Famous Relieve Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Under Siege

by Mahmoud Darwish
 Here on the slopes of hills, facing the dusk and the cannon of time 
Close to the gardens of broken shadows, 
We do what prisoners do, 
And what the jobless do: 
We cultivate hope. 

*** 
A country preparing for dawn. We grow less intelligent 
For we closely watch the hour of victory: 
No night in our night lit up...Read more of this...

Cease, if ye are my friends, all vain discourse, and,

by Omar Khayyam
Cease, if ye are my friends, all vain discourse, and,
to relieve my mental pains pour out the wine. And
when to dust my frame returns, the self-same dust
collect and make it brick to stop some crevice in the
tavern wall....Read more of this...

11. Song—Here's to thy health my bonie lass

by Robert Burns
 HERE’S to thy health, my bonie lass,
 Gude nicht and joy be wi’ thee;
I’ll come nae mair to thy bower-door,
 To tell thee that I lo’e thee.
O dinna think, my pretty pink,
 But I can live without thee:
I vow and swear I dinna care,
 How lang ye look about ye.


Thou’rt aye sae free informing me,
 Thou hast nae mind...Read more of this...

The Orphan's Hymn

by Anonymous
Father,—an orphan’s prayer receive,And listen to my plaintive cry:Thou only canst my wants relieve,Who art my Father in the sky.I have no father here below,No mother kind to wipe my tears,—These tender names I never know,To soothe my grief and quell my fears.But Thou wilt be my parent,—nighIn every hour of deep distress,And listen to an orphan’s sigh,And soothe the...Read more of this...

A Hymn

by Anne Bronte
 Eternal power of earth and air,
Unseen, yet seen in all around,
Remote, but dwelling everywhere,
Though silent, heard in every sound. 
If e'er thine ear in mercy bent
When wretched mortals cried to thee,
And if indeed thy Son was sent
To save lost sinners such as me. 

Then hear me now, while kneeling here;
I lift to thee my heart and eye
And all my...Read more of this...

The Made to Order Smile

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
 When a woman looks up at you with a twist about her eyes, 
And her brows are half uplifted in a nicely feigned surprise 
As you breathe some pretty sentence, though she hates you all the while, 
She is very apt to stun you with a made to order smile. 

It's a sublte combination of a sneer and a...Read more of this...

415. Song—The last time I cam o'er the Moor

by Robert Burns
 THE LAST time I came o’er the moor,
 And left Maria’s dwelling,
What throes, what tortures passing cure,
 Were in my bosom swelling:
Condemn’d to see my rival’s reign,
 While I in secret languish;
To feel a fire in every vein,
 Yet dare not speak my anguish.


Love’s veriest wretch, despairing, I
 Fain, fain, my crime would cover;
Th’ unweeting groan, the bursting sigh,
...Read more of this...

How Fortunate The Man With None

by Bertolt Brecht
 You saw sagacious Solomon
You know what came of him,
To him complexities seemed plain.
He cursed the hour that gave birth to him
And saw that everything was vain.
How great and wise was Solomon.
The world however did not wait
But soon observed what followed on.
It's wisdom that had brought him to this state.
How fortunate the man with none.

You saw courageous Caesar next
You know...Read more of this...

The Wreck of the Abercrombie Robinson

by William Topaz McGonagall
 Twas in the year of 1842 and on the 27th of May
That six Companies of the 91st Regiment with spirits light and gay,
And forming the Second Battalion, left Naas without delay,
Commanded by Captain Bertie Gordon, to proceed to the Cape straightaway. 

And on the second of June they sailed for the Cape of Good Hope
On board the "Abercrombie Robinson,"...Read more of this...

144. A Winter Night

by Robert Burns
 WHEN biting Boreas, fell and dour,
Sharp shivers thro’ the leafless bow’r;
When Phoebus gies a short-liv’d glow’r,
 Far south the lift,
Dim-dark’ning thro’ the flaky show’r,
 Or whirling drift:


Ae night the storm the steeples rocked,
Poor Labour sweet in sleep was locked,
While burns, wi’ snawy wreaths up-choked,
 Wild-eddying swirl;
Or, thro’ the mining outlet bocked,
 Down headlong hurl:


List’ning the doors an’ winnocks rattle,
I...Read more of this...

The Iliad: Book VI (excerpt)

by Alexander Pope
 He said, and pass'd with sad presaging heart
To seek his spouse, his soul's far dearer part;
At home he sought her, but he sought in vain:
She, with one maid of all her menial train,
Had thence retir'd; and, with her second joy,
The young Astyanax, the hope of Troy,
Pensive she stood on Ilion's tow'ry height,
Beheld the war, and sicken'd at the sight;
There...Read more of this...

The Doubters Prayer

by Anne Bronte
 Eternal Power, of earth and air!
Unseen, yet seen in all around,
Remote, but dwelling everywhere,
Though silent, heard in every sound. 
If e'er thine ear in mercy bent,
When wretched mortals cried to Thee,
And if, indeed, Thy Son was sent,
To save lost sinners such as me: 

Then hear me now, while, kneeling here,
I lift to thee my heart and eye,
And all my...Read more of this...

A Prayer

by Anne Bronte
 My God (oh, let me call Thee mine,
Weak, wretched sinner though I be),
My trembling soul would fain be Thine;
My feeble faith still clings to Thee.

Not only for the Past I grieve,
The Future fills me with dismay;
Unless Thou hasten to relieve,
Thy suppliant is a castaway.

