Famous Help Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Many People Come to Visit and Bring Wine After I Fell Off My Horse, Drunk

by Du Fu
 Fu (this) duke old guest Finish wine drunk sing open gold halberd Ride horse suddenly remember youth time Scatter hoof pour fall Qutang stone Baidicheng gate water cloud outside Lower body straight down eight thousand feet Whitewashed battlements lightning pass purple loose reins East gain level ridge out heaven cliff River village country hall fight enter eye...Read more of this...

A Day! Help! Help! Another Day!

by Emily Dickinson
 A Day! Help! Help! Another Day!
Your prayers, oh Passer by!
From such a common ball as this
Might date a Victory!
From marshallings as simple
The flags of nations swang.
Steady -- my soul: What issues
Upon thine arrow hang!...Read more of this...

Fisherman jims kids

by Eugene Field
 Fisherman Jim lived on the hill
With his bonnie wife an' his little boys;
'T wuz "Blow, ye winds, as blow ye will -
Naught we reck of your cold and noise!"
For happy and warm were he an' his,
And he dandled his kids upon his knee
To the song of the sea.

Fisherman Jim would sail all day,
But, when come night, upon the sands
His...Read more of this...

The Hangmans Great Hands

by Kenneth Patchen
 And all that is this day. . . 
The boy with cap slung over what had been a face. .. 

Somehow the cop will sleep tonight, will make love to his
wife... 
Anger won't help. I was born angry. Angry that my father was
being burnt alive in the mills; Angry that none of us knew
anything but filth, and poverty. Angry...Read more of this...

From ‘The Soul's Travelling'

by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
 God, God! 
With a child’s voice I cry, 
Weak, sad, confidingly— 
God, God! 
Thou knowest, eyelids, raised not always up 
Unto Thy love (as none of ours are), droop 
As ours, o’er many a tear! 
Thou knowest, though Thy universe is broad, 
Two little tears suffice to cover all: 
Thou knowest, Thou, who art so prodigal 
Of beauty, we...Read more of this...

Before Storm

by Lucy Maud Montgomery
 There's a grayness over the harbor like fear on the face of a woman,
The sob of the waves has a sound akin to a woman's cry,
And the deeps beyond the bar are moaning with evil presage
Of a storm that will leap from its lair in that dour north-eastern sky. 

Slowly the pale mists rise, like ghosts of the sea,...Read more of this...

Ballade to Our Lady of Czestochowa

by Hilaire Belloc
 I

Lady and Queen and Mystery manifold
And very Regent of the untroubled sky,
Whom in a dream St. Hilda did behold
And heard a woodland music passing by:
You shall receive me when the clouds are high
With evening and the sheep attain the fold.
This is the faith that I have held and hold,
And this is that in which I mean to die.

II

Steep are...Read more of this...

Little all-aloney

by Eugene Field
 Little All-Aloney's feet
Pitter-patter in the hall,
And his mother runs to meet
And to kiss her toddling sweet,
Ere perchance he fall.
He is, oh, so weak and small!
Yet what danger shall he fear
When his mother hovereth near,
And he hears her cheering call:
"All-Aloney"?

Little All-Aloney's face
It is all aglow with glee,
As around that romping-place
At a terrifying pace
Lungeth, plungeth he!
And that hero seems to be
All...Read more of this...

Sonnet LXI: Since Theres No Help

by Michael Drayton
 Since there's no help, come, let us kiss and part, 
Nay, I have done, you get no more of me, 
And I am glad, yea, glad with all my heart, 
That thus so cleanly I myself can free. 
Shake hands for ever, cancel all our vows, 
And when we meet at any time again 
Be it not seen in...Read more of this...

Hiawathas Fishing

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
 Forth upon the Gitche Gumee, 
On the shining Big-Sea-Water, 
With his fishing-line of cedar, 
Of the twisted bark of cedar, 
Forth to catch the sturgeon Nahma, 
Mishe-Nahma, King of Fishes, 
In his birch canoe exulting 
All alone went Hiawatha.
Through the clear, transparent water 
He could see the fishes swimming 
Far down in the depths below him; 
See the yellow...Read more of this...

The Trap

by Vachel Lindsay
 She was taught desire in the street, 
Not at the angels' feet. 
By the good no word was said 
Of the worth of the bridal bed. 
The secret was learned from the vile, 
Not from her mother's smile. 
Home spoke not. And the girl 
Was caught in the public whirl. 
Do you say "She gave consent: 
Life drunk, she...Read more of this...

Yes, I’ll marry you, my dear

by Pam Ayres
Yes, I’ll marry you, my dear.
And here’s the reason why.
So I can push you out of bed
When the baby starts to cry.
And if we hear a knocking
And it’s creepy and it’s late,
I hand you the torch you see,
And you investigate.

Yes I’ll marry you, my dear,
You may not apprehend it,
But when the tumble-drier goes
It’s you that has to mend it.
You have...Read more of this...

