Famous Kneel Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Haiku

by Jack Kerouac
 The taste
 of rain
—Why kneel?...Read more of this...

Whispering in Wattle -Boughs

by Adam Lindsay Gordon
 OH, gaily sings the bird! and the wattle-boughs are stirred 
And rustled by the scented breath of Spring; 
Oh, the dreary wistful longing! Oh, the faces that are thronging! 
Oh, the voices that are vaguely whispering! 

Oh, tell me, father mine, ere the good ship crossed the brine, 
On the gangway one mute handgrip we exchanged, 
Do you, past...Read more of this...

Memorial Day

by Joyce Kilmer
 "Dulce et decorum est"

The bugle echoes shrill and sweet,
But not of war it sings to-day.
The road is rhythmic with the feet
Of men-at-arms who come to pray.
The roses blossom white and red
On tombs where weary soldiers lie;
Flags wave above the honored dead
And martial music cleaves the sky.
Above their wreath-strewn graves we kneel,
They kept the faith and fought the fight.
Through flying...Read more of this...

Restlessness

by D. H. Lawrence
 At the open door of the room I stand and look at the night,
Hold my hand to catch the raindrops, that slant into sight,
Arriving grey from the darkness above suddenly into the light of the room.
I will escape from the hollow room, the box of light, 
And be out in the bewildering darkness, which is always fecund, which might
Mate...Read more of this...

The Revenge Of Hamish

by Sidney Lanier
 It was three slim does and a ten-tined buck in the bracken lay;
And all of a sudden the sinister smell of a man,
Awaft on a wind-shift, wavered and ran
Down the hill-side and sifted along through the bracken and passed that way.

Then Nan got a-tremble at nostril; she was the daintiest doe;
In the print of her velvet flank on the...Read more of this...

The Negro Girl

by Mary Darby Robinson
 I. 

Dark was the dawn, and o'er the deep
The boist'rous whirlwinds blew;
The Sea-bird wheel'd its circling sweep,
And all was drear to view--
When on the beach that binds the western shore
The love-lorn ZELMA stood, list'ning the tempest's roar.


II. 

Her eager Eyes beheld the main,
While on her DRACO dear
She madly call'd, but call'd in vain,
No sound could DRACO hear,
Save the shrill...Read more of this...

Church Monuments

by George Herbert
 While that my soul repairs to her devotion,
Here I intomb my flesh, that it betimes
May take acquaintance of this heap of dust;
To which the blast of death's incessant motion,
Fed with the exhalation of our crimes,
Drives all at last. Therefore I gladly trust

My body to this school, that it may learn 
To spell his elements, and find his birth
Written in...Read more of this...

The Black Virgin

by G K Chesterton
 One in thy thousand statues we salute thee 
On all thy thousand thrones acclaim and claim 
Who walk in forest of thy forms and faces 
Walk in a forest calling on one name 
And, most of all, how this thing may be so 
Who know thee not are mystified to know
That one cries "Here she stands" and one cries...Read more of this...

An Old Story

by Robert William Service
 (Retold in Rhyme)

They threw him in a prison cell;
He moaned upon his bed.
And when he crept from coils of hell:
"Last night you killed," they said.

"last night in drunken rage you slew
A being brave with breath;
A radiant soul, because of you
Lies dark in death."

"last night I killed," he moaned distraught,
"When I was wild with wine;
I slew, and I remember naught...Read more of this...

The Lifeguard

by James Dickey
 In a stable of boats I lie still,
From all sleeping children hidden.
The leap of a fish from its shadow
Makes the whole lake instantly tremble.
With my foot on the water, I feel
The moon outside

Take on the utmost of its power.
I rise and go our through the boats.
I set my broad sole upon silver,
On the skin of the sky, on the...Read more of this...

White

by Charles Simic
 A New Version: 1980

 What is that little black thing I see there
 in the white?
 Walt Whitman


One

Out of poverty
To begin again: 

With the color of the bride
And that of blindness,

Touch what I can
Of the quick,

Speak and then wait,
As if this light

Will continue to linger
On the threshold.



All that is near,
I no longer give it a name.

Once a stone hard...Read more of this...

Do not be ashamed

by Wendell Berry
 You will be walking some night
in the comfortable dark of your yard
and suddenly a great light will shine
round about you, and behind you
will be a wall you never saw before.
It will be clear to you suddenly
that you were about to escape,
and that you are guilty: you misread
the complex instructions, you are not
a member, you lost your card
or never had...Read more of this...

Ulster

by Rudyard Kipling
 The dark eleventh hour
Draws on and sees us sold
To every evil power
We fought against of old.
Rebellion, rapine hate
Oppression, wrong and greed
Are loosed to rule our fate,
By England's act and deed.

The Faith in which we stand,
The laws we made and guard,
Our honour, lives, and land
Are given for reward
To Murder done by night,
To Treason taught by day,
To folly, sloth, and spite,
And...Read more of this...

