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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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by Crowley, Aleister
...ogs to kennel, trample snakes, put bit
In the mule-mouths that have such need of it,
Until the world there's so much to forgive in
Becomes a little possible to live in.

God alone knows if battle or surrender
Be the true courage; either has its splendour. 
But since we chose the first, God aid the right,
And damn me if I fail you in the fight!
God join again the ways that lie apart,
And bless the love of loyal heart to heart!
God keep us every hour in every thought,
A...Read more of this...



by Yeats, William Butler
...no longer knows
Is from the Ought, or knower from the Known - 
That is to say, ascends to Heaven;
Only the dead can be forgiven;
But when I think of that my tongue's a stone.

II

My Self. A living man is blind and drinks his drop.
What matter if the ditches are impure?
What matter if I live it all once more?
Endure that toil of growing up;
The ignominy of boyhood; the distress
Of boyhood changing into man;
The unfinished man and his pain
Brought face to face wit...Read more of this...

by Pope, Alexander
...of Glory boast,
Nor in the Critick let the Man be lost!
Good-Nature and Good-Sense must ever join;
To err is Humane; to Forgive, Divine.

But if in Noble Minds some Dregs remain,
Not yet purg'd off, of Spleen and sow'r Disdain,
Discharge that Rage on more Provoking Crimes,
Nor fear a Dearth in these Flagitious Times.
No Pardon vile Obscenity should find,
Tho' Wit and Art conspire to move your Mind;
But Dulness with Obscenity must prove
As Shameful sure as Importance i...Read more of this...

by Keats, John
...ay;
With all her limbs on tremble, and her eyes
Shut softly up alive. To speak he tries.
"Fair damsel, pity me! forgive that I
Thus violate thy bower's sanctity!
O pardon me, for I am full of grief--
Grief born of thee, young angel! fairest thief!
Who stolen hast away the wings wherewith
I was to top the heavens. Dear maid, sith
Thou art my executioner, and I feel
Loving and hatred, misery and weal,
Will in a few short hours be nothing to me,
And all my story that...Read more of this...

by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...this the fruit of my toils, of my vigils and prayers and privations?
Have you so soon forgotten all lessons of love and forgiveness?
This is the house of the Prince of Peace, and would you profane
it
Thus with violent deeds and hearts overflowing with hatred?
Lo! where the crucified Christ from his cross is gazing upon you!
See! in those sorrowful eyes what meekness and holy compassion!
Hark! how those lips still repeat the prayer, 'O Father, forgive them!'
Let us repeat that...Read more of this...



by Carroll, Lewis
...inks,
No words of wisdom flow. 


II 

Empress of Art, for thee I twine
This wreath with all too slender skill.
Forgive my Muse each halting line,
And for the deed accept the will! 


O day of tears! Whence comes this spectre grim,
Parting, like Death's cold river, souls that love?
Is not he bound to thee, as thou to him,
By vows, unwhispered here, yet heard above? 

And still it lives, that keen and heavenward flame,
Lives in his eye, and trembles in his tone:
And th...Read more of this...

by Sexton, Anne
...e are both overthrown. 
Skeezix, you are me. La de dah. 
You grow a beard but our drool is identical. 

Forgive us, Father, for we know not. 

Today is November 14th, 1972. 
I live in Weston, Mass., Middlesex County, 
U.S.A., and it rains steadily 
in the pond like white puppy eyes. 
The pond is waiting for its skin. 
the pond is waiting for its leather. 
The pond is waiting for December and its Novocain. 

It begins: 

...Read more of this...

by Cummings, Edward Estlin (E E)
...n the sea

Love is more always than to win
less never than alive
less bigger than the least begin
less litter than forgive

It's most sane and sunly
and more it cannot die
than all the sky which only
is higher than the sky...Read more of this...

by Robinson, Edwin Arlington
...t’s good; 
For I perceive that you observe him also. 
A President, a-riding of his horse,
May dust a General and be forgiven; 
But why be dusted—when we’re all alike, 
All equal, and all happy? Here he comes— 
And there he goes. And we, by your new patent, 
Would seem to be two kings here by the wayside,
With our two hats off to his Excellency. 
Why not his Majesty, and done with it? 
Forgive me if I shook your meditation, 
But you that weld our credit should have...Read more of this...

by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...xt, and still to that
Returning, as the bird returns, at night,
`Let not the sun go down upon your wrath,'
Said, `Love, forgive him:' but he did not speak;
And silenced by that silence lay the wife,
Remembering her dear Lord who died for all,
And musing on the little lives of men,
And how they mar this little by their feuds. 

