Famous Guidance Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Guidance poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous guidance poems. These examples illustrate what a famous guidance poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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...misery and distress of life. He who does not befriend his soul is an enemy of humanity, and he who does not find human guidance within himself will perish desperately. Life emerges from within, and derives not from environs.
I came to say a word and I shall say it now. But if death prevents its uttering, it will be said tomorrow, for tomorrow never leaves a secret in the book of eternity.
I came to live in the glory of love and the light of beauty, which are the reflectio...Read more of this...
by
Gibran, Kahlil
...n the bitter arrow will be struck in the breast,
under the helmet—he knows not how to shelter himself—
by the crooked guidance of accursed spirits.
It all seems too little what he has held for a long time.
He covets in evil thoughts and gives no worthy rings
for boasts, and he forgets and neglects the state of things to come,
the honorable share of which God had given him previously,
the Sovereign of Glory. At the conclusion
it eventually happens that the body-house, ...Read more of this...
by
Anonymous,
...
every defeated gesture implies
the past is useless, irretrievable...
--I want to change: I want to stop fear's subtle
guidance of my life--; but, how can I do that
if I am still
afraid of its source?...Read more of this...
by
Bidart, Frank
...at the same time,
That there were tears in the old fellow’s eyes.
I question if in tremors or in tears
There be more guidance to man’s worthiness
Than—well, say in his prayers. But oftentimes
It humors us to think that we possess
By some divine adjustment of our own
Particular shrewd cells, or something else,
What others, for untutored sympathy,
Go spirit-fishing more than half their lives
To catch—like cheerful sinners to catch faith;
And I have not a doubt but I a...Read more of this...
by
Robinson, Edwin Arlington
...vessel home
When reft of rudder and of sails;
I say no more than I should say
Of any other one who sees
Too far for guidance of to-day,
Too near for the eternities.
I think of him as I should think
Of one who for scant wages played,
And faintly, a flawed instrument
That fell while it was being made;
I think of him as one who fared,
Unfaltering and undeceived,
Amid mirages of renown
And urgings of the unachieved;
I think of him as one who gave
To Lingard leave ...Read more of this...
by
Robinson, Edwin Arlington
...pole
Its upward course is driven,
Like a wandering cloud, then, my eager thought
Capriciously flies, to no guidance brought,
With every quarter's wind;
It regards from those radiant vaults on high,
Earth's cities below, and again doth fly,
And leaves but its shadow behind.
In the glistening gold of the morning bright,
It shines, detaching some lance of light,
Or, as warrior's armor rings;
It forages forests that ferment around,
Or ba...Read more of this...
by
Hugo, Victor
...nests of stars
Seem to float on air.
These have no proper names:
Men out alone at night
Never look up at them
For guidance or delight,
For such evasive dust
Can make so little clear:
Much less is known than not,
More far than near....Read more of this...
by
Larkin, Philip
...elancholy earth, which deem'd
100 Eternal heaven to burn, for so it seem'd
101 As if another Pha{"e}ton had got
102 The guidance of the sun's rich chariot.
103 But far above the loveliest, Hero shin'd,
104 And stole away th' enchanted gazer's mind;
105 For like sea-nymphs' inveigling harmony,
106 So was her beauty to the standers-by;
107 Nor that night-wandering, pale, and watery star
108 (When yawning dragons draw her thirling car
109 From Latmus' mount up to the gloomy sky,...Read more of this...
by
Marlowe, Christopher
...wretched shall not think
As of an enemy's, whom they forgive
As all forgive the dead. Rest, therefore, thou
Whose early guidance trained my infant steps--
Rest, in the bosom of God, till the brief sleep
Of death is over, and a happier life
Shall dawn to waken thine insensible dust.
Now thou art not--and yet the men whose guilt
Has wearied Heaven for vengeance--he who bears
False witness--he who takes the orphan's bread,
And robs the widow--he who spreads abroad
Polluted hands...Read more of this...
by
Bryant, William Cullen
...
He named himself, "Banana Tree": banana
After the plant some grateful students gave him,
Maybe in appreciation of his guidance
Threading a long night through the rules and channels
Of their collaborative linking-poem
Scored in their teacher's heart: live, rigid, fluid
Like passages etched in a microscopic cicuit.
Elliot had in his memory so many jokes
They seemed to breed like microbes in a culture
Inside his brain, one so much making another
It was impossible to tell th...Read more of this...
by
Pinsky, Robert
...n the sacred walls.
O happiest, they!"
