Famous Reform Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Reform poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous reform poems. These examples illustrate what a famous reform poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Petrarch, Francesco
...may:So clogg'd with doubt, so dangerous is delay,The best for wise reform is still the present hour. "Well known to you what rapture still has beenShed on your eyes by the dear sight of herWhom, for your peace it wereBetter if she the light had never seen;And you remember ...Read more of this...
by
Lawson, Henry
...hose diggers died. Their comrades may rejoice,
For o'er the voice of tyranny is heard the people's voice;
It says: "Reform your rotten law, the diggers' wrongs make right,
Or else with them, our brothers now, we'll gather to the fight."
'Twas of such stuff the men were made who saw our nation born,
And such as Lalor were the men who led the vanguard on;
And like such men may we be found, with leaders such as they,
In the roll-up of Australians on our darkest, grandes...Read more of this...
by
Bryant, William Cullen
...h,
Thy steps o'ertake him, and there is no time
For parley--nor will bribes unclench thy grasp.
Oft, too, dost thou reform thy victim, long
Ere his last hour. And when the reveller,
Mad in the chase of pleasure, stretches on,
And strains each nerve, and clears the path of life
Like wind, thou point'st him to the dreadful goal,
And shak'st thy hour-glass in his reeling eye,
And check'st him in mid course. Thy skeleton hand
Shows to the faint of spirit the right pat...Read more of this...
by
McGonagall, William Topaz
...nd.
Mr Tocher measured me for the suit,
And it is very elegant, which no one will dispute,
And I hope Mr Henry in Reform Street
Will gain customers by it, the suit is so complete....Read more of this...
by
Trumbull, John
...ou had:
And now, to keep all knaves in awe,
Have sent their troops t' establish law,
And with gunpowder, fire and ball,
Reform your people, one and all.
Yet when their insolence and pride
Have anger'd all the world beside;
When fear and want at once invade,
Can you refuse to lend them aid,
And rather risk your heads in fight,
Than gratefully throw in your mite?
Can they for debts make satisfaction,
Should they dispose their realm at auction,
And sell off Britain's goods a...Read more of this...
by
Masters, Edgar Lee
...orld and wanted to right them.
When my father died, I set out to see peoples and countries
In order to learn how to reform the world.
I traveled through many lands.
I saw the ruins of Rome,
And the ruins of Athens,
And the ruins of Thebes.
And I sat by moonlight amid the necropolis of Memphis.
There I was caught up by wings of flame,
And a voice from heaven said to me:
"Injustice, Untruth destroyed them. Go forth!
Preach Justice! Preach Truth!"
And I h...Read more of this...
by
Milton, John
...row, ere fresh morning streak the east
With first approach of light, we must be risen,
And at our pleasant labour, to reform
Yon flowery arbours, yonder alleys green,
Our walk at noon, with branches overgrown,
That mock our scant manuring, and require
More hands than ours to lop their wanton growth:
Those blossoms also, and those dropping gums,
That lie bestrown, unsightly and unsmooth,
Ask riddance, if we mean to tread with ease;
Mean while, as Nature wills, night ...Read more of this...
by
Herbert, George
...O do not use me
After my sins! look not on my dessert,
But on your glory! Then you will reform
And not refuse me: for you only art
The mighty God, but I a silly worm;
O do not bruise me!
O do not urge me!
For what account can your ill steward make?
I have abused your stock, destroyed your woods,
Sucked all your storehouses: my head did ache,
Till it found out how to consume your goods:
O do not scourge me!
O do not blind...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...s—for me freckles and a bristling beard.
What blurt is this about virtue and about vice?
Evil propels me, and reform of evil propels me—I stand indifferent;
My gait is no fault-finder’s or rejecter’s gait;
I moisten the roots of all that has grown.
Did you fear some scrofula out of the unflagging pregnancy?
Did you guess the celestial laws are yet to be work’d over and rectified?
I find one side a balance, and the antipodal side a balance;
Soft doc...Read more of this...
by
Joyce, James
...culate contraceptives for the populace,
Mare's milk for the sick, seven dry Sundays a week,
Openair love and religion's reform,
(Chorus) And religious reform,
Hideous in form.
Arrah, why, says you, couldn't he manage it?
I'll go bail, my fine dairyman darling,
Like the bumping bull of the Cassidys
All your butter is in your horns.
(Chorus) His butter is in his horns.
Butter his horns!
(Repeat) Hurrah there, Hosty, frosty Hosty, change that shirt
on ye,
Rhym...Read more of this...
by
Field, Eugene
...y eye;
The boom for Charlotte Rooze swep' on an' took the polls by storm,
An' so Three-fingered Hoover fell a martyr to reform!