A Ballad of Death

by Algernon Charles Swinburne
 Kneel down, fair Love, and fill thyself with tears,
Girdle thyself with sighing for a girth
Upon the sides of mirth,
Cover thy lips and eyelids, let thine ears
Be filled with rumour of people sorrowing;
Make thee soft raiment out of woven sighs
Upon the flesh to cleave,
Set pains therein and many a grievous thing,
And many sorrows after each his wise
For armlet and for...Read more of this...

Treat Em Rough

by Robert William Service
 First time I dared propose,
 A callow lad was I;
I donned my Sunday clothes,
 I wore my Old School Tie.
Awaiting me Louise
 Was dolled to beat the band,
So going on my knees
 I begged her hand.

Oh yes, she gave me her hand,--
 A box upon the ear;
I could not understand,
 I blinked away a tear.
Then scornfully she said:
 'Next...Read more of this...

From Vashti

by Lascelles Abercrombie
 WHAT thing shall be held up to woman's beauty? 
Where are the bounds of it? Yea, what is all 
The world, but an awning scaffolded amid 
The waste perilous Eternity, to lodge 
This Heaven-wander'd princess, woman's beauty? 
The East and West kneel down to thee, the North 
And South; and all for thee their shoulders bear 
The load of...Read more of this...

The Wifes Will

by Charlotte Bronte
 Sit still­ a word­ a breath may break 
(As light airs stir a sleeping lake,) 
The glassy calm that soothes my woes, 
The sweet, the deep, the full repose. 
O leave me not ! for ever be 
Thus, more than life itself to me ! 

Yes, close beside thee, let me kneel­ 
Give me thy hand that I may...Read more of this...

Love in Twilight

by Stephen Vincent Benet
 There is darkness behind the light -- and the pale light drips 
Cold on vague shapes and figures, that, half-seen loom 
Like the carven prows of proud, far-triumphing ships -- 
And the firelight wavers and changes about the room, 

As the three logs crackle and burn with a small still sound; 
Half-blotting with dark the deeper dark of her...Read more of this...

The Triumph Of Love

by Friedrich von Schiller
 By love are blest the gods on high,
Frail man becomes a deity
When love to him is given;
'Tis love that makes the heavens shine
With hues more radiant, more divine,
And turns dull earth to heaven!

In Pyrrha's rear (so poets sang
In ages past and gone),
The world from rocky fragments sprang--
Mankind from lifeless stone.

Their soul was but a thing of night,
Like stone and...Read more of this...

Mad Judy

by Thomas Hardy
 When the hamlet hailed a birth 
 Judy used to cry: 
When she heard our christening mirth 
 She would kneel and sigh. 
She was crazed, we knew, and we 
Humoured her infirmity. 

When the daughters and the sons 
 Gathered them to wed, 
And we like-intending ones 
 Danced till dawn was red, 
She would rock and mutter,...Read more of this...

The Oxen

by Thomas Hardy
 Christmas Eve, and twelve of the clock.
 "Now they are all on their knees,"
An elder said as we sat in a flock
 By the embers in hearthside ease.

We pictured the meek mild creatures where
 They dwelt in their strawy pen,
Nor did it occur to one of us there
 To doubt they were kneeling then.

So fair a fancy few would...Read more of this...

A Memory

by Fannie Isabelle Sherrick
Amid my treasures once I found
  A simple faded flower;
A flower with all its beauty fled,
  The darling of an hour.
With bitterness I gazed awhile,
  Then flung it from my sight;
For with it all came back to me
  the pain and heedless blight.
But, moved with pity and regret
  I took it up again;
For oh, so...Read more of this...

Before The Paling Of The Stars

by Christina Rossetti
 Before the winter morn,
Before the earliest cock crow,
Jesus Christ was born:
Born in a stable,
Cradled in a manger,
In the world his hands had made
Born a stranger.

Priest and king lay fast asleep
In Jerusalem;
Young and old lay fast asleep
In crowded Bethlehem;
Saint and angel, ox and ass,
Kept a watch together
Before the Christmas daybreak
In the winter weather.

Jesus on his mother's breast
In the stable cold,
Spotless...Read more of this...

Song of the Indian Maid

by John Keats
Song of the Indian Maid 

O SORROW! 
Why dost borrow 
The natural hue of health, from vermeil lips?¡ª 
To give maiden blushes 
To the white rose bushes? 5 
Or is it thy dewy hand the daisy tips? 

O Sorrow! 
Why dost borrow 
The lustrous passion from a falcon-eye?¡ª 
To give the glow-worm light? 10 
Or, on a moonless night, 
To...Read more of this...

Japan

by Billy Collins
 Today I pass the time reading
a favorite haiku,
saying the few words over and over.

It feels like eating
the same small, perfect grape
again and again.

I walk through the house reciting it
and leave its letters falling
through the air of every room.

I stand by the big silence of the piano and say it.
I say it in front of a painting of the sea.
I...Read more of this...

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