
And I had so many children to feed
And school and clothe, and a wife who was sick
From bearing children.
One day lawyer Whitney came along
And proved to me that Christian Dallman,
Who owned three thousand acres of land,
Had bought the...Read more of this...
by
Robert Burns
WHILE at the stook the shearers cow’r
To shun the bitter blaudin’ show’r,
Or in gulravage rinnin scowr
To pass the time,
To you I dedicate the hour
In idle rhyme.
My musie, tir’d wi’ mony a sonnet
On gown, an’ ban’, an’ douse black bonnet,
Is grown right eerie now she’s done it,
Lest they should blame her,
An’ rouse their holy thunder on it
...Read more of this...
by
Phillis Wheatley
Mæcenas, you, beneath the myrtle shade,
Read o'er what poets sung, and shepherds play'd.
What felt those poets but you feel the same?
Does not your soul possess the sacred flame?
Their noble strains your equal genius shares
In softer language, and diviner airs.
While Homer paints, lo! circumfus'd in air,
Celestial Gods in mortal forms appear;
Swift as they move hear each recess rebound,
Heav'n...Read more of this...
by
Langston Hughes
Children, I come back today
To tell you a story of the long dark way
That I had to climb, that I had to know
In order that the race might live and grow.
Look at my face -- dark as the night --
Yet shining like the sun with love's true light.
I am the dark girl who...Read more of this...
by
Kahlil Gibran
And an old priest said, "Speak to us of Religion."
And he said:
Have I spoken this day of aught else?
Is not religion all deeds and all reflection,
And that which is neither deed nor reflection, but a wonder and a surprise ever springing in the soul, even while the hands hew the stone or tend the loom?...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
The Sun is gay or stark
According to our Deed.
If Merry, He is merrier --
If eager for the Dead
Or an expended Day
He helped to make too bright
His mighty pleasure suits Us not
It magnifies our Freight...Read more of this...
by
Thomas Hardy
I wayed by star and planet shine
Towards the dear one's home
At Kingsbere, there to make her mine
When the next sun upclomb.
I edged the ancient hill and wood
Beside the Ikling Way,
Nigh where the Pagan temple stood
In the world's earlier day.
And as I quick and quicker walked
On...Read more of this...
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