Famous Pleading Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Pleading poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous pleading poems. These examples illustrate what a famous pleading poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Wang Wei
THERE were many burning hours on the heartsweet tide,
And we passed away from ourselves, forgetting all
The immortal moods that faded, the god who died,
Hastening away to the King on a distant call.
There were ruby dews were shed when the heart was riven,
And passionate pleading and prayers to the dead we had wronged;
And we passed away, unremembering...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
She bore it till the simple veins
Traced azure on her hand --
Til pleading, round her quiet eyes
The purple Crayons stand.
Till Daffodils had come and gone
I cannot tell the sum,
And then she ceased to bear it --
And with the Saints sat down.
No more her patient figure
At twilight soft to meet --
No more her timid bonnet
Upon the village street --
But Crowns...Read more of this...
by
Alan Seeger
Ruggiero, to amaze the British host,
And wake more wonder in their wondering ranks,
The bridle of his winged courser loosed,
And clapped his spurs into the creature's flanks;
High in the air, even to the topmost banks
Of crudded cloud, uprose the flying horse,
And now above the Welsh, and now the Manx,
And now across the sea...Read more of this...
by
Rudyard Kipling
Yearly, with tent and rifle, our careless white men go
By the Pass called Muttianee, to shoot in the vale below.
Yearly by Muttianee he follows our white men in --
Matun, the old blind beggar, bandaged from brow to chin.
Eyeless, noseless, and lipless -- toothless, broken of speech,
Seeking a dole at the doorway he mumbles his tale to each;
Over and over...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
I Came to buy a smile -- today --
But just a single smile --
The smallest one upon your face
Will suit me just as well --
The one that no one else would miss
It shone so very small --
I'm pleading at the "counter" -- sir --
Could you afford to sell --
I've Diamonds -- on my fingers --
You know what Diamonds are?
I've...Read more of this...
by
W. E. B. Du Bois
I am dead;
Yet somehow, somewhere,
In Time's weird contradiction, I
May tell of that dread deed, wherewith
I brought to Children of the Moon
Freedom and vast salvation.
I was a woman born,
And trod the streaming street,
That ebbs and flows from Harlem's hills,
Through caves and cañons limned in light,
Down to the twisting sea.
That night of nights,
I stood alone and at the End,
Until the sudden highway...Read more of this...
by
George William Russell
LOVE and pity are pleading with me this hour.
What is this voice that stays me forbidding to yield,
Offering beauty, love, and immortal power,
Æons away in some far-off heavenly field?
Though I obey thee, Immortal, my heart is sore.
Though love be withdrawn for love it bitterly grieves:
Pity withheld in the breast makes sorrow more.
Oh that the heart...Read more of this...
by
William Cowper
Sin has undone our wretched race;
But Jesus has restored,
And brought the sinner face to face
With his forgiving Lord.
This we repeat from year to year
And press upon our youth;
Lord, give them an attentive ear,
Lord, save them by Thy truth!
Blessings upon the rising race!
Make this a happy hour,
According to Thy richest grace,
And thine Almighty power.
We feel for your unhappy state
(May you...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
Their Height in Heaven comforts not --
Their Glory -- nought to me --
'Twas best imperfect -- as it was --
I'm finite -- I can't see --
The House of Supposition --
The Glimmering Frontier that
Skirts the Acres of Perhaps --
To Me -- shows insecure --
The Wealth I had -- contented me --
If 'twas a meaner size --
Then I had counted it...Read more of this...
by
Elizabeth Bishop
(In Memoriam: Robert Lowell)
I can make out the rigging of a schooner
a mile off; I can count
the new cones on the spruce. It is so still
the pale bay wears a milky skin; the sky
no clouds except for one long, carded horse1s tail.
The islands haven't shifted since last summer,
even if I like to pretend they have
--drifting, in a dreamy sort of...Read more of this...
by
Isaac Watts
Pleading with God under desertion.
How long, O Lord, shall I complain,
Like one that seeks his God in vain?
Canst thou thy face for ever hide,
And I still pray, and be denied?
Shall I for ever be forgot,
As one whom thou regardest not
Still shall my soul thine absence mourn,
And still despair of thy return?
How long shall my poor troubled breast
Be with these...Read more of this...
by
Maggie Estep
Liner Notes - (from Love Is A Dog From Hell)
My friend Jenny is really
worried that people are going to follow me around and send me dead animal
parts and doll heads as a result of this song but please, if you feel inclined
to send me dead animal parts, think it through. Thanks.
Stalk me
I once wrote a poem called **** ME
So...Read more of this...
by
Sidney Lanier
Time, hurry my Love to me:
Haste, haste! Lov'st not good company?
Here's but a heart-break sandy waste
'Twixt Now and Then. Why, killing haste
Were best, dear Time, for thee, for thee!
Oh, would that I might divine
Thy name beyond the zodiac sign
Wherefrom our times-to-come descend.
