Famous Patience Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Patience poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous patience poems. These examples illustrate what a famous patience poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Amy Lowell
Be patient with you?
When the stooping sky
Leans down upon the hills
And tenderly, as one who soothing stills
An anguish, gathers earth to lie
Embraced and girdled. Do the sun-filled men
Feel patience then?
Be patient with you?
When the snow-girt earth
Cracks to let through a spurt
Of sudden green, and from the muddy dirt
A snowdrop leaps, how mark its worth
To eyes frost-hardened, and do weary...Read more of this...
by
D. H. Lawrence
A wind comes from the north
Blowing little flocks of birds
Like spray across the town,
And a train, roaring forth,
Rushes stampeding down
With cries and flying curds
Of steam, out of the darkening north.
Whither I turn and set
Like a needle steadfastly,
Waiting ever to get
The news that she is free;
But ever fixed, as yet,
To the lode of her agony....Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
Growth of Man -- like Growth of Nature --
Gravitates within --
Atmosphere, and Sun endorse it --
Bit it stir -- alone --
Each -- its difficult Ideal
Must achieve -- Itself --
Through the solitary prowess
Of a Silent Life --
Effort -- is the sole condition --
Patience of Itself --
Patience of opposing forces --
And intact Belief --
Looking on -- is the Department
Of its Audience...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
Through what transports of Patience
I reached the stolid Bliss
To breathe my Blank without thee
Attest me this and this --
By that bleak exultation
I won as near as this
Thy privilege of dying
Abbreviate me this --...Read more of this...
by
Anne Bronte
Jan 7th
A dreadful darkness closes in
On my bewildered mind;
O let me suffer and not sin,
Be tortured yet resigned.
Through all this world of whelming mist
Still let me look to Thee,
And give me courage to resist
The Tempter till he flee.
Weary I am -- O give me strength
And leave me not to faint;
Say Thou wilt comfort me at length
And pity my...Read more of this...
by
William Cowper
Lord, who hast suffer'd all for me,
My peace and pardon to procure,
The lighter cross I bear for Thee,
Help me with patience to endure.
The storm of loud repining hush;
I would in humble silence mourn;
Why should the unburnt, though burning bush,
Be angry as the crackling thorn?
Man should not faint at Thy rebuke,
Like Joshua falling on his face,
When the cursed thing that...Read more of this...
by
John Milton
When I consider how my light is spent
Ere half my days in this dark world and wide,
And that one talent which is death to hide
Lodg'd with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest he returning chide,
"Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?"
I fondly ask. But Patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies:...Read more of this...
by
Sir Thomas Wyatt
Forget not yet the tried intent
Of such a truth as I have meant
My great travail so gladly spent
Forget not yet.
Forget not yet when first began
The weary life ye knew, since whan
The suit, the service, none tell can,
Forget not yet.
Forget not yet the great assays,
The cruel wrongs, the scornful ways,
The painful patience...Read more of this...
by
Victor Hugo
("Il s'est dit tant de fois.")
{III., May, 1830.}
How often have the people said: "What's power?"
Who reigns soon is dethroned? each fleeting hour
Has onward borne, as in a fevered dream,
Such quick reverses, like a judge supreme—
Austere but just, they contemplate the end
To which the current...Read more of this...
by
Charlotte Bronte
The room is quiet, thoughts alone
People its mute tranquillity;
The yoke put on, the long task done,
I am, as it is bliss to be,
Still and untroubled. Now, I see,
For the first time, how soft the day
O'er waveless water, stirless tree,
Silent and sunny, wings its way.
Now, as I watch that distant hill,
So...Read more of this...
by
Helen Hunt Jackson
Armed of the gods! Divinest conqueror!
What soundless hosts are thine! Nor pomp, nor state,
Nor token, to betray where thou dost wait.
All Nature stands, for thee, ambassador;
Her forces all thy serfs, for peace or war.
greatest and least alike, thou rul'st their fate,--
The avalanch chained until its century's date,
The mulberry leaf made robe for...Read more of this...
by
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
How can I wait until you come to me?
The once fleet mornings linger by the way;
Their sunny smiles touched with malicious glee
At my unrest, they seem to pause, and play
Like truant children, while I sigh and say,
How can I wait?
How can I wait? Of old, the rapid hours
Refused to pause or loiter with me long;...Read more of this...
by
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
"Give me of your bark, O Birch-tree!
Of your yellow bark, O Birch-tree!
Growing by the rushing river,
Tall and stately in the valley!
I a light canoe will build me,
Build a swift Cheemaun for sailing,
That shall float on the river,
Like a yellow leaf in Autumn,
Like a yellow water-lily!
