Famous Jew Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Burbank with a Baedeker: Bleistein with a Cigar

by T S (Thomas Stearns) Eliot
 Tra-la-la-la-la-la-laire—nil nisi divinum stabile est; caetera fumus—the gondola
stopped, the old palace was there, how charming its grey and pink—goats and
monkeys, with such hair too!—so the countess passed on until she came through the
little park, where Niobe presented her with a cabinet, and so departed.


BURBANK crossed a little bridge
Descending at a small hotel;
Princess Volupine arrived,
They were together, and he fell.

Defunctive...Read more of this...

The Rock Cries Out to Us Today

by Maya Angelou
 A Rock, A River, A Tree
Hosts to species long since departed,
Mark the mastodon.
The dinosaur, who left dry tokens
Of their sojourn here
On our planet floor,
Any broad alarm of their of their hastening doom
Is lost in the gloom of dust and ages.
But today, the Rock cries out to us, clearly, forcefully,
Come, you may stand upon my
Back and face your distant destiny,
But...Read more of this...

A Little History

by David Lehman
 Some people find out they are Jews.
They can't believe it.
Thy had always hated Jews.
As children they had roamed in gangs on winter nights in the old
 neighborhood, looking for Jews.
They were not Jewish, they were Irish.
They brandished broken bottles, tough guys with blood on their
 lips, looking for Jews.
They intercepted Jewish boys walking alone and beat them up.
Sometimes they...Read more of this...

Hymn 94

by Isaac Watts
 Justification by faith, not by works.

Rom. 3:19-22. 

Vain are the hopes the sons of men
On their own works have built;
Their hearts by nature all unclean,
And all their actions guilt.

Let Jew and Gentile stop their mouths
Without a murm'ring word,
And the whole race of Adam stand
Guilty before the Lord.

In vain we ask God's righteous law
To justify us now;
Since to convince and...Read more of this...

In This Place (An American Lyric)

by Amanda Gorman
There’s a poem in this place—
in the footfalls in the halls
in the quiet beat of the seats.
It is here, at the curtain of day,
where America writes a lyric
you must whisper to say.

There’s a poem in this place—
in the heavy grace,
the lined face of this noble building,
collections burned and reborn twice.

There’s a poem in Boston’s Copley Square
where protest chants
tear through the...Read more of this...

Hymn 112

by Isaac Watts
 The brazen serpent; or, Looking to Jesus.

John 3:14-16. 

So did the Hebrew prophet raise
The brazen serpent high,
The wounded felt immediate ease,
The camp forbore to die.

"Look upward in the dying hour,
And live," the prophet cries;
But Christ performs a nobler cure,
When Faith lifts up her eyes.

High on the cross the Savior hung,
High in the heav'ns he reigns:
Here sinners by th' old...Read more of this...

Portia

by Oscar Wilde
 (To Ellen Terry)

I marvel not Bassanio was so bold
To peril all he had upon the lead,
Or that proud Aragon bent low his head
Or that Morocco's fiery heart grew cold:
For in that gorgeous dress of beaten gold
Which is more golden than the golden sun
No woman Veronese looked upon
Was half so fair as thou whom I behold.
Yet fairer when with wisdom...Read more of this...

Possession

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
Whose little lady is you, chile,
Whose little gal is you?
What's de use o' kiver'n up yo' face?
Chile, dat ain't de way to do.
Lemme see yo' little eyes,
Tek yo' little han's down nice,
Lawd, you wuff a million bills,
Huh uh, chile, dat ain't yo' price.
Honey, de money ain't been made
Dat dey could pay fu' you;
'T ain't no use a-biddin'; you too high
Fu'...Read more of this...

The Wandering Jew

by Edwin Arlington Robinson
 I saw by looking in his eyes 
That they remembered everything; 
And this was how I came to know 
That he was here, still wandering. 
For though the figure and the scene
Were never to be reconciled, 
I knew the man as I had known 
His image when I was a child. 

With evidence at every turn, 
I should have...Read more of this...

Reality Jew

by D A Levy
When i was a little kid
my parents never told me
i didn't find out until
i got out of high school
then when people asked me,
I ASKED THEM,
"Nationality or Religion?"

When i was a little kid
my parents brought me up as a christian
that when i discovered,
i was different
i wasnt THAT sick!
so at sixteen
still being a virgin forest
i decided
i must be a buddhist monk,
Then when...Read more of this...

Hymn 114

by Isaac Watts
 Abraham's blessing on the Gentiles.

Rom. 11:16,17. 

Gentiles by nature, we belong
To the wild olive wood;
Grace took us from the barren tree,
And grafts us in the good.

With the same blessings grace endows
The Gentile and the Jew;
If pure and holy be the root,
Such are the branches too.

Then let the children of the saints
Be dedicate to God,
Pour out thy Spirit on them,...Read more of this...

The Jew

by Isaac Rosenberg
 Moses, from whose loins I sprung,
Lit by a lamp in his blood
Ten immutable rules, a moon
For mutable lampless men.

The blonde, the bronze, the ruddy,
With the same heaving blood,
Keep tide to the moon of Moses.
Then why do they sneer at me?...Read more of this...

