Famous Fathers Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Fathers poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous fathers poems. These examples illustrate what a famous fathers poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Philip Levine
Along the strand stones,
busted shells, wood scraps,
bottle tops, dimpled
and stainless beer cans.
Something began here
a century ago,
a nameless disaster,
perhaps a voyage
to the lost continent
where I was born.
Now the cold winds
of March dimple
the gray, incoming
waves. I kneel
on the wet earth
looking for a sign,
maybe an old...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
How slow the Wind --
how slow the sea --
how late their Fathers be!...Read more of this...
by
Isaac Watts
For the Lord's Day Morning.
Lord, in the morning thou shalt hear
My voice ascending high;
To thee will I direct my prayer,
To thee lift up mine eye;
Up to the hills where Christ is gone
To plead for all his saints,
Presenting at his Father's throne
Our songs and our complaints.
Thou art a God, before whose sight
The wicked shall not stand;
Sinners shall ne'er be thy...Read more of this...
by
Mark Irwin
Sunday mornings I would reach
high into his dark closet while standing
on a chair and tiptoeing reach
higher, touching, sometimes fumbling
the soft crowns and imagine
I was in a forest, wind hymning
through pines, where the musky scent
of rain clinging to damp earth was
his scent I loved, lingering on
bands, leather, and on the inner silk
crowns where I would...Read more of this...
by
Sir Henry Newbolt
‘Ye have robb’d,’ said he, ‘ye have slaughter’d and made an end,
Take your ill-got plunder, and bury the dead:
What will ye more of your guest and sometime friend?’
‘Blood for our blood,’ they said.
He laugh’d: ‘If one may settle the score for five,
I am ready; but let the reckoning stand till day:
I have loved the sunlight as dearly as any...Read more of this...
by
Dylan Thomas
When once the twilight locks no longer
Locked in the long worm of my finger
Nor damned the sea that sped about my fist,
The mouth of time sucked, like a sponge,
The milky acid on each hinge,
And swallowed dry the waters of the breast.
When the galactic sea was sucked
And all the dry seabed unlocked,
I sent my creature scouting on the globe,
That globe...Read more of this...
by
Henry Lawson
There's many a schoolboy's bat and ball that are gathering dust at home,
For he hears a voice in the future call, and he trains for the war to come;
A serious light in his eyes is seen as he comes from the schoolhouse gate;
He keeps his kit and his rifle clean, and he sees that his back...Read more of this...
by
Stephen Crane
"And the sins of the fathers shall be
visited upon the heads of the children,
even unto the third and fourth
generation of them that hate me."
Well, then I hate thee, unrighteous picture;
Wicked image, I hate thee;
So, strike with thy vengeance
The heads of those little men
Who come blindly.
It will be a brave thing....Read more of this...
by
Edwin Muir
Our fathers all were poor,
Poorer our fathers' fathers;
Beyond, we dare not look.
We, the sons, keep store
Of tarnished gold that gathers
Around us from the night,
Record it in this book
That, when the line is drawn,
Credit and creditor gone,
Column and figure flown,
Will open into light.
Archaic fevers shake
Our healthy flesh and blood
Plumped in the passing day
And fed with pleasant food.
The fathers'...Read more of this...
by
Randall Jarrell
I ate pancakes one night in a Pancake House
Run by a lady my age. She was gay.
When I told her that I came from Pasadena
She laughed and said, "I lived in Pasadena
When Fatty Arbuckle drove the El Molino bus."
I felt that I had met someone from home.
No, not Pasadena, Fatty Arbuckle.
Who's that? Oh, something that we had in common
Like...Read more of this...
by
Isaac Watts
v.24-26
C. M.
Hosanna; the Lord's day; or, Christ's resurrection and our salvation.
This is the day the Lord hath made,
He calls the hours his own;
Let heav'n rejoice, let earth be glad,
And praise surround the throne.
Today he rose and left the dead,
And Satan's empire fell;
Today the saints his triumphs spread,
And all his wonders tell.
Hosanna to th' anointed King,
To David's holy Son;
Help...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
I saw a Priest in beetle black
Come to our golden beach,
And I was taken sore aback
Lest he should choose to preach
And chide me for my only wear,
A "Gee" string and a brassière.
And then I saw him shyly doff
And fold his grim soutane,
And one by one his clothes take off,
Until like any man
He stood in bathing trunks, a sight
To thrill...Read more of this...
by
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
The breaking waves dashed high
On a stern and rock-bound coast,
And the woods, against a stormy sky,
Their giant branches tost;
And the heavy night hung dark
The hills and water o'er,
When a band of exiles moored their bark
On the wild New England shore.
