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Famous Prove Poems by Famous Poets

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

Request to a Year

by Judith Wright

 If the year is meditating a suitable gift, 
I should like it to be the attitude 
of my great- great- grandmother, 
legendary devotee of the arts, 

who having eight children 
and little opportunity for painting pictures, 
sat one day on a high rock 
beside a river in Switzerland 

and from a difficult distance viewed 
her second son, balanced on...Read more of this...

Form: Free verse

Yield not to grief, though fortune prove unkind,

by Omar Khayyam

Yield not to grief, though fortune prove unkind,
Nor call sad thoughts of parted friends to mind;
Devote thy heart to sugary lips, and wine,
Cast not thy precious life unto the wind!...Read more of this...

Ode to Valour

by Mary Darby Robinson

 Inscribed to Colonel Banastre Tarleton]


TRANSCENDENT VALOUR! godlike Pow'r! 
Lord of the dauntless breast, and stedfast mien! 
Who, rob'd in majesty sublime, 
Sat in thy eagle-wafted car, 
And led the hardy sons of war, 
With head erect, and eye serene, 
Amidst the arrowy show'r; 
When unsubdued, from clime to clime, 
YOUNG AMMON taught exulting Fame 
O'er earth's vast space to...Read more of this...

penelope

by Rg Gregory

 name meaning thread weaver or duck
(these may be guesses from obscurity)
ten-year faithful wife whilst her husband
was gallivanting round the islands
deceiving the suitors by her shroud-unpicking 
or maybe not such a savoury dame having
a high time with those after her favours
allegedly allowing hermes up her skirts
and becoming the mother of pan
or even (when odysseus was killed) 
getting married to her...Read more of this...

The Passing Strange

by John Masefield

 Out of the earth to rest or range
Perpetual in perpetual change,
The unknown passing through the strange.

Water and saltness held together
To tread the dust and stand the weather,
And plough the field and stretch the tether,

To pass the wine-cup and be witty,
Water the sands and build the city,
Slaughter like devils and have pity,

Be red with rage and pale with lust,
Make beauty...Read more of this...

Form: Tercet

Parabola

by Alec Derwent (A D) Hope

 Year after year the princess lies asleep 
Until the hundred years foretold are done, 
Easily drawing her enchanted breath. 
Caught on the monstrous thorns around the keep, 
Bones of the youths who sought her, one by one 
Rot loose and rattle to the ground beneath.

But when the Destined Lover at last shall come, 
For whom alone Fortune reserves the...Read more of this...

Sonnet CXXXVI

by William Shakespeare

 If thy soul cheque thee that I come so near,
Swear to thy blind soul that I was thy 'Will,'
And will, thy soul knows, is admitted there;
Thus far for love my love-suit, sweet, fulfil.
'Will' will fulfil the treasure of thy love,
Ay, fill it full with wills, and my will one.
In things of great receipt with ease we prove
Among a number...Read more of this...

A Country Life:to His Brother Mr Thomas Herrick

by Robert Herrick

 Thrice, and above, blest, my soul's half, art thou,
In thy both last and better vow;
Could'st leave the city, for exchange, to see
The country's sweet simplicity;
And it to know and practise, with intent
To grow the sooner innocent;
By studying to know virtue, and to aim
More at her nature than her name;
The last is but the least; the first doth tell
Ways less...Read more of this...

Evolutionary Hymn

by C S Lewis

 Lead us, Evolution, lead us
Up the future's endless stair;
Chop us, change us, prod us, weed us.
For stagnation is despair:
Groping, guessing, yet progressing,
Lead us nobody knows where.

Wrong or justice, joy or sorrow,
In the present what are they
while there's always jam-tomorrow,
While we tread the onward way?
Never knowing where we're going,
We can never go astray.

To whatever variation
Our posterity may turn
Hairy, squashy, or...Read more of this...

Roscoe Purkapile

by Edgar Lee Masters

 She loved me. Oh! how she loved me!
I never had a chance to escape
From the day she first saw me.
But then after we were married I thought
She might prove her mortality and let me out,
Or she might divorce me.
But few die, none resign.
Then I ran away and was gone a year on a lark.
But she never complained. She said...Read more of this...

Self-Love

by John Donne

 He that cannot choose but love,
And strives against it still,
Never shall my fancy move,
For he loves 'gainst his will;
Nor he which is all his own,
And can at pleasure choose,
When I am caught he can be gone,
And when he list refuse.
Nor he that loves none but fair,
For such by all are sought;
Nor he that can for foul ones care,
For his...Read more of this...

Infirmities

by Robert William Service

 Because my teeth are feebly few
I cannot bolt my grub like you,
But have to chew and chew and chew
 As you can see;
Yet every mouthful seems so good
I would not haste it if I could,
And so I salivate my food
 With ecstasy.
Because my purse is poor in pence
I spend my dough with common-sense,
And live without the least pretence
 In...Read more of this...

