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Famous Forsake Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Dryden, John
...cament will fall:
For Witness is a common name to all.

Surrounded thus with friends of every sort,
Deluded Absalom forsakes the court:
Impatient of high hopes, urg'd with renown,
And fir'd with near possession of a crown:
Th' admiring crowd are dazzled with surprise,
And on his goodly person feed their eyes:
His joy conceal'd, he sets himself to show;
On each side bowing popularly low:
His looks, his gestures, and his words he frames,
And with familiar ease repeats their...Read more of this...



by Shakespeare, William
...is testy master goeth about to take him;
When lo! the unback'd breeder, full of fear,
Jealous of catching, swiftly doth forsake him,
With her the horse, and left Adonis there.
As they were mad, unto the wood they hie them,
Out-stripping crows that strive to over-fly them.

I prophesy they death, my living sorrow,
If thou encounter with the boar to-morrow.

"But if thou needs wilt hunt, be rul'd by me;
Uncouple at the timorous flying hare,
Or at the fox which lives...Read more of this...

by Campbell, Thomas
...fair England's strand!"
"Ah, Gertrude, thy beloved heart, I know,
Would feel like mine the stigmatising brand!
Could I forsake the cause of Freedom's holy band!

But shame--but flight--a recreant's name to prove,
To hide in exile ignominous fears;
Say, ev'n if this I brook'd, the public love
Thy father's bosom to his home endears:
And how could I his few remaining years,
My Gertrude, sever from so dear a child?"
So, day by day, her boding heart he cheers:
At last that heart ...Read more of this...

by Wordsworth, William
...;And underneath the spreading tree  We two will live in honesty.  If his sweet boy he could forsake,  With me he never would have stay'd:  From him no harm my babe can take,  But he, poor man! is wretched made,  And every day we two will pray  For him that's gone and far away.   I'll teach my boy the sweetest things;  I'll teach him how the owle...Read more of this...

by Campbell, Thomas
...e thy sheeted spectre stand ,
Roll the dim eye, and wave the paly hand !

Soon may this fluttering spark of vital flame
Forsake its languid melancholy frame !
Soon may these eyes their trembling lustre close,
Welcome the dreamless night of long repose !
Soon may this woe-worn spirit seek the bourne
Where, lulled to slumber, Grief forgets to mourn !"...Read more of this...



by Robinson, Edwin Arlington
...the Universe. 

VIII 

There is no loneliness: -- no matter where
We go, nor whence we come, nor what good friends
Forsake us in the seeming, we are all
At one with a complete companionship;
And though forlornly joyless be the ways
We travel, the compensate spirit-gleams
Of Wisdom shaft the darkness here and there,
Like scattered lamps in unfrequented streets. 

IX 

When one that you and I had all but sworn
To be the purest thing God ever made
Bewilders us until at ...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...ough God's high sufferance for the trial of man, 
By falsities and lies the greatest part 
Of mankind they corrupted to forsake 
God their Creator, and th' invisible 
Glory of him that made them to transform 
Oft to the image of a brute, adorned 
With gay religions full of pomp and gold, 
And devils to adore for deities: 
Then were they known to men by various names, 
And various idols through the heathen world. 
 Say, Muse, their names then known, who first, who last, 
R...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...disordered, at his feet 
Fell humble; and, embracing them, besought 
His peace, and thus proceeded in her plaint. 
Forsake me not thus, Adam! witness Heaven 
What love sincere, and reverence in my heart 
I bear thee, and unweeting have offended, 
Unhappily deceived! Thy suppliant 
I beg, and clasp thy knees; bereave me not, 
Whereon I live, thy gentle looks, thy aid, 
Thy counsel, in this uttermost distress, 
My only strength and stay: Forlorn of thee, 
Whither shall I b...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...hat men 
(Canst thou believe?) should be so stupid grown, 
While yet the patriarch lived, who 'scaped the flood, 
As to forsake the living God, and fall 
To worship their own work in wood and stone 
For Gods! Yet him God the Most High vouchsafes 
To call by vision, from his father's house, 
His kindred, and false Gods, into a land 
Which he will show him; and from him will raise 
A mighty nation; and upon him shower 
His benediction so, that in his seed 
All nations shall be ...Read more of this...

by Yeats, William Butler
...t cry.

VII. What Magic Drum?

He holds him from desire, all but stops his breathing lest
primordial Motherhood forsake his limbs, the child no longer 
 rest,
Drinking joy as it were milk upon his breast.

Through light-obliterating garden foliage what magic drum?
Down limb and breast or down that glimmering belly move 
 his mouth and sinewy tongue.
What from the forest came? What beast has licked its young?