Not as the conqueror comes,
They, the true-hearted, came;
Not with the roll of the stirring drums,
And the trumpet that sings of...Read more of this...
by
Rudyard Kipling
Truly ye come of The Blood; slower to bless than to ban;
Little used to lie down at the bidding of any man.
Flesh of the flesh that I bred, bone of the bone that I bare;
Stark as your sons shall be -- stern as your fathers were.
Deeper than speech our love, stronger than life our tether,
But we do not fall...Read more of this...
by
Elinor Wylie
Once, when my husband was a child, there came
To his father's table, one who called him kin,
In sunbleached corduroys paler than his skin.
His look was grave and kind; he bore the name
Of the dead singer of Senlac, and his smile.
Shyly and courteously he smiled and spoke;
"I've been in the laurel since the winter broke;
Four months, I reckon; yes, sir,...Read more of this...
by
Yusef Komunyakaa
On Fridays he'd open a can of Jax
After coming home from the mill,
& ask me to write a letter to my mother
Who sent postcards of desert flowers
Taller than men. He would beg,
Promising to never beat her
Again. Somehow I was happy
She had gone, & sometimes wanted
To slip in a reminder, how Mary Lou
Williams' "Polka Dots & Moonbeams"
Never made the swelling...Read more of this...
by
Leonard Cohen
The door it opened slowly,
my father he came in,
I was nine years old.
And he stood so tall above me,
his blue eyes they were shining
and his voice was very cold.
He said, "I've had a vision
and you know I'm strong and holy,
I must do what I've been told."
So he started up the...Read more of this...
by
Siegfried Sassoon
Snug at the club two fathers sat,
Gross, goggle-eyed, and full of chat.
One of them said: ‘My eldest lad
Writes cheery letters from Bagdad.
But Arthur’s getting all the fun
At Arras with his nine-inch gun.’
‘Yes,’ wheezed the other, ‘that’s the luck!
My boy’s quite broken-hearted, stuck
In England training all this year.
Still, if there’s truth in...Read more of this...
by
Rudyard Kipling
"Below the Mill Dam" --Traffics and Discoveries
Thrones, Powers, Dominions, Peoples, Kings,
Are changing 'neath our hand.
Our fathers also see these things
But they do not understand.
By--they are by with mirth and tears,
Wit or the works of Desire-
Cushioned about on the kindly years
Between the wall and the fire.
The grapes are pressed, the corn is shocked--
Standeth no more to glean;
For the Gates of...Read more of this...
by
Victor Hugo
("Vous, sire, écoutez-moi.")
{LE ROI S'AMUSE, Act I.}
M. ST. VALLIER (an aged nobleman, from whom King Francis I.
decoyed his daughter, the famous beauty, Diana of
Poitiers).
A king should listen when his subjects speak:
'Tis true your mandate led me to the block,
Where pardon came upon me,...Read more of this...
by
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
The breaking waves dashed high
On a stern and rock-bound coast,
And the woods, against a stormy sky,
Their giant branches tost;
And the heavy night hung dark
The hills and water o'er,
When a band of exiles moored their bark
On the wild New England shore.
Not as the conqueror comes,
They, the true-hearted, came;
Not with the roll of the stirring drums,
And the trumpet that sings of...Read more of this...
by
Marge Piercy
She wore little teeth of pearls around her neck.
They were grinning politely and evenly at me.
Unsuitable they smirked. It is true
I look a stuffed turkey in a suit. Breasts
too big for the silhouette. She knew
at once that we had sex, lots of it
as if I had strolled into her diningroom
in a dirty negligee smelling gamy
smelling fishy and sporting a...Read more of this...
by
William Topaz McGonagall
A sad tale of the sea I will relate, which will your hearts appal
Concerning the burning of the steamship "City of Montreal,"
Which had on board two hundred and forty-nine souls in all,
But, alas! a fearful catastrophe did them befall.
The steamer left New York on the 6th August with a general cargo,
Bound for Queenstown and Liverpool also;
And all went...Read more of this...
by
William Topaz McGonagall
'Twas in the year of 1898, ond on the 21st of June,
The launching of the Battleship Albion caused a great gloom,
Amongst the relatives of many persons who were drowned in the River Thames,
Which their relatives will remember while life remains.
The vessel was christened by the Duchess of York,
And the spectators' hearts felt light as cork
As the Duchess cut...Read more of this...
by
Amy Lowell
"Hullo, Alice!"
"Hullo, Leon!"
"Say, Alice, gi' me a couple
O' them two for five cigars,
Will yer?"
"Where's your nickel?"
"My! Ain't you close!
Can't trust a feller, can yer."
"Trust you! Why
What you owe this store
Would set you up in business.
I can't think why Father 'lows it."
"Yer Father's a sight more neighbourly
Than you be. That's a fact.
Besides, he knows I got a vote."
"A vote! Oh,...Read more of this...
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