Famous Kneels Poems by Famous Poets

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

See also:

Service of all the Dead

by D. H. Lawrence
 Between the avenues of cypresses, 
All in their scarlet cloaks, and surplices 
Of linen, go the chaunting choristers, 
The priests in gold and black, the villagers. 

And all along the path to the cemetery 
The round, dark heads of men crowd silently 
And black-scarved faces of women-folk, wistfully 
Watch at the banner of death, and the mystery. 

And at...Read more of this...

The Moon

by David Berman
 A web of sewer, pipe, and wire connects each house to the others.

In 206 a dog sleeps by the stove where a small gas leak causes him
to have visions; visions that are rooted in nothing but gas.

Next door, a man who has decided to buy a car part by part
excitedly unpacks a wheel and an ashtray.

He arranges them every...Read more of this...

Lenten Thoughts of a High Anglican

by John Betjeman
 Isn't she lovely, "the Mistress"?
With her wide-apart grey-green eyes,
The droop of her lips and, when she smiles,
Her glance of amused surprise?

How nonchalantly she wears her clothes,
How expensive they are as well!
And the sound of her voice is as soft and deep
As the Christ Church tenor bell.

But why do I call her "the Mistress"
Who know not her way of life?
Because...Read more of this...

Citizen of the World

by Joyce Kilmer
 No longer of Him be it said
"He hath no place to lay His head."
In every land a constant lamp
Flames by His small and mighty camp.
There is no strange and distant place
That is not gladdened by His face.
And every nation kneels to hail
The Splendour shining through Its veil.
Cloistered beside the shouting street,
Silent, He calls me to His feet.
Imprisoned for His...Read more of this...

The Worship of Nature

by John Greenleaf Whittier
 The harp at Nature's advent strung
Has never ceased to play; 
The song the stars of morning sung
Has never died away.

And prayer is made, and praise is given, 
By all things near and far; 
The ocean looketh up to heaven, 
And mirrors every star.

Its waves are kneeling on the strand, 
As kneels the human knee, 
Their white locks bowing to...Read more of this...

Rita And The Rifle

by Mahmoud Darwish
 Between Rita and my eyes
There is a rifle
And whoever knows Rita
Kneels and plays
To the divinity in those honey-colored eyes
And I kissed Rita
When she was young
And I remember how she approached
And how my arm covered the loveliest of braids
And I remember Rita
The way a sparrow remembers its stream 
Ah, Rita
Between us there are a million sparrows and images 
And many...Read more of this...

Jerome

by Randall Jarrell
 Each day brings its toad, each night its dragon.
Der heilige Hieronymus--his lion is at the zoo--
Listens, listens. All the long, soft, summer day
Dreams affright his couch, the deep boils like a pot.
As the sun sets, the last patient rises,
Says to him, Father, trembles, turns away.

Often, to the lion, the saint said, Son.
To the man the saint says--but the man...Read more of this...

The Universal Prayer

by Victor Hugo
 ("Ma fille, va prier!") 
 
 {XXXVII., June, 1830.} 


 I. 
 
 Come, child, to prayer; the busy day is done, 
 A golden star gleams through the dusk of night; 
 The hills are trembling in the rising mist, 
 The rumbling wain looms dim upon the sight; 
 All things wend home to rest; the roadside...Read more of this...

When Katie walks this simple pair accompany her side

by Emily Dickinson
 When Katie walks, this simple pair accompany her side,
When Katie runs unwearied they follow on the road,
When Katie kneels, their loving hands still clasp her pious knee --
Ah! Katie! Smile at Fortune, with two so knit to thee!...Read more of this...

The Eruption Of Vesuvius

by Victor Hugo
 ("Quand longtemps a grondé la bouche du Vésuve.") 
 
 {I. vii.} 


 When huge Vesuvius in its torment long, 
 Threatening has growled its cavernous jaws among, 
 When its hot lava, like the bubbling wine, 
 Foaming doth all its monstrous edge incarnadine, 
 Then is alarm in Naples. 
 
 With dismay, 
 Wanton and wild...Read more of this...

The Rendezvous

by Alan Seeger
 He faints with hope and fear. It is the hour. 
Distant, across the thundering organ-swell, 
In sweet discord from the cathedral-tower, 
Fall the faint chimes and the thrice-sequent bell. 
Over the crowd his eye uneasy roves. 
He sees a plume, a fur; his heart dilates -- 
Soars . . . and then sinks again. It is not hers he...Read more of this...

The Weeping Babe

by Katharine Tynan
 She kneels by the cradle 
Where Jesus doth lie; 
Singing, Lullaby, my Baby! 
But why dost Thou cry? 

The babes of the village 
Smile sweetly in sleep; 
And lullaby, my Baby, 
That ever dost weep! 

I've wrapped Thee in linen, 
The gift of the Kings; 
And wool, soft and fleecy, 
The kind Shepherd brings. 

Now smile, little Jesus, 
Whom...Read more of this...

Poland

by Victor Hugo
 ("Seule au pied de la tour.") 
 
 {IX., September, 1833.} 


 Alone, beneath the tower whence thunder forth 
 The mandates of the Tyrant of the North, 
 Poland's sad genius kneels, absorbed in tears, 
 Bound, vanquished, pallid with her fears— 
 Alas! the crucifix is all that's left 
 To her, of freedom and her sons...Read more of this...

