Famous Mission Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Mission poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous mission poems. These examples illustrate what a famous mission poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
See also:
...country or his lover.
This was the life: strange bedrooms, the perfume of other men's
wives.
As a spy he has a unique mission: to get his name on the front
page of the nation's newspaper of record. Only by doing that
would he get the message through to his immediate superior.
If he goes to jail, he will do so proudly; if they're going to
hang him anyway, he'll do something worth hanging for.
In time he may get used to being the center of attention, but
this was incred...Read more of this...
by
Lehman, David
...k before
he'd said I had a problem with time,
that in my poems everything
kept happening at once. In 1969,
the voice of Mission Control
told a man named Buzz
that there was a bunch of guys turning blue
down here on Earth, and now I can understand
it was with anticipation, not sickness. Next,
Dugan says, Let's move on. The attempted poem
was about butterflies and my recurring desire
to return to a place I've never been.
It was inspired by reading this
in a National Geographic:...Read more of this...
by
Flynn, Nick
...le heads of the earth been always ready to fall for
Liberty.
11
For the great Idea!
That, O my brethren—that is the mission of Poets.
Songs of stern defiance, ever ready,
Songs of the rapid arming, and the march,
The flag of peace quick-folded, and instead, the flag we know,
Warlike flag of the great Idea.
(Angry cloth I saw there leaping!
I stand again in leaden rain, your flapping folds saluting;
I sing you over all, flying, beckoning through the fight—O the hard...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...cross the swan-road,
the famous prince who stood in need of men.
Wise retainers reproached him but little
about that mission, though he was loved by them,
whetting his mighty spirit and peering at the portents. (ll. 194-204)
This outstanding hero had chosen champions
from the Geatish tribe, from those he found
keenest for battle—one of some fifteen men
seeking the surge-wood, the warrior leading the way,
a sea-crafty man to the limit of the shore. (ll. 205-09)
T...Read more of this...
by
Anonymous,
...th helmet: -- “Hygelac’s, we,
fellows at board; I am Beowulf named.
I am seeking to say to the son of Healfdene
this mission of mine, to thy master-lord,
the doughty prince, if he deign at all
grace that we greet him, the good one, now.”
Wulfgar spake, the Wendles’ chieftain,
whose might of mind to many was known,
his courage and counsel: “The king of Danes,
the Scyldings’ friend, I fain will tell,
the Breaker-of-Rings, as the boon thou askest,
the famed prince, of...Read more of this...
by
Anonymous,
...
out of the distant past or as you walked
under an open window a violin
yielded itself to your hearing. All this was mission.
But could you accomplish it? Weren't you always
Distracted by expectation as if every event
announced a beloved? (Where can you find a place
to keep her with all the huge strange thoughts inside you
going and coming and often staying all night.)
But when you feel longing sing of women in love;
for their famous passion is still not immortal. S...Read more of this...
by
Rilke, Rainer Maria
...Except my mother. Ninety-five, she lives
Three thousand miles away, beside the bare
Pacific, in rooms that overlook the Mission,
The Riviera, and the silver range
La Cumbre east. Magnolia grandiflora
And one druidic live oak guard the view.
Proudly around the walls, she shows her paintings
Of twenty years ago: the great oak’s arm
Extended, Zeuslike, straight and strong, wisteria
Tangled among the branches, amaryllis
Around the base; her cat, UC, at ease
In marigolds; the we...Read more of this...
by
Bowers, Edgar
...r a victim of Earl Doorm,
Nor dared to waste a perilous pity on him:
Another hurrying past, a man-at-arms,
Rode on a mission to the bandit Earl;
Half whistling and half singing a coarse song,
He drove the dust against her veilless eyes:
Another, flying from the wrath of Doorm
Before an ever-fancied arrow, made
The long way smoke beneath him in his fear;
At which her palfrey whinnying lifted heel,
And scoured into the coppices and was lost,
While the great charger s...Read more of this...
by
Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...he marge.
So strode he back slow to the wounded King.
Then spake King Arthur to Sir Bedivere:
"Hast thou perform'd my mission which I gave?
What is it thou hast seen? or what hast heard?"
And answer made the bold Sir Bedivere:
"I heard the ripple washing in the reeds,
And the wild water lapping on the crag."
To whom replied King Arthur, faint and pale:
"Thou hast betray'd thy nature and thy name,
Not rendering true answer, as beseem'd
Thy fealty, nor like a noble knight...Read more of this...
by
Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...ly let go
the trapped, enduring whimper,
and the fly, arrested mid-plunge
above the strawberry pie
fulfills its abiding mission
and dives into the sweet, red glaze.
As a child I had a book
with a picture of that scene.
I was too young to notice
how fear persists, and how
the anger that causes fear persists,
that its trajectory can't be changed
or broken, only interrupted.
