Famous Deeds Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Deeds poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous deeds poems. These examples illustrate what a famous deeds poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Stephen Crane
"Tell brave deeds of war."
Then they recounted tales, --
"There were stern stands
And bitter runs for glory."
Ah, I think there were braver deeds....Read more of this...
by
Vachel Lindsay
Where a river roars in rapids
And doves in maples fret,
Where peace has decked the pastures
Our guardian angels met.
Long they had sought each other
In God's mysterious name,
Had climbed the solemn chaos tides
Alone, with hope aflame:
Amid the demon deeps had wound
By many a fearful way.
As they beheld each other
Their shout made glad the day.
No need of purse delayed them,
No hand of...Read more of this...
by
George (Lord) Byron
Thy days are done, thy fame begun;
Thy country's strains record
The triumphs of her chosen Son,
The slaughter of his sword!
The deeds he did, the fields he won,
The freedom he restored!
Though thou art fall'n, while we are free
Thou shalt not taste of death!
The generous blood that flow'd from thee
Disdain'd to sink beneath:
Within our veins its currents be,
Thy spirit on our breath!
Thy...Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
Dame Fortune! all your acts and deeds confess
That you are foul oppression's votaress;
You cherish bad men, and annoy the good;
Is this from dotage, or sheer foolishness?...Read more of this...
by
Constantine P Cavafy
Let them not seek to discover who I was
from all that I have done and said.
An obstacle was there that transformed
the deeds and the manner of my life.
An obstacle was there that stopped me
many times when I was about to speak.
Only from my most imperceptible deeds
and my most covert writings--
from these alone will they understand me.
But perhaps it isn't...Read more of this...
by
William Cowper
(Ezekiel, xxxvi. 25-28)
The Lord proclaims His grace abroad!
"Behold, I change your hearts of stone;
Each shall renounce his idol-god,
And serve, henceforth, the Lord alone.
"My grace, a flowing stream, proceeds
To wash your filthiness away;
Ye shall abhor your former deeds,
And learn my statutes to obey.
"My truth the great design ensures,
I give myself away to you;
You shall be mine, I will be yours,
Your...Read more of this...
by
Claude McKay
Aleta mentions in her tender letters,
Among a chain of quaint and touching things,
That you are feeble, weighted down with fetters,
And given to strange deeds and mutterings.
No longer without trace or thought of fear,
Do you leap to and ride the rebel roan;
But have become the victim of grim care,
With three brown beauties to...Read more of this...
by
Christopher Smart
Sweet is the dew that falls betimes,
And drops upon the leafy limes;
Sweet Hermon's fragrant air:
Sweet is the lily's silver bell,
And sweet the wakeful tapers smell
That watch for early pray'r.
Sweet the young nurse with love intense,
Which smiles o'er sleeping innocence;
Sweet when the lost arrive:
Sweet the musician's ardour beats,
While his vague mind's in quest of sweets,
The choicest flow'rs to hive.
Sweeter in...Read more of this...
by
Vachel Lindsay
Though better men may fear that trumpet's warning,
I meet you, lady, on the Judgment morning,
With golden hope my spirit still adorning.
Our God who made you all so fair and sweet
Is three times gentle, and before his feet
Rejoicing I shall say:—"The girl you gave
Was my first Heaven, an angel bent to save.
Oh, God, her maker, if my ingrate breath
Is worth...Read more of this...
by
Thomas Hardy
You did not come,
And marching Time drew on, and wore me numb.
Yet less for loss of your dear presence there
Than that I thus found lacking in your make
That high compassion which can overbear
Reluctance for pure loving kindness' sake
Grieved I, when, as the hope-hour stroked its sum,
You did not come.
You love me not,
And love alone can lend you loyalty;
--I...Read more of this...
by
Sidney Lanier
It was three slim does and a ten-tined buck in the bracken lay;
And all of a sudden the sinister smell of a man,
Awaft on a wind-shift, wavered and ran
Down the hill-side and sifted along through the bracken and passed that way.
Then Nan got a-tremble at nostril; she was the daintiest doe;
In the print of her velvet flank on the...Read more of this...
by
Friedrich von Schiller
Upon his battlements he stood,
And downward gazed in joyous mood,
On Samos' Isle, that owned his sway,
"All this is subject to my yoke;"
To Egypt's monarch thus he spoke,--
"That I am truly blest, then, say!"
"The immortals' favor thou hast known!
Thy sceptre's might has overthrown
All those who once were like to thee.
