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Famous Preachers Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry
...presbyterial bound
A candid liberal band is found
 Of public teachers,
As men, as Christians too, renown’d,
 An’ manly preachers.


Sir, in that circle you are nam’d;
Sir, in that circle you are fam’d;
An’ some, by whom your doctrine’s blam’d
 (Which gies you honour)
Even, sir, by them your heart’s esteem’d,
 An’ winning manner.


Pardon this freedom I have ta’en,
An’ if impertinent I’ve been,
Impute it not, good Sir, in ane
 Whase heart ne’er wrang’d ye,
But to his utmost w...Read more of this...
by Burns, Robert



...I relate,
122 That with high hand I still did perpetrate,
123 For these were threat'ned the woeful day
124 I mocked the Preachers, put it fair away.
125 The Sermons yet upon record do stand
126 That cried destruction to my wicked Land.
127 These Prophets' mouths (all the while) was stopt, 
128 Unworthily, some backs whipt, and ears crept; 
129 Their reverent cheeks bear the glorious marks
130 Of stinking, stigmatizing Romish Clerks; 
131 Some lost their livings, some in priso...Read more of this...
by Bradstreet, Anne
...udies, students, born of thee;
Thee in thy democratic fetes, en masse—thy high original festivals, operas,
 lecturers,
 preachers; 
Thee in thy ultimata, (the preparations only now completed—the edifice on sure
 foundations
 tied,) 
Thee in thy pinnacles, intellect, thought—thy topmost rational joys—thy love,
 and
 godlike aspiration, 
In thy resplendent coming literati—thy full-lung’d orators—thy sacerdotal
 bards—kosmic savans, 
These! these in thee, (certain to come,) to-d...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt
...ith people, even to its step. 
(On weekdays with groceries, spare automobile parts, and pump parts, 
but today only two preachers extra, one carrying his frock coat on a
 hanger.) 
It passes the closed roadside stand, the closed schoolhouse, 
where today no flag is flying 
from the rough-adzed pole topped with a white china doorknob. 
It stops, and a man carrying a bay gets off, 
climbs over a stile, and goes down through a small steep meadow, 
which establishes its poverty i...Read more of this...
by Bishop, Elizabeth
...re or less;
Maybe wouldn't fit there.
Wicked still, bound to confess;
Might jest pine a bit there.

Heaven's swell, the preachers say:
Got so used to earth here;
Had such good times all the way,
Frolic, fun and mirth here;
Eighty Springs ago to-day,
Since I had my birth here.

Quite a spell of happy years.
Wish I could begin it;
Cloud and sunshine, laughter, tears,
Livin' every minute.
Women, too, the pretty dears;
Plenty of 'em in it.

Heaven! that's another tale.
Mightn't l...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William



...ploited, they'd say. Yes, any way
you cut it, but I've a choice
of how, and I'll take the money.

I do give value.
Like preachers, I sell vision,
like perfume ads, desire
or its facsimile. Like jokes
or war, it's all in the timing.
I sell men back their worse suspicions:
that everything's for sale,
and piecemeal. They gaze at me and see
a chain-saw murder just before it happens,
when thigh, ass, inkblot, crevice, tit, and nipple
are still connected.
Such hatred leaps in them,...Read more of this...
by Atwood, Margaret
...ut to sleep in bed,
For my sulking, skulking, coal black soul!

When I was half the man I was
And serve me right as the preachers warn,
(Sighed the old ram rod, dying of downfall),
No flailing calf or cat in a flame
Or hickory bull in milky grass
But a black sheep with a crumpled horn,
At last the soul from its foul mousehole
Slunk pouting out when the limp time came;
And I gave my soul a blind, slashed eye,
Gristle and rind, and a roarers' life,
And I shoved it into the coal...Read more of this...
by St. Vincent Millay, Edna
...efully,
And were lotted their shares in a quarrel not theirs,
Dropt then in their agony.

"'O,' the old folks said, 'ye Preachers stern!
O so-called Christian time!
When will men's swords to ploughshares turn?
When come the promised prime?'...

"--The clash of horse and man which that day began,
Closed not as evening wore;
And the morrow's armies, rear and van,
Still mustered more and more.