He called thee `Sometime'. Change it, friend:
`Now-time' sounds so much more fine!
Sweet Sometime, fly fast to me:
Poor Now-time...Read more of this...
by
Eugene Field
I'd not complain of Sister Jane, for she was good and kind,
Combining with rare comeliness distinctive gifts of mind;
Nay, I'll admit it were most fit that, worn by social cares,
She'd crave a change from parlor life to that below the stairs,
And that, eschewing needlework and music, she should take
Herself to the substantial art of manufacturing cake.
At breakfast, then, it...Read more of this...
by
Algernon Charles Swinburne
Love lies bleeding in the bed whereover
Roses lean with smiling mouths or pleading:
Earth lies laughing where the sun's dart clove her:
Love lies bleeding.
Stately shine his purple plumes, exceeding
Pride of princes: nor shall maid or lover
Find on earth a fairer sign worth heeding.
Yet may love, sore wounded scarce recover
Strength and spirit again, with life receding:
Hope and joy, wind-winged, about him...Read more of this...
by
Ellis Parker Butler
I am standing under the mistletoe,
And I smile, but no answering smile replies
For her haughty glance bids me plainly know
That not for me is the thing I prize;
Instead, from her coldly scornful eyes,
Indifference looks on my barefaced guile;
She knows, of course, what my act implies—
But look at those lips! Do they hint a smile?
I stand...Read more of this...
by
Sidney Lanier
What time I paced, at pleasant morn,
A deep and dewy wood,
I heard a mellow hunting-horn
Make dim report of Dian's lustihood
Far down a heavenly hollow.
Mine ear, though fain, had pain to follow:
`Tara!' it twanged, `tara-tara!' it blew,
Yet wavered oft, and flew
Most ficklewise about, or here, or there,
A music now from earth and now from air.
But on a sudden, lo!
I marked...Read more of this...
by
Delmore Schwartz
When from the watercolored window idly you look
Each is but and clear to see, not steep:
So does the neat print in an actual book
Marching as if to true conclusion, reap
The illimitable blue immensely overhead,
The night of the living and the day of the dead.
I drive in an auto all night long to reach
The apple which has sewed the...Read more of this...
by
Paul Laurence Dunbar
When to sweet music my lady is dancing
My heart to mild frenzy her beauty inspires.
Into my face are her brown eyes a-glancing,
And swift my whole frame thrills with tremulous fires.
Dance, lady, dance, for the moments are fleeting,
Pause not to place yon refractory curl;
Life is for love and the night is for sweeting;
Dreamily, joyously, circle and whirl.
Oh, how those viols are...Read more of this...
by
William Topaz McGonagall
As the night was beginning to close in one rough September day
In the year of 1838, a steamer passed through the Fairway
Between the Farne Islands and the coast, on her passage northwards;
But the wind was against her, and the steamer laboured hard.
There she laboured in the heavy sea against both wind and tide,
Whilst a dense fog enveloped her...Read more of this...
by
Duncan Campbell Scott
Set within a desert lone,
Circled by an arid sea,
Stands a figure carved in stone,
Where a fountain used to be.
Two abraded, pleading hands
Held below a shapeless mouth,
Human-like the fragment stands,
Tortured by perpetual drouth.
Once the form was drenched with spray,
Deluged with the rainbow flushes;
Surplus water dashed away
To the lotus and the rushes.
Time was clothed in rippling fashion,.
Opulence of light and air,
Beauty...Read more of this...
by
Isaac Watts
A penitent pleading for pardon.
Show pity, Lord, O Lord, forgive,
Let a repenting rebel live:
Are not thy mercies large and free?
May not a sinner trust in thee?
My crimes are great, but not surpass
The power and glory of thy grace:
Great God, thy nature hath no bound,
So let thy pard'ning love be found.
O wash my soul from every sin,
And make my guilty...Read more of this...
by
Olu Oguibe
Song of Sorrow
for rosa diez
si només, però, aquesta
llum parada poguès durar
I shall sing you a song of
Sorrow when the moment comes.
It is the way of poets.
He will come bearing along his voice
Like the lament of an old guitar.
Only night shall fall; another day dawn.
I shall sing you a tearful song.
In the...Read more of this...
by
Paul Laurence Dunbar
Ah, Nora, my Nora, the light fades away,
While Night like a spirit steals up o'er the hills;
The thrush from his tree where he chanted all day,
No longer his music in ecstasy trills.
Then, Nora, be near me; thy presence doth cheer me,
Thine eye hath a gleam that is truer than gold.
I cannot but love thee; so do not reprove me,
Read more of this...
by
Bliss Carman
I like the old house tolerably well,
Where I must dwell
Like a familiar gnome;
And yet I never shall feel quite at home.
I love to roam.
Day after day I loiter and explore
From door to door;
So many treasures lure
The curious mind. What histories obscure
They must immure!
I hardly know which room I care...Read more of this...
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