Famous Prophecy Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Prophecy poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous prophecy poems. These examples illustrate what a famous prophecy poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Lascelles Abercrombie
She
ONLY to be twin elements of joy
In this extravagance of Being, Love,
Were our divided natures shaped in twain;
And to this hour the whole world must consent.
Is it not very marvellous, our lives
Can only come to this out of a long
Strange sundering, with the years of the world between us?
He
Shall life do more than God? for hath not God
Striven with himself,...Read more of this...
by
Ralph Waldo Emerson
The south-wind brings
Life, sunshine, and desire,
And on every mount and meadow
Breathes aromatic fire,
But over the dead he has no power,
The lost, the lost he cannot restore,
And, looking over the hills, I mourn
The darling who shall not return.
I see my empty house,
I see my trees repair their boughs,
And he, —the wondrous child,
Whose silver warble wild
Outvalued every pulsing sound
Within the air's...Read more of this...
by
John Montague
There are days when
one should be able
to pluck off one's head
like a dented or worn
helmet, straight from
the nape and collarbone
(those crackling branches!)
and place it firmly down
in the bed of a flowing stream.
Clear, clean, chill currents
coursing and spuming through
the sour and stale compartments
of the brain, dimmed eardrums,
bleared eyesockets,...Read more of this...
by
Isaac Watts
Prophecy and inspiration.
'Twas by an order from the Lord
The ancient prophets spoke his word;
His Spirit did their tongues inspire,
And warmed their hearts with heav'nly fire.
The works and wonders which they wrought
Confirmed the messages they brought;
The prophet's pen succeeds his breath,
To save the holy words from death.
Great God, mine eyes with pleasure look
On the dear volume of thy book;
There my...Read more of this...
by
Isaac Watts
A vision of the Lamb.
Rev. 5:6-9.
All mortal vanities, begone,
Nor tempt my eyes, nor tire my ears;
Behold, amidst th' eternal throne,
A vision of the Lamb appears.
[Glory his fleecy robe adorns,
Marked with the bloody death he bore;
Seven are his eyes, and seven his horns,
To speak his wisdom and his power.
Lo! he receives a sealed book
From him that sits upon the...Read more of this...
by
Elinor Wylie
I shall die hidden in a hut
In the middle of an alder wood,
With the back door blind and bolted shut,
And the front door locked for good.
I shall lie folded like a saint,
Lapped in a scented linen sheet,
On a bedstead striped with bright-blue paint,
Narrow and cold and neat.
The midnight will be glassy black
Behind the panes, with wind about
To set his...Read more of this...
by
William Blake
1. They named the child Orc, he grew
Fed with milk of Enitharmon
2. Los awoke her; O sorrow & pain!
A tight'ning girdle grew,
Around his bosom. In sobbings
He burst the girdle in twain,
But still another girdle
Opressd his bosom, In sobbings
Again he burst it. Again
Another girdle succeeds
The girdle was form'd by day;
By night was burst in twain.
3. These falling down...Read more of this...
by
Anne Sexton
Consider
a girl who keeps slipping off,
arms limp as old carrots,
into the hypnotist's trance,
into a spirit world
speaking with the gift of tongues.
She is stuck in the time machine,
suddenly two years old sucking her thumb,
as inward as a snail,
learning to talk again.
She's on a voyage.
She is swimming further and further back,
up like a salmon,
struggling into her mother's pocketbook.
Little doll child,
come here...Read more of this...
by
Walt Whitman
1
AS a strong bird on pinions free,
Joyous, the amplest spaces heavenward cleaving,
Such be the thought I’d think to-day of thee, America,
Such be the recitative I’d bring to-day for thee.
The conceits of the poets of other lands I bring thee not,
Nor the compliments that have served their turn so long,
Nor rhyme—nor the classics—nor perfume of...Read more of this...
by
Thomas Hardy
At last I entered a long dark gallery,
Catacomb-lined; and ranged at the side
Were the bodies of men from far and wide
Who, motion past, were nevertheless not dead.
"The sense of waiting here strikes strong;
Everyone's waiting, waiting, it seems to me;
What are you waiting for so long? --
What is to happen?" I said.
"O we are waiting for one called God," said...Read more of this...
by
Edgar Lee Masters
After you have enriched your soul
To the highest point,
With books, thought, suffering, the understanding of many personalities,
The power to interpret glances, silences,
The pauses in momentous transformations,
The genius of divination and prophecy;
So that you feel able at times to hold the world
In the hollow of your hand;
Then, if, by the crowding of so many powers
Into the compass of your soul,
Your...Read more of this...
by
Vachel Lindsay
(The poem shows the Master, with his work done, singing to free his heart in Heaven.)
I heard Immanuel singing
Within his own good lands,
I saw him bend above his harp.
I watched his wandering hands
Lost amid the harp-strings;
Sweet, sweet I heard him play.
His wounds were altogether healed.
Old things had passed away.
All things were new, but music.
The blood of David ran
Within...Read more of this...
by
Andrew Barton Paterson
They held a polo meeting at a little country town,
And all the local sportsmen came to win themselves renown.
There came two strangers with a horse, and I am much afraid
They both belonged to what is called "the take-you-down brigade".
They said their horse could jump like fun, and asked an amateur
To ride him in the...Read more of this...
by
Walt Whitman
1
HARK! some wild trumpeter—some strange musician,
Hovering unseen in air, vibrates capricious tunes to-night.
I hear thee, trumpeter—listening, alert, I catch thy notes,
Now pouring, whirling like a tempest round me,
Now low, subdued—now in the distance lost.
2
Come nearer, bodiless one—haply, in thee resounds
Some dead composer—haply thy pensive life
Was fill’d with aspirations high—unform’d ideals,
Waves, oceans musical,...Read more of this...
by
Alec Derwent (A D) Hope
This was the gods' god,
The leashed divinity,
Divine divining rod
And Me within the me.
By mindlight tower and tree
Its shadow on the ground
Throw, and in darkness she
Whose weapon is her wound
Fends off the knife, the sword,
The Tiger and the Snake;
It stalks the virgin's bed
And bites her wide awake.
Her Bab-el-Mandeb...Read more of this...
by
Anne Sexton
My God, my God, what ***** corner am I in?
Didn't I die, blood running down the post,
lungs gagging for air, die there for the sin
of anyone, my sour mouth giving up the ghost?
Surely my body is done? Surely I died?
And yet, I know, I'm here. What place is this?
Cold and *****, I sting...Read more of this...
by
Edwin Markham
WHEN the Norn Mother saw the Whirlwind Hour
Greatening and darkening as it hurried on,
She left the Heaven of Heroes and came down
To make a man to meet the mortal need.
She took the tried clay of the common road--
Clay warm yet with the genial heat of earth,
Dashed through it all a strain of prophecy;...Read more of this...
by
Omer Tarin
I. You are not dead
Why do they call you
Mohen-jo-daro,
“ Mounds-of-the-Dead”?
You are not dead!
You have never been dead
Or buried
Or cremated
By the scorching banks of the Sindhu;
Historians have conspired against you
A thousand and one tales
Have besmirched your name
Misguided fools have imagined
Your obituary to be true;
Sentimental fools have sung elegies
By their own graves
Garlanded their own biers,
Cursed the stars and howled...Read more of this...
by
Hart Crane
Forgetfulness is like a song
That, freed from beat and measure, wanders.
Forgetfulness is like a bird whose wings are reconciled,
Outspread and motionless, --
A bird that coasts the wind unwearyingly.
Forgetfulness is rain at night,
Or an old house in a forest, -- or a child.
Forgetfulness is white, -- white as a blasted tree,
And it...Read more of this...
by
Eugene Field
Up in the attic where I slept
When I was a boy, a little boy,
In through the lattice the moonlight crept,
Bringing a tide of dreams that swept
Over the low, red trundle-bed,
Bathing the tangled curly head,
While moonbeams played at hide-and-seek
With the dimples on the sun-browned cheek -
When I was a boy, a little boy!
And, oh! the dreams - the dreams I...Read more of this...
by
Vachel Lindsay
Let not our town be large, remembering
That little Athens was the Muses' home,
That Oxford rules the heart of London still,
That Florence gave the Renaissance to Rome.
Record it for the grandson of your son —
A city is not builded in a day:
Our little town cannot complete her soul
Till countless generations pass away.
Now...Read more of this...
by
Vachel Lindsay
This poem is intended as a description of a sort of Blashfield mural painting on the sky. To be sung to the tune of Yankee Doodle, yet in a slower, more orotund fashion. It is presumably an exercise for an entertainment on the evening of Washington's Birthday.
Dawn this morning burned all red
Watching them in wonder.
There I saw our spangled...Read more of this...
by
Etheridge Knight
And, yeah brothers
while white America sings about the unsinkable molly brown
(who was hustling the titanic
when it went down)
I sing to thee of Shine
the stoker who was hip enough to flee the fucking ship
and let the white folks drown
with screams on their lips
(jumped his black ass into the dark sea, Shine did,
broke free from the straining steel).
Yeah, I sing to...Read more of this...
by
John Trumbull
In elder days, in Saturn's prime,
Ere baldness seized the head of Time,
While truant Jove, in infant pride,
Play'd barefoot on Olympus' side,
Each thing on earth had power to chatter,
And spoke the mother tongue of nature.
Each stock or stone could prate and gabble,
Worse than ten labourers of Babel.
Along the street, perhaps you'd see
A Post disputing with a Tree,
And mid their arguments...Read more of this...
by
Paul Laurence Dunbar
She told the story, and the whole world wept
At wrongs and cruelties it had not known
But for this fearless woman's voice alone.
She spoke to consciences that long had slept:
Her message, Freedom's clear reveille, swept
From heedless hovel to complacent throne.
Command and prophecy were in the tone
And from its sheath the sword of justice leapt.
Around two peoples swelled a fiery wave,
But both...Read more of this...
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