My attention was on the fly:
that this slight body
with its transparent wings
and life-span of one human...Read more of this...
by
Mueller, Lisel
...n'd in triumph from town-meeting;
When blust'ring Whigs were put to stand,
And votes obey'd my guiding hand,
And new commissions pleased my eyes;
Blest days, but ah, no more to rise!
Alas, against my better light,
And optics sure of second-sight,
My stubborn soul, in error strong,
Had faith in Hutchinson too long.
See what brave trophies still we bring
From all our battles for the king;
And yet these plagues, now past before us,
Are but our entering wedge of sorrows!
"I see...Read more of this...
by
Trumbull, John
...at once
All his great work to come before him set—
How to begin, how to accomplish best
His end of being on Earth, and mission high.
For Satan, with sly preface to return,
Had left him vacant, and with speed was gone
Up to the middle region of thick air,
Where all his Potentates in council sate.
There, without sign of boast, or sign of joy,
Solicitous and blank, he thus began:—
"Princes, Heaven's ancient Sons, AEthereal Thrones—
Daemonian Spirits now, from the element
Each...Read more of this...
by
Milton, John
...h now I see,
That cross on yonder brow of Calvary.
What is this Hebrew Christ ? To me unknown,
His lineagedoctrinemissionyet how clear,
Is God-like goodness, in his actions shewn !
How straight and stainless is his life's career !
The ray of Deity that rests on him,
In my eyes makes Olympian glory dim.
The world advances, Greek, or Roman rite
Suffices not the inquiring mind to stay;
The searching soul demands a purer light
To guide it on its upward, onward way;
...Read more of this...
by
Bronte, Charlotte
...he child,
The flower, the honey-bee.
Bring not the future near,
For Joy too soon declines—
What is man's mission here?
Toil, where no sunlight shines!
Our lot is hard, we know;
From eyes so gayly beaming,
Whence rays of beauty flow,
Salt tears most oft are streaming.
Free from emotions past,
All joy and hope possessing,
With mind in pureness cast,
Sweet ignorance confessing.
Plant, safe from winds and showers,
Heart wit...Read more of this...
by
Hugo, Victor
...ng sight! For it plugged 'im 'ard on the chest,
Just where 'e'd tracts for a army corps stowed away in 'is vest.
On its mission of death that bullet 'ustled along, and it caved
A 'ole in them tracts to 'is 'ide, boys -- but the life o' me pal was saved.
And there as 'e showed me in triumph, and 'orror was chokin' me breath,
On came another bullet on its 'orrible mission of death;
On through the night it cavorted, seekin' its 'aven of rest,
And it zipped through a crack in th...Read more of this...
by
Service, Robert William
...red with its magnificent mosques and stately residences veiled by the smoke of the shops.
I commenced analyzing man's mission, but could conclude only that most of his life was identified with struggle and hardship. Then I tried not to ponder over what the sons of Adam had done, and centered my eyes on the field which is the throne of God's glory. In one secluded corner of the field I observed a burying ground surrounded by poplar trees.
There, between the city of the dea...Read more of this...
by
Gibran, Kahlil
...their gore.'"
"'Are none but Saracens to feel
The prowess of the Christian steel?
False idols only shall be brave?
His mission is the world to save;
To free it, by his sturdy arm,
From every hurt, from every harm;
Yet wisdom must his courage bend,
And cunning must with strength contend.'
Thus spake I oft, and went alone
The monster's traces to espy;
When on my mind a bright light shone,--
'I have it!' was my joyful cry."
"To thee I went, and thus I spake:
'My homeward journ...Read more of this...
by
Schiller, Friedrich von
...marge.
So strode he back slow to the wounded King.
Then spake King Arthur to Sir Bedivere:
'Hast thou performed my mission which I gave?
What is it thou hast seen? or what hast heard?'
And answer made the bold Sir Bedivere:
'I heard the ripple washing in the reeds,
And the wild water lapping on the crag.'
To whom replied King Arthur, faint and pale:
'Thou hast betrayed thy nature and thy name,
Not rendering true answer, as beseemed
Thy f alty, nor like a noble ...Read more of this...
by
Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...ved by mules
on the treadmill of Monday to Monday, would repeat
in tongues of water and wind and fire, in tongues
of Mission School pickaninnies, like rivers remembering
their source, Parish Trelawny, Parish St David, Parish
St Andrew, the names afflicting the pastures,
the lime groves and fences of marl stone and the cattle
with a docile longing, an epochal content.
And there were, like old wedding lace in an attic,
among the boas and parasols and the tea-colored
d...Read more of this...
by
Walcott, Derek
...and the sunAlready from the ocean lifts his head.Alas! he warns me that, my mission done,We here must part. If more remain to say,Sweet friend! in speech be brief, as must my stay."Then I: "This kindest converse makes to meAll sense of my long suffering light and sweet:But lady! for that now my life must beRead more of this...
by
Petrarch, Francesco
Dont forget to view our wonderful member Mission poems.