Famous Motives Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Motives poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous motives poems. These examples illustrate what a famous motives poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Henry Van Dyke
Four things a man must learn to do
If he would make his record true:
To think without confusion clearly;
To love his fellow man sincerely;
To act from honest motives purely;
To trust in God and Heaven securely....Read more of this...
by
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
IF to a girl who loves us truly
Her mother gives instruction duly
In virtue, duty, and what not,--
And if she hearkens ne'er a jot,
But with fresh-strengthen'd longing flies
To meet our kiss that seems to burn,--
Caprice has just as much concerned
As love in her bold enterprise.
But if her mother can succeed
In gaining for her maxims heed,
And softening the girl's heart too,
So...Read more of this...
by
Andrew Marvell
Now does Spains Fleet her spatious wings unfold,
Leaves the new World and hastens for the old:
But though the wind was fair, the slowly swoome
Frayted with acted Guilt, and Guilt to come:
For this rich load, of which so proud they are,
Was rais'd by Tyranny, and rais'd for war;
Every capatious Gallions womb was fill'd,
With what the Womb of wealthy Kingdomes yield,
The...Read more of this...
by
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
THUS roll I, never taking ease,
My tub, like Saint Diogenes,
Now serious am, now seek to please;
Now love and hate in turn one sees;
The motives now are those, now these;
Now nothings, now realities.
Thus roll I, never taking ease,
My tub, like Saint Diogenes.
1810....Read more of this...
by
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
In the long run fame finds the deserving man.
The lucky wight may prosper for a day,
But in good time true merit leads the van,
And vain pretense, unnoticed, goes its way.
There is no Chance, no Destiny, no Fate,
But Fortune smiles on those who work and wait,
In the long run.
In the long run all goodly...Read more of this...
by
Marina Tsvetaeva
Children - are staring of eyes so frightful,
Mischievous legs on a wooden floor,
Children - is sun in the gloomy motives,
Hypotheses' of happy sciences world.
Eternal disorder in the ring's gold,
Tender word's whispers in semi-sleep,
On the wall in a cozy child's room, the dreaming
Peaceful pictures of birds and sheep.
Children - is evening, evening...Read more of this...
by
Denise Levertov
Innocent decision: to enjoy.
And the pathos
of hopefulness, of his solicitude:
--he in mended serape,
she having plaited carefully
magenta ribbons into her hair,
the baby a round half-hidden shape
slung in her rebozo, and the young son steadfastly
gripping a fold of her skirt,
pale and severe under a handed-down sombrero --
all regarding
the stills with full attention, preparing
to pay ad go in--
to worlds of shadow-violence,...Read more of this...
by
Mary Darby Robinson
CESARIO, thy Lyre's dulcet measure,
So sweetly, so tenderly flows;
That could my sad soul taste of pleasure,
Thy music would soften its woes.
But ah, gentle soother, where anguish
Takes root in the grief-stricken heart;
'Tis the triumph of sorrow to languish,
'Tis rapture to cherish the smart.
The mind where pale Mis'ry sits brooding,
Repels the soft touch of repose;
Shrinks back when blest Reason...Read more of this...
by
Andrew Marvell
On the Victory Obtained by Blake over the Spaniards in the Bay of Santa Cruz, in the Island of Tenerife, 1657
Now does Spain's fleet her spacious wings unfold,
Leaves the New World and hastens for the old:
But though the wind was fair, they slowly swum
Freighted with acted guilt, and guilt to come:
For this rich load, of...Read more of this...
by
Charlotte Bronte
I've quenched my lamp, I struck it in that start
Which every limb convulsed, I heard it fall
The crash blent with my sleep, I saw depart
Its light, even as I woke, on yonder wall;
Over against my bed, there shone a gleam
Strange, faint, and mingling also with my dream.
It sunk, and I am wrapt in utter gloom;
How far is...Read more of this...
by
Anne Sexton
Like Oedipus I am losing my sight.
LIke Judas I have done my wrong.
Their punishment is over;
the shame and disgrace of it
are all used up.
But as for me,
look into my face
and you will know that crimes dropped upon me
as from a high building
and although I cannot speak of them
or explain the degrading details
I have remembered much
about Judas -
about Judas, the...Read more of this...
by
Stanley Kunitz
I touch you in the night, whose gift was you,
My careless sprawler,
And I touch you cold, unstirring, star-bemused,
That have become the land of your self-strangeness.
What long seduction of the bone has led you
Down the imploring roads I cannot take
Into the arms of ghosts I never knew,
Leaving my manhood on a rumpled field
To guard you where you lie so deep
In...Read more of this...
by
Phillis Wheatley
While others chant of gay Elysian scenes,
Of balmy zephyrs, and of flow'ry plains,
My song more happy speaks a greater name,
Feels higher motives and a nobler flame.
For thee, O R-----, the muse attunes her strings,
And mounts sublime above inferior things.
I sing not now of green embow'ring woods,
I sing not now the daughters of the floods,
I sing not of the storms...Read more of this...
by
Robert Louis Stevenson
MOTLEY I count the only wear
That suits, in this mixed world, the truly wise,
Who boldly smile upon despair
And shake their bells in Grandam Grundy's eyes.
Singers should sing with such a goodly cheer
That the bare listening should make strong like wine,
At this unruly time of year,
The Feast of Valentine.
We do not now parade our "oughts"
And "shoulds" and motives and beliefs...Read more of this...
by
Anne Sexton
for Sylvia Plath
O Sylvia, Sylvia,
with a dead box of stones and spoons,
with two children, two meteors
wandering loose in a tiny playroom,
with your mouth into the sheet,
into the roofbeam, into the dumb prayer,
(Sylvia, Sylvia
where did you go
after you wrote me
from Devonshire
about rasing potatoes
and keeping bees?)
what did you stand...Read more of this...
by
Rudyard Kipling
The Celt in all his variants from Builth to Ballyhoo,
His mental processes are plain--one knows what he will do,
And can logically predicate his finish by his start;
But the English--ah, the English!--they are quite a race apart.
Their psychology is bovine, their outlook crude and raw.
They abandon vital matters to be tickled with a straw;
But the straw that they were tickled...Read more of this...
by
Amy Lowell
Thou dear and well-loved haunt of happy hours,
How often in some distant gallery,
Gained by a little painful spiral stair,
Far from the halls and corridors where throng
The crowd of casual readers, have I passed
Long, peaceful hours seated on the floor
Of some retired nook, all lined with books,
Where reverie and quiet reign supreme!
Above, below, on every side, high shelved
From careless grasp...Read more of this...
by
Sophie Hannah
Although you have given me a stomach upset,
Weak knees, a lurching heart, a fuzzy brain,
A high-pitched laugh, a monumental phone bill,
A feeling of unworthiness, sharp pain
When you are somewhere else, a guilty conscience,
A longing, and a dread of what’s in store,
A pulse rate for the Guinness Book of Records -
Life now is better than it was before.
Although you have...Read more of this...
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