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Famous Inspire Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry
...I think that I shall never know
Why I am thus, and I am so.
Around me, other girls inspire
In men the rush and roar of fire,
The sweet transparency of glass,
The tenderness of April grass,
The durability of granite;
But me- I don't know how to plan it.
The lads I've met in Cupid's deadlock
Were- shall we say?- born out of wedlock.
They broke my heart, they stilled my song,
And said they had to run along,
Explaining, so to sop my tears,
Fir...Read more of this...
by Parker, Dorothy



...hore or mountain-stream, 
Breathe joy and blessing to the human race, 
Give countenance to arts themselves have known, 
Inspire the love of heights themselves have reach'd, 
Of noble science to enlarge the mind, 
Of truth and virtue to adorn the soul, 
And make the human nature grow divine. 


Oh could the muse on this auspicious day 
Begin a song of more majestic sound, 
Or touch the lyre on some sublimer key, 
Meet entertainment for the noble mind. 
How shall the muse from ...Read more of this...
by Brackenridge, Hugh Henry
...roud distinction to the Poet's name,
And claim'd, by modest worth, the wreath of fame­ 
Accept the Verse thy magic harp inspires, 
Nor scorn the Muse that kindles at its fires. 

O, justly gifted with the Sacred Lyre, 
Whose sounds can more than mortal thoughts inspire, 
Whether its strings HEROIC measures move, 
Or lyric numbers charm the soul to love; 
Whether thy fancy "pours the varying verse" 
In bow'rs of bliss, or o'er the plumed hearse; 
Whether of patriot zeal, or pa...Read more of this...
by Robinson, Mary Darby
...Worlds applaud that must not yet be found!
Oh may some Spark of your Coelestial Fire
The last, the meanest of your Sons inspire,
(That on weak Wings, from far, pursues your Flights;
Glows while he reads, but trembles as he writes)
To teach vain Wits a Science little known,
T' admire Superior Sense, and doubt their own!



Of all the Causes which conspire to blind
Man's erring Judgment, and misguide the Mind,
What the weak Head with strongest Byass rules,
Is Pride, the never-f...Read more of this...
by Pope, Alexander
...Briton's independence taught to seek
Far western worlds; and there his household fire
The light of social love did long inspire,
And many a halcyon day he lived to see
Unbroken but by one misfortune dire,
When fate had reft his mutual heart--but she
Was gone--and Gertrude climb'd a widow'd father's knee.

A loved bequest,--and I may half impart--
To them that feel the strong paternal tie,
How like a new existence to his heart
That living flower uprose beneath his eye
Dear as ...Read more of this...
by Campbell, Thomas



...a new Helen would I bid her hand the apple take.

Then rise supreme Athena argent-limbed!
And, if my lips be musicless, inspire
At least my life: was not thy glory hymned
By One who gave to thee his sword and lyre
Like AEschylos at well-fought Marathon,
And died to show that Milton's England still could bear a son!

And yet I cannot tread the Portico
And live without desire, fear and pain,
Or nurture that wise calm which long ago
The grave Athenian master taught to men,
Self-...Read more of this...
by Wilde, Oscar
...where the deep keel on the shallow cleaves, 
With trident's lever, and great shoulder heaves. 
&Aelig;olus their sails inspires with eastern wind, 
Puffs them along, and breathes upon them kind. 
With pearly shell the Tritons all the while 
Sound the sea-march and guide to Sheppey Isle. 

So I have seen in April's bud arise 
A fleet of clouds, sailing along the skies; 
The liquid region with their squadrons filled, 
Their airy sterns the sun behind does gild; 
And gentle gal...Read more of this...
by Marvell, Andrew
...cident therein can tell. 

Touch not that ring, 'twas his, the sire 
Of that forsaken child; 
And nought his relics can inspire 
Save memories, sin-defiled. 

I, who sat by his wife's death-bed, 
I, who his daughter loved, 
Could almost curse the guilty dead, 
For woes, the guiltless proved. 

And heaven did curse­they found him laid, 
When crime for wrath was rife, 
Cold­with the suicidal blade 
Clutched in his desperate gripe. 

'Twas near that long deserted hut, 
Which in ...Read more of this...
by Bronte, Charlotte
...uld ever find,
No perfect form could ever bind.
Thou eternal fugitive
Hovering over all that live,
Quick and skilful to inspire
Sweet extravagant desire,
Starry space and lily bell
Filling with thy roseate smell,
Wilt not give the lips to taste
Of the nectar which thou hast.

