Famous Heal Poems by Famous Poets

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

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The Portent

by Herman Melville
 Hanging from the beam, 
Slowly swaying (such the law), 
Gaunt the shadow on the green, 
Shenandoah! 
The cut is on the crown 
(Lo, John Brown), 
And the stabs shall heal no more. 

Hidden in the cap 
Is the anguish none can draw; 
So your future veils its face, 
Shenandoah! 
But the streaming beard is shown 
(Weird John Brown), 
The...Read more of this...

The Watchman

by Lucy Maud Montgomery
 My Claudia, it is long since we have met, 
So kissed, so held each other heart to heart! 
I thought to greet thee as a conqueror comes, 
Bearing the trophies of his prowess home, 
But Jove hath willed it should be otherwise­
Jove, say I? Nay, some mightier stranger-god 
Who thus hath laid his heavy hand on me, 
No victor,...Read more of this...

The Galley-Slave

by Rudyard Kipling
 Oh gallant was our galley from her caren steering-wheel
To her figurehead of silver and her beak of hammered steel;
The leg-bar chafed the ankle and we gasped for cooler air,
But no galley on the waters with our galley could compare!

Our bulkheads bulged with cotton and our masts were stepped in gold --
We ran a mighty merchandise of niggers in the...Read more of this...

Philomela

by Matthew Arnold
 Hark! ah, the nightingale— 
The tawny-throated!
Hark, from that moonlit cedar what a burst!
What triumph! hark!—what pain!

O wanderer from a Grecian shore,
Still, after many years, in distant lands,
Still nourishing in thy bewildered brain
That wild, unquenched, deep-sunken, old-world pain— 
Say, will it never heal?
And can this fragrant lawn
With its cool trees, and night,
And the sweet tranquil Thames,
And moonshine, and the dew,
To...Read more of this...

Here Is A Wound That Never Will Heal I Know

by Edna St. Vincent Millay
 Here is a wound that never will heal, I know,
Being wrought not of a dearness and a death,
But of a love turned ashes and the breath
Gone out of beauty; never again will grow
The grass on that scarred acre, though I sow
Young seed there yearly and the sky bequeath
Its friendly weathers down, far Underneath
Shall be such bitterness of an old...Read more of this...

Musketaquid

by Ralph Waldo Emerson
 Because I was content with these poor fields, 
Low, open meads, slender and sluggish streams, 
And found a home in haunts which others scorned, 
The partial wood-gods overpaid my love, 
And granted me the freedom of their state, 
And in their secret senate have prevailed 
With the dear, dangerous lords that rule our life, 
Made moon and planets parties...Read more of this...

Damon The Mower

by Andrew Marvell
 Heark how the Mower Damon Sung,
With love of Juliana stung!
While ev'ry thing did seem to paint
The Scene more fit for his complaint.
Like her fair Eyes the day was fair;
But scorching like his am'rous Care.
Sharp like his Sythe his Sorrow was,
And wither'd like his Hopes the Grass.

Oh what unusual Heats are here,
Which thus our Sun-burn'd Meadows sear!
The Grass-hopper its pipe...Read more of this...

The Contrite Heart

by William Cowper
 (Isaiah, lvii.15)

The Lord will happiness divine
On contrite hearts bestow;
Then tell me, gracious God, is mine
A contrite heart or no?

I hear, but seem to hear in vain,
Insensible as steel;
If aught is felt, 'tis only pain,
To find I cannot feel.

I sometimes think myself inclined
To love Thee if I could;
But often feel another mind,
Averse to all that's good.

My best desires are faint...Read more of this...

The Valley of the Shadow of Death

by William Cowper
 My soul is sad, and much dismay'd;
See, Lord, what legions of my foes,
With fierce Apollyon at their head,
My heavenly pilgrimage oppose.

See, from the ever-burning lake,
How like a smoky cloud they rise!
With horrid blasts my soul they shake,
With storms of blasphemies and lies.

Their fiery arrows reach the mark,
My throbbing heart with anguish tear;
Each lights upon a kindred spark,
And finds abundant...Read more of this...

The Living Lost

by William Cullen Bryant
 Matron! the children of whose love,
Each to his grave, in youth have passed,
And now the mould is heaped above
The dearest and the last!
Bride! who dost wear the widow's veil
Before the wedding flowers are pale!
Ye deem the human heart endures
No deeper, bitterer grief than yours.

Yet there are pangs of keener wo,
Of which the sufferers never speak,
Nor to the world's cold...Read more of this...

Doctors

by Anne Sexton
 They work with herbs
and penicillin
They work with gentleness
and the scalpel.
They dig out the cancer,
close an incision
and say a prayer
to the poverty of the skin.
They are not Gods
though they would like to be;
they are only a human
trying to fix up a human.
Many humans die.
They die like the tender,
palpitating berries
in November.
But all along the doctors remember:
First do no harm.
They would kiss...Read more of this...

The Deepest Dream

by Mark Van Doren
 The deepest dream is of mad governors, 
Down, down we feel it, till the very crust 
Of the world cracks, and where there was no dust, 
Atoms of ruin rise. Confusion stirs, 
And fear; and all our thoughts--dark scavengers-- 
Feed on the center's refuse. Hope is thrust 
Like wind away, and love sinks into lust 
For merest safety, meanest...Read more of this...

The Bedridden Peasant to an Unknown God

by Thomas Hardy
 Much wonder I--here long low-laid - 
 That this dead wall should be 
Betwixt the Maker and the made, 
 Between Thyself and me! 

For, say one puts a child to nurse, 
 He eyes it now and then 
To know if better 'tis, or worse, 
 And if it mourn, and when. 

