Famous Promised Poems by Famous Poets

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

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A Dog Has Died

...ow he's gone with his shaggy coat,
his bad manners and his cold nose,
and I, the materialist, who never believed
in any promised heaven in the sky
for any human being,
I believe in a heaven I'll never enter.
Yes, I believe in a heaven for all dogdom
where my dog waits for my arrival
waving his fan-like tail in friendship.

Ai, I'll not speak of sadness here on earth,
of having lost a companion
who was never servile.
His friendship for me, like that of a porcupine
withholding ...Read more of this...
by Neruda, Pablo


A Lovers Complaint

...e with his hearing to divide:
If that from him there may be aught applied
Which may her suffering ecstasy assuage,
'Tis promised in the charity of age.

'Father,' she says, 'though in me you behold
The injury of many a blasting hour,
Let it not tell your judgment I am old;
Not age, but sorrow, over me hath power:
I might as yet have been a spreading flower,
Fresh to myself, If I had self-applied
Love to myself and to no love beside.

'But, woe is me! too early I attended
A yo...Read more of this...
by Shakespeare, William

All Souls Night

...;
And that a slight companionable ghost,
Wild with divinity,
Had so lit up the whole
Immense miraculous house
The Bible promised us,
It seemed a gold-fish swimming in a bowl.

On Florence Emery I call the next,
Who finding the first wrinkles on a face
Admired and beautiful,
And knowing that the future would be vexed
With 'minished beauty, multiplied commonplace,
preferred to teach a school
Away from neighbour or friend,
Among dark skins, and there
permit foul years to wear
Hi...Read more of this...
by Yeats, William Butler

Beowulf (Modern English)

...at the ends—
I heard the floor-sitters name her Freawaru
when she passed the studded vessel to the warriors.
She is promised, young and adorned with gold,
to the gracious son of Froda. The friend of the Scyldings
has brought this to pass, the shepherd of the realm,
reckoning the opinion that with this woman
he may settle his share of the conflict, the killing feud.
Far too infrequently, in any place, will the deadly spear
bow down after the people-slaying for a litt...Read more of this...
by Anonymous,

Beowulf (Old English)

...-hall there.
Pact of peace they plighted further
on both sides firmly. Finn to Hengest
with oath, upon honor, openly promised
that woful remnant, with wise-men’s aid,
nobly to govern, so none of the guests
by word or work should warp the treaty, {16h}
or with malice of mind bemoan themselves
as forced to follow their fee-giver’s slayer,
lordless men, as their lot ordained.
Should Frisian, moreover, with foeman’s taunt,
that murderous hatred to mind recall,
then ed...Read more of this...
by Anonymous,


Footprints In The Sand

...times there was only one.

During the low periods of my life I could see only one set of
footprints, so I said, "You promised me, Lord, that you would
walk with me always. Why, when I have needed you most,
have you not been there for me?"

The Lord replied, "The times when you have seen only one set
of footprints, my child, is when I carried you."

...Read more of this...
by Stevenson, Mary

Lara

...oil. 

II. 

'Tis morn — 'tis noon — assembled in the hall, 
The gather'd chieftains come to Otho's call: 
'Tis now the promised hour, that must proclaim 
The life or death of Lara's future fame; 
When Ezzelin his charge may here unfold, 
And whatsoe'er the tale, it must be told. 
His faith was pledged, and Lara's promise given, 
To meet it in the eye of man and Heaven. 
Why comes he not? Such truths to be divulged, 
Methinks the accuser's rest is long indulged. 

III. 

The ...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)

Last Instructions to a Painter

...saved: 
Gain and revenge, revenge and gain are sweet 
United most, else when by turns they meet. 
France had St Albans promised (so they sing), 
St Albans promised him, and he the King: 
The Count forthwith is ordered all to close, 
To play for Flanders and the stake to lose, 
While, chained together, two ambassadors 
Like slaves shall beg for peace at Holland's doors. 
This done, among his Cyclops he retires 
To forge new thunder and inspect their fires. 

The court as once...Read more of this...
by Marvell, Andrew

Paradise Lost: Book 09

...arland, to adorn 
Her tresses, and her rural labours crown; 
As reapers oft are wont their harvest-queen. 
Great joy he promised to his thoughts, and new 
Solace in her return, so long delayed: 
Yet oft his heart, divine of something ill, 
Misgave him; he the faltering measure felt; 
And forth to meet her went, the way she took 
That morn when first they parted: by the tree 
Of knowledge he must pass; there he her met, 
Scarce from the tree returning; in her hand 
A bough of ...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror

...han your look as it intercepts the picture.
Pope Clement and his court were "stupefied"
By it, according to Vasari, and promised a commission
That never materialized. The soul has to stay where it is,
Even though restless, hearing raindrops at the pane,
The sighing of autumn leaves thrashed by the wind,
Longing to be free, outside, but it must stay
Posing in this place. It must move
As little as possible. This is what the portrait says.
But there is in that gaze a combination...Read more of this...
by Ashbery, John