All that's good and great with thee
Stands in deep conspiracy.
Thou hast bribed the dark and lonely
To report thy features only,
And the cold and purple morning
Itself with thoughts of thee adorning,
The...Read more of this...
by Emerson, Ralph Waldo
...n 
Restore us, and regain the blissful seat, 
Sing, Heavenly Muse, that, on the secret top 
Of Oreb, or of Sinai, didst inspire 
That shepherd who first taught the chosen seed 
In the beginning how the heavens and earth 
Rose out of Chaos: or, if Sion hill 
Delight thee more, and Siloa's brook that flowed 
Fast by the oracle of God, I thence 
Invoke thy aid to my adventurous song, 
That with no middle flight intends to soar 
Above th' Aonian mount, while it pursues 
Things un...Read more of this...
by Milton, John
...e desert, his victorious field
Against the spiritual foe, and brought'st him thence 
By proof the undoubted Son of God, inspire,
As thou art wont, my prompted song, else mute,
And bear through highth or depth of Nature's bounds,
With prosperous wing full summed, to tell of deeds
Above heroic, though in secret done,
And unrecorded left through many an age:
Worthy to have not remained so long unsung.
 Now had the great Proclaimer, with a voice
More awful than the sound of trump...Read more of this...
by Milton, John
...ow am I lost! on wings of swift desire
Among Heaven's winds my spirit once did move.
I slept, and silver dreams did aye inspire
My liquid sleep; I woke, and did approve
All Nature to my heart, and thought to make 
A paradise of earth for one sweet sake.

'I love, but I believe in love no more.
I feel desire, but hope not. Oh, from sleep
Most vainly must my weary brain implore
Its long lost flattery now! I wake to weep,
And sit through the long day gnawing the core
Of my bitte...Read more of this...
by Shelley, Percy Bysshe
...our voice,
Panic, despair, flee away.
Ye move through the ranks, recall
The stragglers, refresh the outworn,
Praise, re-inspire the brave!
Order, courage, return.
Eyes rekindling, and prayers,
Follow your steps as ye go.
Ye fill up the gaps in our files,
Strengthen the wavering line,
Stablish, continue our march,
On, to the bound of the waste,
On, to the City of God....Read more of this...
by Arnold, Matthew
...nd friends, when my last breath
Grows large and free in air, don't call it death --
A word to enrich the undertaker and inspire
His surly art of imitating life; conspire
Against him. Say that my body cannot now
Be improved upon; it has no fault to show
To the sly cosmetician. Say that my flesh
Has a perfect compliance with the grass
Truer than any it could have striven for.
You will recognize the earth in me, as before
I wished to know it in myself: my earth
That has been my ...Read more of this...
by Berry, Wendell
...It's good the great green earth to roam,
Where sights of awe the soul inspire;
But oh, it's best, the coming home,
The crackle of one's own hearth-fire!
You've hob-nobbed with the solemn Past;
You've seen the pageantry of kings;
Yet oh, how sweet to gain at last
The peace and rest of Little Things!

Perhaps you're counted with the Great;
You strain and strive with mighty men;
Your hand is on the helm of State;
Colossus-like yo...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William
...ense they please! 
'Twas framed at first our oracle to inquire; 
But since our sects in prophecy grow higher, 
The text inspires not them, but they the text inspire. 

London, thou great emporium of our isle, 
O thou too bounteous, thou too fruitful Nile! 
How shall I praise or curse to thy desert, 
Or separate thy sound from thy corrupted part? 
I called thee Nile; the parallel will stand: 
Thy tides of wealth o'erflow the fattened land; 
Yet monsters from thy large increase...Read more of this...
by Dryden, John
...e to C---, Muse! is due;
This, ev'n Belinda may vouchfafe to view:
Slight is the Subject, but not so the Praise,
If She inspire, and He approve my Lays.
Say what strange Motive, Goddess! cou'd compel
A well-bred Lord t'assault a gentle Belle?
Oh say what stranger Cause, yet unexplor'd,
Cou'd make a gentle Belle reject a Lord? 
And dwells such Rage in softest Bosoms then?
And lodge such daring Souls in Little Men?

Sol thro' white Curtains shot a tim'rous Ray,
And op'd those E...Read more of this...
by Pope, Alexander
...make the foremost Moslem quail; 
Or where the battery, guarded well, 
Remains as yet impregnable, 
Alighting cheerly to inspire 
The soldier slackening in his fire; 
The first and freshest of the host 
Which Stamboul's Sultan there can boast 
To guide the follower o'er the field, 
To point the tube, the lance to wield, 
Or whirl around the bickering blade; — 
Was Alp, the Adrian renegade! 

IV. 

From Venice — once a race of worth 
His gentle sires — he drew his birth; 
But l...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)
...e things he'd say. 
'You ask me whether we're coming in— 
We are. The English are clever as sin, 
Silently, subtly they inspire 
Most of youth with a holy fire 
To shed their blood for the British Empire
We'll come in— we'll fight and die
Humbly to help them, and by and by,
England will do us in the eye.
They'll get colonies, gold and fame,
And we'll get nothing at all but blame.
Blame for not having come before,
Blame for not having sent them more
Money and men and war suppl...Read more of this...
by Miller, Alice Duer
...t hinges ring:
Celestial Salem blooms in endless spring.

Calm and serene thy moments glide along,
And may the muse inspire each future song!
Still, with the sweets of contemplation bless'd,
May peace with balmy wings your soul invest!
But when these shades of time are chas'd away,
And darkness ends in everlasting day,
On what seraphic pinions shall we move,
And view the landscapes in the realms above?
There shall thy tongue in heav'nly murmurs flow,
And there my ...Read more of this...
by Wheatley, Phillis

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry