Famous Meek Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Manuelzinho

by Elizabeth Bishop
 Half squatter, half tenant (no rent)—
a sort of inheritance; white,
in your thirties now, and supposed
to supply me with vegetables,
but you don't; or you won't; or you can't
get the idea through your brain—
the world's worst gardener since Cain.
Titled above me, your gardens
ravish my eyes. You edge
the beds of silver cabbages
with red carnations, and lettuces
mix with alyssum. And then
umbrella ants arrive,
or...Read more of this...

A Tale of Two Cities

by Rudyard Kipling
 Where the sober-colored cultivator smiles
 On his byles;
Where the cholera, the cyclone, and the crow
 Come and go;
Where the merchant deals in indigo and tea,
 Hides and ghi;
Where the Babu drops inflammatory hints
 In his prints;
Stands a City -- Charnock chose it -- packed away
 Near a Bay --
By the Sewage rendered fetid, by the sewer
 Made impure,
By the...Read more of this...

Elegy to the Memory of Richard Boyle Esq

by Mary Darby Robinson
 NEAR yon bleak mountain's dizzy height, 
That hangs o'er AVON's silent wave; 
By the pale Crescent's glimm'ring light, 
I sought LORENZO's lonely grave. 

O'er the long grass the silv'ry dew, 
Soft Twilight's tears spontaneous shone; 
And the dank bough of baneful yew 
Supply'd the place of sculptured stone. 

Oft, as my trembling steps drew near, 
The aëry voice of...Read more of this...

Philosophy

by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
 At morn the wise man walked abroad, 
Proud with the learning of great fools.
He laughed and said, ‘There is no God –
‘Tis force creates, ‘tis reason rules.’

Meek with the wisdom of great faith, 
At night he knelt while angels smiled, 
And wept and cried with anguished breath, 
‘Jehovah, God, save Thou my child.’...Read more of this...

The Sexes

by Friedrich von Schiller
 See in the babe two loveliest flowers united--yet in truth,
While in the bud they seem the same--the virgin and the youth!
But loosened is the gentle bond, no longer side by side--
From holy shame the fiery strength will soon itself divide.
Permit the youth to sport, and still the wild desire to chase,
For, but when sated, weary strength returns to seek...Read more of this...

Sonnet: O Poverty! Though From Thy Haggard Eye

by William Lisle Bowles
 O, Poverty! though from thy haggard eye,
Thy cheerless mien, of every charm bereft,
Thy brow that Hope's last traces long have left,
Vain Fortune's feeble sons with terror fly;
I love thy solitary haunts to seek.
For Pity, reckless of her own distress;
And Patience, in her pall of wretchedness,
That turns to the bleak storm her faded cheek;
And Piety, that never told her wrong;
And...Read more of this...

Prosopopoia: or Mother Hubbards Tale

by Edmund Spenser
 By that he ended had his ghostly sermon,
The fox was well induc'd to be a parson,
And of the priest eftsoons gan to inquire,
How to a benefice he might aspire.
"Marry, there" (said the priest) "is art indeed:
Much good deep learning one thereout may read;
For that the ground-work is, and end of all,
How to obtain a beneficial.
First, therefore, when ye have...Read more of this...

The Meek Shall Inherit The Earth

by Charles Bukowski
 if I suffer at this
typewriter
think how I'd feel
among the lettuce-
pickers of Salinas? 
I think of the men
I've known in
factories
with no way to
get out-
choking while living
choking while laughing
at Bob Hope or Lucille
Ball while 
2 or 3 children beat
tennis balls against 
the wall. 
some suicides are never
recorded....Read more of this...

St. Francis and the Birds

by Katharine Tynan
 Little sisters, the birds: 
We must praise God, you and I­ 
You, with songs that fill the sky, 
I, with halting words. 

All things tell His praise,
Woods and waters thereof sing, 
Summer, Winter, Autumn, Spring, 
And the night and days. 

Yea, and cold and heat,
And the sun and stars and moon,
Sea with her monotonous tune,
Rain and hail and sleet,...Read more of this...

Mute thy Coronation

by Emily Dickinson
 Mute thy Coronation --
Meek my Vive le roi,
Fold a tiny courtier
In thine Ermine, Sir,
There to rest revering
Till the pageant by,
I can murmur broken,
Master, It was I --...Read more of this...

545. Song—Mally's meek Mally's sweet

by Robert Burns
 Chorus—Mally’s meek, Mally’s sweet,
 Mally’s modest and discreet;
Mally’s rare, Mally’s fair,
 Mally’s every way complete.


AS I was walking up the street,
 A barefit maid I chanc’d to meet;
But O the road was very hard
 For that fair maiden’s tender feet.
 Mally’s meek, &c.


It were mair meet that those fine feet
 Were weel laced up in silken shoon;
An’ ’twere more...Read more of this...

Like Jesus

by Anonymous
I want to be like Jesus,So lowly and so meek;For no one marked an angry word,Whoever heard him speak.I want to be like Jesus,So frequently in prayer;Alone upon the mountain top,He met his Father there.I want to be like Jesus:I never, never find,That he, though persecuted, wasTo any one unkind.I want to be like Jesus,Engaged in doing good;So that of...Read more of this...

Sonnet XXIV: O Thou! Meek Orb

by Mary Darby Robinson
 O thou! meek Orb! that stealing o'er the dale
Cheer'st with thy modest beams the noon of night!
On the smooth lake diffusing silv'ry light,
Sublimely still, and beautifully pale!
What can thy cool and placid eye avail,
Where fierce despair absorbs the mental sight,
While inbred glooms the vagrant thoughts invite,
To tempt the gulph where howling fiends assail?
O, Night! all nature owns thy temper'd...Read more of this...