Three-fingered Hoover said it was a terrible mistake,
An' when the votes wuz in, he cried ez if his heart would break.
We never knew who Charlotte wuz, but Goslin's brother Dick
Allowed she wuz the teacher from the camp on Roarin' Crick,
That had come to pass some foreign tongue with them uv our alite
Ez wuz at the high-toned party down at Sorry...Read more of this...
by
McGonagall, William Topaz
...thinks, I say nay,
For by taking it he helps to lead his brither astray,
Whereas, if he didn't drink, he would help to reform society,
And we would soon do away with all inebriety.
Then, for the sake of society and the Church of God,
Let each one try to abolish it at home and abroad;
Then poverty and crime would decrease and be at a stand,
And Christ's Kingdom would soon be established throughout the land.
Therefore, brothers and sisters, pause and think,
And try...Read more of this...
by
Finch, Anne Kingsmill
...Him, ye Monarchs in supreme Command,
By Anthems, like the Hebrew Kings;
Then with enlarged Zeal throughout the Land
Reform the Numbers, and reclaim the Strings,
Converting to His Praise, the most Harmonious Things.
Ye Senators presiding by our Choice,
And You Hereditary Peers!
Praise Him by Union, both in Heart and Voice;
Praise Him, who your agreeing Council steers,
Producing sweeter Sounds than the according Spheres.
Praise Him, ye native Altars of the ...Read more of this...
by
Marvell, Andrew
...ere I may see thy Glories from some Shade.
Mean time, whilst every verdant thing
It self does at thy Beauty charm,
Reform the errours of the Spring;
Make that the Tulips may have share
Of sweetness, seeing they are fair;
And Roses of their thorns disarm:
But most procure
That Violets may a longer Age endure.
But O young beauty of the Woods,
Whom Nature courts with fruits and flow'rs,
Gather the Flow'rs, but spare the Buds;
Lest Flora angry at thy crime,
To kill her ...Read more of this...
by
Kipling, Rudyard
...Army Reform-.After Boer war "The Army of a Dream"-Traffics and Discoveries.
Know this, my brethren, Heaven is clear
And all the clouds are gone--
The Proper Sort shall flourish now,
Good times are coming on"--
The evil that was threatened late
To all of our degree
Hath passed in discord and debate,
And,Hey then up go we!
A common people strove in v...Read more of this...
by
Cowper, William
...where are its sublimer trophies found?
What vice has it subdu'd? whose heart reclaim'd
By rigour, or whom laugh'd into reform?
Alas! Leviathan is not so tam'd.
Laugh'd at, he laughs again; and, stricken hard,
Turns to the stroke his adamantine scales,
That fear no discipline of human hands.
The pulpit, therefore, (and I name it fill'd
With solemn awe, that bids me well beware
With what intent I touch that holy thing)--
The pulpit (when the satirist has at last,
Strut...Read more of this...
by
Byron, George (Lord)
..., for there he did not drown;
A different web being by the Destinies
Woven for the Laureate's final wreath, whene'er
Reform shall happen either here or there.
CV
He first sank to the bottom - like his works,
But soon rose to the surface — like himself;
For all corrupted things are bouy'd like corks,(4)
By their own rottenness, light as an elf,
Or wisp that flits o'er a morass: he lurks,
It may be, still, like dull books on a shelf,
In his own den, to scrawl s...Read more of this...
by
Herbert, George
...gan to make balconies, terraces,
Till she had weakened all by alteration;
But reverend laws, and many a proclomation
Reform?d all at length with menaces.
Then entered Sin, and with that sycamore
Whose leaves first sheltered man from drought and dew,
Working and winding slily evermore,
The inward walls and summers cleft and tore;
But Grace shored these, and cut that as it grew.
Then Sin combined with death in a firm band,
To raze the building to the very ...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...IS reform needed? Is it through you?
The greater the reform needed, the greater the personality you need to accomplish it.
You! do you not see how it would serve to have eyes, blood, complexion, clean and sweet?
Do you not see how it would serve to have such a Body and Soul, that when you enter the
crowd,
an atmosphere of desire and command enters wit...Read more of this...
by
Swinburne, Algernon Charles
...l-sailed, outsinging the storm,
A song to put fire in our ears
Whose burning shall burn up tears,
Whose sign bid battle reform;
A note in the ranks of a clarion,
A word in the wind of cheer,
To consume as with lightning the carrion
That makes time foul for us here;
In the air that our dead things infest
A blast of the breath of the west,
Till east way as west way is clear.
Out of the sun beyond sunset,
From the evening whence morning shall be,
With the rollers in measur...Read more of this...
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