The Rock and The Bubble

by Louisa May Alcott
 Oh! a bare, brown rock 
Stood up in the sea, 
The waves at its feet 
Dancing merrily. 

A little bubble 
Once came sailing by, 
And thus to the rock 
Did it gayly cry,-- 

"Ho! clumsy brown stone, 
Quick, make way for me: 
I'm the fairest thing 
That floats on the sea. 

"See my rainbow-robe, 
See my crown of light,...Read more of this...

This Life

by Grace Paley
 My friend tells me
a man in my house jumped off the roof
the roof is the eighth floor of this building
the roof door was locked how did he manage?
his girlfriend had said goodbye I'm leaving
he was 22
his mother and father were hurrying
at that very moment
from upstate to help him move out of Brooklyn
they had heard about the girl

the people who...Read more of this...

Motel Seedy

by Thomas Lux
 The artisans of this room, who designed the lamp base
(a huge red slug with a hole
where its heart should be) or chose this print
of a butterscotch sunset,
must have been abused in art class
as children, forced to fingerpaint
with a nose, or a tongue. To put this color
green--exhausted grave grass--to cinder blocks
takes an understanding of loneliness
and/or institutions that terrifies.
It would seem...Read more of this...

De Profundis

by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
 I

The face, which, duly as the sun, 
Rose up for me with life begun, 
To mark all bright hours of the day 
With hourly love, is dimmed away—
And yet my days go on, go on.

II 

The tongue which, like a stream, could run
Smooth music from the roughest stone, 
And every morning with ' Good day'
Make each day good, is...Read more of this...

The Burning of the Ship Kent

by William Topaz McGonagall
 Good people of high and low degree,
I pray ye all to list to me,
And I'll relate a harrowing tale of the sea
Concerning the burning of the ship "Kent" in the Bay of Biscay,
Which is the most appalling tale of the present century. 

She carried a crew, including officers, of 148 men,
And twenty lady passengers along with them;
Besides 344 men...Read more of this...

289. Song—Awa' Whigs Awa'

by Robert Burns
 Chorus.—Awa’ Whigs, awa’!
 Awa’ Whigs, awa’!
Ye’re but a pack o’ traitor louns,
 Ye’ll do nae gude at a’.


OUR thrissles flourish’d fresh and fair,
 And bonie bloom’d our roses;
But Whigs cam’ like a frost in June,
 An’ wither’d a’ our posies.
 Awa’ Whigs, &c.


Our ancient crown’s fa’en in the dust—
 Deil blin’ them wi’ the stoure o’t!
An’ write their names...Read more of this...

Praise (I)

by George Herbert
 To write a verse or two is all the praise
That I can raise: 
Mend my estate in any ways, 
Thou shalt have more.

I go to Church; help me to wings, and I
Will thither fly; 
Or, if I mount unto the sky, 
I will do more.

Man is all weakness; there is no such thing
As Prince or King: 
His arm is...Read more of this...

The Hero of Kalapore

by William Topaz McGonagall
 The 27th Regiment has mutinied at Kalapore;
That was the substance of a telegram, which caused great uproar,
At Sattara, on the evening of the 8th of July,
And when the British officers heard it, they heaved a bitter sigh. 

'Twas in the year of 1857,
Which will long be remembered: Oh! Heaven!
That the Sepoys revolted, and killed their British officers and their...Read more of this...

Dream Song 131: Come touch me baby in his waking dream

by John Berryman
 Come touch me baby in his waking dream
disordered Henry murmured. I'll read you Hegel
and that will hurt your mind
I can't remember when you were unkind
but I will clear that block, I'll set you on fire
along with our babies

to save them up the high & ruined stairs,
my growing daughters. I am insane, I think,
they say & act so.
But then they...Read more of this...

For The Country

by Philip Levine
 THE DREAM

This has nothing to do with war 
or the end of the world. She 
dreams there are gray starlings 
on the winter lawn and the buds 
of next year's oranges alongside 
this year's oranges, and the sun 
is still up, a watery circle 
of fire settling into the sky 
at dinner time, but there's no 
flame racing through...Read more of this...

To help our Bleaker Parts

by Emily Dickinson
 To help our Bleaker Parts
Salubrious Hours are given
Which if they do not fir for Earth
Drill silently for Heaven --...Read more of this...

To His Two Children

by Li Po
 In the land of Wu the mulberry leaves are green,
And thrice the silkworms have gone to sleep.
In East Luh where my family stay,
I wonder who is sowing those fields of ours.
I cannot be back in time for the spring doings,
Yet I can help nothing, traveling on the river.
The south wind blowing wafts my homesick spirit
And carries it up to...Read more of this...

The Dons of Spain

by Henry Lawson
 The Eagle screams at the beck of trade, so Spain, as the world goes round, 
Must wrestle the right to live or die from the sons of the land she found; 
For, as in the days when the buccaneer was abroad on the Spanish Main, 
The national honour is one thing dear to the hearts of the Dons of...Read more of this...

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