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Famous Hourly Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Burns, Robert
...a censure;
For still, th’ important end of life
 They equally may answer;
A man may hae an honest heart,
 Tho’ poortith hourly stare him;
A man may tak a neibor’s part,
 Yet hae nae cash to spare him.


Aye free, aff-han’, your story tell,
 When wi’ a bosom crony;
But still keep something to yoursel’,
 Ye scarcely tell to ony:
Conceal yoursel’ as weel’s ye can
 Frae critical dissection;
But keek thro’ ev’ry other man,
 Wi’ sharpen’d, sly inspection.


The sacred lowe ...Read more of this...



by Aiken, Conrad
...ps a skyful of Ben Franklin's kites.
And with them, us. For we must hear and bear
the news from everywhere: the hourly news,
infinitesimal or vast, from everywhere.

III

Sole pride and loneliness: it is the state
the kingdom rather of all things: we hear
news of the heart in weather of the Bear,
slide down the rungs of Cassiopeia's Chair,
still on the nursery floor, the Milky Way;
and, if we question one, must question all.
What is this ‘man'? How far from hi...Read more of this...

by Killigrew, Anne
..., Love will easie make. 

Ah, if thou couldst incline a gentle Ear, 
Of plighted Faith, and hated Hymen hear; 
Thou hourly then my spotless Love should'st see, 
That all my Study, how to please, should be; 
How to protect thee from disturbing Care, 
And in thy Griefs to bear the greatest share; 
Nor should a Joy, my Warie Heart surprize, 
That first I read not in thy charming Eyes. 
 Alin. If ever I to any do impart, 
My, till this present hour, well-guarded Heart...Read more of this...

by Browning, Elizabeth Barrett
...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 hushed away,
And yet my days go on, go on.

III

The heart which, like a staff, was one 
For mine to lean and rest upon, 
The strongest on the long...Read more of this...

by Keats, John
.... Thus all out-told
Their fond imaginations,--saving him
Whose eyelids curtain'd up their jewels dim,
Endymion: yet hourly had he striven
To hide the cankering venom, that had riven
His fainting recollections. Now indeed
His senses had swoon'd off: he did not heed
The sudden silence, or the whispers low,
Or the old eyes dissolving at his woe,
Or anxious calls, or close of trembling palms,
Or maiden's sigh, that grief itself embalms:
But in the self-same fixed trance h...Read more of this...



by Shakespeare, William
...eyes: 
 Nothing of him that doth fade, 
But doth suffer a sea-change 
Into something rich and strange. 
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell: 
 Ding-dong. 
 Hark! now I hear them-- 
 Ding-dong, bell!...Read more of this...

by Marvell, Andrew
...m the deserv?d fate their guilty lives: 
Thus (image-like) an useless time they tell, 
And with vain sceptre strike the hourly bell, 
Nor more contribute to the state of things, 
Than wooden heads unto the viol's strings. 

While indefatigable Cromwell hies, 
And cuts his way still nearer to the skies, 
Learning a music in the region clear, 
To tune this lower to that higher sphere. 

So when Amphion did the lute command, 
Which the god gave him, with his gentle hand,...Read more of this...

by Bronte, Charlotte
..., 
And the heart ventured to believe,
Another heart esteemed it dear.

When words, half love, all tenderness, 
Were hourly heard, as hourly spoken, 
When the long, sunny days of bliss, 
Only by moonlight nights were broken.

Till drop by drop, the cup of joy 
Filled full, with purple light, was glowing, 
And Faith, which watched it, sparkling high, 
Still never dreamt the overflowing.

It fell not with a sudden crashing, 
It poured not out like open sluice; 
No, s...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...e battle-day 
They could encounter as a veteran may; 
But more preferr'd the fury of the strife, 
And present death, to hourly suffering life: 
And famine wrings, and fever sweeps away 
His numbers melting fast from their array; 
Intemperate triumph fades to discontent, 
And Lara's soul alone seems still unbent: 
But few remain to aid his voice and hand, 
And thousands dwindled to a scanty band: 
Desperate, though few, the last and best remain'd 
To mourn the discipline they ...Read more of this...

by Marvell, Andrew
...ion. 
But in the Thames' mouth still De Ruyter laid; 
The peace not sure, new army must be paid. 
Hyde saith he hourly waits for a dispatch; 
Harry came post just as he showed his watch, 
All to agree the articles were clear-- 
The Holland fleet and Parliament so near-- 
Yet Harry must job back, and all mature, 
Binding, ere the Houses meet, the treaty sure, 
And 'twixt necessity and spite, till then, 
Let them come up so to go down again. 