"Lay aside your cloak, O Birch-tree!
Lay...Read more of this...
by
William Blake
1.1 "What is the price of Experience? do men buy it for a song?
1.2 Or wisdom for a dance in the street? No, it is bought with the price
1.3 Of all that a man hath, his house, his wife, his children.
1.4 Wisdom is sold in the desolate market where none come to buy,
1.5 And in the wither'd field...Read more of this...
by
T S (Thomas Stearns) Eliot
After the torchlight red on sweaty faces
After the frosty silence in the gardens
After the agony in stony places
The shouting and the crying
Prison and palace and reverberation
Of thunder of spring over distant mountains
He who was living is now dead
We who were living are now dying
With...Read more of this...
by
Gerard Manley Hopkins
Patience, hard thing! the hard thing but to pray,
But bid for, Patience is! Patience who asks
Wants war, wants wounds; weary his times, his tasks;
To do without, take tosses, and obey.
Rare patience roots in these, and, these away,
Nowhere. Natural heart's ivy, Patience masks
Our ruins of wrecked past purpose. There she basks
Purple eyes and seas of liquid leaves all day....Read more of this...
by
William Cowper
Holy Lord God! I love Thy truth,
Nor dare Thy least commandment slight;
Yet pierced by sin the serpent's tooth,
I mourn the anguish of the bite.
But though the poison lurks within,
Hope bids me still with patience wait;
Till death shall set me free from sin,
Free from the only thing I hate.
Had I a throne above the rest,
Where angels and archangels dwell,
One sin,...Read more of this...
by
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
EXPERIENCE, like a pale musician, holds
A dulcimer of patience in his hand,
Whence harmonies, we cannot understand,
Of God; will in his worlds, the strain unfolds
In sad-perplexed minors: deathly colds
Fall on us while we hear, and countermand
Our sanguine heart back from the fancyland
With nightingales in visionary wolds.
We murmur ' Where is any certain tune
Or measured music in such notes as these...Read more of this...
by
Henry Van Dyke
Jesus, Thou divine Companion,
By Thy lowly human birth
Thou hast come to join the workers,
Burden bearers of the earth.
Thou, the Carpenter of Nazareth,
Toiling for Thy daily food,
By Thy patience and Thy courage,
Thou hast taught us toil is good.
They who tread the path of labor
Follow where Thy feet have trod;
They who work without complaining
Do the holy will of God.
Thou, the Peace...Read more of this...
by
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
"As unto the bow the cord is,
So unto the man is woman;
Though she bends him, she obeys him,
Though she draws him, yet she follows;
Useless each without the other!"
Thus the youthful Hiawatha
Said within himself and pondered,
Much perplexed by various feelings,
Listless, longing, hoping, fearing,
Dreaming still of Minnehaha,
Of the lovely Laughing Water,
In...Read more of this...
by
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
WITH a bridegroom's joyous bearing,
Mounts Sir Curt his noble beast,
To his mistress' home repairing,
There to hold his wedding feast;
When a threatening foe advances
From a desert, rocky spot;
For the fray they couch their lances,
Not delaying, speaking not.
Long the doubtful fight continues,
Victory then for Curt declares;
Conqueror, though with wearied sinews,
Forward on his road he fares.
When he sees, though strange it may...Read more of this...
by
Henry Van Dyke
Dear to my heart are the ancestral dwellings of America,
Dearer than if they were haunted by ghosts of royal splendour;
These are the homes that were built by the brave beginners of a nation,
They are simple enough to be great, and full of a friendly dignity.
I love the old white farmhouses nestled in New England valleys,
Ample and long and...Read more of this...
by
John Milton
XVI
When I consider how my light is spent,
E're half my days, in this dark world and wide,
And that one Talent which is death to hide,
Lodg'd with me useless, though my Soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, least he returning chide,
Doth God exact day-labour, light deny'd,
I fondly ask; But patience to prevent
That murmur, soon replies,...Read more of this...
by
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
'O DREARY life,' we cry, ' O dreary life ! '
And still the generations of the birds
Sing through our sighing, and the flocks and herds
Serenely live while we are keeping strife
With Heaven's true purpose in us, as a knife
Against which we may struggle ! Ocean girds
Unslackened the dry land, savannah-swards
Unweary sweep, hills watch unworn, and rife
Meek leaves drop year]y...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
Patience -- has a quiet Outer --
Patience -- Look within --
Is an Insect's futile forces
Infinites -- between --
'Scaping one -- against the other
Fruitlesser to fling --
Patience -- is the Smile's exertion
Through the quivering --...Read more of this...
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