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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Beowulf (Modern English)

...d against us.
The waves were cruel, and the spirits of sea-monsters
were stirred up. There my body-sark gave me
some help against their hatred, hardened and hand-linked,
the woven war-dress laying on my breast,
fretted with gold. A speckled harmer, hostile,
had me fast, tore me to the sea floor,
grim in his grip. However, it was granted me
to skewer the monster on the tip of my battle-sword.
The rush of warfare seized the mighty sea-beast
through my hand. (ll. 544-5...Read more of this...
by Anonymous,


Hyperion

...onderest high and deep; and in thy face
I see, astonied, that severe content
Which comes of thought and musing: give us help!"

 So ended Saturn; and the God of the sea,
Sophist and sage, from no Athenian grove,
But cogitation in his watery shades,
Arose, with locks not oozy, and began,
In murmurs, which his first-endeavouring tongue
Caught infant-like from the far-foamed sands.
"O ye, whom wrath consumes! who, passion-stung,
Writhe at defeat, and nurse your agonies!
Shut up ...Read more of this...
by Keats, John

I Cry

...
If I had an ear to confide in,
I would cry among my treasured friend,
but who do you know that stops that long,
to help another carry on.
The world moves fast and it would rather pass by.
Then to stop and see what makes one cry,
so painful and sad.
And sometimes...
I Cry
and no one cares about why. ...Read more of this...
by Shakur, Tupac

Inferno (English)

...lan 
 Cast the Donati exiled out, and they 
 Within three years return, and more offend 
 Than they were erst offended, helped by him 
 So long who palters with both parts. The fire 
 Three sparks have lighted - Avarice, Envy, Pride, - 
 And there is none may quench it." 
 Here
 he ceased 
 His lamentable tale, and I replied, 
 "Of one thing more I ask thee. Great desire 
 Is mine to learn it. Where are those who sought 
 Our welfare earlier? Those whose names at least 
 Are ...Read more of this...
by Alighieri, Dante

Maple

...
By and by I will tell you all I know
About the different trees, and something, too,
About your mother that perhaps may help."
Dangerous self-arousing words to sow.
Luckily all she wanted of her name then
Was to rebuke her teacher with it next day,
And give the teacher a scare as from her father.
Anything further had been wasted on her,
Or so he tried to think to avoid blame.
She would forget it. She all but forgot it.
What he sowed with her slept so long a sleep,
And came so...Read more of this...
by Frost, Robert


Snow

...ed
To play—”

“You tend your horses and come back.
Fred Cole, you’re going to let him!”

“Well, aren’t you?
How can you help yourself?”

“I called him Brother.
Why did I call him that?”

“It’s right enough.
That’s all you ever heard him called round here.
He seems to have lost off his Christian name.”

“Christian enough I should call that myself.
He took no notice, did he? Well, at least
I didn’t use it out of love of him,
The dear knows. I detest the thought of him
With his ...Read more of this...
by Frost, Robert

Song of Myself

...lear light plays on the brown gray and green intertinged; 
The armfuls are pack’d to the sagging mow. 

I am there—I help—I came stretch’d atop of the load; 
I felt its soft jolts—one leg reclined on the other; 
I jump from the cross-beams, and seize the clover and timothy,
And roll head over heels, and tangle my hair full of wisps. 

10
Alone, far in the wilds and mountains, I hunt, 
Wandering, amazed at my own lightness and glee; 
In the late afternoon choosing a...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt

The Ballad of the White Horse

...ar and spade,
With desperate dyke and wall,
With foemen leaning on his shield
And roaring on him when he reeled;
And no help came at all.

He broke them with a broken sword
A little towards the sea,
And for one hour of panting peace,
Ringed with a roar that would not cease,
With golden crown and girded fleece
Made laws under a tree.


The Northmen came about our land
A Christless chivalry:
Who knew not of the arch or pen,
Great, beautiful half-witted men
From the sunrise and ...Read more of this...
by Chesterton, G K

The Growth of Love

..., the scented fall: 
Could I forget, then were the fight not hard,
Press'd in the mêlée of accursed things,
Having such help in love and such reward:
But that 'tis I who once--'tis this that stings--
Once dwelt within the gate that angels guard,
Where yet I'd be had I but heavenly wings. 

42
When I see childhood on the threshold seize
The prize of life from age and likelihood,
I mourn time's change that will not be withstood,
Thinking how Christ said Be like one of these.
Fo...Read more of this...
by Bridges, Robert Seymour

The Holy Grail

...r early that same day, 
Scaped through a cavern from a bandit hold, 
An outraged maiden sprang into the hall 
Crying on help: for all her shining hair 
Was smeared with earth, and either milky arm 
Red-rent with hooks of bramble, and all she wore 
Torn as a sail that leaves the rope is torn 
In tempest: so the King arose and went 
To smoke the scandalous hive of those wild bees 
That made such honey in his realm. Howbeit 
Some little of this marvel he too saw, 
Returning o'er...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord

The Hunting Of The Snark

...rs," said the Baker, in tears,
 "And proceed without further remark
To the day when you took me aboard of your ship
 To help you in hunting the Snark.

