Famous Relief Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Relief poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous relief poems. These examples illustrate what a famous relief poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Carl Sandburg
FIVE geese deploy mysteriously.
Onward proudly with flagstaffs,
Hearses with silver bugles,
Bushels of plum-blossoms dropping
For ten mystic web-feet—
Each his own drum-major,
Each charged with the honor
Of the ancient goose nation,
Each with a nose-length surpassing
The nose-lengths of rival nations.
Somberly, slowly, unimpeachably,
Five geese deploy mysteriously....Read more of this...
by
Isaac Watts
v.2-5
L. M.
Watchfulness and brotherly reproof.
A morning or evening Psalm.
My God, accept my early vows,
Like morning incense in thine house;
And let my nightly worship rise
Sweet as the evening sacrifice.
Watch o'er my lips, and guard them, Lord,
From every rash and heedless word;
Nor let my feet incline to tread
The guilty path where sinners lead.
O may the righteous, when I stray,
Smite, and...Read more of this...
by
Robert Frost
Out alone in the winter rain,
Intent on giving and taking pain.
But never was I far out of sight
Of a certain upper-window light.
The light was what it was all about:
I would not go in till the light went out;
It would not go out till I came in.
Well, we should wee which one would win,
We should see which one would be...Read more of this...
by
William Topaz McGonagall
Success to Colonel Baden-Powell and his praises loudly sing,
For being so brave in relieving Mafeking,
With his gallant little band of eight hundred men,
They made the Boers fly from Mafeking like sheep escaping from a pen.
'Twas in the year of 1900 and on the 18th of May,
That Colonel Baden-Powell beat the Boers without dismay,
And made them fly from Mafeking...Read more of this...
by
Siegfried Sassoon
‘FALL in! Now get a move on.’ (Curse the rain.)
We splash away along the straggling village,
Out to the flat rich country, green with June...
And sunset flares across wet crops and tillage,
Blazing with splendour-patches. (Harvest soon,
Up in the Line.) ‘Perhaps the War’ll be done
‘By Christmas-Day. Keep smiling then, old son.’
Here’s the Canal: it’s dusk;...Read more of this...
by
Isaac Watts
v.1-6
S. M.
Safety in God.
When, overwhelm'd with grief,
My heart within me dies,
Helpless, and far from all relief,
To heav'n I lift mine eyes.
O lead me to the rock
That's high above my head,
And make the covert of thy wings
My shelter and my shade.
Within thy presence, Lord,
For ever I'll abide;
Thou art the tower of my defence,
The refuge where I hide.
Thou givest me...Read more of this...
by
George Herbert
Wounded I sing, tormented I indite,
Thrown down I fall into a bed, and rest:
Sorrow hath chang'd its note: such is his will
Who changeth all things, as him pleaseth best.
For well he knows, if but one grief and smart
Among my many had his full career,
Sure it would carry with it ev'n my heart,
And...Read more of this...
by
Mary Elizabeth Coleridge
I ask of thee, love, nothing but relief.
Thou canst not bring the old days back again;
For I was happy then,
Not knowing heavenly joy, not knowing grief....Read more of this...
by
Isaac Watts
v.1-8
L. M.
Charity to the poor; or, Pity to the afflicted.
Blest is the man whose bowels move,
And melt with pity to the poor;
Whose soul, by sympathizing love,
Feels what his fellow saints endure.
His heart contrives for their relief
More good than his own hands can do;
He, in the time of gen'ral grief,
Shall find the Lord has bowels too.
His soul shall live...Read more of this...
by
Anne Kingsmill Finch
A Peevish Fellow laid his Head
On Pillows, stuff'd with Down;
But was no sooner warm in Bed,
With hopes to rest his Crown,
But Animals of slender size,
That feast on humane Gore,
From secret Ambushes arise,
Nor suffer him to snore;
Who starts, and scrubs, and frets, and swears,
'Till, finding all in vain,
He for Relief...Read more of this...
by
Edna St. Vincent Millay
Time does not bring relief; you all have lied
Who told me time would ease me of my pain!
I miss him in the weeping of the rain;
I want him at the shrinking of the tide;
The old snows melt from every mountain-side,
And last year's leaves are smoke in every lane;
But last year's bitter loving must remain
Heaped on...Read more of this...
by
William Cowper
(Exodus, xv.26)
Heal us, Emmanuel! here we are,
Waiting to feel Thy touch:
Deep-wounded souls to Thee repair
And, Saviour, we are such.
Our faith is feeble, we confess,
We faintly trust Thy word;
But wilt Thou pity us the less?
Be that far from Thee, Lord!
Remember him who once applied,
With trembling, for relief;
"Lord, I believe," with tears he cried,
"Oh, help my unbelief!"
She too, who touch'd Thee...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
He wrote a letter in his mind
To answer one a maid had sent;
He sought the fitting word to find,
As on by hill and rill he went.
By bluebell wood and hawthorn lane,
The cadence sweet and silken phrase
He incubated in his brain
For days and days.
