Famous Forgive Poems by Famous Poets

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

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In Between the Strophes

by Marcin Malek
I'll never be a king of the brave

The vain poet - I lied, forgive me if you care
I went calmly through all the stages of madness
The last it's the tongue on a stranger face

And believe that man can turn in to a bird
To look at people and things
Without the need of rising the gaze

What a disruptive and ugly input
- Acquired...Read more of this...

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...

392. Song—Poortith cauld and restless love

by Robert Burns
 O POORTITH cauld, and restless love,
 Ye wrack my peace between ye;
Yet poortith a’ I could forgive,
 An ’twere na for my Jeanie.


Chorus.—O why should Fate sic pleasure have,
 Life’s dearest bands untwining?
Or why sae sweet a flower as love
 Depend on Fortune’s shining?


The warld’s wealth, when I think on,
 It’s pride and a’ the lave o’t;
O fie on...Read more of this...

Christmas Eve

by Anne Sexton
 Oh sharp diamond, my mother! 
I could not count the cost 
of all your faces, your moods-- 
that present that I lost. 
Sweet girl, my deathbed, 
my jewel-fingered lady, 
your portrait flickered all night 
by the bulbs of the tree. 

Your face as calm as the moon 
over a mannered sea, 
presided at the family reunion, 
the twelve grandchildren...Read more of this...

Lovers Gifts XVIII: Your Days

by Rabindranath Tagore
 Your days will be full of cares, if you must give me your heart.
My house by the cross-roads has its doors open and my mind is
absent, -for I sing.
I shall never be made to answer for it, if you must give me
your heart. If I pledge my word to you in tunes now, and am too
much in earnest to...Read more of this...

In memory of that excellent person Mrs. Mary Lloyd of Bodidrist in Denbigh-shire

by Katherine Philips
 I CANNOT hold, for though to write were rude, 
Yet to be silent were Ingratitude, 
And Folly too; for if Posterity 
Should never hear of such a one as thee, 
And onely know this Age's brutish fame, 
They would think Vertue nothing but a Name. 
And though far abler Pens must her define, 
Yet her Adoption hath engaged mine:...Read more of this...

Yesterday and Today XII

by Kahlil Gibran
 The gold-hoarder walked in his palace park and with him walked his troubles. And over his head hovered worries as a vulture hovers over a carcass, until he reached a beautiful lake surrounded by magnificent marble statuary. 

He sat there pondering the water which poured from the mouths of the statues like thoughts flowing freely from a lover's imagination,...Read more of this...

Happiness

by Jane Kenyon
 There's just no accounting for happiness,
or the way it turns up like a prodigal
who comes back to the dust at your feet
having squandered a fortune far away.

And how can you not forgive?
You make a feast in honor of what
was lost, and take from its place the finest
garment, which you saved for an occasion
you could not imagine, and you weep...Read more of this...

Summer Rain

by Fannie Isabelle Sherrick
Oh, what is so pure as the glad summer rain,
That falls on the grass where the sunlight has lain?
And what is so fair as the flowers that lie
All bathed in the tears of the soft summer sky?
The blue of the heavens is dimmed by the rain
That wears away sorrow and washes out pain;
But we know that the flowers we cherish...Read more of this...

Closing

by William Butler Yeats
 While I, that reed-throated whisperer
Who comes at need, although not now as once
A clear articulation in the air,
But inwardly, surmise companions
Beyond the fling of the dull ass's hoof
- Ben Johnson's phrase - and find when June is come
At Kyle-na-no under that ancient roof
A sterner conscience and a friendlier home,
I can forgive even that wrong of wrongs,
Those undreamt accidents that...Read more of this...

Stanzas from the Grande Chartreuse

by Matthew Arnold
 Through Alpine meadows soft-suffused
With rain, where thick the crocus blows,
Past the dark forges long disused,
The mule-track from Saint Laurent goes.
The bridge is cross'd, and slow we ride,
Through forest, up the mountain-side. 

The autumnal evening darkens round,
The wind is up, and drives the rain;
While, hark! far down, with strangled sound
Doth the Dead Guier's stream complain,
Where that wet smoke, among the...Read more of this...

The Prayers of God

by W. E. B. Du Bois
Name of God's Name!
Red murder reigns;
All hell is loose;
On gold autumnal air
Walk grinning devils, barbed and hoofed;
While high on hills of hate,
Black-blossomed, crimson-sky'd,
Thou sittest, dumb.
Father Almighty!
This earth is mad!
Palsied, our cunning hands;
Rotten, our gold;
Our argosies reel and stagger
Over empty seas;
All the long aisles
Of Thy Great Temples, God,
Stink with the entrails
Of our souls.
And Thou art dumb.
Above the thunder of Thy Thunders,...Read more of this...