The Break Away

...ay of my divorce:
the courtroom a cement box,
a gas chamber for the infectious Jew in me
and a perhaps land, a possibly promised land
for the Jew in me,
but still a betrayal room for the till-death-do-us—
and yet a death, as in the unlocking of scissors
that makes the now separate parts useless,
even to cut each other up as we did yearly
under the crayoned-in sun.
The courtroom keeps squashing our lives as they break
into two cans ready for recycling,
flattened tin humans
and...Read more of this...
by Sexton, Anne

The Bride of Abydos

...Osman's power, and Giaffir's stern decree. 
That dread shall vanish with the favouring gale, 
Which Love to-night hath promised to my sail: 
No danger daunts the pair his smile hath blest, 
Their steps till roving, but their hearts at rest. 
With thee all toils are sweet, each clime hath charms; 
Earth — sea alike — our world within our arms! 
Ay — let the loud winds whistle o'er the deck, 
So that those arms cling closer round my neck: 
The deepest murmur of this lip shall ...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)

The Everlasting Mercy

...
"No." 
"O Saul. Here's missus. Let me go." 
It wasn't missus, so I didn't, 
Whether I mid do or I midn't, 
Until she'd promised we should meet 
Next evening, six, at top of street, 
When we could have a quiet talk 
On that low wall up Worcester Walk. 
And while we whispered there together 
I give her silver for a feather 
And felt a drunkenness like wine 
And shut out Christ in husks and swine. 
I felt the dart strike through my liver. 
God punish me for't and forgive her. 
...Read more of this...
by Masefield, John

The Flight Of The Duchess

...nting intelligence brightening,
As though she engaged with hearty good-will
Whatever he now might enjoin to fulfil,
And promised the lady a thorough frightening.
And so, just giving her a glimpse
Of a purse, with the air of a man who imps
The wing of the hawk that shall fetch the hernshaw,
He bade me take the Gipsy mother
And set her telling some story or other
Of hill or dale, oak-wood or fernshaw,
To wile away a weary hour
For the lady left alone in her bower,
Whose mind an...Read more of this...
by Browning, Robert

The Lady of the Lake

...to his by holy band,
     For the fell Cross of blood and brand?
     And must the day so blithe that rose,
     And promised rapture in the close,
     Before its setting hour, divide
     The bridegroom from the plighted bride?
     O fatal doom'—it must! it must!
     Clan-Alpine's cause, her Chieftain's trust,
     Her summons dread, brook no delay;
     Stretch to the race,—away! away!
     XXII.

     Yet slow he laid his plaid aside,
     And lingering eye...Read more of this...
by Scott, Sir Walter

The Man Against the Sky

...des, and found, 
As always, underneath him solid ground 
Whereon to be sufficient and to stand
Possessed already of the promised land, 
Far stretched and fair to see: 
A good sight, verily, 
And one to make the eyes of her who bore him 
Shine glad with hidden tears.
Why question of his ease of who before him, 
In one place or another where they left 
Their names as far behind them as their bones, 
And yet by dint of slaughter toil and theft, 
And shrewdly sharpened stones,
Ca...Read more of this...
by Robinson, Edwin Arlington

The Waste Land

...pine on the floor of a narrow canoe."
"My feet are at Moorgate, and my heart
Under my feet. After the event
He wept. He promised 'a new start'.
I made no comment. What should I resent?"
"On Margate Sands. 
I can connect
Nothing with nothing.
The broken fingernails of dirty hands.
My people humble people who expect
Nothing."
 la la
To Carthage then I came
Burning burning burning burning
O Lord Thou pluckest me out
O Lord Thou pluckest 
burning
IV. DEATH BY WATER
Phlebas the Ph...Read more of this...
by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)

The Wife of Baths Tale

...glad, and have no fear.

When they were come unto the court, this knight
Said, he had held his day, as he had hight,* *promised
And ready was his answer, as he said.
Full many a noble wife, and many a maid,
And many a widow, for that they be wise, --
The queen herself sitting as a justice, --
Assembled be, his answer for to hear,
And afterward this knight was bid appear.
To every wight commanded was silence,
And that the knight should tell in audience,
What thing that worldl...Read more of this...
by Chaucer, Geoffrey

To a Mouse

...he best-laid schemes o' mice an' men
          Gang aft a-gley,
An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain
          For promised joy!

Still thou art blest, compared wi' me!
The present only toucheth thee:
But och! I backward cast my e'e
          On prospects drear!
An' forward, tho I canna see,
          I guess an' fear!
...Read more of this...
by Burns, Robert

White Flock

...t sundown:
"Love me, laugh and write poetry!"
And I buried the joyous songbird
Behind a round well near a tree.

I promised that I would not mourn her.
But my heart turned to stone without choice,
And it seems to me that everywhere
And always I'll hear her sweet voice.



x x x

True love's memory, You are heavy!
In your smoke I sing and burn,
And the rest -- is only fire
To keep the chilled soul warm.

To keep warm the sated body,
They need my tears for...Read more of this...
by Akhmatova, Anna

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