The Eternal Goodness

by John Greenleaf Whittier

 O Friends! with whom my feet have trod
The quiet aisles of prayer,
Glad witness to your zeal for God
And love of man I bear.

I trace your lines of argument;
Your logic linked and strong
I weigh as one who dreads dissent,
And fears a doubt as wrong.

But still my human hands are weak
To hold your iron creeds:
Against the words ye bid me speak
My...Read more of this...

I could not prove the Years had feet --

by Emily Dickinson

 I could not prove the Years had feet --
Yet confident they run
Am I, from symptoms that are past
And Series that are done --

I find my feet have further Goals --
I smile upon the Aims
That felt so ample -- Yesterday --
Today's -- have vaster claims --

I do not doubt the self I was
Was competent to me --
But something awkward in...Read more of this...

Psalm 90 part 2

by Isaac Watts

 v.8-12 
C. M.
Infirmities and mortality the effect of sin.

Lord, if thine eye surveys our faults,
And justice grows severe,
Thy dreadful wrath exceeds our thoughts,
And burns beyond our fear.

Thine anger turns our frame to dust;
By one offence to thee
Adam with all his sons have lost
Their immortality.

Life, like a vain amusement, flies,
A fable or a song;
By swift degrees our nature dies,
Nor can...Read more of this...

To Him that was Crucified

by Walt Whitman

 MY spirit to yours, dear brother; 
Do not mind because many, sounding your name, do not understand you; 
I do not sound your name, but I understand you, (there are others also;) 
I specify you with joy, O my comrade, to salute you, and to salute those who are with you,
 before and since—and those to come also, 
That...Read more of this...

Sonnet VII

by Francesco Petrarch

SONNET VII. Occhi miei, oscurato è 'l nostro sole. HE ENDEAVOURS TO FIND PEACE IN THE THOUGHT THAT SHE IS IN HEAVEN.  Mine eyes! our glorious sun is veil'd in night,Or set to us, to rise 'mid realms of love;There we may hail it still, and haply proveIt mourn'd that we delay'd...Read more of this...

454. Epistle from Esopus to Maria

by Robert Burns

 FROM those drear solitudes and frowsy cells,
Where Infamy with sad Repentance dwells;
Where turnkeys make the jealous portal fast,
And deal from iron hands the spare repast;
Where truant ’prentices, yet young in sin,
Blush at the curious stranger peeping in;
Where strumpets, relics of the drunken roar,
Resolve to drink, nay, half, to whore, no more;
Where tiny thieves not destin’d yet to swing,
Beat hemp...Read more of this...

An Hymn To Humanity (To S.P.G. Esp)

by Phillis Wheatley

 O! for this dark terrestrial ball
Forsakes his azure-paved hall
 A prince of heav'nly birth!
Divine Humanity behold,
What wonders rise, what charms unfold
 At his descent to earth!

II.

The bosoms of the great and good
With wonder and delight he view'd,
 And fix'd his empire there:
Him, close compressing to his breast,
The sire of gods and men address'd,
 "My son, my heav'nly fair!

III.

"Descend to...Read more of this...

Psalm 11

by Isaac Watts

 God loves the righteous and hates the wicked.

My refuge is the God of love;
Why do my foes insult and cry,
"Fly like a tim'rous, trembling dove,
To distant woods or mountains fly?"

If government be all destroyed,
(That firm foundation of our peace,)
And violence make justice void,
Where shall the righteous seek redress?

The Lord in heav'n has fixed his throne,
His eye surveys the world...Read more of this...

To Time

by George (Lord) Byron

 Time! on whose arbitrary wing
The varying hours must flag or fly,
Whose tardy winter, fleeting spring,
But drag or drive us on to die---
Hail thou! who on my birth bestowed
Those boons to all that know thee known;
Yet better I sustain thy load,
For now I bear the weight alone.
I would not one fond heart should share
The bitter moments thou hast given;
And pardon...Read more of this...

Portrait dUne Femme

by Ezra Pound

 Your mind and you are our Sargasso Sea,
London has swept about you this score years
And bright ships left you this or that in fee:
Ideas, old gossip, oddments of all things,
Strange spars of knowledge and dimmed wares of price.
Great minds have sought you- lacking someone else.
You have been second always. Tragical?
No. You preferred it to the usual thing:
One dull man,...Read more of this...

Malachi 3:10

by The Bible

Bring the whole of your offering
Into the storehouse of the Lord
That there may be plenty,
A bountiful blessing for all
In this may you prove me
And see that I'll not open
All of heavens gates for you
The promise I have spoken
And you shall not be able
To receive all of my blessings
Poured out from my abundance
So your portion keeps increasing
I only want to bless...Read more of this...

Me prove it now -- Whoever doubt