Famous Liberal Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Liberal poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous liberal poems. These examples illustrate what a famous liberal poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Edgar Lee Masters
Neither spite, fellow citizens,
Nor forgetfulness of the shiftlessness,
And the lawlessness and waste
Under democracy's rule in Spoon River
Made me desert the party of law and order
And lead the liberal party.
Fellow citizens! I saw as one with second sight
That every man of the millions of men
Who give themselves to Freedom,
And fail while Freedom fails,
Enduring waste and lawlessness,
And the rule of the...Read more of this...
by
Ralph Waldo Emerson
The south-wind brings
Life, sunshine, and desire,
And on every mount and meadow
Breathes aromatic fire,
But over the dead he has no power,
The lost, the lost he cannot restore,
And, looking over the hills, I mourn
The darling who shall not return.
I see my empty house,
I see my trees repair their boughs,
And he, —the wondrous child,
Whose silver warble wild
Outvalued every pulsing sound
Within the air's...Read more of this...
by
Friedrich von Schiller
See you the towers, that, gray and old,
Frown through the sunlight's liquid gold,
Steep sternly fronting steep?
The Hellespont beneath them swells,
And roaring cleaves the Dardanelles,
The rock-gates of the deep!
Hear you the sea, whose stormy wave,
From Asia, Europe clove in thunder?
That sea which rent a world, cannot
Rend love from love asunder!
In Hero's, in Leander's heart,
Thrills the sweet anguish of the dart
Whose...Read more of this...
by
Robert Burns
WHILE at the stook the shearers cow’r
To shun the bitter blaudin’ show’r,
Or in gulravage rinnin scowr
To pass the time,
To you I dedicate the hour
In idle rhyme.
My musie, tir’d wi’ mony a sonnet
On gown, an’ ban’, an’ douse black bonnet,
Is grown right eerie now she’s done it,
Lest they should blame her,
An’ rouse their holy thunder on it
...Read more of this...
by
Robert Browning
"Why?" Because all I haply can and do,
All that I am now, all I hope to be,--
Whence comes it save from fortune setting free
Body and soul the purpose to pursue,
God traced for both? If fetters, not a few,
Of prejudice, convention, fall from me,
These shall I bid men--each in his degree
Also God-guided--bear, and...Read more of this...
by
Andrew Hudgins
Despite the noon sun shimmering on Court Street,
each day I leave my desk, and window-shop,
waste time, and use my whole lunch hour to stroll
the route the marchers took. The walk is blistering--
the kind of heat that might make you recall
Nat Turner skinned and rendered into grease
if you share my cheap liberal guilt for sins
before your time. I hold it...Read more of this...
by
Elinor Wylie
If we must cheat ourselves with any dream,
Then let it be a dream of nobleness:
Since it is necessary to express
Gall from black grapes--to sew an endless seam
With a rusty needle--chase a spurious gleam
Narrowing to the nothing through the less--
Since life's no better than a bitter guess,
And love's a stranger--let us change the...Read more of this...
by
William Butler Yeats
I ranted to the knave and fool,
But outgrew that school,
Would transform the part,
Fit audience found, but cannot rule
My fanatic heart.
I sought my betters: though in each
Fine manners, liberal speech,
Turn hatred into sport,
Nothing said or done can reach
My fanatic heart.
Out of Ireland have we come.
Great hatred, little room,
Maimed us at the start.
I carry from my mother's womb
A fanatic heart....Read more of this...
by
Vachel Lindsay
[In memory of E. S. Frazee, Rush County, Indiana]
Into the acres of the newborn state
He poured his strength, and plowed his ancient name,
And, when the traders followed him, he stood
Towering above their furtive souls and tame.
That brow without a stain, that fearless eye
Oft left the passing stranger wondering
To find such knighthood in the...Read more of this...
by
Jean Ingelow
A Scholar is musing on his want of success.)
To strive—and fail. Yes, I did strive and fail;
I set mine eyes upon a certain night
To find a certain star—and could not hail
With them its deep-set light.
Fool that I was! I will rehearse my fault:
I, wingless, thought myself on high to lift
Among...Read more of this...
by
William Topaz McGonagall
'Twas in the year of 1884, and on Saturday the 20th of September,
Which the inhabitants of Dundee will long remember
The great Liberal Franchise Demonstration,
Which filled their minds with admiration.
Oh! it was a most magnificent display,
To see about 20 or 30 thousand men all in grand array;
And each man with a medal on his breast;
And every man in the...Read more of this...
by
Alfred Lord Tennyson
O living will that shalt endure
When all that seems shall suffer shock,
Rise in the spiritual rock,
Flow thro' our deeds and make them pure,
That we may lift from out of dust
A voice as unto him that hears,
A cry above the conquer'd years
To one that with us works, and trust,
With faith that comes of self-control,
The truths that never can be proved
Until...Read more of this...
by
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
I
The face, which, duly as the sun,
Rose up for me with life begun,
To mark all bright hours of the day
With hourly love, is dimmed away—
And yet my days go on, go on.