But while the two were sleeping, a full tide
Rose with ground-swell, which, on the foremost rocks
Touching, upjetted in spirts of wild sea-smoke,
A...Read more of this...

by Frost, Robert
...us out to think for him at midnight
And then take our advice no more than nothing,
Why, I agree with you. But let’s forgive him.
We’ve had a share in one night of his life.
What’ll you bet he ever calls again?”...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...d none, 
Or some unknown cabal, caprice, 
Preserved me thus; but not in peace; 
He cannot curb his haughty mood, 
Nor I forgive a father's blood! 

XVI. 

"Within thy father's house are foes; 
Not all who break his bread are true: 
To these should I my birth disclose, 
His days, his very hours, were few: 
They only want a heart to lead, 
A hand to point them to the deed. 
But Haroun only knows — or knew — 
This tale, whose close is almost nigh: 
He in Abdallah's palac...Read more of this...

by Blake, William
...use that Jesus dies. 
He did not die with Christian ease, 
Asking pardon of His enemies: 
If He had, Caiaphas would forgive; 
Sneaking submission can always live. 
He had only to say that God was the Devil, 
And the Devil was God, like a Christian civil; 
Mild Christian regrets to the Devil confess 
For affronting him thrice in the wilderness; 
He had soon been bloody Caesar’s elf, 
And at last he would have been Caesar himself, 
Like Dr. Priestly and Bacon and Ne...Read more of this...

by Masefield, John
...ne." 
And then I thought that that was silly, 
They'd think I was afraid of Billy; 
They'd think (I thought it, God forgive me) 
I funked the hiding Bill could give me. 
And that thought made me mad and hot. 
"Think that, will they? Well, they shall not. 
They shan't think that. I will not. I'm 
Damned if I will. I will not." 
Time! 

From the beginning of the bout 
My luck was gone, my hand was out. 
Right from the start Bill called the pl...Read more of this...

by Service, Robert William
...dear, I must tell you now -- the women he loved and wronged was I;
Darling! I haven't long to live: I never told you -- forgive, forgive!"

For a long, long time Brown did not speak; sat bleak-browed in the wretched room;
Slowly a tear stole down his cheek, and he kissed her hand in the dismal gloom.
To break his oath, to brand her shame; his well-loved friend, his worshipped wife;
To keep his vow, to save her name, yet at the cost of what? Her life!
A moment's space did ...Read more of this...

by Chaucer, Geoffrey
...ain,
And wot how sore it can a man distrain*, *distress
As he that oft hath been caught in his last*, *snare 
I you forgive wholly this trespass,
At request of the queen that kneeleth here,
And eke of Emily, my sister dear.
And ye shall both anon unto me swear,
That never more ye shall my country dere* *injure
Nor make war upon me night nor day,
But be my friends in alle that ye may.
I you forgive this trespass *every deal*. *completely*
And they him sware *hi...Read more of this...

by Scott, Sir Walter
...e prize beyond his reach?
     Yet tell me, then, the maid who knows,
     Why deepened on her cheek the rose?—
     Forgive, forgive, Fidelity!
     Perchance the maiden smiled to see
     Yon parting lingerer wave adieu,
     And stop and turn to wave anew;
     And, lovely ladies, ere your ire
     Condemn the heroine of my lyre,
     Show me the fair would scorn to spy
     And prize such conquest of her eve!
     VI.

     While yet he loitered on the spot,
...Read more of this...

by Lowell, Amy
...his bleeding fingers, if she should fall
He could catch, and hold her, and make her live!
With sobs he would ask her to forgive
All he had done. And broken, spent,
He would call himself impertinent;
Presumptuous; a tradesman; a nothing; driven
To madness by the sight of Heaven.
At other times he would take the things
He had made, and winding them on strings,
Hang garlands before her, and burn perfumes,
Chanting strangely, while the fumes
Wreathed and blotted the shado...Read more of this...

by Miller, Alice Duer
...d read freely, even as a child,
Not only Meredith and Oscar Wilde
But many novels of an earlier day—
Ravenshoe, Can You Forgive Her?, Vivien Grey,
Ouida, The Duchess, Broughton's Red As a Rose,
Guy Livingstone, Whyte-Melville— Heaven knows
What others. Now, I thought, I was to see
Their habitat, though like the Miller of Dee,
I cared for none and no one cared for me.


III 
A light blue carpet on the stair 
And tall young footmen everywhere, 
Tall young men with Engli...Read more of this...

by Akhmatova, Anna
...ce
Does not look to me like a deadly arrow.
How past over the heart is losing power!
Freedom is near. I will forgive all yet,
Watching, as ray of sun runs up and down
The springtime vine that with spring rain is wet.



x x x

He was jealous, fearful and tender,
He loved me like God's only light,
And that she not sing of the past times
He killed my bird colored white.

He said, in the lighthouse at sundown:
"Love me, laugh and write poetry!"...Read more of this...

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