Famous Preserve Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Preserve poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous preserve poems. These examples illustrate what a famous preserve poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Isaac Watts
Confession of our poverty.
Preserve me, Lord, in time of need,
For succor to thy throne I flee,
But have no merits there to plead:
My goodness cannot reach to thee.
Oft have my heart and tongue confessed
How empty and how poor I am;
My praise can never make thee blessed,
Nor add new glories to thy name.
Yet, Lord, thy saints on earth may reap
Some profit...Read more of this...
by
Philip Levine
I do not want a plain box, I want a sarcophagus
With tigery stripes, and a face on it
Round as the moon, to stare up.
I want to be looking at them when they come
Picking among the dumb minerals, the roots.
I see them already -- the pale, star-distance faces.
Now they are nothing, they are not even babies.
I imagine them without fathers...Read more of this...
by
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Heard a voice, that cried,
"Balder the Beautiful
Is dead, is dead!"
And through the misty air
Passed like the mournful cry
Of sunward sailing cranes.
I saw the pallid corpse
Of the dead sun
Borne through the Northern sky.
Blasts from Niffelheim
Lifted the sheeted mists
Around him as he passed.
And the voice forever cried,
"Balder the Beautiful
Is...Read more of this...
by
Robert Burns
GUDE pity me, because I’m little!
For though I am an elf o’ mettle,
An’ can, like ony wabster’s shuttle,
Jink there or here,
Yet, scarce as lang’s a gude kail-whittle,
I’m unco *****.
An’ now Thou kens our waefu’ case;
For Geordie’s jurr we’re in disgrace,
Because we stang’d her through the place,
An’ hurt her spleuchan;
For whilk we daurna show our face
Within...Read more of this...
by
Thomas Moore
Shall the Harp then be silent, when he who first gave
To our country a name, is withdrawn from all eyes?
Shall a Minstrel of Erin stand mute by the grave
Where the first -- where the last of her Patriots lies?
No -- faint though the death-song may fall from his lips,
Though his Harp, like his soul,...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
Should you preserve white mice in honey
Don't use imported ones from China,
For though they cost you less in money
You'll find the Japanese ones finer.
But if Chinese, stuff them with spice,
Which certainly improves their savour,
And though the Canton mice are nice,
The Pekinese have finer flavour.
If you should pickle bracken shoots
The way the wily Japanese do,
Be sure to pluck then young...Read more of this...
by
Isaac Watts
v.1,8-16
S. M.
The warnings of God to his people.
Sing to the Lord aloud,
And make a joyful noise;
God is our strength, our Savior God;
Let Isr'el hear his voice.
"From vile idolatry
Preserve my worship clean;
I am the Lord, who set thee free
From slavery and sin.
"Stretch thy desires abroad,
And I'll supply them well:
But if ye will refuse your God,
If Isr'el will rebel;
"I'll leave...Read more of this...
by
Peter Huchel
Do not look for the stones
in water above the mud,
the boat is gone.
No longer with nets and baskets
the river is dotted.
The sun wick,
the marsh marigold flickered out in rain.
Only the willow still bears witness,
in its roots
the secrets of tramps lie hidden,
their paltry treasures,
a rusty fishhook,
a bottle full of sand,
a tine with no bottom,
in which to preserve
conversations long forgotten.
On the...Read more of this...
by
Henry Lawson
Sons of Australia, be loyal and true to her -
Fling out the flag of the Southern Cross!
Sing a loud song to be joyous and new to her -
Fling out the flag of the Southern Cross!
Stain'd with the blood of the diggers who died by it,
Fling out the flag to the front, and abide by...Read more of this...
by
Syl Cheney-Coker
After our bloody century, the sea will groan
under its weight, somewhere between breasts and anus.
Filled with toxins, her belly will not yield new islands
even though the orphans of East Timor wish it so.
The sea is only capable of so much history:
Noah's monologue, the Middle Passage's cargoes,
Darwin's examination of the turtle's ****,
the remains of the Titanic, and a diver's story
about how...Read more of this...
by
Andrew Barton Paterson
We read in the press that Lord Northcote is here
To take up Lord Tennyson's mission.
'Tis pleasant to find they have sent us a Peer,
And a man of exalted position.
It's his business to see that the Radical horde
From loyalty's path does not swerve us;
But his tastes, and the task, don't seem quite in accord...Read more of this...
by
Robert Burns
MY honor’d Colonel, deep I feel
Your interest in the Poet’s weal;
Ah! now sma’ heart hae I to speel
The steep Parnassus,
Surrounded thus by bolus pill,
And potion glasses.
O what a canty world were it,
Would pain and care and sickness spare it;
And Fortune favour worth and merit
As they deserve;
And aye rowth o’ roast-beef and claret,
Syne, wha wad starve?
