Famous Profess Poems by Famous Poets

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

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To the True Romance

by Rudyard Kipling
 Thy face is far from this our war,
 Our call and counter-cry,
I shall not find Thee quick and kind,
 Nor know Thee till I die,
Enough for me in dreams to see
 And touch Thy garments' hem:
Thy feet have trod so near to God
 I may not follow them.

Through wantonness if men profess
 They weary of Thy parts,
E'en let them...Read more of this...

The Poet

by Amy Lowell
 What instinct forces man to journey on,
Urged by a longing blind but dominant!
Nothing he sees can hold him, nothing daunt
His never failing eagerness. The sun
Setting in splendour every night has won
His vassalage; those towers flamboyant
Of airy cloudland palaces now haunt
His daylight wanderings. Forever done
With simple joys and quiet happiness
He guards the vision of the sunset sky;
Though faint with weariness...Read more of this...

Epistle to Katherine, Lady Aubigny

by Ben Jonson
  XIII. — EPISTLE TO KATHARINE LADY AUBIGNY.           As what they have lost t' expect, they dare deride. So both the prais'd and praisers suffer ; yet, For others ill ought none their good forget. I therefore, who profess myself in love With every virtue, wheresoe'er it move, And howsoever ;  as I am at feudBy arts, and practice of the...Read more of this...

Banquet Night

by Rudyard Kipling
 "ONCE in so often," King Solomon said,
 Watching his quarrymen drill the stone,
"We will curb our garlic and wine and bread
 And banquet together beneath my Throne,
And all Brethren shall come to that mess
As Fellow-Craftsmen-no more and no less."

"Send a swift shallop to Hiram of Tyre,
 Felling and floating our beautiful trees,
Say that the Brethren and I desire
 Talk...Read more of this...

Down Wanton Down!

by Robert Graves
 Down, wanton, down! Have you no shame 
That at the whisper of Love's name, 
Or Beauty's, presto! up you raise 
Your angry head and stand at gaze? 

Poor bombard-captain, sworn to reach 
The ravelin and effect a breach-- 
Indifferent what you storm or why, 
So be that in the breach you die! 

Love may be blind, but Love at...Read more of this...

Hymn 33

by Isaac Watts
 Absurdity of infidelity.

1 Cor. 1:26-31. 

Shall atheists dare insult the cross
Of our Redeemer, God?
Shall infidels reproach his laws,
Or trample on his blood?

What if he choose mysterious ways
To cleanse us from our faults?
May not the works of sovereign grace
Transcend our feeble thoughts?

What if his gospel bids us fight
With flesh, and self, and sin,
The prize is most divinely bright
That we are...Read more of this...

Hymn 132

by Isaac Watts
 Holiness and grace.

Titus 2:10-13. 

O let our lips and lives express
The holy gospel we profess;
So let our works and virtues shine,
To prove the doctrine all divine.

Thus shall we best proclaim abroad
The honors of our Savior God;
When the salvation reigns within,
And grace subdues the power of sin.

Our flesh and sense must be denied,
Passion and envy, lust and pride;
While justice, temp'rance,...Read more of this...

The Damp

by John Donne
 When I am dead, and doctors know not why,
And my friends' curiosity
Will have me cut up to survey each part,— 
When they shall find your picture in my heart,
You think a sudden damp of love
Will through all their senses move,
And work on them as me, and so prefer
Your murder to the name of massacre.

Poor victories! But if you dare...Read more of this...

I'm clever whenever

by Kenn Nesbitt
I’m clever whenever
there’s no one around.
Alone, on my own,
I profess I’m profound.
In private, I’m Einstein.
Secluded, I’m smart.
My genius increases
the more I’m apart.
If you think I’m clueless,
it isn’t a trick.
When people are present
I’m dumb as a brick.
But don’t think I’m daft
or not mentally sound.
Whenever I’m clever
there’s no one around.

 --Kenn Nesbitt

Copyright © Kenn Nesbitt 2012. All Rights Reserved...Read more of this...

Before

by Robert Browning
 I.

Let them fight it out, friend! things have gone too far.
God must judge the couple: leave them as they are
---Whichever one's the guiltless, to his glory,
And whichever one the guilt's with, to my story!

II.

Why, you would not bid men, sunk in such a slough,
Strike no arm out further, stick and stink as now,
Leaving right and wrong to settle the...Read more of this...

Train

by Bernadette Geyer
 Train. Distant Train. Praise the glorious distance of Train.

Dogs bark, reply to the mournful echo of Train's whistle. Train looks back, keeps moving. Train carries its boxcars of secrets further and further away (and even further still) from those who profess to love Train, but who do not run after him. Eyes brimmed with glassy reflections of Train.

To watch...Read more of this...