The Song of Quoodle

by G K Chesterton
 They haven't got no noses,
The fallen sons of Eve;
Even the smell of roses
Is not what they supposes;
But more than mind discloses
And more than men believe.

They haven't got no noses,
They cannot even tell
When door and darkness closes
The park a Jew encloses,
Where even the law of Moses
Will let you steal a smell.

The brilliant smell of water,
The brave smell of a stone,
The...Read more of this...

Daddy

by Sylvia Plath
You do not do, you do not do
Any more, black shoe
In which I have lived like a foot
For thirty years, poor and white,
Barely daring to breathe or Achoo. 

Daddy, I have had to kill you.
You died before I had time---
Marble-heavy, a bag full of God,
Ghastly statue with one gray toe
Big as a Frisco seal 

And a head in the freakish...Read more of this...

The Divine Image

by William Blake
 To Mercy Pity Peace and Love.
All pray in their distress:
And to these virtues of delight
Return their thankfulness.

For Mercy Pity Peace and Love,
Is God our Father dear:
And Mercy Pity Peace and Love,
Is Man his child and care.

For Mercy has a human heart
Pity, a human face:
And Love, the human form divine,
And Peace, the human dress.

Then every man of every clime,
That prays...Read more of this...

The Boy

by Marilyn Hacker
 It is the boy in me who's looking out
the window, while someone across the street
mends a pillowcase, clouds shift, the gutter spout
pours rain, someone else lights a cigarette?

(Because he flinched, because he didn't whirl
around, face them, because he didn't hurl
the challenge back—"Fascists?"—not "Faggots"—Swine!
he briefly wonders—if he were a girl . . .)
He writes a line. He crosses out a...Read more of this...

If popularity you would ensue,

by Omar Khayyam
If popularity you would ensue,
Speak well of Moslem, Christian, and Jew;
So shall you be esteemed of great and small,
And none will venture to speak ill of you....Read more of this...

The Day came slow -- till Five oclock

by Emily Dickinson
 The Day came slow -- till Five o'clock --
Then sprang before the Hills
Like Hindered Rubies -- or the Light
A Sudden Musket -- spills --

The Purple could not keep the East --
The Sunrise shook abroad
Like Breadths of Topaz -- packed a Night --
The Lady just unrolled --

The Happy Winds -- their Timbrels took --
The Birds -- in docile Rows
Arranged themselves...Read more of this...

Male Fashions for 1799

by Mary Darby Robinson
 Crops like hedgehogs, high-crown'd hats,
Whispers like Jew MOSES ;
Padded collars, thick cravats,
And cheeks as red as roses.

Faces painted pink and brown ;
Waistcoats strip'd and gaudy ;
Sleeves thrice doubled thick with down,
And straps to brace the body.

Short great-coats that reach the knees,
Boots like French postillion ;
Worn the G----- race to please,
But laugh'd at by the million.

Square-toed shoes, with silken strings,
Pantaloons...Read more of this...

Lesbos

by Sylvia Plath
 Viciousness in the kitchen!
The potatoes hiss.
It is all Hollywood, windowless,
The fluorescent light wincing on and off like a terrible migraine,
Coy paper strips for doors --
Stage curtains, a widow's frizz.
And I, love, am a pathological liar,
And my child -- look at her, face down on the floor,
Little unstrung puppet, kicking to disappear --
Why she is schizophrenic,
Her face is red and...Read more of this...

Now List to my Morning's Romanza

by Walt Whitman
 1
NOW list to my morning’s romanza—I tell the signs of the Answerer; 
To the cities and farms I sing, as they spread in the sunshine before me. 

A young man comes to me bearing a message from his brother; 
How shall the young man know the whether and when of his brother? 
Tell him to send me the signs.

And...Read more of this...

Lady Lazarus

by Sylvia Plath
I have done it again.
One year in every ten
I manage it_____
A sort of walking miracle, my skin
Bright as a Nazi lampshade,
My right foot
A paperweight,
My face featureless, fine
Jew linen.
Peel off the napkin
O my enemy.
Do I terrify?-------
The nose, the eye pits, the full set of teeth?
The sour breath
Will vanish in a day.
Soon, soon the flesh
The grave cave ate will be
At home on...Read more of this...

Shakespeare

by Ralph Waldo Emerson
I SEE all human wits 
Are measured but a few; 
Unmeasured still my Shakespeare sits  
Lone as the blessed Jew. ...Read more of this...

Hymn 34 part 2

by Isaac Watts
 None excluded from hope.

Rom. 1:16; 1 Cor. 1:24. 

Jesus, thy blessings are not few,
Nor is thy gospel weak;
Thy grace can melt the stubborn Jew,
And bow th' aspiring Greek.

Wide as the reach of Satan's rage
Doth thy salvation flow;
'Tis not confined to sex or age,
The lofty or the low.

While grace is offered to the prince,
The poor may take their share;
No mortal...Read more of this...

Meditation On Saviors

by Robinson Jeffers
 I
When I considered it too closely, when I wore it like an element
 and smelt it like water,
Life is become less lovely, the net nearer than the skin, a
 little troublesome, a little terrible.

I pledged myself awhile ago not to seek refuge, neither in death
 nor in a walled garden,
In lies nor gated loyalties, nor in the gates of...Read more of this...

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