Yet to avenge them one lives still;
I cannot call thee blest,...Read more of this...
by
Anonymous
Suppose the little cowslipShould hang its tiny cup,And say, “I’m such a little flower,I’d better not grow up.”How many a weary travelerWould miss the fragrant smell?[Pg 013]How many a little child would grieveTo miss it from the dell!Suppose the glistening dew-drop,Upon the grass, should say,“What can a little dew-drop do?I’d better roll away.”The blade on which it rested,Before the day...Read more of this...
by
Walt Whitman
YEAR of meteors! brooding year!
I would bind in words retrospective, some of your deeds and signs;
I would sing your contest for the 19th Presidentiad;
I would sing how an old man, tall, with white hair, mounted the scaffold in Virginia;
(I was at hand—silent I stood, with teeth shut close—I watch’d;
I stood very near you, old man,...Read more of this...
by
Walt Whitman
1
HARK! some wild trumpeter—some strange musician,
Hovering unseen in air, vibrates capricious tunes to-night.
I hear thee, trumpeter—listening, alert, I catch thy notes,
Now pouring, whirling like a tempest round me,
Now low, subdued—now in the distance lost.
2
Come nearer, bodiless one—haply, in thee resounds
Some dead composer—haply thy pensive life
Was fill’d with aspirations high—unform’d ideals,
Waves, oceans musical,...Read more of this...
by
Victor Hugo
("Dans les vieilles forêts.")
{X., April 20, 1837.}
Through ancient forests—where like flowing tide
The rising sap shoots vigor far and wide,
Mounting the column of the alder dark
And silv'ring o'er the birch's shining bark—
Hast thou not often, Albert Dürer, strayed
Pond'ring, awe-stricken—through the half-lit glade,
Pallid and...Read more of this...
by
Algernon Charles Swinburne
By the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept,
Remembering thee,
That for ages of agony hast endured, and slept,
And wouldst not see.
By the waters of Babylon we stood up and sang,
Considering thee,
That a blast of deliverance in the darkness rang,
To set thee free.
And with trumpets and thunderings and with morning song
Came up the light;
And thy spirit uplifted thee to...Read more of this...
by
William Shakespeare
They that have power to hurt and will do none,
That do not do the thing, they most do show,
Who, moving others, are themselves as stone,
Unmovèd, cold, and to temptation slow,
They rightly do inherit heaven's graces,
And husband nature's riches from expense;
They are the lords and owners of their faces,
Others, but stewards of their excellence.
The summer's flower is to the summer...Read more of this...
by
Walt Whitman
AMERICA always!
Always our own feuillage!
Always Florida’s green peninsula! Always the priceless delta of Louisiana! Always the
cotton-fields of Alabama and Texas!
Always California’s golden hills and hollows—and the silver mountains of New
Mexico!
Always soft-breath’d Cuba!
Always the vast slope drain’d by the Southern Sea—inseparable with the slopes
drain’d
by the Eastern and Western Seas;
The area the...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
When we stand on the tops of Things --
And like the Trees, look down --
The smoke all cleared away from it --
And Mirrors on the scene --
Just laying light -- no soul will wink
Except it have the flaw --
The Sound ones, like the Hills -- shall stand --
No Lighting, scares away --
The Perfect, nowhere be afraid --
They bear their...Read more of this...
by
Victor Hugo
("Frères, vous avez vos journées.")
{I., July, 1830.}
Youth of France, sons of the bold,
Your oak-leaf victor-wreaths behold!
Our civic-laurels—honored dead!
So bright your triumphs in life's morn,
Your maiden-standards hacked and torn,
On Austerlitz might lustre shed.
All that your fathers did re-done—
A people's rights...Read more of this...
by
Kahlil Gibran
Then one of the judges of the city stood forth and said, "Speak to us of Crime and Punishment."
And he answered saying:
It is when your spirit goes wandering upon the wind,
That you, alone and unguarded, commit a wrong unto others and therefore unto yourself.
And for that wrong committed must you knock and wait a while...Read more of this...
by
William Butler Yeats
If Michael, leader of God's host
When Heaven and Hell are met,
Looked down on you from Heaven's door-post
He would his deeds forget.
Brooding no more upon God's wars
In his divine homestead,
He would go weave out of the stars
A chaplet for your head.
And all folk seeing him bow down,
And white stars tell your praise,
Would come at last to God's great town,
Led on...Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
Though Khayyam strings no pearls of righteous deeds,
Nor sweeps from off his soul sin's noisome weeds,
Yet will he not despair of heavenly grace,
Seeing that ONE as two he ne'er misreads....Read more of this...
by
Mother Goose
There was an old woman of Leeds,
Who spent all her time in good deeds;
She worked for the poor
Till her fingers were sore,
This pious old woman of Leeds!...Read more of this...
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