Famous Hearkened Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Iii

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
To-day my skies are bare and ashen,
And bend on me without a beam.
Since love is held the master-passion,
Its loss must be the pain supreme—
And grinning Fate has wrecked my dream.
But pardon, dear departed Guest,
I will not rant, I will not rail;
For good the grain must feel the flail;
There are whom love has never blessed.
I had and have a younger brother,
One...Read more of this...

Psalm 106 part 2

by Isaac Watts
 v.7,8,12ff 
S. M.
Israel punished and pardoned; or, God's unchangeable love.

God of eternal love,
How fickle are our ways!
And yet how oft did Isr'el prove
Thy constancy of grace!

They saw thy wonders wrought,
And then thy praise they sung;
But soon thy works of power forgot,
And murmured with their tongue.

Now they believe his word
While rocks with rivers flow;
Now with their lusts provoke the Lord,
And...Read more of this...

Sea-adventurers' Song

by Victor Hugo
 ("En partant du Golfe d'Otrante.") 
 
 {Bk. XXVIII.} 


 We told thirty when we started 
 From port so taut and fine, 
 But soon our crew were parted, 
 Till now we number nine. 
 
 Tom Robbins, English, tall and straight, 
 Left us at Aetna light; 
 He left us to investigate 
 What made...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...

The Cremation Of Sam McGee

by Robert William Service
 There are strange things done in the midnight sun
 By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
 That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen ***** sights,
 But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
 I cremated Sam McGee.

Now Sam McGee was from Tennessee,...Read more of this...

Dirge

by Ralph Waldo Emerson
 Knows he who tills this lonely field
To reap its scanty corn,
What mystic fruit his acres yield
At midnight and at morn?

In the long sunny afternoon,
The plain was full of ghosts,
I wandered up, I wandered down,
Beset by pensive hosts.

The winding Concord gleamed below,
Pouring as wide a flood
As when my brothers long ago,
Came with me to the wood.

But they are gone,— the...Read more of this...

Longfellow

by Henry Van Dyke
 In a great land, a new land, a land full of labour 
and riches and confusion,
Where there were many running to and fro, and
shouting, and striving together,
In the midst of the hurry and the troubled noise, 
I heard the voice of one singing. 

"What are you doing there, O man, singing
quietly amid all this tumult?
This is the time for...Read more of this...

Childhood

by Victor Hugo
 ("L'enfant chantait.") 
 
 {Bk. I. xxiii., Paris, January, 1835.} 


 The small child sang; the mother, outstretched on the low bed, 
 With anguish moaned,—fair Form pain should possess not long; 
 For, ever nigher, Death hovered around her head: 
 I hearkened there this moan, and heard even there that song. 
 
 The child was but...Read more of this...

When Smoke Stood Up From Ludlow

by A E Housman
 When smoke stood up from Ludlow, 
And mist blew off from Teme, 
And blithe afield to ploughing 
Against the morning beam 
I strode beside my team, 

The blackbird in the coppice 
Looked out to see me stride, 
And hearkened as I whistled 
The trampling team beside, 
And fluted and replied: 

"Lie down, lie down, young yeoman; 
What use to...Read more of this...

Whence Cometh Such Tender Rapture?

by Marina Tsvetaeva
 Whence cometh such tender rapture?
Those curls--they are not the first ones
I've smoothened, and I've already
Known lips--that were darker than yours.

The stars have risen and faded,
--Whence cometh such tender rapture?--
And eyes have risen and faded 
In face of these eyes of mine

I'd never yet hearkened unto
Such songs in the depths of darkness,
--Whence cometh such tender rapture?--
My head on the bard's...Read more of this...

By the Aurelian Wall

by Bliss Carman
 In Memory of John Keats
By the Aurelian Wall,
Where the long shadows of the centuries fall
From Caius Cestius' tomb,
A weary mortal seeking rest found room
For quiet burial,
Leaving among his friends
A book of lyrics.
Such untold amends
A traveller might make
In a strange country, bidden to partake
Before he farther wends;

Who slyly should bestow
The foreign reed-flute they had seen him blow
And finger cunningly,
On one...Read more of this...

You Looked So Tempting In The Pew

by Robert Louis Stevenson
 YOU looked so tempting in the pew,
You looked so sly and calm -
My trembling fingers played with yours
As both looked out the Psalm.

Your heart beat hard against my arm,
My foot to yours was set,
Your loosened ringlet burned my cheek
Whenever they two met.

O little, little we hearkened, dear,
And little, little cared,
Although the parson sermonised,
The congregation stared....Read more of this...

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