Up ambles country just...Read more of this...

by Clare, John
...e may fields thickly run
And 'iron weed' content to share
The meanest spot that spring can spare
Een roads where danger hourly comes
Is not wi out its purple blooms
And leaves wi points like thistles round
Thickset that have no strength to wound
That shrink to childhoods eager hold
Like hair-and with its eye of gold
And scarlet starry points of flowers
Pimpernel dreading nights and showers
Oft calld 'the shepherds weather glass'
That sleep till suns have dyd the grass
Then wa...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...
Engendering with me, of that rape begot 
These yelling monsters, that with ceaseless cry 
Surround me, as thou saw'st--hourly conceived 
And hourly born, with sorrow infinite 
To me; for, when they list, into the womb 
That bred them they return, and howl, and gnaw 
My bowels, their repast; then, bursting forth 
Afresh, with conscious terrors vex me round, 
That rest or intermission none I find. 
Before mine eyes in opposition sits 
Grim Death, my son and foe, who set th...Read more of this...

by Watts, Isaac
...y assailed my riper age,
But not destroyed my life.

Their cruel plow had torn my flesh
With furrows long and deep;
Hourly they vexed my wounds afresh,
Nor let my sorrows sleep.

The Lord grew angry on his throne,
And, with impartial eye,
Measured the mischiefs they had done,
Then let his arrows fly.

How was their insolence surprised
To hear his thunders roll!
And all the foes of Zion seized
With horror to the soul!

Thus shall the men that hate the saints
Be bla...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...ering around me;
Living beings, identities, now doubtless near us, in the air, that we know not
 of; 
Contact daily and hourly that will not release me; 
These selecting—these, in hints, demanded of me. 

Not he, with a daily kiss, onward from childhood kissing me, 
Has winded and twisted around me that which holds me to him,
Any more than I am held to the heavens, to the spiritual world, 
And to the identities of the Gods, my lovers, faithful and true, 
After what they h...Read more of this...

by Laurence Dunbar, Paul
...r, struggle, conquer day by day. 
Here is my very cross by strangers borne, 
Here is my bosom-sin wherefrom I pray 
Hourly deliverance--this my rose, my thorn. 
This woman my soul's need can understand, 
Stretching o'er silent gulfs her sister hand."...Read more of this...

by Schiller, Friedrich von
...their Maker praise,
And lead around the wreathed year!
To solemn and eternal things
We dedicate her lips sublime!--
As hourly, calmly, on she swings
Fanned by the fleeting wings of time!--
No pulse--no heart--no feeling hers!
She lends the warning voice to fate;
And still companions, while she stirs,
The changes of the human state!
So may she teach us, as her tone
But now so mighty, melts away--
That earth no life which earth has known
From the last silence can delay!

Slowl...Read more of this...

by Arnold, Matthew
...rowth and signs,
And how the dying spark of hope was fed,
And how the breast was soothed, and how the head,
And all his hourly varied anodynes.

This for our wisest! and we others pine,
And wish the long unhappy dream would end,
And waive all claim to bliss, and try to bear;
With close-lipped patience for our only friend,
Sad patience, too near neighbour to despair— 
But none has hope like thine!
Thou through the fields and through the woods dost stray,
Roaming the countr...Read more of this...

by Browne, William
...s,
Where never storms arise,
Exchange, and be awhile our guests:
For stars gaze on our eyes.
The compass Love shall hourly sing,
And as he goes about the ring,
We will not miss
To tell each point he nameth with a kiss.
--Then come on shore,
Where no joy dies till Love hath gotten more....Read more of this...

by Poe, Edgar Allan
...m thine absence is the night-
The blotting utterly from out high heaven
The sacred sun- of all who, weeping, bless thee
Hourly for hope- for life- ah! above all,
For the resurrection of deep-buried faith
In Truth- in Virtue- in Humanity-
Of all who, on Despair's unhallowed bed
Lying down to die, have suddenly arisen
At thy soft-murmured words, "Let there be light!"
At the soft-murmured words that were fulfilled
In the seraphic glancing of thine eyes-
Of all who owe thee most-...Read more of this...

by Marvell, Andrew
...on them the Grates.

"Here we, in shining Armour white,
"Like Virgin Amazons do fight.
"And our chast Lamps we hourly trim,
"Lest the great Bridegroom find them dim.
"Our Orient Breaths perfumed are
"With insense of incessant Pray'r.
"And Holy-water of our Tears
"Most strangly our complexion clears.

"Not Tears of Grief; but such as those
"With which calm Pleasure overflows;
"Or Pity, when we look on you
"That live without this happy Vow.
"How should ...Read more of this...

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Book: Reflection on the Important Things