Famous Obligation Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Obligation poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous obligation poems. These examples illustrate what a famous obligation poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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...A man said to the universe:
"Sir I exist!"
"However," replied the universe,
"The fact has not created in me
A sense of obligation."...Read more of this...
by
Crane, Stephen
...ose disastrously,
And as it was to prove, interminably—
Or till an end of living may annul,
If so it be, the nameless obligation
That I have not the Christian revenue
In me to pay. A man who has no gold,
Or an equivalent, shall pay no gold
Until by chance or labor or contrivance
He makes it his to pay; and he that has
No kindlier commodity than hate,
Glossed with a pity that belies itself
In its negation and lacks alchemy
To fuse itself to—love, would you have me say...Read more of this...
by
Robinson, Edwin Arlington
...t the end of
Falmouth Terrace
Under your mother’s
Eye gravely you
Kissed me good-night.
32
On a Holy Day of Obligation
I went with Margaret up
The hill to Mount St. Mary’s,
The path was rough and little
Used, her black runners had holes,
Her ankles were bare, she wore a
Washed-out flower-patterned frock.
33
You wore a torn scarf
Over your hair
As we sat in the dark
Square of the church,
The footsteps of penitents
Echoing, Christ bleeding,
Cand...Read more of this...
by
Tebb, Barry
...over.
Herewith ill-wishes. From a cozy grave
rainbow I scornful laughings. Do not do,
Father, me down.
Let's shuck an obligation. O I have
done. Is the inner-coffin burning blue
or did Jehovah frown?
Jehovah. Period. Yahweh. Period. God.
It is marvellous that views so differay
(Father is a Jesuit)
can love so well each other. We was had.
O visit in my last tomb me.—Perché?
—Is a nice pit....Read more of this...
by
Berryman, John
...e the sun was for sale.
A stretch of shore, now a jungle of lights and languages
that grudgingly offered, defeated, its obligation of sand.
The night of that day punished us at its whim.
I held you so close I could barely see you.
Autumn was brandishing guffaws and dancebands
and the sea tore at the pleasure-boats in a frenzy.
Your hand balanced, with its steady heat,
the wavering tepidness of alcohol. The gardens
came at me from far away through your skirt.
My high-tide ma...Read more of this...
by
Graves, Robert
...e the sun was for sale.
A stretch of shore, now a jungle of lights and languages
that grudgingly offered, defeated, its obligation of sand.
The night of that day punished us at its whim.
I held you so close I could barely see you.
Autumn was brandishing guffaws and dancebands
and the sea tore at the pleasure-boats in a frenzy.
Your hand balanced, with its steady heat,
the wavering tepidness of alcohol. The gardens
came at me from far away through your skirt.
My high-tide ma...Read more of this...
by
Guillen, Rafael
...I have shut upon myself the door of avarice, and am
thus free from obligation to those who are men and those
who do not merit the name. Since there exists but one
friend [God] toward whom I can extend my hand, I am
what I am, and that concerns only Him and me.
347...Read more of this...
by
Khayyam, Omar
...ion
To use their temperance, seeking no evasion,
When good is seasonable;
Unless Authority, which should increase
The obligation in us, make it less,
And Power itself disable.
Besides the cleanness of sweet abstinence,
Quick thoughts and motions at a small expense,
A face not fearing light:
Whereas in fulness there are sluttish fumes,
Sour exhalations, and dishonest rheums,
Revenging the delight.
Then those same pendant profits, which the spring
And Easter intimate,...Read more of this...
by
Herbert, George
...eathers
Not alone we fly --
Launch it -- the aquatic
Not the only sea --
Advocate the Azure
To the lower Eyes --
He has obligation
Who has Paradise --...Read more of this...
by
Dickinson, Emily
...change one's mind
about a thing one has believed in,
requiring public promises
of one's intention
to fulfill a private obligation:
I wonder what Adam and Eve
think of it by this time,
this firegilt steel
alive with goldenness;
how bright it shows --
"of circular traditions and impostures,
committing many spoils,"
requiring all one's criminal ingenuity
to avoid!
Psychology which explains everything
explains nothing
and we are still in doubt.
Eve: beautiful woman --
I have see...Read more of this...
by
Moore, Marianne
...at gave you life,
Tear with sharp fangs and forked tongue
The indulgent bowels whence ye sprung;
And scorn the debt and obligation,
You justly owe the British nation,
Which, since you cannot pay, your crew
Affect to swear was never due.
"Did not the deeds of England's primate
First drive your fathers to this climate,
Whom jails and fines and every ill
Forced to their good against their will?
Ye owe to their obliging temper
The peopling your new-fangled empire,
While every B...Read more of this...
by
Trumbull, John
...Hold your apron wide
That I may pour my gifts into it,
So that scarcely shall your two arms hinder them
From falling to the ground.
I would pour them upon you
And cover you,
For greatly do I feel this need
Of giving you something,
Even these poor things.
Dearest of my Heart!...Read more of this...
by
Lowell, Amy
...The dogmas of religion admit only that which places
you under obligation to the Divinity. That morsel of
bread that you have, refuse not to others; keep from
speaking evil; render evil to no one, and it is I who
promise you a future life: bring wine.
329...Read more of this...
by
Khayyam, Omar
...-
But I would not exchange the Bolt
For all the rest of Life --
Indebtedness to Oxygen
The Happy may repay,
But not the obligation
To Electricity --
It founds the Homes and decks the Days
And every clamor bright
Is but the gleam concomitant
Of that waylaying Light --
The Thought is quiet as a Flake --
A Crash without a Sound,
How Life's reverberation
Its Explanation found --...Read more of this...
by
Dickinson, Emily
...-- oh the satisfaction -- each check a small kiss,
an echo of the previous one, off off it goes the dry high-ceilinged
obligation,
checked-off by the fingertips, by the small gust called done that swipes
the unfinishable's gold hem aside, revealing
what might have been, peeling away what should . . .
There are flowerpots at their feet.
There is fortune-telling in the air they breathe.
It filters-in with its flashlight-beam, its holy-water-tinted air,
down into the open eyes,...Read more of this...
by
Graham, Jorie
...ut he does not understand);
We've drunk to the wide creation,
And the Cross swings low for the mom,
Last toast, and of Obligation,
A health to the Native-born!
They change their skies above them,
But not their hearts that roam!
We learned from our wistful mothers
To call old England "home";
We read of the English skylark,
Of the spring in the English lanes,
But we screamed with the painted lories
As we rode on the dusty plains!
They passed with their old-world legends...Read more of this...
by
Kipling, Rudyard
...The Rat is the concisest Tenant.
He pays no Rent.
Repudiates the Obligation --
On Schemes intent
Balking our Wit
To sound or circumvent --
Hate cannot harm
A Foe so reticent --
Neither Decree prohibit him --
Lawful as Equilibrium....Read more of this...
by
Dickinson, Emily
...e gone,
The wind blows cold and keen;
I sit and think upon
The thing that I have been.
"And if a country town
Its obligation shirks,
I press for money down
To pay for water works.
"A million pounds or two
Was naught at all to me --
And now I have to sue
For paltry ? s d!
"Alas, that such a fate
Should come to such a man,
Who once was called the Great --
The great O'Sullivan!"
With weary steps and slow,
With tears of sympathy
Pro Bono Publico
Went sadly ...Read more of this...
by
Paterson, Andrew Barton
...its of your destiny.
Yield never to your enemy, be that enemy Rustum,
son of Zal; accept nothing which puts you under obligation
to a friend, be that friend Hatim-tai.
383...Read more of this...
by
Khayyam, Omar
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