VIII. Whence had they come?

Eternity is passio...Read more of this...

by Swinburne, Algernon Charles
...breath and light and sound, that wake
As out of sleep, and perish as the show
Built up of sleep, when all her strengths forsake
The sense-compelling spirit; the depths glow,
The heights flash, and the roots and summits shake
Of earth in all her mountains,
And the inner foamless fountains
And wellsprings of her fast-bound forces quake;
Yea, the whole air of life
Is set on fire of strife,
Till change unmake things made and love remake;
Reason and love, whose names are one,
Seei...Read more of this...

by Chaucer, Geoffrey
...d*
Or Dante also.  Now let us ride blive,* *briskly
For I will holde company with thee,
Till it be so that thou forsake me."
"Nay," quoth this Sompnour, "that shall ne'er betide.
I am a yeoman, that is known full wide;
My trothe will I hold, as in this case;
For though thou wert the devil Satanas,
My trothe will I hold to thee, my brother,
As I have sworn, and each of us to other,
For to be true brethren in this case,
And both we go *abouten our purchase.*...Read more of this...

by Chaucer, Geoffrey
...wn, and said as ye shall hear.

"Lordes," she said, "ye knowen every one,
How that my son in point is for to lete* *forsake
The holy lawes of our Alkaron*, *Koran
Given by God's messenger Mahomete:
But one avow to greate God I hete*, *promise
Life shall rather out of my body start,
Than Mahomet's law go out of mine heart.

"What should us tiden* of this newe law, *betide, befall
But thraldom to our bodies, and penance,
And afterward in hell to be y-draw,
For we *renie...Read more of this...

by Bronte, Charlotte
...ot yet Remembrance flee; 
I must again, then, firmly face 
That task of anguish, to retrace. 
Wedded to home­I home forsake, 
Fearful of change­I changes make; 
Too fond of ease­I plunge in toil; 
Lover of calm­I seek turmoil: 
Nature and hostile Destiny 
Stir in my heart a conflict wild; 
And long and fierce the war will be 
Ere duty both has reconciled. 

What other tie yet holds me fast
To the divorced, abandoned past?
Smouldering, on my heart's altar lies
The fire...Read more of this...

by Warton, Thomas
...
In hollow murmurs reach my ravish'd ear.
Nor when the lamps expiring yield to night,
And solitude returns, would I forsake
The solemn mansion, but attentive mark
The due clock swinging slow with sweepy sway,
Measuring Time's flight with momentary sound.

Nor let me fail to cultivate my mind
With the soft thrillings of the tragic Muse,
Divine Melpomene, sweet Pity's nurse,
Queen of the stately step, and flowing pall.
Now let Monimia mourn streaming eyes
Her joys i...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...as for my father's faith
I suffer'd chains and courted death;
That father perish'd at the stake
For tenets he would not forsake;
And for the same his lineal race
In darkness found a dwelling-place;
We were seven - who now are one,
Six in youth, and one in age,
Finish'd as they had begun,
Proud of Persecution's rage;
One in fire, and two in field,
Their belief with blood have seal'd,
Dying as their father died,
For the God their foes denied;
Three were in a dungeon cast,
Of wh...Read more of this...

by Thomson, James
...all, wavering, thro' the Air; or shower amain,
Urg'd by the Breeze, that sobs amid the Boughs.
Then list'ning Hares forsake the rusling Woods, 
And, starting at the frequent Noise, escape
To the rough Stubble, and the rushy Fen.
Then Woodcocks, o'er the fluctuating Main,
That glimmers to the Glimpses of the Moon,
Stretch their long Voyage to the woodland Glade: 
Where, wheeling with uncertain Flight, they mock
The nimble Fowler's Aim. -- Now Nature droops;
Languis...Read more of this...

by Lowell, Amy
...ch pertains
To a simple meal was there, with eyes
Lit by the joy of his great emprise,
He reverently bade her come,
And forsake for him her distant home.
He put meat on her plate and filled her glass,
And waited what should come to pass.
The Shadow lay quietly on the wall.
From the street outside came a watchman's call
"A cloudy night. Rain beginning to fall."
And still he waited. The clock's slow tick
Knocked on the silence. Paul turned sick.
...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...bsolve thy sin, 
And mercy's gate may receive within; 
But pause one moment more, and take 
The curse of Him thou didst forsake; 
And look once more to heaven, and see 
Its love for ever shut from thee. 
There is a light cloud by the moon — [7] 
'Tis passing, and will pass full soon — 
If, by the time its vapoury sail 
Hath ceased her shaded orb to veil, 
Thy heart within thee is not changed, 
Then God and man are both avenged; 
Dark will thy doom be, darker still 
Thine ...Read more of this...

by Chaucer, Geoffrey
..., --
Grant me His grace to live virtuously:
Then am I gentle when that I begin
To live virtuously, and waive* sin. *forsake

"And whereas ye of povert' me repreve,* *reproach
The highe God, on whom that we believe,
In wilful povert' chose to lead his life:
And certes, every man, maiden, or wife
May understand that Jesus, heaven's king,
Ne would not choose a virtuous living.
*Glad povert'* is an honest thing, certain; *poverty cheerfully
This will Senec and other clerk...Read more of this...

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