"A dear uncle of mine (after whom I was named)
 Remarked, when I bade him farewell--"
"Oh, skip your dear uncle!" the Bellman exclaimed,
 As he angrily tingled his bell.

"He remarked to me then," said that mildest of men,
 " 'If your Snark be a Snark, that is right:
Fetch it home by all means--you may serve it with greens,
 A...Read more of this...
by Carroll, Lewis

The Idiot Boy

...  As if her very life would fail.   There's not a house within a mile,  No hand to help them in distress;  Old Susan lies a bed in pain,  And sorely puzzled are the twain,  For what she ails they cannot guess.   And Betty's husband's at the wood,  Where by the week he doth abide,  A woodman in the distant vale;  There's none to help poor Susan Gale,  Wha...Read more of this...
by Wordsworth, William

The Knights Tale

...r presence prosperous estate*
Here in this temple of the goddess Clemence
We have been waiting all this fortenight:
Now help us, lord, since it lies in thy might.

"I, wretched wight, that weep and waile thus,
Was whilom wife to king Capaneus,
That starf* at Thebes, cursed be that day: *died 
And alle we that be in this array,
And maken all this lamentatioun,
We losten all our husbands at that town,
While that the siege thereabouten lay.
And yet the olde Creon, wellaway!
T...Read more of this...
by Chaucer, Geoffrey

The Lady of the Lake

...the moor
     The stern pursuit be passed and o'er,'—
     ***.

     'No, by mine honor,' Roderick said,
     'So help me Heaven, and my good blade!
     No, never! Blasted be yon Pine,
     My father's ancient crest and mine,
     If from its shade in danger part
     The lineage of the Bleeding Heart!
     Hear my blunt speech: grant me this maid
     To wife, thy counsel to mine aid;
     To Douglas, leagued with Roderick Dhu,
     Will friends and allies flo...Read more of this...
by Scott, Sir Walter

The Raven

...ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly,
Though its answer little meaning—little relevancy bore;
    For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being
    Ever yet was blessed with seeing bird above his chamber door—
Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door,
            With such name as “Nevermore.”

    But the Raven, sitting lonely on the placid bust, spoke only
That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour.
    Nothing...Read more of this...
by Poe, Edgar Allan

The Vision of Judgment

...will no doubt, 
(Just like those cherubs, earthly ministers,) 
For some resource to turn himself about, 
And claim the help of his celestial peers, 
To aid him ere he should be quite worn out 
By the increased demand for his remarks: 
Six angels and twelve saints were named his clerks. 

V

This was a handsome board — at least for heaven; 
And yet they had even then enough to do, 
So many conqueror's cars were daily driven, 
So many kingdoms fitted up anew; 
Each day too sle...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)

The Waste Land

...t won't be for lack of telling.
You ought to be ashamed, I said, to look so antique.
(And her only thirty-one.)
I can't help it, she said, pulling a long face,
It's them pills I took, to bring it off, she said.
(She's had five already, and nearly died of young George.) 
The chemist said it would be alright, but I've never been the same.
You are a proper fool, I said.
Well, if Albert won't leave you alone, there it is, I said,
What you get married for if you don't want childre...Read more of this...
by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)

The White Cliffs

...s shoe
To supply her house for a week or two.
The war of 1812 seems to me
About as just as a war could be.
How could we help but come to grips
With a nation that stopped and searched our ships,
And took off our seamen for no other reason
Except that they needed crews that season.
I can get angry still at the tale
Of their letting the Alabama sail,
And Palmerston being insolent
To Lincoln and Seward over the Trent.
All very long ago, you'll say,
But whenever I go up Boston-way...Read more of this...
by Miller, Alice Duer

Three Women

...pens in me will happen without attention.
The pheasant stands on the hill;
He is arranging his brown feathers.
I cannot help smiling at what it is I know.
Leaves and petals attend me. I am ready.

SECOND VOICE:
When I first saw it, the small red seep, I did not believe it.
I watched the men walk about me in the office. They were so flat!
There was something about them like cardboard, and now I had caught it,
That flat, flat, flatness from which ideas, destructions,
Bulldozers...Read more of this...
by Plath, Sylvia

White Flock

...my dear one,
I'll respond before the Lord.



x x x

From memory of you I will remove that day,
So that your helpless-foggy look will ask this:
Where did I see the Persian lilac bush,
The swallows and the wooden house?

Oh, how often will you recollect
The sudden angst of the uncalled desires
And in the pensive cities you did seek
That street which was not on the map entire!

Upon the sound of voice behind an open door,
Upon the sight of every accidental ...Read more of this...
by Akhmatova, Anna

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