Famous Pray Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Pray poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous pray poems. These examples illustrate what a famous pray poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Robert William Service
To visit the Escurial
We took a motor bus,
And there a guide mercurial
Took charge of us.
He showed us through room after room,
And talked hour after hour,
Of place, crypt and royal tomb,
Of pomp and power.
But in bewilderment of grace
What pleased me most of all
Were ancient missals proud in place
In stately hall.
A thousand tomes there were at least,
All luminously...Read more of this...
by
William Topaz McGonagall
Good people of high and low degree,
I pray ye all be advised by me,
And don't believe what the clergy doth say,
That by going to the theatre you will be led astray.
No, in the theatre we see vice punished and virtue rewarded,
The villain either hanged or shot, and his career retarded;
Therefore the theatre is useful in every way,
And has...Read more of this...
by
Robert Browning
I
That fawn-skin-dappled hair of hers,
And the blue eye
Dear and dewy,
And that infantine fresh air of hers!
II
To think men cannot take you, Sweet,
And enfold you,
Ay, and hold you,
And so keep you what they make you, Sweet!
III
You like us for a glance, you know—
For a word's sake,
Or a sword's sake,
All's the same, whate'er the chance, you know.
IV
And in turn we...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
At least -- to pray -- is left -- is left --
Oh Jesus -- in the Air --
I know not which thy chamber is --
I'm knocking -- everywhere --
Thou settest Earthquake in the South --
And Maelstrom, in the Sea --
Say, Jesus Christ of Nazareth --
Hast thou no Arm for Me?...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
We pray -- to Heaven --
We prate -- of Heaven --
Relate -- when Neighbors die --
At what o'clock to heaven -- they fled --
Who saw them -- Wherefore fly?
Is Heaven a Place -- a Sky -- a Tree?
Location's narrow way is for Ourselves --
Unto the Dead
There's no Geography --
But State -- Endowal -- Focus --
Where -- Omnipresence -- fly?...Read more of this...
by
Amy Lowell
Cross-ribboned shoes; a muslin gown,
High-waisted, girdled with bright blue;
A straw poke bonnet which hid the frown
She pluckered her little brows into
As she picked her dainty passage through
The dusty street. "Ah, Mademoiselle,
A dirty pathway, we need rain,
My poor fruits suffer, and the shell
Of this nut's too big for its kernel, lain
Here in the sun it has shrunk again.
The baker down...Read more of this...
by
Isaac Watts
Now I 'm convinced the Lord is kind
To men of heart sincere;
Yet once my foolish thoughts repined,
And bordered on despair.
I grieved to see the wicked thrive,
And spoke with angry breath,
"How pleasant and profane they live !
How peaceful is their death !
"With well-fed flesh and haughty eyes,
They lay their fears to sleep;
Against the heav'ns their slanders rise,
While saints in silence...Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
O Lord! pity this prisoned heart, I pray,
Pity this bosom stricken with dismay!
Pardon these hands that ever grasp the cup,
These feet that to the tavern ever stray!...Read more of this...
by
Anonymous
Teach us to prayOh, Father! we look up to Thee,And this our one request shall be,Teach us to pray.Teach us to pray.A form of words will not suffice,—The heart must bring its sacrifice:Teach us to pray.Teach us to pray.To whom shall we, Thy children, turn?Teach Thou the lesson we would learn:Teach us to pray.Teach us to pray.To Thee, alone, our...Read more of this...
by
Vachel Lindsay
Look you, I'll go pray,
My shame is crying,
My soul is gray and faint,
My faith is dying.
Look you, I'll go pray —
"Sweet Mary, make me clean,
Thou rainstorm of the soul,
Thou wine from worlds unseen."...Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
Comrades! I pray you, physic me with wine,
Make this wan amber face like rubies shine,
And, if I die, use wine to wash my corpse,
And frame my coffin out of planks of vine!...Read more of this...
by
Henry David Thoreau
Pray to what earth does this sweet cold belong,
Which asks no duties and no conscience?
The moon goes up by leaps, her cheerful path
In some far summer stratum of the sky,
While stars with their cold shine bedot her way.