Mother and Poet

by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
 I.

Dead ! One of them shot by the sea in the east,
And one of them shot in the west by the sea.
Dead ! both my boys ! When you sit at the feast
And are wanting a great song for Italy free,
Let none look at me !

II.
Yet I was a poetess only last year,
And good at my art, for a...Read more of this...

Prothalamion

by Delmore Schwartz
 "little soul, little flirting,
 little perverse one
 where are you off to now?
 little wan one, firm one
 little exposed one...
 and never make fun of me again."


Now I must betray myself.
The feast of bondage and unity is near,
And none engaged in that great piety
When each bows to the other, kneels, and takes
Hand in hand, glance and glance, care...Read more of this...

Sonnet XVI: Who Shall Invoke Her

by Alan Seeger
 Who shall invoke her, who shall be her priest,
With single rites the common debt to pay?
On some green headland fronting to the East
Our fairest boy shall kneel at break of day.
Naked, uplifting in a laden tray
New milk and honey and sweet-tinctured wine,
Not without twigs of clustering apple-spray
To wreath a garland for Our Lady's shrine.
The morning planet poised above the...Read more of this...

By Candlelight

by Sylvia Plath
 This is winter, this is night, small love --
A sort of black horsehair,
A rough, dumb country stuff
Steeled with the sheen
Of what green stars can make it to our gate.
I hold you on my arm.
It is very late.
The dull bells tongue the hour.
The mirror floats us at one candle power.

This is the fluid in which we meet each other,
This haloey...Read more of this...

Black Moran

by Robert William Service
 The mule-skinner was Bill Jerome, the passengers were three;
Two tinhorns from the dives of Nome, and Father Tim McGee.
And as for sunny Southland bound, through weary woods they sped,
The solitude that ringed them round was silent as the dead.

Then when the trail crooked crazily, the frost-rimed horses reared,
And from behind a fallen tree a grim galoot appeared;
He wore a...Read more of this...

The Coal Picker

by Amy Lowell
 He perches in the slime, inert,
Bedaubed with iridescent dirt.
The oil upon the puddles dries
To colours like a peacock's eyes,
And half-submerged tomato-cans
Shine scaly, as leviathans
Oozily crawling through the mud.
The ground is here and there bestud
With lumps of only part-burned coal.
His duty is to glean the whole,
To pick them from the filth, each one,
To hoard them for the hidden sun
Which glows...Read more of this...

What madness 'twas, I know not

by Hafez
What madness ’twas, I know not, that thus enchanted me;
What wine, nor who the bringer, nor wherefore enter’d he.

—Lament no more, O full heart, thy love so close confin’d!
O rosebud, ope thy glory, thy beauty nought shall bind!

Behold the flower-fill’d meadows; thou too, O wistful Dear,
Take in thine hand the goblet, & lend to me thine ear!

Lo, for our wintry...Read more of this...

Loves Last Adieu

by George (Lord) Byron
 The roses of Love glad the garden of life,
Though nurtur'd 'mid weeds dropping pestilent dew,
Till Time crops the leaves with unmerciful knife,
Or prunes them for ever, in Love's last adieu!

In vain, with endearments, we soothe the sad heart,
In vain do we vow for an age to be true;
The chance of an hour may command us to part,
Or Death disunite...Read more of this...

The Granny Grey a Love Tale

by Mary Darby Robinson
 DAME DOWSON, was a granny grey,
Who, three score years and ten,
Had pass'd her busy hours away,
In talking of the Men !
They were her theme, at home, abroad,
At wake, and by the winter fire,
Whether it froze, or blew, or thaw'd,
In sunshine or in shade, her ire
Was never calm'd; for still she made
Scandal her pleasure--and her trade!

A Grand-daughter DAME DOWSON had--
As...Read more of this...

How Good Are The Poor

by Victor Hugo
 ("Il est nuit. La cabane est pauvre.") 
 
 {Bk. LII. iii.} 
 
 'Tis night—within the close stout cabin door, 
 The room is wrapped in shade save where there fall 
 Some twilight rays that creep along the floor, 
 And show the fisher's nets upon the wall. 
 
 In the dim corner, from the oaken...Read more of this...

Night Words

by Philip Levine
 after Juan Ramon 


A child wakens in a cold apartment. 
The windows are frosted. Outside he hears 
words rising from the streets, words he cannot 
understand, and then the semis gear down 
for the traffic light on Houston. He sleeps 
again and dreams of another city 
on a high hill above a wide river 
bathed in sunlight, and the...Read more of this...

Tractor

by Ted Hughes
 The tractor stands frozen - an agony
To think of. All night
Snow packed its open entrails. Now a head-pincering gale,
A spill of molten ice, smoking snow,
Pours into its steel.
At white heat of numbness it stands
In the aimed hosing of ground-level fieriness. 

It defied flesh and won't start.
Hands are like wounds already
Inside armour gloves, and feet are unbelievable
As if the toe-nails...Read more of this...

Dont forget to view our wonderful member Kneels poems.

Get a Premium Membership
Turn off ads, get more exposure for your poetry, and get more features with a Premium Membership.
Book: Diverse Voices: The Poetry of Human Rights and the Pursuit of Peace