Famous Diligence Poems by Famous Poets

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

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The Beasts Confession

by Jonathan Swift
 To the Priest, on Observing how most Men mistake their own Talents
When beasts could speak (the learned say, 
They still can do so ev'ry day),
It seems, they had religion then,
As much as now we find in men.
It happen'd, when a plague broke out
(Which therefore made them more devout),
The king of brutes (to make it plain,
Of quadrupeds I only mean)
By...Read more of this...

Up At A Villa— Down In The City

by Robert Browning
 (As Distinguished by an Italian Person of Quality)

I

Had I but plenty of money, money enough and to spare,
The house for me, no doubt, were a house in the city-square;
Ah, such a life, such a life, as one leads at the window there!

II

Something to see, by Bacchus, something to hear, at least!
There, the whole day long, one's life is a...Read more of this...

Each Life Converges to some Centre --

by Emily Dickinson
 Each Life Converges to some Centre --
Expressed -- or still --
Exists in every Human Nature
A Goal --

Embodied scarcely to itself -- it may be --
Too fair
For Credibility's presumption
To mar --

Adored with caution -- as a Brittle Heaven --
To reach
Were hopeless, as the Rainbow's Raiment
To touch --

Yet persevered toward -- sure -- for the Distance --
How high --
Unto the Saint's...Read more of this...

What Twigs We held by --

by Emily Dickinson
 What Twigs We held by --
Oh the View
When Life's swift River striven through
We pause before a further plunge
To take Momentum --
As the Fringe

Upon a former Garment shows
The Garment cast,
Our Props disclose
So scant, so eminently small
Of Might to help, so pitiful
To sink, if We had labored, fond
The diligence were not more blind

How scant, by everlasting Light
The Discs that satisfied Our...Read more of this...

Had I not This or This I said

by Emily Dickinson
 Had I not This, or This, I said,
Appealing to Myself,
In moment of prosperity --
Inadequate -- were Life --

"Thou hast not Me, nor Me" -- it said,
In Moment of Reverse --
"And yet Thou art industrious --
No need -- hadst Thou -- of us"?

My need -- was all I had -- I said --
The need did not reduce --
Because the food...Read more of this...

The Service without Hope --

by Emily Dickinson
 The Service without Hope --
Is tenderest, I think --
Because 'tis unsustained
By stint -- Rewarded Work --

Has impetus of Gain --
And impetus of Goal --
There is no Diligence like that
That knows not an Until --...Read more of this...

Supernatural Songs

by William Butler Yeats
 I. Ribh at the Tomb of Baile and Aillinn

Because you have found me in the pitch-dark night
With open book you ask me what I do.
Mark and digest my tale, carry it afar
To those that never saw this tonsured head
Nor heard this voice that ninety years have cracked.
Of Baile and Aillinn you need not speak,
All know their tale, all know...Read more of this...

Each life converges to some centre

by Emily Dickinson
Each life converges to some centre
Expressed or still;
Exists in every human nature
A goal,

Admitted scarcely to itself, it may be,
Too fair
For credibility's temerity
To dare.

Adored with caution, as a brittle heaven,
To reach
Were hopeless as the rainbow's raiment
To touch,

Yet persevered toward, surer for the distance;
How high
Unto the saints' slow diligence
The sky!

Ungained, it may be, by a life's low venture,
But then,
Eternity enables the endeavoring
Again....Read more of this...

Judge Selah Lively

by Edgar Lee Masters
 Suppose you stood just five feet two,
And had worked your way as a grocery clerk,
Studying law by candle light
Until you became an attorney at law?
And then suppose through your diligence,
And regular church attendance,
You became attorney for Thomas Rhodes,
Collecting notes and mortgages,
And representing all the widows
In the Probate Court? And through it all
They jeered at your size, and laughed at...Read more of this...

The Peace Of Dives

by Rudyard Kipling
 The Word came down to Dives in Torment where he lay:
"Our World is full of wickedness, My Children maim and slay,
 "And the Saint and Seer and Prophet
 "Can make no better of it
"Than to sanctify and prophesy and pray.

"Rise up, rise up, thou Dives, and take again thy gold,
"And thy women and thy housen as they were to...Read more of this...

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