Famous Faithful Poems by Famous Poets

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

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The Flaâneur

by Oliver Wendell Holmes
 I love all sights of earth and skies, 
From flowers that glow to stars that shine; 
The comet and the penny show, 
All curious things, above, below, 
Hold each in turn my wandering eyes: 
I claim the Christian Pagan's line, 
Humani nihil, -- even so, -- 
And is not human life divine? 
When soft the western breezes blow, 
And...Read more of this...

The Exile

by Lucy Maud Montgomery
 We told her that her far off shore was bleak and dour to view,
And that her sky was dull and mirk while ours was smiling blue.
She only sighed in answer, "It is even as ye say,
But oh, the ragged splendor when the sun bursts through the gray!" 

We brought her dew-wet roses from our fairest summer bowers,
We bade her...Read more of this...

Hiawathas Lamentation

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
 In those days the Evil Spirits,
All the Manitos of mischief,
Fearing Hiawatha's wisdom,
And his love for Chibiabos,
Jealous of their faithful friendship,
And their noble words and actions,
Made at length a league against them,
To molest them and destroy them.
Hiawatha, wise and wary,
Often said to Chibiabos,
"O my brother! do not leave me,
Lest the Evil Spirits harm you!"
Chibiabos, young and heedless,
Laughing shook his coal-black...Read more of this...

Elegy to the Memory of David Garrick Esq

by Mary Darby Robinson
 DEAR SHADE OF HIM, who grac'd the mimick scene,
And charm'd attention with resistless pow'r;
Whose wond'rous art, whose fascinating mien,
Gave glowing rapture to the short-liv'd hour! 

Accept the mournful verse, the ling'ring sigh,
The tear that faithful Mem'ry stays to shed;
The SACRED TEAR, that from Reflection's eye,
Drops on the ashes of the sainted dead. 

Lov'd by the grave, and courted by...Read more of this...

Psalm 131

by Isaac Watts
 Humility and submission.

Is there ambition in my heart?.
Search, gracious God, and see;
Or do I act a haughty part?
Lord, I appeal to thee.

I charge my thoughts, be humble still,
And all my carriage mild,
Content, my Father, with thy will,
And quiet as a child.

The patient soul, the lowly mind,
Shall have a large reward:
Let saints in sorrow lie resigned,
And trust a faithful Lord....Read more of this...

Faithful Eckart

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 "OH, would we were further! Oh, would we were home,
The phantoms of night tow'rd us hastily come,

The band of the Sorceress sisters.
They hitherward speed, and on finding us here,
They'll drink, though with toil we have fetch'd it, the beer,

And leave us the pitchers all empty."

Thus speaking, the children with fear take to flight,
When sudden an old man appears in...Read more of this...

The Faerie Queene: Book I Canto I

by Edmund Spenser
Lo I the man, whose Muse whilome did maske,
As time her taught in lowly Shepheards weeds,
Am now enforst a far unfitter taske,
For trumpets sterne to chaunge mine Oaten reeds,
And sing of Knights and Ladies gentle deeds;
Whose prayses having slept in silence long,
Me, all too meane, the sacred Muse areeds
To blazon broad emongst her learned throng:
Fierce warres and faithful loves shall...Read more of this...

Hero and Leander: The First Sestiad

by Christopher Marlowe
 1 On Hellespont, guilty of true love's blood,
2 In view and opposite two cities stood,
3 Sea-borderers, disjoin'd by Neptune's might;
4 The one Abydos, the other Sestos hight.
5 At Sestos Hero dwelt; Hero the fair,
6 Whom young Apollo courted for her hair,
7 And offer'd as a dower his burning throne,
8 Where she could sit for men to gaze upon.
9 The...Read more of this...

Faithful to the end Amended

by Emily Dickinson
 "Faithful to the end" Amended
From the Heavenly Clause --
Constancy with a Proviso
Constancy abhors --

"Crowns of Life" are servile Prizes
To the stately Heart,
Given for the Giving, solely,
No Emolument.

--

"Faithful to the end" Amended
From the Heavenly clause --
Lucrative indeed the offer
But the Heart withdraws --

"I will give" the base Proviso --
Spare Your "Crown of Life" --
Those it fits, too fair to wear...Read more of this...

Lad of Athens faithful be

by Emily Dickinson
 Lad of Athens, faithful be
To Thyself,
And Mystery --
All the rest is Perjury --...Read more of this...

The Death of the Queen

by William Topaz McGonagall
 Alas! our noble and generous Queen Victoria is dead,
And I hope her soul to Heaven has fled,
To sing and rejoice with saints above,
Where ah is joy, peace, and love. 

'Twas on January 22, 1901, in the evening she died at 6.30 o'clock,
Which to the civilised world has been a great shock;
She was surrounded by her children and grandchildren dear,
And...Read more of this...

Any Wife To Any Husband

by Robert Browning
 I

My love, this is the bitterest, that thou
Who art all truth and who dost love me now
As thine eyes say, as thy voice breaks to say— 
Shouldst love so truly and couldst love me still
A whole long life through, had but love its will,
Would death that leads me from thee brook delay!

II

I have but to be by thee, and...Read more of this...