II
The tongue which, like a stream, could run
Smooth music from the roughest stone,
And every morning with ' Good day'
Make each day good, is...Read more of this...
by
Andrew Barton Paterson
Chris Watson, of the Parliament,
By his Caucus Gods he swore
That the great Labor Party
Should suffer wrong no more.
By his Caucus Gods he swore it,
And named a trysting day,
And bade his Socialists ride forth,
East and west and south and north,
To summon his array.
East and west and south and north
The Socialists...Read more of this...
by
Sidney Lanier
How tall among her sisters, and how fair, --
How grave beyond her youth, yet debonair
As dawn, 'mid wrinkled Matres of old lands
Our youngest Alma Mater modest stands!
In four brief cycles round the punctual sun
Has she, old Learning's latest daughter, won
This grace, this stature, and this fruitful fame.
Howbeit she was born
Unnoised as any stealing summer morn.
From far the sages saw,...Read more of this...
by
Eugene Field
It's June ag'in, an' in my soul I feel the fillin' joy
That's sure to come this time o' year to every little boy;
For, every June, the Sunday-schools at picnics may be seen,
Where "fields beyont the swellin' floods stand dressed in livin' green";
Where little girls are skeered to death with spiders, bugs, and ants,
An' little boys get grass-stains on their...Read more of this...
by
Francesco Petrarch
BALLATA V. Volgendo gli occhi al mio novo colore. HER KIND SALUTE SAVED HIM FROM DEATH. Late as those eyes on my sunk cheek inclined,Whose paleness to the world seems of the grave,Compassion moved you to that greeting kind,Whose soft smile to my worn heart spirit gave.The poor frail life which...Read more of this...
by
Friedrich von Schiller
Where sails the ship?--It leads the Tyrian forth
For the rich amber of the liberal north.
Be kind, ye seas--winds, lend your gentlest wing,
May in each creek sweet wells restoring spring!--
To you, ye gods, belong the merchant!--o'er
The waves his sails the wide world's goods explore;
And, all the while, wherever waft the gales
The wide world's good sails with him as he sails!...Read more of this...
by
Mary Darby Robinson
Deep in th' abyss where frantic horror bides,
In thickest mists of vapours fell,
Where wily Serpents hissing glare
And the dark Demon of Revenge resides,
At midnight's murky hour
Thy origin began:
Rapacious MALICE was thy sire;
Thy Dam the sullen witch, Despair;
Thy Nurse, insatiate Ire.
The FATES conspir'd their ills to twine,
About thy heart's infected shrine;
They gave thee each disastrous spell,
Each desolating...Read more of this...
by
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
What can I give thee back, O liberal
And princely giver, who hast brought the gold
And purple of thine heart, unstained, untold,
And laid them on the outside of the-wall
For such as I to take or leave withal,
In unexpected largesse? am I cold,
Ungrateful, that for these most manifold
High gifts, I render nothing back at all?
Not so; not cold,—but very poor instead.
Ask...Read more of this...
by
John Dryden
Consecrated to the Glorious Memory of His
Most Serene and Renowned Highness, Oliver,
Late Lord Protector of This Commonwealth, etc.
(Oliver Cromwell)
Written After the Celebration of his Funeral
1
And now 'tis time; for their officious haste,
Who would before have borne him to the sky,
Like eager Romans ere all rites were past
Did let too soon the sacred eagle fly....Read more of this...
by
Mary Darby Robinson
THE knell of death, that on the twilight gale,
Swells its deep murmur to the pensive ear;
In awful sounds repeats a mournful tale,
And claims the tribute of a tender tear.
The dreadful hour is past ! the mandate giv'n!
The gentle MIDDLETON shall breathe no more,
Yet who shall blame the wise decrees of Heaven,
Or the...Read more of this...
by
Anthony Hecht
Samuel Sewall, in a world of wigs,
Flouted opinion in his personal hair;
For foppery he gave not any figs,
But in his right and honor took the air.
Thus in his naked style, though well attired,
He went forth in the city, or paid court
To Madam Winthrop, whom he much admired,
Most godly, but yet liberal with the port.
And all the town admired for...Read more of this...
by
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
LEADER.
LET no cares now hover o'er us
Let the wine unsparing run!
Wilt thou swell our merry chorus?
Hast thou all thy duty done?
SOLO.
Two young folks--the thing is curious--
Loved each other; yesterday
Both quite mild, to-day quite furious,
Next day, quite the deuce to pay!
If her neck she there was stooping,
He must here needs pull his hair.
I revived their spirits drooping,
And they're now a...Read more of this...
by
Isaac Watts
The blessings of the liberal man.
That man is blest who stands in awe
Of God, and loves his sacred law:
His seed on earth shall be renowned;
His house the seat of wealth shall be,
An inexhausted treasury,
And with successive honors crowned.
His lib'ral favors he extends,
To some he gives, to others lends;
A gen'rous pity fills his mind:
Yet what his charity impairs,
He saves by...Read more of this...
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