The fields gleam mildly back upon the sky,
And far and near upon the leafless shrubs
The snow dust still emits a silver light.
Under...Read more of this...
by
William Blake
I rose up at the dawn of day--
`Get thee away! get thee away!
Pray'st thou for riches? Away! away!
This is the Throne of Mammon grey.'
Said I: This, sure, is very odd;
I took it to be the Throne of God.
For everything besides I have:
It is only for riches that I can crave.
I have mental joy, and mental health,
And mental friends, and...Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
I pray thee to my counsel lend thine ear,
Cast off this false hypocrisy's veneer;
This life a moment is, the next all time,
Sell not eternity for earthly gear!...Read more of this...
by
Marilyn Hacker
Spring wafts up the smell of bus exhaust, of bread
and fried potatoes, tips green on the branches,
repeats old news: arrogance, ignorance, war.
A cinder-block wall shared by two houses
is new rubble. On one side was a kitchen
sink and a cupboard, on the other was
a bed, a bookshelf, three framed photographs.
Glass is shattered across the photographs;
two half-circles of hardened pocket bread
sit...Read more of this...
by
James Wright
This time, I have left my body behind me, crying
In its dark thorns.
Still,
There are good things in this world.
It is dusk.
It is the good darkness
Of women's hands that touch loaves.
The spirit of a tree begins to move.
I touch leaves.
I close my eyes and think of water....Read more of this...
by
Kobayashi Issa
All the time I pray to Buddha
I keep on
killing mosquitoes....Read more of this...
by
Brooks Haxton
In the hidden part thou shalt make me to know
wisdom. Psalm 51
That young man
firing his Kalashnikov
into the playground
has been made to know
the hidden part.
Me, I want to pray.
I’m on my knees.
But all I am is screaming
I don’t know what for. Maybe
the best God can do is pay no mind....Read more of this...
by
Edmund Spenser
IN vaine I seeke and sew to her for grace,
and doe myne humbled hart before her poure:
the whiles her foot she in my necke doth place,
and tread my life downe in the lowly floure.
And yet the Lyon that is Lord of power,
and reigneth ouer euery beast in field:
in his most pride disdeigneth to deuoure
the silly lambe that to his...Read more of this...
by
Robert Herrick
First offer incense; then, thy field and meads
Shall smile and smell the better by thy beads.
The spangling dew dredged o'er the grass shall be
Turn'd all to mell and manna there for thee.
Butter of amber, cream, and wine, and oil,
Shall run as rivers all throughout thy soil.
Would'st thou to sincere silver turn thy mould?
--Pray once, twice pray; and turn thy...Read more of this...
by
Richard Crashaw
Two went to pray? O rather say
One went to brag, th' other to pray:
One stands up close and treads on high,
Where th' other dares not send his eye.
One nearer to God's altar trod,
The other to the altar's God....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 Morris
Pray but one prayer for me 'twixt thy closed lips,
Think but one thought of me up in the stars.
The summer night waneth, the morning light slips,
Faint and grey 'twixt the leaves of the aspen, betwixt the cloud-bars
That are patiently waiting there for the dawn:
Patient and colourless, though Heaven's gold
Waits to float through them...Read more of this...
by
Anne Bradstreet
If ever two were one, then surely we.
If ever man were lov'd by wife, then thee.
If ever wife was happy in a man,
Compare with me, ye women, if you can.
I prize thy love more than whole Mines of gold
Or all the riches that the East doth hold.
My love is such that Rivers cannot quench,
Nor ought but love from thee...Read more of this...
by
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
I AM now,--what joy to hear it!--
Of the old magician rid;
And henceforth shall ev'ry spirit
Do whate'er by me is bid;
I have watch'd with rigour
All he used to do,
And will now with vigour
Work my wonders too.
Wander, wander
Onward lightly,
So that rightly
Flow the torrent,
And with teeming waters yonder
In the bath discharge its current!
And now come, thou well-worn broom,
And thy wretched form bestir;
Thou...Read more of this...
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