The Abduction

by Stanley Kunitz
 Some things I do not profess 
to understand, perhaps
not wanting to, including
whatever it was they did
with you or you with them
that timeless summer day
when you stumbled out of the wood,
distracted, with your white blouse torn
and a bloodstain on your skirt.
"Do you believe?" you asked.
Between us, through the years,
we pieced enough together
to make the story real:
how you encountered on the...Read more of this...

To Playwright

by Ben Jonson
XLIX. — TO PLAYWRIGHT.    PLAYWRIGHT me reads, and still my verses damns, He says I want the tongue of epigrams ; I have no salt, no bawdry he doth mean ; For witty, in his language, is obscene. Playwright, I loath to have thy manners known In my chaste book ; I profess them in thine own....Read more of this...

If you refuse me once and think again

by Sir John Suckling
 If you refuse me once, and think again,
I will complain.
You are deceiv'd, love is no work of art,
It must be got and born,
Not made and worn,
By every one that hath a heart.

Or do you think they more than once can die,
Whom you deny?
Who tell you of a thousand deaths a day,
Like the old poets feign
And tell the pain
They met,...Read more of this...

Psalm XXXVI: High in the Heavns

by Isaac Watts
 High in the heav'ns, eternal God,
Thy goodness in full glory shines;
Thy truth shall break through ev'ry cloud
That veils and darkens thy designs.

For ever firm thy justice stands,
As mountains their foundations keep;
Wise are the wonders of thy hands;
Thy judgments are a mighty deep.

Thy providence is kind and large,
Both man and beast thy bounty share;
The whole creation is thy charge,
But saints...Read more of this...

Great-Heart

by Rudyard Kipling
 Theodore Roosevelt

"The interpreter then called for a man-servant of his, one Great-Heart."--Bunyan's' Pilgrim's Process

 Concerning brave Captains
 Our age hath made known
 For all men to honour,
 One standeth alone,
 Of whom, o'er both oceans,
 Both peoples may say:
 "Our realm is diminished
 With Great-Heart away."

 In purpose unsparing,
 In action no less,
 The labours he praised
 He would...Read more of this...

Psalm 22 part 2

by Isaac Watts
 v.20,21,27-31 
C. M.
Christ's sufferings and kingdom.

"Now from the roaring lion's rage,
O Lord, protect thy Son,
Nor leave thy darling to engage
The powers of hell alone."

Thus did our suff'ring Savior pray,
With mighty cries and tears;
God heard him in that dreadful day,
And chased away his fears.

Great was the vict'ry of his death,
His throne exalted high;
And all the kindreds of the earth
Shall worship...Read more of this...

A Farewell to the World

by Ben Jonson
FALSE world good night! since thou hast brought 
That hour upon my morn of age; 
Henceforth I quit thee from my thought  
My part is ended on thy stage. 

Yes threaten do. Alas! I fear 5 
As little as I hope from thee: 
I know thou canst not show nor bear 
More hatred than thou hast to me. 

My...Read more of this...

A Pastoral Dialogue

by Anne Killigrew
 Amintor. STay gentle Nymph, nor so solic'tous be, 
To fly his sight that still would gaze on thee. 
With other Swaines I see thee oft converse, 
Content to speak, and hear what they rehearse: 
But I unhappy, when I e're draw nigh, 
Thou streight do'st leave both Place, and Company. 
If this thy Flight, from fear of Harm doth...Read more of this...

A Satyre Against Mankind

by John Wilmot
 Were I - who to my cost already am
One of those strange, prodigious creatures, man -
A spirit free to choose for my own share
What sort of flesh and blood I pleased to wear,
I'd be a dog, a monkey, or a bear,
Or anything but that vain animal,
Who is so proud of being rational.

His senses are too gross; and he'll contrive
A...Read more of this...

Memory

by William Browne
 SO shuts the marigold her leaves
At the departure of the sun;
So from the honeysuckle sheaves
The bee goes when the day is done;
So sits the turtle when she is but one,
And so all woe, as I since she is gone.

To some few birds kind Nature hath
Made all the summer as one day:
Which once enjoy'd, cold winter's wrath
As night they sleeping...Read more of this...

Astrophel And Stella-Sonnet LIV

by Sir Philip Sidney
 Because I breathe not love to every one,
Nor do not use set colours for to wear,
Nor nourish special locks of vowed hair,
Nor give each speech a full point of a groan,
The courtly nymphs, acquainted with the moan
Of them who in their lips Love's standard bear,
"What, he!" say they of me, "now I dare swear
He cannot love. No, no, let...Read more of this...

Original Preface

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 I feel no small reluctance in venturing to give to the public a 
work of the character of that indicated by the title-page to the 
present volume; for, difficult as it must always be to render satisfactorily 
into one's own tongue the writings of the bards of other lands, 
the responsibility assumed by the translator is immeasurably increased 
when...Read more of this...

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