Dame...Read more of this...
by
Friedrich von Schiller
Even the beauteous must die! This vanquishes men and immortals;
But of the Stygian god moves not the bosom of steel.
Once and once only could love prevail on the ruler of shadows,
And on the threshold, e'en then, sternly his gift he recalled.
Venus could never heal the wounds of the beauteous stripling,
That the terrible boar made in his delicate skin;
Nor could...Read more of this...
by
William Topaz McGonagall
Pity the sorrows of the poor blind,
For they can but little comfort find;
As they walk along the street,
They know not where to put their feet.
They are deprived of that earthly joy
Of seeing either man, woman, or boy;
Sad and lonely through the world they go,
Not knowing a friend from a foe:
Nor the difference betwixt day and night,
For the want of...Read more of this...
by
Robert Burns
LAST May, a braw wooer cam doun the lang glen,
And sair wi’ his love he did deave me;
I said, there was naething I hated like men—
The deuce gae wi’m, to believe me, believe me;
The deuce gae wi’m to believe me.
He spak o’ the darts in my bonie black e’en,
And vow’d for my love he was...Read more of this...
by
William Shakespeare
My love is as a fever, longing still
For that which longer nurseth the disease,
Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill,
Th' uncertain sickly appetite to please.
My reason, the physician to my love,
Angry that his prescriptions are not kept,
Hath left me, and I desperate now approve
Desire is death, which physic did except.
Past cure I am, now reason is past care,
And...Read more of this...
by
Emile Verhaeren
When you have closed my eyes to the light, kiss them with a long kiss, for they will have given you in the last look of their last fervour the utmost passionate love.
Beneath the still radiance of the funeral torch, bend down towards the farewell in them your sad and beautiful face, so that the only image they will keep...Read more of this...
by
Anonymous
The day is gone,—the silent nightInvites me to my peaceful bed;But, Lord, I know that it is rightTo thank Thee, ere I rest my head.For my good meals and pleasant hours,That I have had this present day,Let me exert my infant powersTo praise Thee, nor forget to pray.Thou art most good. I can’t tell allThat Thou hast ever done for...Read more of this...
by
Anne Bradstreet
O thou Most High who rulest all
And hear'st the prayers of thine,
O hearken, Lord, unto my suit
And my petition sign.
Into Thy everlasting arms Of mercy
I commend Thy servant, Lord.
Keep and preserve My husband,
my dear friend.
At Thy command, O Lord, he went,
Nor nought could keep him back.
Then let Thy promise joy his...Read more of this...
by
Walt Whitman
I SIT and look out upon all the sorrows of the world, and upon all oppression and shame;
I hear secret convulsive sobs from young men, at anguish with themselves, remorseful after
deeds
done;
I see, in low life, the mother misused by her children, dying, neglected, gaunt,
desperate;
I see the wife misused by her husband—I see the...Read more of this...
by
Isaac Watts
v.1-8,16-18,22
C. M.
Support for the afflicted and tempted soul.
O God, my refuge, hear my cries,
"Behold my flowing tears;
For earth and hell my hurt devise,
And triumph in my fears.
Their rage is leveled at my life,
My soul with guilt they load,
And fill my thoughts with inward strife,
To shake my hope in God.
With inward pain my heart-strings sound,
I groan with ev'ry breath;
Horror...Read more of this...
by
Tupac Shakur
i exist in the depths of solitude
pondering my true goal
trying 2 find peace of mind
and still preserve my soul
constantly yearning 2 be accepted
and from all receive respect
never comprising but sometimes risky
and that is my only regret
a young heart with an old soul
how can there be peace
how can i be in the depths of solitude
when there r 2 inside of me
this...Read more of this...
by
Andrew Marvell
How wisely Nature did decree,
With the same Eyes to weep and see!
That, having view'd the object vain,
They might be ready to complain.
And since the Self-deluding Sight,
In a false Angle takes each hight;
These Tears which better measure all,
Like wat'ry Lines and Plummets fall.
Two Tears, which Sorrow long did weigh
Within the Scales of either Eye,
And then paid out in equal Poise,
Are...Read more of this...
by
Thomas Hardy
'TWAS a death-bed summons, and forth I went
By the way of the Western Wall, so drear
On that winter night, and sought a gate--
The home, by Fate,
Of one I had long held dear.
And there, as I paused by her tenement,
And the trees shed on me their rime and hoar,
I thought of the man who had left her lone--
Him who made...Read more of this...
by
Philip Freneau
Nil mortalibus ardui est
Caelum ipsum petimus stultitia
Horace
FROM Persian looms the silk he wove
No Weaver meant should trail above
The surface of the earth we tread,
To deck the matron or the maid.
But you ambitious, have design'd
With silk to soar above mankind:--
On silk you hang your splendid car
And mount towards the morning star.
How can you be so...Read more of this...
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