He wrote his letter on a page
Of paper with a satin grain;
It...Read more of this...
by
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Filled is Life's goblet to the brim;
And though my eyes with tears are dim,
I see its sparkling bubbles swim,
And chant a melancholy hymn
With solemn voice and slow.
No purple flowers,--no garlands green,
Conceal the goblet's shade or sheen,
Nor maddening draughts of Hippocrene,
Like gleams of sunshine, flash between
Thick leaves of mistletoe.
This goblet, wrought with curious art,
Is filled with waters, that upstart,
When the...Read more of this...
by
Weldon Kees
The smiles of the bathers fade as they leave the water,
And the lover feels sadness fall as it ends, as he leaves his love.
The scholar, closing his book as the midnight clock strikes, is hollow
and old:
The pilot's relief on landing is no release.
These perfect and private things, walling us in, have imperfect and
public endings--
Water and wind and...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
A Coffin -- is a small Domain,
Yet able to contain
A Citizen of Paradise
In it diminished Plane.
A Grave -- is a restricted Breadth --
Yet ampler than the Sun --
And all the Seas He populates
And Lands He looks upon
To Him who on its small Repose
Bestows a single Friend --
Circumference without Relief --
Or Estimate -- or End --...Read more of this...
by
Isaac Watts
v.14-21,26,29,32
C. M.
The passion and exaltation of Christ.
Now let our lips with holy fear
And mournful pleasure sing
The suff'rings of our great High Priest,
The sorrows of our King.
He sinks in floods of deep distress;
How high the waters rise!
While to his heav'nly Father's ear
He sends perpetual cries.
"Hear me, O Lord, and save thy Son,
Nor hide thy shining face;
Why should thy fav'rite...Read more of this...
by
Henry Van Dyke
When down the stair at morning
The sunbeams round her float,
Sweet rivulets of laughter
Are bubbling in her throat;
The gladness of her greeting
Is gold without alloy;
And in the morning sunlight
I think her name is Joy.
When in the evening twilight
The quiet book-room lies,
We read the sad old ballads,
While from her hidden eyes
The tears are falling, falling,
That give...Read more of this...
by
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
I.
FRIENDS of faces unknown and a land
Unvisited over the sea,
Who tell me how lonely you stand
With a single gold curl in the hand
Held up to be looked at by me, --
II.
While you ask me to ponder and say
What a father and mother can do,
With the bright fellow-locks put away
Out of reach, beyond kiss, in the clay
Where the...Read more of this...
by
William Shakespeare
So shall this book wax like unto a well,
Fairy with mirrored flowers about the brim,
Or like some tarn that wailing curlews skim,
Glassing the sallow uplands or brown fell;
And so, as men go down into a dell
(Weary with noon) to find relief and shade,
When on the uneasy sick-bed we are laid,
We shall go down into thy book, and tell
The leaves,...Read more of this...
by
Robert Burns
O GOWDIE, terror o’ the whigs,
Dread o’ blackcoats and rev’rend wigs!
Sour Bigotry, on her last legs,
Girns an’ looks back,
Wishing the ten Egyptian plagues
May seize you quick.
Poor gapin’, glowrin’ Superstition!
Wae’s me, she’s in a sad condition:
Fye: bring Black Jock, 1 her state physician,
To see her water;
Alas, there’s ground for great suspicion
She’ll ne’er get better.
Enthusiasm’s past redemption,
Gane in...Read more of this...
by
Barry Tebb
Give me life at its most garish
Friday night in the Square, pink sequins dazzle
And dance on clubbers bare to the midriff
Young men in crisp shirts and pressed pants
‘Dress code smart’ gyrate to ‘Sex Bomb, Sex Bomb’
And sing along its lyrics to the throng of which I’m one
My shorts, shoulder bag and white beard
Making me stand out in the teeming...Read more of this...
by
Henry Lawson
So you rode from the range where your brothers “select,”
Through the ghostly grey bush in the dawn---
You rode slowly at first, lest her heart should suspect
That you were glad to be gone;
You had scarcely the courage to glance back at her
By the homestead receding from view,
And you breathed with relief as you rounded...Read more of this...
by
Francesco Petrarch
SESTINA VII. Non ha tanti animali il mar fra l' onde. HE DESPAIRS OF ESCAPE FROM THE TORMENTS BY WHICH HE IS SURROUNDED. Nor Ocean holds such swarms amid his waves,Not overhead, where circles the pale moon,Were stars so numerous ever seen by night,Nor dwell so many birds among the woods,Read more of this...
by
Robert Browning
Vanity, saith the preacher, vanity!
Draw round my bed: is Anselm keeping back?
Nephews -- sons mine -- ah God, I know not! Well --
She, men would have to be your mother once,
Old Gandolf envied me, so fair she was!
What's done is done, and she is dead beside,
Dead long ago, and I am Bishop since,
And as she died so must we...Read more of this...
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