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Famous Demands Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry
...f Wolf, 
Who dying conquer'd, or what breast but beats 
To share a fate like his, and die like him? 



ACASTO. 
And he demands our lay who bravely fell 
By Monangahela and the Ohio's stream; 
By wiles o'ercome the hapless hero fell, 
His soul too gen'rous, for that dastard crew 
Who kill unseen and shun the face of day. 
Ambush'd in wood, and swamp and thick grown hill, 
The bellowing tribes brought on the savage war. 
What could avail O Braddock then the flame, 
The gen'rou...Read more of this...
by Brackenridge, Hugh Henry



...
America why are your libraries full of tears? 
America when will you send your eggs to India? 
I'm sick of your insane demands. 
When can I go into the supermarket and buy what I 
 need with my good looks? 
America after all it is you and I who are perfect not 
 the next world. 
Your machinery is too much for me. 
You made me want to be a saint. 
There must be some other way to settle this argument. 
Burroughs is in Tangiers I don't think he'll come back 
 it's sinister. 
Ar...Read more of this...
by Ginsberg, Allen
...r'd nine,
Assist my labours, and my strains refine;
In smoothest numbers pour the notes along,
For bright Aurora now demands my song.

Aurora hail, and all the thousand dies,
Which deck thy progress through the vaulted skies:
The morn awakes, and wide extends her rays,
On ev'ry leaf the gentle zephyr plays;
Harmonious lays the feather'd race resume,
Dart the bright eye, and shake the painted plume.

Ye shady groves, your verdant gloom display
To shield your poet ...Read more of this...
by Wheatley, Phillis
...the place but I'm
not looking in the mirror cause I just don't want to know.

"So what's your name anyway?" My stylist demands then.
"Uh, Maggie."
"Maggie? Well, that's an okay name, but my name is Suzy."
"Yeah, so?"
"Yeah so it ain't just Suzy S.U.Z.Y, I spell it S.U.Z.E.E, the extra
"e" is for extra Suzee."

I nod emphatically.

Suzee tells me when she's not busy chopping hair, she works as an exotic
dancer at night to support her boyfriend named Rocco. Suzee loves Rocco,
...Read more of this...
by Estep, Maggie
...ne and lonely in the path of right
Full many a brave soul walks. When gods requite
And crown his actions as their worth demands, 
Among admiring throngs the hero always stands.


A row of six asterisks is on the page at this point

XLVIII.
Back to the East the valorous squadrons sweep; 
The earth, arousing from her long, cold sleep, 
Throws from her breast the coverlet of snow, 
Revealing Spring's soft charms which lie below.
Suppressed emotions in each heart arise, 
The wooe...Read more of this...
by Wilcox, Ella Wheeler



...when a statesman wants a day's defence,
Or envy holds a whole week's war with sense,
Or simple pride for flatt'ry makes demands,
May dunce by dunce be whistled off my hands!
Blest be the great! for those they take away,
And those they left me--for they left me Gay;
Left me to see neglected genius bloom,
Neglected die! and tell it on his tomb;
Of all thy blameless life the sole return
My verse, and Queensb'ry weeping o'er thy urn!

Oh let me live my own! and die so too!
("To l...Read more of this...
by Pope, Alexander
...rt aches with very shame 
 To see such cravens with such noble name. 
 But let us finish—what has just passed here 
 Demands thick shrouding, and the time is near. 
 Th' accursed dice that rolled at Calvary 
 You rolled a woman's murder to decree 
 It was a dark disastrous game to play; 
 But not for me a moral to essay. 
 This moment to the misty grave is due, 
 And far too vile and little human you 
 To see your evil ways. Your fingers lack 
 The human power your...Read more of this...
by Hugo, Victor
...storm of wildest rigour 
Shall yet break o'er my shivered bough.

Rebellious now to blank inertion, 
My unused strength demands a task; 
Travel, and toil, and full exertion, 
Are the last, only boon I ask.

Whence, then, this vain and barren dreaming 
Of death, and dubious life to come ? 
I see a nearer beacon gleaming 
Over dejection's sea of gloom.

The very wildness of my sorrow 
Tells me I yet have innate force; 
My track of life has been too narrow, 
Effort shall trace a...Read more of this...
by Bronte, Charlotte
...was a man of power, and Lara's foe, 
The friend of all who sought to work him woe, 
And from his country's justice now demands 
Account of Ezzelin at Lara's hands. 
Who else than Lara could have cause to fear 
His presence? who had made him disappear, 
If not the man on whom his menaced charge 
Had sate too deeply were he left at large? 
The general rumour ignorantly loud, 
The mystery dearest to the curious crowd; 
The seeming friendlessness of him who strove 
To win no con...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)
...hall, knocking, open to your hands, for Love is all its golden key, 
And one's name murmured tenderly the only magic it demands. 


And when all else is gray and void in the vast gulf of memory, 
Green islands of delight shall be all blessed moments so enjoyed: 


When vaulted with the city skies, on its cathedral floors you stood, 
And, priest of a bright brotherhood, performed the mystic sacrifice, 


At Love's high altar fit to stand, with fire and incense aureoled, 
The c...Read more of this...
by Seeger, Alan
...als, and German, French and Spanish
 Castles; 
For know a better, fresher, busier sphere—a wide, untried domain awaits, demands you. 

