Famous Fidelity Poems by Famous Poets

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

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I Know I Have Been Happiest

by Dorothy Parker
 I know I have been happiest at your side;
But what is done, is done, and all's to be.
And small the good, to linger dolefully-
Gayly it lived, and gallantly it died.
I will not make you songs of hearts denied,
And you, being man, would have no tears of me,
And should I offer you fidelity,
You'd be, I think, a little terrified.

Yet this...Read more of this...

Original Preface

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 I feel no small reluctance in venturing to give to the public a 
work of the character of that indicated by the title-page to the 
present volume; for, difficult as it must always be to render satisfactorily 
into one's own tongue the writings of the bards of other lands, 
the responsibility assumed by the translator is immeasurably increased 
when...Read more of this...

Stanzas To Augusta

by George (Lord) Byron
 When all around grew drear and dark,
And reason half withheld her ray— 
And hope but shed a dying spark
Which more misled my lonely way;

In that deep midnight of the mind,
And that internal strife of heart,
When dreading to be deemed too kind,
The weak despair—the cold depart;

When fortune changed—and love fled far,
And hatred's shafts flew thick and fast,
Thou wert the solitary...Read more of this...

Fridolin (The Walk To The Iron Factory)

by Friedrich von Schiller
 A gentle was Fridolin,
And he his mistress dear,
Savern's fair Countess, honored in
All truth and godly fear.
She was so meek, and, ah! so good!
Yet each wish of her wayward mood,
He would have studied to fulfil,
To please his God, with earnest will.

From the first hour when daylight shone
Till rang the vesper-chime,
He lived but for her will alone,
And deemed e'en that scarce...Read more of this...

The healed Heart shows its shallow scar

by Emily Dickinson
 The healed Heart shows its shallow scar
With confidential moan --
Not mended by Mortality
Are Fabrics truly torn --
To go its convalescent way
So shameless is to see
More genuine were Perfidy
Than such Fidelity....Read more of this...

Punctilio

by Mary Elizabeth Coleridge
 O LET me be in loving nice,
Dainty, fine, and o’er precise,
That I may charm my charmàd dear
As tho’ I felt a secret fear
To lose what never can be lost,—
Her faith who still delights me most!
So shall I be more than true,
Ever in my ageing new.
So dull habit shall not be
Wrongly call’d Fidelity....Read more of this...

Marriage

by Marianne Moore
 This institution,
perhaps one should say enterprise
out of respect for which
one says one need not change one's mind
about a thing one has believed in,
requiring public promises
of one's intention
to fulfill a private obligation:
I wonder what Adam and Eve
think of it by this time,
this firegilt steel
alive with goldenness;
how bright it shows --
"of circular traditions and impostures,
committing many spoils,"
requiring all one's criminal ingenuity
to...Read more of this...

A Ballad of Jakkko Hill

by Rudyard Kipling
 One moment bid the horses wait,
 Since tiffin is not laid till three,
Below the upward path and straight
 You climbed a year ago with me.
Love came upon us suddenly
 And loosed -- an idle hour to kill --
A headless, armless armory
 That smote us both on Jakko Hill.

Ah Heaven! we would wait and wait 
 Through Time and to...Read more of this...

If a stranger shows you fidelity, consider him as a kinsman;

by Omar Khayyam
If a stranger shows you fidelity, consider him as a kinsman;
but if a kinsman endeavors to betray you, regard
him as an enemy. If poison cures you, consider it an
antidote, and if the antidote does not agree with you,
regard it as a poison....Read more of this...

On The Death Of A Favourite Old Spaniel

by Robert Southey
 And they have drown'd thee then at last! poor Phillis!
The burthen of old age was heavy on thee.
And yet thou should'st have lived! what tho' thine eye
Was dim, and watch'd no more with eager joy
The wonted call that on thy dull sense sunk
With fruitless repetition, the warm Sun
Would still have cheer'd thy slumber, thou didst love
To lick the hand...Read more of this...

The Devil -- had he fidelity

by Emily Dickinson
 The Devil -- had he fidelity
Would be the best friend --
Because he has ability --
But Devils cannot mend --
Perfidy is the virtue
That would but he resign
The Devil -- without question
Were thoroughly divine...Read more of this...

Her Immortality

by Thomas Hardy
 UPON a noon I pilgrimed through
A pasture, mile by mile,
Unto the place where I last saw
My dead Love's living smile.

And sorrowing I lay me down
Upon the heated sod:
It seemed as if my body pressed
The very ground she trod.

I lay, and thought; and in a trance
She came and stood me by--
The same, even to the marvellous ray
That used to light...Read more of this...

The Gentian has a parched Corolla --

by Emily Dickinson
 The Gentian has a parched Corolla --
Like azure dried
'Tis Nature's buoyant juices
Beatified --
Without a vaunt or sheen
As casual as Rain
And as benign --

When most is part -- it comes --
Nor isolate it seems
Its Bond its Friend --
To fill its Fringed career
And aid an aged Year
Abundant end --

Its lot -- were it forgot --
This Truth endear --
Fidelity is gain
Creation is...Read more of this...

Guest am I to have

by Emily Dickinson
 Guest am I to have
Light my northern room
Why to cordiality so averse to come
Other friends adjourn
Other bonds decay
Why avoid so narrowly
My fidelity --...Read more of this...

Fidelity

by Robert William Service
 Being a shorty, as you see,
 A bare five footer,
The why my wife is true to me
 Is my six-shooter.
For every time a guy goes by
 Who looks like a lover,
I polish it to catch his eye,
 And spin it over.

He notes its notches as I say:
 'Believe me, Brother,
If Junie ever goes astray,
 They'll be another.'
A husband has...Read more of this...

Ah Are You Digging On My Grave?

by Thomas Hardy
 "Ah, are you digging on my grave, 
My loved one? -- planting rue?" 
-- "No: yesterday he went to wed 
One of the brightest wealth has bred. 
'It cannot hurt her now,' he said, 
'That I should not be true.'" 

"Then who is digging on my grave, 
My nearest dearest kin?" 
-- "Ah, no: they sit and think, 'What...Read more of this...

An Arundel Tomb

by Philip Larkin
 Side by side, their faces blurred,
The earl and countess lie in stone,
Their proper habits vaguely shown
As jointed armour, stiffened pleat,
And that faint hint of the absurd -
The little dogs under their feet.

Such plainness of the pre-baroque
Hardly involves the eye, until
It meets his left-hand gauntlet, still
Clasped empty in the other; and
One sees, with a sharp tender shock,
His hand withdrawn, holding...Read more of this...

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