But Thou, Lord, giv'st us men...Read more of this...

Ballad of the Goodly Fere

by Ezra Pound
 Simon Zelotes speaking after the Crucifixion.
Fere=Mate, Companion.

Ha' we lost the goodliest fere o' all
For the priests and the gallows tree?
Aye lover he was of brawny men,
O' ships and the open sea.

When they came wi' a host to take Our Man
His smile was good to see,
"First let these go!" quo' our Goodly Fere,
"Or I'll see ye damned," says he.

Aye he...Read more of this...

Stay

by Ingeborg Bachmann
 For why cometh a time,

When you forget yesterday?

Forgot our vows that we made,

And turn and walk away.
*****
How can a heart forget,

The love we once had?

And turn yourself against me,

And make my soul so sad.
*****
You’ve found someone better,

And you’ll leave us behind;

You think you can change your heart,

And erase your troubled mind.
*****
How can you just quit,

And let our love just...Read more of this...

The Sleep-Worker

by Thomas Hardy
 When wilt thou wake, O Mother, wake and see - 
As one who, held in trance, has laboured long 
By vacant rote and prepossession strong - 
The coils that thou hast wrought unwittingly; 

Wherein have place, unrealized by thee, 
Fair growths, foul cankers, right enmeshed with wrong, 
Strange orchestras of victim-shriek and song, 
And curious blends of ache and...Read more of this...

February: The Boy Breughel

by Norman Dubie
 The birches stand in their beggar's row:
Each poor tree
Has had its wrists nearly
Torn from the clear sleeves of bone,
These icy trees
Are hanging by their thumbs
Under a sun
That will begin to heal them soon,
Each will climb out
Of its own blue, oval mouth;
The river groans,
Two birds call out from the woods

And a fox crosses through snow
Down a hill; then, he runs,
He...Read more of this...

Easter Morning

by A R Ammons
 I have a life that did not become,
that turned aside and stopped,
astonished:
I hold it in me like a pregnancy or
as on my lap a child
not to grow old but dwell on

it is to his grave I most
frequently return and return
to ask what is wrong, what was
wrong, to see it all by
the light of a different necessity
but the grave will...Read more of this...

When the Lad for Longing Sighs

by A E Housman
 When the lad for longing sighs, 
Mute and dull of cheer and pale, 
If at death's own door he lies, 
Maiden, you can heal his ail. 

Lovers' ills are all to buy: 
The wan look, the hollow tone, 
The hung head, the sunken eye, 
You can have them for your own. 

Buy them, buy them: eve and morn 
Lovers'...Read more of this...

Hiawathas Lamentation

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
 In those days the Evil Spirits,
All the Manitos of mischief,
Fearing Hiawatha's wisdom,
And his love for Chibiabos,
Jealous of their faithful friendship,
And their noble words and actions,
Made at length a league against them,
To molest them and destroy them.
Hiawatha, wise and wary,
Often said to Chibiabos,
"O my brother! do not leave me,
Lest the Evil Spirits harm you!"
Chibiabos, young and heedless,
Laughing shook his coal-black...Read more of this...

Hymn 97

by Isaac Watts
 Christ our wisdom, righteousness, etc.

1 Cor. 1:30. 

Buried in shadows of the night
We lie till Christ restores the light;
Wisdom descends to heal the blind,
And chase the darkness of the mind.

Our guilty souls are drowned in tears
Till his atoning blood appears;
Then we awake from deep distress,
And sing, "The Lord our Righteousness."

Our very frame is mixed with sin,
His Spirit makes our...Read more of this...

Happy As The Day Is Long

by Edward Taylor
 I take the long walk up the staircase to my secret room.
Today's big news: they found Amelia Earhart's shoe, size 9.
1992: Charlie Christian is bebopping at Minton's in 1941.
Today, the Presidential primaries have failed us once again.
We'll look for our excitement elsewhere, in the last snow
that is falling, in tomorrow's Gospel Concert in Springfield.
It's a good day to be...Read more of this...

Jehovah-Rophi. I Am the Lord That Healeth Thee

by William Cowper
 (Exodus, xv.26)

Heal us, Emmanuel! here we are,
Waiting to feel Thy touch:
Deep-wounded souls to Thee repair
And, Saviour, we are such.

Our faith is feeble, we confess,
We faintly trust Thy word;
But wilt Thou pity us the less?
Be that far from Thee, Lord!

Remember him who once applied,
With trembling, for relief;
"Lord, I believe," with tears he cried,
"Oh, help my unbelief!"

She too, who touch'd Thee...Read more of this...

The Sergeants Song

by Thomas Hardy
 WHEN Lawyers strive to heal a breach,
And Parsons practise what they preach;
Then Little Boney he'll pounce down,
And march his men on London town!
Rollicum-rorum, tol-lol-lorum,
Rollicum-rorum, tol-lol-lay!

When Justices hold equal scales,
And Rogues are only found in jails;
Then Little Boney he'll pounce down,
And march his men on London town!
Rollicum-rorum, etc.

When Rich Men find their wealth a curse,
And fill therewith the Poor Man's...Read more of this...

A Hymn to the Name and Honour of the Admirable Saint Teresa

by Richard Crashaw
 LOVE, thou are absolute, sole Lord
Of life and death. To prove the word,
We'll now appeal to none of all
Those thy old soldiers, great and tall,
Ripe men of martyrdom, that could reach down
With strong arms their triumphant crown:
Such as could with lusty breath
Speak loud, unto the face of death,
Their great Lord's glorious name; to none
Of those whose spacious bosoms spread...Read more of this...

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