"From the City towers the Confederate Powers
Were eyed in glittering lines,
And up fr...Read more of this...
by Hardy, Thomas
...under stones are twisted and yellow and weak.
And no mother would let her baby suck
Diseased milk from her breast.
Yet preachers and judges advise the raising of souls
Where there is no sunlight, but only twilight,
No warmth, but only dampness and cold --
Preachers and judges!...Read more of this...
by Masters, Edgar Lee
...ed, for your only good,
"Take him ye starving sinners, for your food;
"Ye thirsty, come to this life-giving stream,
"Ye preachers, take him for your joyful theme;
"Take him my dear Americans, he said,
"Be your complaints on his kind bosom laid:
"Take him, ye Africans, he longs for you,
"Impartial Saviour is his title due:
"Wash'd in the fountain of redeeming blood,
"You shall be sons, and kings, and priests to God."
Great Countess,* we Americans revere
Thy name, and mingle in...Read more of this...
by Wheatley, Phillis
...arlots and the he-harlots be prudent! let them dance on, while seeming lasts!
 (O
 seeming! seeming! seeming!) 
Let the preachers recite creeds! let them still teach only what they have been taught! 
Let insanity still have charge of sanity! 
Let books take the place of trees, animals, rivers, clouds! 
Let the daub’d portraits of heroes supersede heroes!
Let the manhood of man never take steps after itself! 
Let it take steps after eunuchs, and after consumptive and genteel p...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt
...d me a drink. 

I declined -- 'TWAS self-denial -- and I lectured him on booze, 
Using all the hackneyed arguments that preachers mostly use; 
Things I'd heard in temperance lectures (I was young and rather green), 
And I ended by referring to the man he might have been. 

Then a wise expression struggled with the bruises on his face, 
Though his argument had scarcely any bearing on the case: 
`What's the good o' keepin' sober? Fellers rise and fellers fall; 
What I might hav...Read more of this...
by Lawson, Henry
...e who preach god, need god
those who preach peace do not have peace
those who preach peace do not have love

beware the preachers
beware the knowers
beware those who are always reading books
beware those who either detest poverty
or are proud of it
beware those quick to praise
for they need praise in return
beware those who are quick to censor
they are afraid of what they do not know
beware those who seek constant crowds for
they are nothing alone
beware the average man the a...Read more of this...
by Bukowski, Charles
...ess;
And I hope the students will always be obedient to their teachers
And that many of them may leam to be orators and preachers. 

I hope Miss Baxter will prosper for many a long day
For the money that she has given away,
May God shower his blessings on her wise head,
And may all good angels guard her while living and hereafter when dead....Read more of this...
by McGonagall, William Topaz
...solemnity fit for the tomb 
They lead the old billy-goat off to his doom: 
On every hand a reverend band, 
Prophets and preachers and elders stand 
And the oldest rabbi, with a tear in his eye, 
Delivers a sermon to all standing by. 
(We haven't his name -- whether Cohen or Harris, he 
No doubt was the "poisonest" kind of Pharisee.) 
The sermon was marked by a deal of humility 
And pointed the fact, with no end of ability. 
That being a Gentile's no mark of gentility, 
And, a...Read more of this...
by Paterson, Andrew Barton
...to viols and to flutes,
Brought from Peoria, and many youths,
But lately made regenerate through the prayers
Of zealous preachers and of earnest souls,
Danced merrily, and sought her in the dance,
Who wore a dress so low of neck that eyes
Down straying might survey the snowy swale
Till it was lost in whiteness.
With the dance
The village changed to merriment from gloom.
The milliner, Mrs. Williams, could not fill
Her orders for new hats, and every seamstress
Plied busy needle...Read more of this...
by Masters, Edgar Lee
...a window, through thy grace.

But when thou dost anneal in glasse thy storie,
Making thy life to shine within
The holy Preachers ; then the light and glorie
More rev'rend grows, & more doth win:
Which else shows watrish, bleak, & thin.

Doctrine and life, colours and light, in one
When they combine and mingle, bring
A strong regard and aw : but speech alone
Doth vanish like a flaring thing,
And in the eare, not conscience ring....Read more of this...
by Cavafy, Constantine P
...and holy make

A sanctum to attract
Green virgins, consecrating limb and lip
To chastity's service: like prophets, like preachers,
They descant on the serene and seraphic beauty
Of virgins for virginity's sake.'

Be certain some such pact's
Been struck to keep all glory in the grip
Of ugly spinsters and barren sirs
As you etch on the inner window of your eye
This virgin on her rack:

She, ripe and unplucked, 's
Lain splayed too long in the tortuous boughs: overripe
Now, dour-...Read more of this...
by Plath, Sylvia
...y such crushing rates
to have our children turned to louts
we're sick of all this fuss
we say blame the teachers
or the preachers
they're all the same to us

we say blame the preachers
what right have they to shake
their moral fingers every week
at us and call us pharisees and sinners
let them wave their holy book
where these thugs can take a look
we're sick of all this fuss
we say blame the preachers
or the police
they're all the same to us

we say blame the police
they're v...Read more of this...
by Gregory, Rg

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Book: Reflection on the Important Things