Famous Fate Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Fate poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous fate poems. These examples illustrate what a famous fate poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Fate is above me. Why should I browse?
Sleeping in dosses, an outcast, I rove.
Grief is a cellar,
that opens in every old house.
A ditch is below me and fate is above.
What did I want? Well, a life of contentment.
What did I get? Just a coffin and wreath...
...Read more of this...
by
Thomas Gray
Pindaric Ode
"Ruin seize thee, ruthless King!
Confusion on thy banners wait!
Tho' fanned by Conquest's crimson wing,
They mock the air with idle state.
Helm, nor hauberk's twisted mail,
Nor e'en thy virtues, Tyrant, shall avail
To save thy secret soul from nightly fears,
From Cambria's curse, from Cambria's tears!"
Such were the sounds that o'er the crested pride
Of the first Edward scattered wild dismay,
As down the...Read more of this...
by
Emile Verhaeren
If fate has saved us from commonplace errors and from vile untruth and from sorry shams, it is because all constraint that might have bowed our double fervour revolted us.
You went your way, free and frank and bright, mingling with the flowers of love the flowers of your will, and gently lifting up towards yourself its lofty spirit when my...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
I thought I would go daft when Joey died.
He was my first, and wise beyond his years.
For nigh a hundred nights I cried and cried,
Until my weary eyes burned up my tears.
Willie and Rosie tried to comfort me:
A woeful, weeping family were we.
I was a widow with no friends at all,
Ironing men's shirts to buy my kiddies grub;
And then...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
Superiority to Fate
Is difficult to gain
'Tis not conferred of Any
But possible to earn
A pittance at a time
Until to Her surprise
The Soul with strict economy
Subsist till Paradise....Read more of this...
by
Francesco Petrarch
SONNET XXXV. Amor che meco al buon tempo ti stavi. HE VENTS HIS SORROW TO ALL WHO WITNESSED HIS FORMER FELICITY. Love, that in happier days wouldst meet me hereAlong these meads that nursed our kindred strains;And that old debt to clear which still remains,Sweet converse with the stream and me wouldst...Read more of this...
by
Oliver Wendell Holmes
HAS there any old fellow got mixed with the boys?
If there has, take him out, without making a noise.
Hang the Almanac's cheat and the Catalogue's spite!
Old Time is a liar! We're twenty to-night!
We're twenty! We're twenty! Who says we are more?
He's tipsy,-- young jackanapes!-- show him the door!
"Gray temples at twenty?"-- Yes ! white if we please;
Where the snow-flakes...Read more of this...
by
Anne Killigrew
NExt Heaven my Vows to thee (O Sacred Muse! )
I offer'd up, nor didst thou them refuse.
O Queen of Verse, said I, if thou'lt inspire,
And warm my Soul with thy Poetique Fire,
No Love of Gold shall share with thee my Heart,
Or yet Ambition in my Brest have Part,
More Rich, more Noble I...Read more of this...
by
Charles Simic
A world's disappearing.
Little street,
You were too narrow,
Too much in the shade already.
You had only one dog,
One lone child.
You hid your biggest mirror,
Your undressed lovers.
Someone carted them off
In an open truck.
They were still naked, travelling
On their sofa
Over a darkening plain,
Some unknown Kansas or Nebraska
With a storm brewing.
The woman opening a red umbrella
In the truck. The boy
And the dog running after...Read more of this...
by
Adela Florence Cory Nicolson
Just as the dawn of Love was breaking
Across the weary world of grey,
Just as my life once more was waking
As roses waken late in May,
Fate, blindly cruel and havoc-making,
...Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
Soon shall I go, by time and fate deplored,
Of all my precious pearls not one is bored;
Alas! there die with me a thousand truths
To which these fools fit audience ne'er accord....Read more of this...
by
Victor Hugo
("Encore si ce banni n'eût rien aimé sur terre.")
{V, iv., August, 1832.}
Too hard Napoleon's fate! if, lone,
No being he had loved, no single one,
Less dark that doom had been.
But with the heart of might doth ever dwell
The heart of love! and in his island cell
...Read more of this...
by
William Topaz McGonagall
Kind Christians, all pay attention to me,
And Miss Mouat's sufferings I'll relate to ye;
While on board the Columbine, on the merciless sea,
Tossing about in the darkness of night in the storm helplessly.