On Receipt Of My Mothers Picture

by William Cowper
 Oh that those lips had language! Life has pass'd
With me but roughly since I heard thee last.
Those lips are thine--thy own sweet smiles I see,
The same that oft in childhood solaced me;
Voice only fails, else, how distinct they say,
"Grieve not, my child, chase all thy fears away!"
The meek intelligence of those dear eyes
(Blest be the art that can immortalize,
The...Read more of this...

The Curse Upon Edward

by Thomas Gray
 WEAVE the warp, and weave the woof,
The winding-sheet of Edward's race.
Give ample room, and verge enough
The characters of hell to trace.
Mark the year, and mark the night,
When Severn shall re-echo with affright
The shrieks of death, thro' Berkley's roofs that ring,
Shrieks of an agonizing King!
She-wolf of France, with unrelenting fangs,
That tear'st the bowels of thy mangled mate,
From thee be born,...Read more of this...

Ode to Eloquence

by Mary Darby Robinson
 HAIL! GODDESS of persuasive art! 
The magic of whose tuneful tongue 
Lulls to soft harmony the wand'ring heart 
With fascinating song; 
O, let me hear thy heav'n-taught strain, 
As thro' my quiv'ring pulses steal 
The mingling throbs of joy and pain, 
Which only sensate minds can feel; 
Ah ! let me taste the bliss supreme, 
Which thy warm touch...Read more of this...

Sez You

by Henry Lawson
 When the heavy sand is yielding backward from your blistered feet, 
And across the distant timber you can SEE the flowing heat; 
When your head is hot and aching, and the shadeless plain is wide, 
And it's fifteen miles to water in the scrub the other side -- 
Don't give up, don't be down-hearted, to a man's strong heart...Read more of this...

They Flee from Me

by Sir Thomas Wyatt
They flee from me that sometime did me seek
   With naked foot stalking in my chamber.
I have seen them gentle tame and meek
   That now are wild and do not remember
   That sometime they put themselves in danger
To take bread at my hand; and now they range
Busily seeking with a continual change.

Thanked be fortune,...Read more of this...

I Will Praise the Lord at All Times

by William Cowper
 Winter has a joy for me,
While the Saviour's charms I read,
Lowly, meek, from blemish free,
In the snowdrop's pensive head.

Spring returns, and brings along
Life-invigorating suns:
Hark! the turtle's plaintive song
Seems to speak His dying groans!

Summer has a thousand charms,
All expressive of His worth;
'Tis His sun that lights and warms,
His the air the cools the earth.

What! has autumn left to say
Nothing of...Read more of this...

September On Jessore Road

by Allen Ginsberg
 Millions of babies watching the skies
Bellies swollen, with big round eyes
On Jessore Road--long bamboo huts
Noplace to **** but sand channel ruts

Millions of fathers in rain
Millions of mothers in pain
Millions of brothers in woe
Millions of sisters nowhere to go

One Million aunts are dying for bread
One Million uncles lamenting the dead
Grandfather millions homeless and sad
Grandmother millions silently mad

Millions of daughters walk...Read more of this...

Verses on Sir Joshua Reynolds Painted Window at New College Oxford

by Thomas Warton
 Ah, stay thy treacherous hand, forbear to trace
Those faultless forms of elegance and grace!
Ah, cease to spread the bright transparent mass,
With Titian's pencil, o'er the speaking glass!
Nor steal, by strokes of art with truth combin'd,
The fond illusions of my wayward mind!
For long, enamour'd of a barbarous age,
A faithless truant to the classic page;
Long have I lov'd to catch the...Read more of this...

Loves Language

by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
 How does Love speak? 
In the faint flush upon the tell-tale cheek, 
And in the pallor that succeeds it; by
The quivering lid of an averted eye –
The smile that proves the parent to a sigh –
Thus doth Love speak.

How does Love speak? 
By the uneven heart-throbs, and the freak
Of bounding pulses that stand still and ache, 
While new emotions,...Read more of this...

Fridolin (The Walk To The Iron Factory)

by Friedrich von Schiller
 A gentle was Fridolin,
And he his mistress dear,
Savern's fair Countess, honored in
All truth and godly fear.
She was so meek, and, ah! so good!
Yet each wish of her wayward mood,
He would have studied to fulfil,
To please his God, with earnest will.

From the first hour when daylight shone
Till rang the vesper-chime,
He lived but for her will alone,
And deemed e'en that scarce...Read more of this...

Sonnet XLIII: While From the Dizzy Precipice

by Mary Darby Robinson
 While from the dizzy precipice I gaze,
The world receding from my pensive eyes,
High o'er my head the tyrant eagle flies,
Cloth'd in the sinking sun's transcendent blaze!
The meek-ey'd moon, 'midst clouds of amber plays
As o'er the purpling plains of light she hies,
Till the last stream of living lustre dies,
And the cool concave owns her temper'd rays!
So shall this glowing, palpitating...Read more of this...

Kelly Of The Legion

by Robert William Service
 Now Kelly was no fighter;
He loved his pipe and glass;
An easygoing blighter,
Who lived in Montparnasse.
But 'mid the tavern tattle
He heard some guinney say:
"When France goes forth to battle,
The Legion leads the way.

 "The scourings of creation,
 Of every sin and station,
 The men who've known damnation,
 Are picked to lead the way."

Well, Kelly joined the Legion;
They marched him day...Read more of this...

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