I cannot say my faith is strong,
I dare not hope my love is great;
But strength and...Read more of this...

A Tale of the Miser and the Poet

by Anne Kingsmill Finch
 A WIT, transported with Inditing, 
Unpay'd, unprais'd, yet ever Writing; 
Who, for all Fights and Fav'rite Friends, 
Had Poems at his Fingers Ends; 
For new Events was still providing; 
Yet now desirous to be riding, 
He pack'd-up ev'ry Ode and Ditty 
And in Vacation left the City; 
So rapt with Figures, and Allusions, 
With secret Passions, sweet Confusions; 
With...Read more of this...

Canzone VI

by Francesco Petrarch
CANZONE VI. Quando il suave mio fido conforto. SHE APPEARS TO HIM, AND, WITH MORE THAN WONTED AFFECTION, ENDEAVOURS TO CONSOLE HIM.  When she, the faithful soother of my pain,This life's long weary pilgrimage to cheer,Vouchsafes beside my nightly couch to appear,With her sweet speech attempering reason's strain;O'ercome by tenderness, and...Read more of this...

The Living Lost

by William Cullen Bryant
 Matron! the children of whose love,
Each to his grave, in youth have passed,
And now the mould is heaped above
The dearest and the last!
Bride! who dost wear the widow's veil
Before the wedding flowers are pale!
Ye deem the human heart endures
No deeper, bitterer grief than yours.

Yet there are pangs of keener wo,
Of which the sufferers never speak,
Nor to the world's cold...Read more of this...

A True Story

by Ann Taylor
 Little Ann and her mother were walking one day
Through London's wide city so fair,
And business obliged them to go by the way
That led them through Cavendish Square. 
And as they pass'd by the great house of a Lord,
A beautiful chariot there came,
To take some most elegant ladies abroad, 
Who straightway got into the same. 

The ladies in feathers and...Read more of this...

Sonnet LXXI

by Francesco Petrarch
SONNET LXXI. Piangete, donne, e con voi pianga Amore. ON THE DEATH OF CINO DA PISTOIA.  Weep, beauteous damsels, and let Cupid weep,Of every region weep, ye lover train;He, who so skilfully attuned his strainTo your fond cause, is sunk in death's cold sleep!Such limits let not my affliction keep,As...Read more of this...

The Exeter Road

by Amy Lowell
 Panels of claret and blue which shine
Under the moon like lees of wine.
A coronet done in a golden scroll,
And wheels which blunder and creak as they roll
Through the muddy ruts of a moorland track.
They daren't look back!
They are whipping and cursing the horses. Lord!
What brutes men are when they think they're scored.
Behind, my bay gelding gallops with me,
In a...Read more of this...

Greedy Richard

by Jane Taylor
 "I think I want some pies this morning," 
Said Dick, stretching himself and yawning; 
So down he threw his slate and books,
And saunter'd to the pastry-cook's. 

And there he cast his greedy eyes
Round on the jellies and the pies,
So to select, with anxious care,
The very nicest that was there. 

At last the point was thus decided:
As his opinion was...Read more of this...

Je Suis une table

by Donald Hall
 It has happened suddenly,
by surprise, in an arbor,
or while drinking good coffee,
after speaking, or before,

that I dumbly inhabit
a density; in language,
there is nothing to stop it,
for nothing retains an edge.

Simple ignorance presents,
later, words for a function,
but it is common pretense
of speech, by a convention,

and there is nothing at all
but inner silence, nothing
to relieve on principle
now this intense thickening....Read more of this...

Holy-Cross Day

by Robert Browning
 ON WHICH THE JEWS WERE FORCED TO
ATTEND AN ANNUAL CHRISTIAN SERMON
IN ROME.

[``Now was come about Holy-Cross Day,
and now must my lord preach his first sermon
to the Jews: as it was of old cared for in tine
merciful bowels of the Church, that, so to
speak, a crumb at least from her conspicuous
table here in Rome should be, though but
once yearly, cast...Read more of this...

The Channel Swimmer

by Marriott Edgar
 Would you hear a Wild tale of adventure 
Of a hero who tackled the sea,
A super-man swimming the ocean,
Then hark to the tale of Joe Lee.

Our Channel, our own Straits of Dover
Had heen swum by an alien lot:
Our British-born swimmers had tried it, 
But that was as far as they'd got.

So great was the outcry in England, 
Darts Players...Read more of this...

494. Song—Farewell thou stream that winding flows

by Robert Burns
 FAREWELL, thou stream that winding flows
 Around Eliza’s dwelling;
O mem’ry! spare the cruel thoes
 Within my bosom swelling.
Condemn’d to drag a hopeless chain
 And yet in secret languish;
To feel a fire in every vein,
 Nor dare disclose my anguish.


Love’s veriest wretch, unseen, unknown,
 I fain my griefs would cover;
The bursting sigh, th’ unweeting groan,
 Betray the hapless lover.
I know...Read more of this...

In memory of that excellent person Mrs. Mary Lloyd of Bodidrist in Denbigh-shire

by Katherine Philips
 I CANNOT hold, for though to write were rude, 
Yet to be silent were Ingratitude, 
And Folly too; for if Posterity 
Should never hear of such a one as thee, 
And onely know this Age's brutish fame, 
They would think Vertue nothing but a Name. 
And though far abler Pens must her define, 
Yet her Adoption hath engaged mine:...Read more of this...

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