She left her home (Scatness), on Saturday morning, bound for Lerwick,
Thinking to get cured by a man she knew, as she was very sick;
But for eight days...Read more of this...
by
James Whitcomb Riley
Neglected now is the old guitar
And moldering into decay;
Fretted with many a rift and scar
That the dull dust hides away,
While the spider spins a silver star
In its silent lips to-day.
The keys hold only nerveless strings--
The sinews of brave old airs
Are pulseless now; and the scarf that clings
So closely here declares
A sad regret in its ravelings
And the faded hue it...Read more of this...
by
Anne Kingsmill Finch
Fair Youth! who wish the Wars may cease,
We own you better form'd for Peace.
Nor Pallas you, nor Mars shou'd follow;
Your Gods are Cupid and Apollo;
Who give sweet Looks, and early Rhimes,
Bespeaking Joys, and Halcyon Times.
Your Face, which We, as yet, may praise,
Calls for the Myrtle, and the Bays.
The Martial Crowns Fatigues...Read more of this...
by
Ralph Waldo Emerson
That you are fair or wise is vain,
Or strong, or rich, or generous;
You must have also the untaught strain
That sheds beauty on the rose.
There is a melody born of melody,
Which melts the world into a sea.
Toil could never compass it,
Art its height could never hit,
It came never out of wit,
But a music music-born
Well may Jove and Juno scorn.
Thy beauty,...Read more of this...
by
Edgar Allan Poe
Type of the antique Rome! Rich reliquary
Of lofty contemplation left to Time
By buried centuries of pomp and power!
At length- at length- after so many days
Of weary pilgrimage and burning thirst,
(Thirst for the springs of lore that in thee lie,)
I kneel, an altered and an humble man,
Amid thy shadows, and so drink within...Read more of this...
by
Anne Sexton
There was an unwanted child.
Aborted by three modern methods
she hung on to the womb,
hooked onto I
building her house into it
and it was to no avail,
to black her out.
At her birth
she did not cry,
spanked indeed,
but did not yell--
instead snow fell out of her mouth.
As she grew, year by year,
her hair turned like a rose in a vase,
and bled down her...Read more of this...
by
Fernando Pessoa
We are in Fate and Fate's and do but lack
Outness from soul to know ourselves its dwelling,
And do but compel Fate aside or back
By Fate's own immanence in the compelling.
We are too far in us from outward truth
To know how much we are not what we are,
And live but in the heat of error's youth,
Yet young enough its acting youth...Read more of this...
by
Anne Killigrew
I Sing the Man that never Equal knew,
Whose Mighty Arms all Asia did subdue,
Whose Conquests through the spacious World do ring,
That City-Raser, King-destroying King,
Who o're the Warlike Macedons did Reign,
And worthily the Name of Great did gain.
This is the Prince (if Fame you will believe,
To ancient Story any credit give.)
Who when the...Read more of this...
by
Henry Lawson
We boast no more of our bloodless flag, that rose from a nation's slime;
Better a shred of a deep-dyed rag from the storms of the olden time.
From grander clouds in our `peaceful skies' than ever were there before
I tell you the Star of the South shall rise -- in the lurid clouds of war.
It ever...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
I had a bitter enemy,
His heart to hate he gave,
And when I died he swore that he
Would dance upon my grave;
That he would leap and laugh because
A livid corpse was I,
And that's the reason why I was
In no great haste to die.
And then - such is the quirk of fate,
One day with joy I read,
Despite his vitalizing hate
My...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
Fate slew Him, but He did not drop --
She felled -- He did not fall --
Impaled Him on Her fiercest stakes --
He neutralized them all --
She stung Him -- sapped His firm Advance --
But when Her Worst was done
And He -- unmoved regarded Her --
Acknowledged Him a Man....Read more of this...
by
Claude McKay
Into the furnace let me go alone;
Stay you without in terror of the heat.
I will go naked in--for thus ''tis sweet--
Into the weird depths of the hottest zone.
I will not quiver in the frailest bone,
You will not note a flicker of defeat;
My heart shall tremble not its fate to meet,
My mouth give utterance to any moan.
The yawning oven spits...Read more of this...
by
Osip Mandelstam
I have studied the Science of departures,
in night’s sorrows, when a woman’s hair falls down.
The oxen chew, there’s the waiting, pure,
in the last hours of vigil in the town,
and I reverence night’s ritual cock-crowing,
when reddened eyes lift sorrow’s load and choose
to stare at distance, and a woman’s crying
is mingled with the singing of the Muse.
Who knows, when the word...Read more of this...
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