Famous Refuge Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Refuge poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous refuge poems. These examples illustrate what a famous refuge poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Anonymous
Wild and fearful in his cavern
Hid the naked troglodyte,
And the homeless nomad wandered
Laying waste the fertile plain.
Menacing with spear and arrow
In the woods the hunter strayed ...
Woe to all poor wreteches stranded
On those cruel and hostile shores!
From the peak of high Olympus
Came the mother Ceres down,
Seeeking in those savage regions
Her lost daughter Prosperine.
But the Goddess found no refuge,
Found no kindly...Read more of this...
by
Isaac Watts
Deliverance from oppression and falsehood.
O Thou whose justice reigns on high,
And makes th' oppressor cease,
Behold how envious sinners try
To vex and break my peace.
The sons of violence and lies
Join to devour me, Lord;
But as my hourly dangers rise,
My refuge is thy word.
In God most holy, just, and true,
I have reposed my trust;
Nor will I fear what flesh can do,
The...Read more of this...
by
Federico García Lorca
In the sky there is nobody asleep. Nobody, nobody.
Nobody is asleep.
The creatures of the moon sniff and prowl about their cabins.
The living iguanas will come and bite the men who do not dream,
and the man who rushes out with his spirit broken will meet on the street corner
the unbelievable alligator quiet beneath the tender protest of the
stars.
Nobody is asleep...Read more of this...
by
Isaac Watts
The true God our refuge; or, Idolatry reproved.
Not to ourselves, who are but dust,
Not to ourselves is glory due,
Eternal God, thou only just,
Thou only gracious, wise, and true.
Shine forth in all thy dreadful name;
Why should a heathen's haughty tongue
Insult us, and, to raise our shame,
Say, "Where's the God you've served so long?"
The God we serve maintains his throne
Above the...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
Oh you who are shy of the popular eye,
(Though most of us seek to survive it)
Just think of the goldfish who wanted to die
Because she could never be private.
There are pebbles and reeds for aquarium needs
Of eel and of pike who are bold fish;
But who gives a thought to a sheltering spot
For the sensitive soul of a goldfish?
So the...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
'Tis true my garments threadbare are,
And sorry poor I seem;
But inly I am richer far
Than any poet's dream.
For I've a hidden life no one
Can ever hope to see;
A sacred sanctuary none
May share with me.
Aloof I stand from out the strife,
Within my heart a song;
By virtue of my inner life
I to myself belong.
Against man-ruling...Read more of this...
by
Robinson Jeffers
I followed the narrow cliffside trail half way up the mountain
Above the deep river-canyon. There was a little cataract crossed the path,
flinging itself
Over tree roots and rocks, shaking the jeweled fern-fronds, bright bubbling
water
Pure from the mountain, but a bad smell came up. Wondering at it I clam-
bered down the steep stream
Some forty feet, and...Read more of this...
by
Duncan Campbell Scott
The Muse is stern unto her favoured sons,
Giving to some the keys of all the joy
Of the green earth, but holding even that joy
Back from their life;
Bidding them feed on hope,
A plant of bitter growth,
Deep-rooted in the past;
Truth, 'tis a doubtful art
To make Hope sweeten
Time as it flows;
For no man knows
Until the very last,
Whether it be a sovereign herb...Read more of this...
by
Algernon Charles Swinburne
I -- In Church
Thou whose birth on earth
Angels sang to men,
While thy stars made mirth,
Saviour, at thy birth,
This day born again;
As this night was bright
With thy cradle-ray,
Very light of light,
Turn the wild world's night
To thy perfect day.
God whose feet made sweet
Those wild ways they trod,
From thy fragrant feet
Staining field and street
With the blood of God;
God whose breast is rest
In...Read more of this...
by
Hafez
O gentle weariness,
Thine is the power that can all spirits free
From bonding-trouble, thou art a goddess
To all the suffering slaves of misery.
Thy sanctuary
No suppliant vainly seeketh; wheresoe’er
Desperate grief is, then unfailingly
Is thine all-hallowing rest & refuge there.
Our sorrow hath outgrown
Solace, yet still in thine all-mothering hand
Is balm of soft oblivion, who alone
Our never-ending needs dost understand.
...Read more of this...
by
Alan Seeger
Oh, love of woman, you are known to be
A passion sent to plague the hearts of men;
For every one you bring felicity
Bringing rebuffs and wretchedness to ten.
I have been oft where human life sold cheap
And seen men's brains spilled out about their ears
And yet that never cost me any sleep;
I lived untroubled...Read more of this...
by
Mark Doty
Today the Masons are auctioning
their discarded pomp: a trunk of turbans,
gemmed and ostrich-plumed, and operetta costumes
labeled inside the collar "Potentate"
and "Vizier." Here their chairs, blazoned
with the Masons' sign, huddled
like convalescents, lean against one another
on the grass. In a casket are rhinestoned poles
the hierophants carried in parades;
here's a splendid golden staff...Read more of this...
by
Rudyard Kipling
So here's your Empire. No more wine, then?