3
Responsive to our summons, 
Or rather to her long-nurs’d inclination,
Join’d with an irresistible, natural gravitation, 

She comes! this famous Female—as was indeed to be expected; 
(For who, so-ever youthful, ’cute and handsome, would wish to stay in mansions such as
 those,

When offer’d quarters with all the modern improvements, 
With al...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt
...
With horror at the house not made with hands 
And when from vacuum cleaners and tinned soup 
Another pure theosophist demands 

Rebirth in other, less industrial stars 
Where huge towns thrust up in synthetic stone 
And films and sleek miraculous motor cars 
And celluloid and rubber are unknown; 

When from his vegetable Sunday School 
Emerges with the neatly maudlin phrase 
Still one more Nature poet, to rant or drool 
About the "Standardization of the Race"; 

I see, stoo...Read more of this...
by Hope, Alec Derwent (A D)
...lous nude flanks urge
the fabrication of some cloth to cover
such starkness; accuracy must not stalk at large:
each day demands we create our whole world over,
disguising the constant horror in a coat
of many-colored fictions; we mask our past
in the green of Eden, pretend future's shining fruit
can sprout from the navel of this present waste.
In this particular tub, two knees jut up
like icebergs, while minute brown hairs rise
on arms and legs in a fringe of kelp; green soap...Read more of this...
by Plath, Sylvia
...ecayed and rent,
Will scarce delay the passer-by;
The tower by war or tempest bent,
While yet may frown one battlement,
Demands and daunts the stranger's eye;
Each ivied arch, and pillar lone,
Pleads haughtily for glories gone!


'His floating robe around him folding,
Slow sweeps he through the columned aisle;
With dread beheld, with gloom beholding
The rites that sanctify the pile.
But when the anthem shakes the choir,
And kneel the monks, his steps retire;
By yonder lone an...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)
...'Stranger, I am to Roderick Dhu
     A clansman born, a kinsman true;
     Each word against his honour spoke
     Demands of me avenging stroke;
     Yet more,—upon thy fate, 'tis said,
     A mighty augury is laid.
     It rests with me to wind my horn,—
     Thou art with numbers overborne;
     It rests with me, here, brand to brand,
     Worn as thou art, to bid thee stand:
     But, not for clan, nor kindred's cause,
     Will I depart from honour's laws;
...Read more of this...
by Scott, Sir Walter
...The Sister-Lock now sits uncouth, alone,
And in its Fellow's Fate foresees its own;
Uncurl'd it hangs, the fatal Sheers demands;
And tempts once more thy sacrilegious Hands.
Oh hadst thou, Cruel! been content to seize
Hairs less in sight, or any Hairs but these!


Part 5

SHE said: the pitying Audience melt in Tears,
But Fate and Jove had stopp'd the Baron's Ears.
In vain Thalestris with Reproach assails,
For who can move when fair Belinda fails?
Not half to fixt the Trojan c...Read more of this...
by Pope, Alexander
...iversal Face, deep-hid, and chill,
Is all one, dazzling, Waste. The Labourer-Ox
Stands cover'd o'er with Snow, and then demands
The Fruit of all his Toil. The Fowls of Heaven, 
Tam'd by the cruel Season, croud around
The winnowing Store, and claim the little Boon,
That Providence allows. The foodless Wilds
Pour forth their brown Inhabitants; the Hare,
Tho' timorous of Heart, and hard beset 
By Death, in various Forms, dark Snares, and Dogs,
And more unpitying Men, the Garden ...Read more of this...
by Thomson, James
...it dwells,
Chartered, a common task to share 
With thee, and then it stirs alert,
And pants to learn what menaced hurt
Demands for thee its care. 

Remember, I have crossed the deep, 
And stood with thee on deck, to gaze 
On waves that rose in threatening heap, 
While stagnant lay a heavy haze, 
Dimly confusing sea with sky, 
And baffling, even, the pilot's eye, 
Intent to thread the maze­ 

Of rocks, on Bretagne's dangerous coast,
And find a way to steer our band
To the one...Read more of this...
by Bronte, Charlotte
...it dwells,
Chartered, a common task to share 
With thee, and then it stirs alert,
And pants to learn what menaced hurt
Demands for thee its care. 

Remember, I have crossed the deep, 
And stood with thee on deck, to gaze 
On waves that rose in threatening heap, 
While stagnant lay a heavy haze, 
Dimly confusing sea with sky, 
And baffling, even, the pilot's eye, 
Intent to thread the maze­ 

Of rocks, on Bretagne's dangerous coast,
And find a way to steer our band
To the one...Read more of this...
by Bronte, Charlotte
...of shrivelled may.
I look at this word graffitied by some drunk
and I'm in half a mind to let it stay.

(Though honesty demands that I say if
I'd wanted to take the necessary pains
to scrub the skin's inscription off
I only had an hour between trains.

So the feelings that I had as I stood gazing
and the significance I saw could be a sham,
mere excuses for not patiently erasing
the word sprayed on the grave of dad and mam.)

This pen's all I have of magic wand.
I know this wo...Read more of this...
by Harrison, Tony

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry