Famous Justify Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Fame of Myself to justify

by Emily Dickinson
 Fame of Myself, to justify,
All other Plaudit be
Superfluous -- An Incense
Beyond Necessity --

Fame of Myself to lack -- Although
My Name be else Supreme --
This were an Honor honorless --
A futile Diadem --...Read more of this...

Life -- is what we make of it --

by Emily Dickinson
 Life -- is what we make of it --
Death -- we do not know --
Christ's acquaintance with Him
Justify Him -- though --

He -- would trust no stranger --
Other -- could betray --
Just His own endorsement --
That -- sufficeth Me --

All the other Distance
He hath traversed first --
No New Mile remaineth --
Far as Paradise --

His sure foot preceding --
Tender Pioneer...Read more of this...

So Far and So Far and on Toward the End

by Walt Whitman
 SO far, and so far, and on toward the end, 
Singing what is sung in this book, from the irresistible impulses of me; 
But whether I continue beyond this book, to maturity, 
Whether I shall dart forth the true rays, the ones that wait unfired, 
(Did you think the sun was shining its brightest?
No—it has not yet fully risen;)...Read more of this...

It was not death for I stood up

by Emily Dickinson
It was not death, for I stood up,
And all the dead lie down;
It was not night, for all the bells
Put out their tongues, for noon.

It was not frost, for on my flesh
I felt siroccos crawl,--
Nor fire, for just my marble feet
Could keep a chancel cool.

And yet it tasted like them all;
The figures I have seen
Set orderly, for burial,
Reminded me of...Read more of this...

Sonnet CXXXIX

by William Shakespeare
 O, call not me to justify the wrong
That thy unkindness lays upon my heart;
Wound me not with thine eye but with thy tongue;
Use power with power and slay me not by art.
Tell me thou lovest elsewhere, but in my sight,
Dear heart, forbear to glance thine eye aside:
What need'st thou wound with cunning when thy might
Is more than my o'er-press'd...Read more of this...

To The Pious Memory Of The Accomplished Young Lady Mrs. Anne Killigrew

by John Dryden
 Thou youngest virgin-daughter of the skies,
 Made in the last promotion of the Blest;
Whose palms, new pluck'd from Paradise,
In spreading branches more sublimely rise,
Rich with immortal green above the rest:
Whether, adopted to some neighbouring star,
Thou roll'st above us, in thy wand'ring race,
 Or, in procession fix'd and regular,
 Mov'd with the Heavens' majestic pace:
 Or, call'd to more superior...Read more of this...

France the 18th year of These States

by Walt Whitman
 1
A GREAT year and place; 
A harsh, discordant, natal scream out-sounding, to touch the mother’s heart closer
 than
 any yet. 

I walk’d the shores of my Eastern Sea, 
Heard over the waves the little voice, 
Saw the divine infant, where she woke, mournfully wailing, amid the roar of cannon,
 curses,
 shouts, crash of falling buildings;
Was not so sick from...Read more of this...

Passing Out

by Philip Levine
 The doctor fingers my bruise. 
"Magnificent," he says, "black 
at the edges and purple 
cored." Seated, he spies for clues, 
gingerly probing the slack 
flesh, while I, standing, fazed, pull 

for air, losing the battle. 
Faced by his aged diploma, 
the heavy head of the X- 
ray, and the iron saddle, 
I grow lonely. He finds my 
secrets common...Read more of this...

Middle Passage

by Robert Hayden
 I 

Jesús, Estrella, Esperanza, Mercy: 

Sails flashing to the wind like weapons, 
sharks following the moans the fever and the dying; 
horror the corposant and compass rose. 

Middle Passage: 
voyage through death 
to life upon these shores. 

"10 April 1800-- 
Blacks rebellious. Crew uneasy. Our linguist says 
their moaning is a prayer for death, 
our and their own. Some...Read more of this...

pain is a foreign language

by Razvan Tupa
a romanian body knows how to sidestep decisions it feels
that in such cases it can no longer justify its comfortable suffering
for this with your entire body you must stay here until it’s very late
you can be a keychain or a gummed sticker
but one day the music of breathing will disappear
all on its own

or conversely

my hands ready to receive silence
like a...Read more of this...

To Sir Henry Cary

by Ben Jonson
LXVI. — TO SIR HENRY CARY. That neither fame, nor love might wanting be To greatness, CARY, I sing that and thee ; Whose house, if it no other honor had, In only thee, might be both great and glad : Who, to upbraid the sloth of this our time, Durst valor make, almost, but not a crime. Which deed I...Read more of this...

I should have been too glad I see

by Emily Dickinson
 I should have been too glad, I see --
Too lifted -- for the scant degree
Of Life's penurious Round --
My little Circuit would have shamed
This new Circumference -- have blamed --
The homelier time behind.

I should have been too saved -- I see --
Too rescued -- Fear too dim to me
That I could spell the Prayer
I knew so perfect -- yesterday...Read more of this...

To A Tycoon

by Robert William Service
 Since much has been your mirth
 And fair your fate,
Friend, leave your lot of earth
 Less desolate.
With frailing overdue,
 Why don't you try
The bit of God in you
 To justify?

Try to discern the grace
 All greed above,
That may uplift the race
 To realm of love.
For in you is a spark,
 A heaven-glow,
That will illume the dark
 Before you go.

Aye,...Read more of this...

Womans Constancy

by John Donne
 Now thou hast loved me one whole day,
Tomorrow when thou leav'st, what wilt thou say?
Wilt thou then antedate some new made vow?
 Or say that now
We are not just those persons, which we were?
Or, that oaths made in reverential fear
Of Love, and his wrath, any may forswear?
Or, as true deaths, true marriages untie,
So lovers' contracts, images of those,
Bind but...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...

Dedication

by Rainer Maria Rilke
 I have great faith in all things not yet spoken.
I want my deepest pious feelings freed.
What no one yet has dared to risk and warrant
will be for me a challenge I must meet.

If this presumptious seems, God, may I be forgiven.
For what I want to say to you is this:
my efforts shall be like a driving force,
quite without anger,...Read more of this...

The Christ of the Never

by Henry Lawson
 With eyes that are narrowed to pierce
To the awful horizons of land,
Through the blaze of hot days, and the fierce
White heat-waves that flow on the sand;
Through the Never Land westward and nor'ward,
Bronzed, bearded, and gaunt on the track,
Low-voiced and hard-knuckled, rides forward
The Christ of the Outer Out-back.

For the cause that will ne'er be relinquished
Despite all the cynics on earth---
In...Read more of this...

To interrupt His Yellow Plan

by Emily Dickinson
 To interrupt His Yellow Plan
The Sun does not allow
Caprices of the Atmosphere --
And even when the Snow

Heaves Balls of Specks, like Vicious Boy
Directly in His Eye --
Does not so much as turn His Head
Busy with Majesty --

'Tis His to stimulate the Earth --
And magnetize the Sea --
And bind Astronomy, in place,
Yet Any passing by

Would deem Ourselves -- the busier
As...Read more of this...

Terence This is Stupid Stuff

by A E Housman
 ‘TERENCE, this is stupid stuff: 
You eat your victuals fast enough; 
There can’t be much amiss, ’tis clear, 
To see the rate you drink your beer. 
But oh, good Lord, the verse you make,  5
It gives a chap the belly-ache. 
The cow, the old cow, she is dead; 
It sleeps well, the horned head: 
We poor lads, ’tis...Read more of this...

The Task: Book VI The Winter Walk at Noon (excerpts)

by William Cowper
 Thus heav'nward all things tend. For all were once
Perfect, and all must be at length restor'd.
So God has greatly purpos'd; who would else
In his dishonour'd works himself endure
Dishonour, and be wrong'd without redress.
Haste then, and wheel away a shatter'd world,
Ye slow-revolving seasons! We would see
(A sight to which our eyes are strangers yet)
A world that does not dread and...Read more of this...

Apple-Pie and Cheese

by Eugene Field
 Full many a sinful notion
Conceived of foreign powers
Has come across the ocean
To harm this land of ours;
And heresies called fashions
Have modesty effaced,
And baleful, morbid passions
Corrupt our native taste.
O tempora! O mores!
What profanations these
That seek to dim the glories
Of apple-pie and cheese!

I'm glad my education
Enables me to stand
Against the vile temptation
Held out on every hand;
Eschewing all the tittles
With vanity replete,
I'm...Read more of this...

Coloring Book

by Connie Wanek
 Each picture is heartbreakingly banal,
a kitten and a ball of yarn,
a dog and bone.
The paper is cheap, easily torn.
A coloring book's authority is derived
from its heavy black lines
as unalterable as the ten commandments
within which minor decisions are possible:
the dog black and white,
the kitten gray.
Under the picture we find a few words,
a title, perhaps a narrative,
a psalm or sermon.
But nowhere...Read more of this...

Rhyme Builder

by Robert William Service
 I envy not those gay galoots
Who count on dying in their boots;
For that, to tell the sober truth
Sould be the privilege of youth;
But aged bones are better sped
To heaven from a downy bed.

So prop me up with pillows two,
And serve me with the barley brew;
And put a pencil in my hand,
A copy book at my command;
And let my final...Read more of this...

The Progress of Poesy

by Thomas Gray
 A Pindaric Ode

Awake, Aeolian lyre, awake,
And give to rapture all thy trembling strings.
From Helicon's harmonious springs
A thousand rills their mazy progress take:
The laughing flowers that round them blow
Drink life and fragrance as they flow.
Now the rich stream of Music winds along,
Deep, majestic, smooth, and strong,
Thro' verdant vales, and Ceres' golden reign;
Now rolling down the steep amain,
Headlong, impetuous, see it...Read more of this...

Prairie States The

by Walt Whitman
 A NEWER garden of creation, no primal solitude, 
Dense, joyous, modern, populous millions, cities and farms, 
With iron interlaced, composite, tied, many in one, 
By all the world contributed—freedom’s and law’s and thrift’s society,

The crown and teeming paradise, so far, of time’s accumulations,
To justify the past....Read more of this...

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