Famous Patient Poems by Famous Poets

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

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The Poor Singing Dame

by Mary Darby Robinson
 Beneath an old wall, that went round an old Castle,
For many a year, with brown ivy o'erspread;
A neat little Hovel, its lowly roof raising,
Defied the wild winds that howl'd over its shed:
The turrets, that frown'd on the poor simple dwelling,
Were rock'd to and fro, when the Tempest would roar,
And the river, that down the rich valley was swelling,
Flow'd swiftly...Read more of this...

Tides

by Helen Hunt Jackson
 O patient shore, thou canst not go to meet
Thy love, the restless sea, how comfortest
Thou all thy loneliness? Art thou at rest,
When, loosing his strong arms from round thy feet,
He turns away? Know'st thou, however sweet
That other shore may be, that to thy breast
He must return? And when in sterner test
He folds thee to a heart which does not...Read more of this...

A Study (A Soul)

by Christina Rossetti
 She stands as pale as Parian statues stand;
 Like Cleopatra when she turned at bay,
 And felt her strength above the Roman sway,
And felt the aspic writhing in her hand.
Her face is steadfast toward the shadowy land,
 For dim beyond it looms the light of day;
 Her feet are steadfast; all the arduous way
That foot-track hath not wavered on...Read more of this...

Porlock

by Robert Southey
 Porlock! thy verdant vale so fair to sight,
Thy lofty hills which fern and furze imbrown,
The waters that roll musically down
Thy woody glens, the traveller with delight
Recalls to memory, and the channel grey
Circling its surges in thy level bay.
Porlock! I shall forget thee not,
Here by the unwelcome summer rain confined;
But often shall hereafter call to mind
How here, a patient prisoner,...Read more of this...

Hymn To Apollo

by John Keats
 God of the golden bow,
 And of the golden lyre,
And of the golden hair,
 And of the golden fire,
 Charioteer
 Of the patient year,
 Where---where slept thine ire,
When like a blank idiot I put on thy wreath,
 Thy laurel, thy glory,
 The light of thy story,
Or was I a worm---too low crawling for death?
 O Delphic Apollo!

The Thunderer grasp'd...Read more of this...

Mother Earth

by Henry Van Dyke
 Mother of all the high-strung poets and singers departed,
Mother of all the grass that weaves over their graves the glory of the field,
Mother of all the manifold forms of life, deep-bosomed, patient, impassive,
Silent brooder and nurse of lyrical joys and sorrows!
Out of thee, yea, surely out of the fertile depth below thy breast,
Issued in some strange way, thou lying...Read more of this...

Yankee Doodle

by Vachel Lindsay
 This poem is intended as a description of a sort of Blashfield mural painting on the sky. To be sung to the tune of Yankee Doodle, yet in a slower, more orotund fashion. It is presumably an exercise for an entertainment on the evening of Washington's Birthday.


Dawn this morning burned all red
Watching them in wonder.
There I saw our spangled...Read more of this...

The Hock-cart or Harvest Home

by Robert Herrick
 To the Right Honourable Mildmay, Earl of Westmoreland

Come, sons of summer, by whose toil 
We are the lords of wine and oil; 
By whose tough labours, and rough hands, 
We rip up first, then reap our lands. 
Crown'd with the ears of corn, now come, 
And to the pipe sing Harvest Home. 
Come forth, my lord, and see the...Read more of this...

Song of the Redwood-Tree

by Walt Whitman
 1
A CALIFORNIA song! 
A prophecy and indirection—a thought impalpable, to breathe, as air; 
A chorus of dryads, fading, departing—or hamadryads departing; 
A murmuring, fateful, giant voice, out of the earth and sky, 
Voice of a mighty dying tree in the Redwood forest dense.

Farewell, my brethren, 
Farewell, O earth and sky—farewell, ye neighboring waters; 
My time has ended, my term...Read more of this...

Very True the Linnets Sing

by Walter Savage Landor
 Very true, the linnets sing 
Sweetest in the leaves of spring: 
You have found in all these leaves 
That which changes and deceives, 
And, to pine by sun or star, 
Left them, false ones as they are. 
But there be who walk beside 
Autumn's, till they all have died, 
And who lend a patient ear 
To low notes from...Read more of this...

Kafkas Hat

by Richard Brautigan
 With the rain falling
surgically against the roof,
I ate a dish of ice cream
that looked like Kafka's hat.
It was a dish of ice cream
tasting like an operating table
with the patient staring
up at the ceiling....Read more of this...

My Bees: An Allegory

by Helen Hunt Jackson
 "O bees, sweet bees!" I said, "that nearest field 
Is shining white with fragrant immortelles. 
Fly swiftly there and drain those honey wells." 
Then, spicy pines the sunny hive to shield, 
I set, and patient for the autumn's yield 
Of sweet I waited. 
When the village bells 
Rang frosty clear, and from their satin cells 
The chestnuts leaped, rejoicing,...Read more of this...

A Noiseless Patient Spider

by Walt Whitman
A noiseless patient spider,
I marked where on a promontory it stood isolated,
Marked how to explore the vacant vast surrounding,
It launched forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself,
Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them.

And you O my soul where you stand,
Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space,
Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to connect them,
Till the bridge you will need...Read more of this...