Good.
We'll clear the Aides and khitmatgars away.
(You'll know that fat old fellow with the knife --
He keeps the Name Book, talks in English too,
And almost thinks himself the Government.)
O Youth, Youth, Youth! Forgive me, you're so young.
Forty from sixty -- twenty years of work
And power to back the working. Ay def mi!
You...Read more of this...
by
Walter de la Mare
Grief hath pacified her face;
Even hope might share so still a place;
Yet, on the silence of her heart,
Haply, if a strange footfall start,
Or a chance word of ecstasy
Cry through dim cloistered memory,
Into her eyes her soul will steal
To gaze into the irrevocable --
As if death had not power to keep
One...Read more of this...
by
Alan Seeger
Seeing you have not come with me, nor spent
This day's suggestive beauty as we ought,
I have gone forth alone and been content
To make you mistress only of my thought.
And I have blessed the fate that was so kind
In my life's agitations to include
This moment's refuge where my sense can find
Refreshment, and my...Read more of this...
by
Friedrich von Schiller
She comes, she comes--the burden of the deeps!
Beneath her wails the universal sea!
With clanking chains and a new god, she sweeps,
And with a thousand thunders, unto thee!
The ocean-castles and the floating hosts--
Ne'er on their like looked the wild water!--Well
May man the monster name "Invincible."
O'er shuddering waves she gathers to thy coasts!
The horror that she spreads can claim
Just title to...Read more of this...
by
Isaac Watts
The church's safety and triumph among national desolation.
God is the refuge of his saints,
When storms of sharp distress invade
Ere we can offer our complaints,
Behold him present with his aid.
Let mountains from their seats be hurled
Down to the deep, and buried there,
Convulsions shake the solid world,
Our faith shall never yield to fear.
Loud may the troubled ocean roar,
In sacred peace our...Read more of this...
by
George William Russell
TWILIGHT, a timid fawn, went glimmering by,
And Night, the dark-blue hunter, followed fast,
Ceaseless pursuit and flight were in the sky,
But the long chase had ceased for us at last.
We watched together while the driven fawn
Hid in the golden thicket of the day.
We, from whose hearts pursuit and flight were gone,
Knew on the hunter’s breast her...Read more of this...
by
Francesco Petrarch
SONNET LX. Io son sì stanco sotto 'l fascio antico. HE CONFESSES HIS ERRORS, AND THROWS HIMSELF ON THE MERCY OF GOD. Evil by custom, as by nature frail,I am so wearied with the long disgrace,That much I dread my fainting in the raceShould let th' original enemy prevail.Once an Eternal...Read more of this...
by
Isaac Watts
God is the refuge of his saints,
When storms of sharp distress invade;
Ere we can offer our complaints,
Behold him present with his aid!
Let mountains from their seats be hurled
Down to the deep, and buried there,
Convulsions shake the solid world,
Our faith shall never yield to fear.
Loud may the troubled ocean roar;
In sacred peace our souls abide;
While every nation, every shore,
Trembles, and...Read more of this...
by
Percy Bysshe Shelley
49
Go thou to Rome,--at once the Paradise,
The grave, the city, and the wilderness;
And where its wrecks like shattered mountains rise,
And flowering weeds, and fragrant copses dress
The bones of Desolation's nakedness
Pass, till the spirit of the spot shall lead
Thy footsteps to a slope of green access
Where, like an infant's smile, over the dead
A light of laughing flowers along the grass...Read more of this...
by
William Topaz McGonagall
The 27th Regiment has mutinied at Kalapore;
That was the substance of a telegram, which caused great uproar,
At Sattara, on the evening of the 8th of July,
And when the British officers heard it, they heaved a bitter sigh.
'Twas in the year of 1857,
Which will long be remembered: Oh! Heaven!
That the Sepoys revolted, and killed their British officers and their...Read more of this...
by
Francis Scott Key
Tune -- ANACREON IN HEAVEN
O! say can you see, by the dawn's early light,
What so proudly we hail'd at the twilight's last gleaming,
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watch'd, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still...Read more of this...
by
Lucy Maud Montgomery
Of A Virginia Slave Mother To Her Daughters Sold Into Southern Bondage
Gone, gone, -- sold and gone
To the rice-swamp dank and lone.
Where the slave-whip ceaseless swings
Where the noisome insect stings
Where the fever demon strews
Poison with the falling dews
Where the sickly sunbeams glare
Through the hot and misty air;
Gone, gone, -- sold and...Read more of this...
by
Conrad Aiken
I
The girl in the room beneath
Before going to bed
Strums on a mandolin
The three simple tunes she knows.
How inadequate they are to tell how her heart feels!
When she has finished them several times
She thrums the strings aimlessly with her finger-nails
And smiles, and thinks happily of many things.
II
I stood for a long while before...Read more of this...
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