Little Spider

by Marcin Malek
Forgive me little spider
I tore your web
I'm not a monster

But you probably sense
That such things
Lies in our nature

It is true - every subject
Touched by human hand
Suddenly ends

Forgive us little spider
That at this point
Destruction is the best

On what we can afford

Copyright ©: Marcin Malek...Read more of this...

Story Of Isaac

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...

Forgive Me

by Judith Skillman
 Poem by Anne-Marie Derése, translated by Judith Skillman.

Forgive me if I have laughed
in your chapels,
forgive me if I have slammed
the hospital door,
forgive me for the noise,
for life,
for the love to which
I have no right. 
Forgive me for not resembling you....Read more of this...

Anna Who Was Mad

by Anne Sexton
 Anna who was mad,
I have a knife in my armpit.
When I stand on tiptoe I tap out messages.
Am I some sort of infection?
Did I make you go insane?
Did I make the sounds go sour?
Did I tell you to climb out the window?
Forgive. Forgive.
Say not I did.
Say not.
Say.

Speak Mary-words into our pillow.
Take me the gangling twelve-year-old
into your sunken lap.
Whisper like...Read more of this...

The Gardener XLIV: Reverend Sir Forgive

by Rabindranath Tagore
 Reverend sir, forgive this pair of
sinners. Spring winds to-day are 
blowing in wild eddies, driving dust
and dead leaves away, and with them 
your lessons are all lost.
Do not say, father, that life is a 
vanity.
For we have made truce with death
for once, and only for a few fragrant
hours we two have been made immortal.
Even if the king's army came...Read more of this...

For A Coming Extinction

by W S Merwin
 Gray whale
Now that we are sinding you to The End
That great god
Tell him
That we who follow you invented forgiveness
And forgive nothing

I write as though you could understand
And I could say it
One must always pretend something
Among the dying
When you have left the seas nodding on their stalks
Empty of you
Tell him that we were made
On another day

The bewilderment will diminish like...Read more of this...

The Explorer

by Rudyard Kipling
 There's no sense in going further -- it's the edge of cultivation,"
 So they said, and I believed it -- broke my land and sowed my crop --
Built my barns and strung my fences in the little border station
 Tucked away below the foothills where the trails run out and stop.

Till a voice, as bad as Conscience, rang interminable...Read more of this...

Albert and His Savings

by Marriott Edgar
 One day, little Albert Ramsbottom
To see 'ow much money 'e'd got
Stuck a knife in 'is money-box slot 'ole
And fiddled and fished out the lot.

It amounted to fifteen and fourpence
Which 'e found by a few simple sums
Were ninety two tuppenny ices
Or twice that in penn'orths of gums.

The sound of the chinkin' of money
Soon brought father's 'ead round the door
He said,...Read more of this...

My Divine Lysis

by Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz
My Divine Lysis

    Divina Lysi mía:
perdona si me atrevo
a llamarte así, cuando
aun de ser tuya el nombre no merezco.

    A esto, no osadía
es llamarte así, puesto
que a ti te sobran rayos,
si en mí pudiera haber atrevimientos.

    Error es de la lengua,
que lo que dice imperio
del dueño, en el dominio,
parezcan posesiones en...Read more of this...

Orinda To Lucasia Parting October 1661 At London

by Katherine Philips
 Adieu dear object of my Love's excess,
And with thee all my hopes of happiness,
With the same fervent and unchanged heart
Which did it's whole self once to thee impart,
(And which though fortune has so sorely bruis'd,
Would suffer more, to be from this excus'd)
I to resign thy dear Converse submit,
Since I can neither keep, nor merit it.
Thou hast too long to...Read more of this...

Ecce Puer

by James Joyce
 Of the dark past
A child is born;
With joy and grief
My heart is torn.

Calm in his cradle
The living lies.
May love and mercy
Unclose his eyes!

Young life is breathed
On the glass;
The world that was not
Comes to pass.

A child is sleeping:
An old man gone.
O, father forsaken,
Forgive your son!...Read more of this...

Examination

by Anonymous
Before we close our eyes to-night,Oh, let us each these questions ask!Have we endeavored to do right,Nor thought our duty a hard task?Have we been gentle, lowly, meek,And the small voice of conscience heard?When passion tempted us to speak,Have we repressed the angry word?Have we with cheerful zeal obeyedWhat our kind parents bade us do?And not by word or action...Read more of this...

Remembrance

by Emily Brontë
 Cold in the earth—and the deep snow piled above thee,
Far, far removed, cold in the dreary grave!
Have I forgot, my only Love, to love thee,
Severed at last by Time's all-severing wave?

Now, when alone, do my thoughts no longer hover
Over the mountains, on that northern shore,
Resting their wings where heath and fern-leaves cover
That noble heart for ever, ever more?

Cold in...Read more of this...

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