The Toys

by Coventry Patmore
 My little Son, who look'd from thoughtful eyes 
And moved and spoke in quiet grown-up wise, 
Having my law the seventh time disobey'd, 
I struck him, and dismiss'd 
With hard words and unkiss'd,
—His Mother, who was patient, being dead. 
Then, fearing lest his grief should hinder sleep, 
I visited his bed, 
But found him slumbering deep, 
With darken'd eyelids,...Read more of this...

Though beauty's tress be strayed

by Hafez
Though beauty’s tress be strayed, ’tis beauteous still:
Though her bright glance should wander, though it err
& wound me, it shall be forgiven her;
Yea, lov’d is the Belovéd though she kill.

Though should love’s light’ning ravage & consume
Faith’s harvest, & the garner of the wise,
Reproach not nor upbraid her: those bright eyes
Have right all to destroy, that all illume.

Betwixt love’s roses should...Read more of this...

She is Overheard Singing

by Edna St. Vincent Millay
 OH, Prue she has a patient man,
And Joan a gentle lover,
And Agatha's Arth' is a hug-the-hearth,­
But my true love's a rover! 

Mig, her man's as good as cheese
And honest as a briar,
Sue tells her love what he's thinking of,­
But my dear lad's a liar! 

Oh, Sue and Prue and Agatha
Are thick with Mig and Joan!
They bite their threads and...Read more of this...

The Task: Book V The Winter Morning Walk (excerpts)

by William Cowper
 'Tis morning; and the sun, with ruddy orb
Ascending, fires th' horizon: while the clouds,
That crowd away before the driving wind,
More ardent as the disk emerges more,
Resemble most some city in a blaze,
Seen through the leafless wood. His slanting ray
Slides ineffectual down the snowy vale,
And, tinging all with his own rosy hue,
From ev'ry herb and ev'ry spiry blade
Stretches a length...Read more of this...

What Almost Every Woman Knows Sooner Or Later

by Ogden Nash
 Husbands are things that wives have to get used to putting up with.
And with whom they breakfast with and sup with.
They interfere with the discipline of nurseries,
And forget anniversaries,
And when they have been particularly remiss
They think they can cure everything with a great big kiss,
And when you tell them about something awful they have done they just
look unbearably patient...Read more of this...

Celestial Music

by Louise Gluck
 I have a friend who still believes in heaven.
Not a stupid person, yet with all she knows, she literally talks to God.
She thinks someone listens in heaven.
On earth she's unusually competent.
Brave too, able to face unpleasantness.

We found a caterpillar dying in the dirt, greedy ants crawling over it.
I'm always moved by disaster, always eager to oppose vitality
But timid also,...Read more of this...

Hymn To Joy

by Friedrich von Schiller
 Joy, thou goddess, fair, immortal,
Offspring of Elysium,
Mad with rapture, to the portal
Of thy holy fame we come!
Fashion's laws, indeed, may sever,
But thy magic joins again;
All mankind are brethren ever
'Neath thy mild and gentle reign.

CHORUS.
Welcome, all ye myriad creatures!
Brethren, take the kiss of love!
Yes, the starry realms above
Hide a Father's smiling features!

He, that noble prize possessing--
He that boasts a friend...Read more of this...

A Calendar of Sonnets: January

by Helen Hunt Jackson
 O Winter! frozen pulse and heart of fire, 
What loss is theirs who from thy kingdom turn 
Dismayed, and think thy snow a sculptured urn 
Of death! Far sooner in midsummer tire 
The streams than under ice. June could not hire 
Her roses to forego the strength they learn 
In sleeping on thy breast. No fires can burn 
The...Read more of this...

The Ever-Patient Woman

by Andree Chedid
 In the flowing sap
In her growing fever
Parting her veils
Cracking out of her shells
Sliding out of her skins

The ever-patient woman
Slowly
gives herself
life

In her volcanoes
In her orchards
Seeking solidity and measure 
Clasping her most tender flesh
Straining every fine-honed fiber

The ever-patient woman
Slowly
gives herself
light....Read more of this...

A Noiseless Patient Spider

by Walt Whitman
 A NOISELESS, patient spider, 
I mark’d, where, on a little promontory, it stood, isolated; 
Mark’d how, to explore the vacant, vast surrounding, 
It launch’d forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself; 
Ever unreeling them—ever tirelessly speeding them.

And you, O my Soul, where you stand, 
Surrounded, surrounded, in measureless oceans of space, 
Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing,—seeking the spheres, to connect...Read more of this...

The Silent Ones

by Robert William Service
 I'm just an ordinary chap
 Who comes home to his tea,
And mostly I don't care a rap
 What people think of me;
I do my job and take my pay,
 And love of peace expound;
But as I go my patient way,
 --Don't push me round.

Though I respect authority
 And order never flout,
When Law and Justice disagree
 You can include me...Read more of this...

London Voluntaries IV: Out of the Poisonous East

by William Ernest Henley
 Out of the poisonous East,
Over a continent of blight,
Like a maleficent Influence released
From the most squalid cellerage of hell,
The Wind-Fiend, the abominable--
The Hangman Wind that tortures temper and light--
Comes slouching, sullen and obscene,
Hard on the skirts of the embittered night;
And in a cloud unclean
Of excremental humours, roused to strife
By the operation of some ruinous change,
Wherever his evil mandate run...Read more of this...

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