Testament

by Wendell Berry
 1.
Dear relatives and friends, when my last breath
Grows large and free in air, don't call it death --
A word to enrich the undertaker and inspire
His surly art of imitating life; conspire
Against him. Say that my body cannot now
Be improved upon; it has no fault to show
To the sly cosmetician. Say that my flesh
Has a perfect compliance with the grass
Truer...Read more of this...

Oh Think Not I Am Faithful

by Edna St. Vincent Millay
 III

OH, THINK not I am faithful to a vow!
Faithless am I save to love's self alone.
Were you not lovely I would leave you now:
After the feet of beauty fly my own. 
Were you not still my hunger's rarest food,
And water ever to my wildest thirst,
I would desert you­think not but I would!­
And seek another as I sought you first....Read more of this...

Poem (Faithful to your commands o consciousness)

by Delmore Schwartz
 Poem Faithful to your commands, o consciousness, o 

Beating wings, I studied

the roses and the muses of reality,

the deceptions and the deceptive elation of the redness of the growing morning,

and all the greened and thomed variety of the vines of error, which begin by promising

Everything and more than everything, and then suddenly,

At the height of noon seem to rise...Read more of this...

437. Song—Thine am I my faithful Fair

by Robert Burns
 THINE am I, my faithful Fair,
 Thine, my lovely Nancy;
Ev’ry pulse along my veins,
 Ev’ry roving fancy.
To thy bosom lay my heart,
 There to throb and languish;
Tho’ despair had wrung its core,
 That would heal its anguish.


Take away those rosy lips,
 Rich with balmy treasure;
Turn away thine eyes of love,
 Lest I die with pleasure!
What is life when wanting...Read more of this...

It came at last but prompter Death

by Emily Dickinson
 It came at last but prompter Death
Had occupied the House --
His pallid Furniture arranged
And his metallic Peace --

Oh faithful Frost that kept the Date
Had Love as punctual been
Delight had aggrandized the Gate
And blocked the coming in....Read more of this...

533. Song—Forlorn my love no comfort here

by Robert Burns
 FORLORN, my Love, no comfort near,
Far, far from thee, I wander here;
Far, far from thee, the fate severe,
 At which I most repine, Love.


Chorus.—O wert thou, Love, but near me!
But near, near, near me,
How kindly thou wouldst cheer me,
 And mingle sighs with mine, Love.


Around me scowls a wintry sky,
Blasting each bud of hope and joy;
And shelter, shade, nor...Read more of this...

A Pastoral Dialogue

by Anne Killigrew
 Amintor. STay gentle Nymph, nor so solic'tous be, 
To fly his sight that still would gaze on thee. 
With other Swaines I see thee oft converse, 
Content to speak, and hear what they rehearse: 
But I unhappy, when I e're draw nigh, 
Thou streight do'st leave both Place, and Company. 
If this thy Flight, from fear of Harm doth...Read more of this...

The Ole in the Ark

by Marriott Edgar
 One evening at dusk as Noah stood on his Ark,
Putting green oil in starboard side lamp,
His wife came along and said, 'Noah, summat's wrong,
Our cabin is getting quite damp.

Noah said, 'Is that so?' Then he went down below,
And found it were right what she'd said,
For there on the floor quite a puddle he saw,
It was slopping around under t'...Read more of this...

The Little Old Lady in Lavender Silk

by Dorothy Parker
 I was seventy-seven, come August,
I shall shortly be losing my bloom;
I've experienced zephyr and raw gust
And (symbolical) flood and simoom.

When you come to this time of abatement,
To this passing from Summer to Fall,
It is manners to issue a statement
As to what you got out of it all.

So I'll say, though reflection unnerves me
And pronouncements I dodge as I can,
That...Read more of this...

Temptation

by William Cowper
 The billows swell, the winds are high,
Clouds overcast my wintry sky;
Out of the depths to Thee I call, --
My fears are great, my strength is small.

O Lord, the pilot's part perform,
And guard and guide me through the storm;
Defend me from each threatening ill,
Control the waves, -- say, "Peace! be still."

Amidst the roaring of the sea
My soul still hangs her...Read more of this...

Octaves

by Edwin Arlington Robinson
 I 

We thrill too strangely at the master's touch;
We shrink too sadly from the larger self
Which for its own completeness agitates
And undetermines us; we do not feel -- 
We dare not feel it yet -- the splendid shame
Of uncreated failure; we forget,
The while we groan, that God's accomplishment
Is always and unfailingly at hand. 

II 

Tumultuously void of a clean...Read more of this...

Holy Sonnet VIII: If Faithful Souls Be Alike Glorified

by John Donne
 If faithful souls be alike glorified
As angels, then my fathers soul doth see,
And adds this even to full felicity,
That valiantly I hells wide mouth o'erstride:
But if our minds to these souls be descried
By circumstances, and by signs that be
Apparent in us, not immediately,
How shall my mind's white truth by them be tried?
They see idolatrous lovers weep and mourn,
And vile...Read more of this...

Merrow Down

by Rudyard Kipling
 There runs a road by Merrow Down--
 A grassy track to-day it is--
An hour out Guildford town,
 Above the river Wey it is.

Here, when they heard the hors-bells ring,
 The ancient Britons dressed and rode
To which the dark Phoenicians bring
 Their goods along the Western Road.

Yes, here, or hereabouts, they met
 To hold their racial talks and such--
To barter...Read more of this...

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