I answered, "By that Go
Thou didst not know, I do thine aid entreat,
And guidance, that beyond the ills I meet
I safety find, within the Sacred Gate
That Peter guards, and those sad souls to see
Who look with longing for their end to be."
Then he moved forward, and behind I trod.
Canto II
THE day was falling, and the darkening air
Released earth's creatures from their toils, while I,
I only, faced the bitte...Read more of this...
by
Alighieri, Dante
...ile to our machines
we impute intelligence,
in computers and robots
we store information
and call it knowledge,
we seek guidance
by dialling numbers,
pressing buttons,
throwing switches,
in place of family
our companions are shadows,
cast on a screen,
bodiless voices, fleshless faces,
where was the Garden
a Disney-land
of virtual reality,
in place of angels
the human imagination
is peopled with foot-ballers
film-stars, media-men,
experts, know-all
television personalities,
a...Read more of this...
by
Raine, Kathleen
...s
Right upward, and eternally.
“Stumble at first? I may do that;
And I may grope, and hate the night;
But there’s a guidance for the man
Who stumbles upward for the light,
“And I shall have it all from her,
The foam-born child of innocence.
I feel you smiling while I speak,
But that’s of little consequence;
“For when we learn that we may find
The truth where others miss the mark,
What is it worth for us to know
That friends are smiling in the dark?
“Could we bu...Read more of this...
by
Robinson, Edwin Arlington
...ions' wild and headlong course,
The ever-varying plan of fate,
Duty and instinct's twofold force,
With proving mind and guidance straight
Ye then conducted to their ends.
What Nature, as she moves along,
Far from each other ever rends,
Become upon the stage, in song,
Members of order, firmly bound.
Awed by the Furies' chorus dread,
Murder draws down upon its head
The doom of death from their wild sound.
Long e'er the wise to give a verdict dared,
An Iliad had fate's mysteries...Read more of this...
by
Schiller, Friedrich von
...of death.
And the god laughed and cried. He felt an overwhelming love and pity for Man, and sheltered him beneath His guidance....Read more of this...
by
Gibran, Kahlil
...rightened,
Through my dumb lips the heaven-sent message came;
If hand of mine another's task has lightened,
It felt the guidance that it dares not claim.
But, O my gentle sisters, O my brothers,
These thick-sown snow-flakes hint of toil's release;
These feebler pulses bid me leave to others
The tasks once welcome; evening asks for peace.
Time claims his tribute; silence now golden;
Let me not vex the too long suffering lyre;
Though to your love untiring still beholden,
The ...Read more of this...
by
Holmes, Oliver Wendell
...aunt exiled,
Shall flee before thy presence fair.
We bow us to our lot of care,
Beneath thy guidance reconciled:
Hear for a maid a maiden's prayer,
And for a father hear a child!
Ave Maria!
***.
Died on the harp the closing hymn,—
Unmoved in attitude and limb,
As listening still, Clan-Alpine's lord
Stood leaning on his heavy sword,
Until the page w...Read more of this...
by
Scott, Sir Walter
...re?
A hundred years have roll'd away
Since he refix'd the Moslem's sway,
And now he led the Mussulman,
And gave the guidance of the van
To Alp, who well repaid the trust
By cities levell'd with the dust;
And proved, by many a deed of death,
How firm his heart in novel faith.
VI.
The walls grew weak; and fast and hot
Against them pour'd the ceaseless shot,
With unabating fury sent,
From battery to battlement;
And thunder-like the pealing din
Rose from each hea...Read more of this...
by
Byron, George (Lord)
...as bent a dun & faint etherial gloom
Tempering the light; upon the chariot's beam
A Janus-visaged Shadow did assume
The guidance of that wonder-winged team.
The Shapes which drew it in thick lightnings
Were lost: I heard alone on the air's soft stream
The music of their ever moving wings.
All the four faces of that charioteer
Had their eyes banded . . . little profit brings
Speed in the van & blindness in the rear,
Nor then avail the beams that quench the Sun
Or that his band...Read more of this...
by
Shelley, Percy Bysshe
...to you
And from your teachings gathered the manna
Of meaning eluding me alone in my northern eyrie?
Chance or God’s guidance – being a poet I chose the latter –
Brought me to dip my ankle like an amah’s blessing
Into the Holy Ganges of prelude and grosse fuge
Of ego and unconscious, wandering alone
In uncharted waters and faltering
Until I raised my hand and found it grasped
By your firm fingers pulling inexorably shoreward.
Did I know, how could I know, madness ...Read more of this...
by
Tebb, Barry
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