Famous Request Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Request poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous request poems. These examples illustrate what a famous request poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
William Topaz McGonagall
All ye good people, afar and near,
To my request pray lend an ear;
I advise you all without delay to go
And see the Fair Maid's House - it is a rare show.
Some of the chairs there are very grand,
They have been cut and carved by a skilful hand;
And kings, perchance, if fhe truth were told,
Have sat on them in...Read more of this...
by
Edmund Spenser
APRILL: Ægloga QuartaTHENOT & HOBBINOLL
Tell me good Hobbinoll, what garres thee greete?
What? hath some Wolfe thy tender Lambes ytorne?
Or is thy Bagpype broke, that soundes so sweete?
Or art thou of thy loved lasse forlorne?
Or bene thine eyes attempred to the yeare,
Quenching the gasping furrowes thirst with rayne?
Like April shoure, so stremes the trickling teares
Adowne thy cheeke, to quenche thy...Read more of this...
by
Anne Bradstreet
O Lord, Thou hear'st my daily moan
And see'st my dropping tears.
My troubles all are Thee before,
My longings and my fears.
Thou hitherto hast been my God;
Thy help my soul hath found.
Though loss and sickness me assailed,
Through Thee I've kept my ground.
And Thy abode Thou'st made with me;
With Thee my soul can talk;
In...Read more of this...
by
Adela Florence Cory Nicolson
Give me your self one hour; I do not crave
For any love, or even thought, of me.
Come, as a Sultan may caress a slave
And then forget for ever, utterly.
Come! as west winds, that passing, cool and wet,
...Read more of this...
by
Lucy Maud Montgomery
When I am dead
I would that ye make my bed
On that low-lying, windy waste by the sea,
Where the silvery grasses rustle and lisp;
There, where the crisp
Foam-flakes shall fly over me,
And murmurs creep
From the ancient heart of the deep,
Lulling me ever, I shall most sweetly sleep.
While the eerie sea-folk croon
On the long dim shore by the light of a...Read more of this...
by
Marriott Edgar
I'll tell you the story of Jonah,
A really remarkable tale;
A peaceful and humdrum existence he had
Until one day he went for a sail.
The weather were grand when they started,
But later at turn of the tide
The wind started blowing, the water got rough,
And Jonah felt funny inside.
When the ship started pitching and tossing
He tried hard his feelings to smother,
At...Read more of this...
by
Alfred Lord Tennyson
Roman Virgil, thou that singest
Ilion's lofty temples robed in fire,
Ilion falling, Rome arising,
wars, and filial faith, and Dido's pyre;
Landscape-lover, lord of language
more than he that sang the "Works and Days,"
All the chosen coin of fancy
flashing out from many a golden phrase;
Thou that singest wheat and woodland,
tilth and vineyard, hive and horse and herd;
All the charm of all the Muses
often...Read more of this...
by
Robert Herrick
Ponder my words, if so that any be
Known guilty here of incivility;
Let what is graceless, discomposed, and rude,
With sweetness, smoothness, softness be endued:
Teach it to blush, to curtsey, lisp, and show
Demure, but yet full of temptation, too.
Numbers ne'er tickle, or but lightly plea{e,
Unless they have some wanton carriages:--
This if ye do, each piece will here be good
And graceful made...Read more of this...
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...
by
Isaac Watts
A Psalm before prayer.
Sing to the Lord Jehovah's name,
And in his strength rejoice;
When his salvation is our theme,
Exalted be our voice.
With thanks approach his awful sight,
And psalms of honor sing;
The Lord's a God of boundless might,
The whole creation's King.
Let princes hear, let angels know,
How mean their natures seem,
Those gods on high and gods below,
When once compared with him.
Earth, with...Read more of this...
by
Robert Burns
ADIEU! a heart-warm fond adieu;
Dear brothers of the mystic tie!
Ye favourèd, enlighten’d few,
Companions of my social joy;
Tho’ I to foreign lands must hie,
Pursuing Fortune’s slidd’ry ba’;
With melting heart, and brimful eye,
I’ll mind you still, tho’ far awa.
Oft have I met your social band,
And spent the cheerful, festive night;
Oft, honour’d with supreme command,
Presided o’er...Read more of this...
by
Amy Lowell
You ask me for a sonnet. Ah, my Dear,
Can clocks tick back to yesterday at noon?
Can cracked and fallen leaves recall last June
And leap up on the boughs, now stiff and sere?
For your sake, I would go and seek the year,
Faded beyond the purple ranks of dune,
Blown sands of drifted hours, which the moon
Streaks with a ghostly finger, and...Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
Khaja! grant one request, and only one,
Wish me God-speed, and get your preaching done;
I walk aright, 'tis you who see awry;
Go! heal your purblind eyes, leave me alone....Read more of this...
by
Paul Laurence Dunbar
There's a memory keeps a-runnin'
Through my weary head to-night,
An' I see a picture dancin'
In the fire-flames' ruddy light;
'Tis the picture of an orchard
Wrapped in autumn's purple haze,
With the tender light about it
That I loved in other days.
An' a-standin' in a corner
Once again I seem to see
The verdant leaves an' branches
Of an old apple-tree.
You perhaps would call it ugly,
An' I don't...Read more of this...
by
Anonymous
Teach us to prayOh, Father! we look up to Thee,And this our one request shall be,Teach us to pray.Teach us to pray.A form of words will not suffice,—The heart must bring its sacrifice:Teach us to pray.Teach us to pray.To whom shall we, Thy children, turn?Teach Thou the lesson we would learn:Teach us to pray.Teach us to pray.To Thee, alone, our...Read more of this...
by
Robert Herrick
I have been wanton, and too bold, I fear,
To chafe o'er-much the virgin's cheek or ear;--
Beg for my pardon, Julia! he doth win
Grace with the gods who's sorry for his sin.
That done, my Julia, dearest Julia, come,
And go with me to chuse my burial room:
My fates are ended; when thy Herrick dies,
Clasp thou his book, then close thou up...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
Just Once! Oh least Request!
Could Adamant refuse
So small a Grace
So scanty put,
Such agonizing terms?
Would not a God of Flint
Be conscious of a sigh
As down His Heaven dropt remote
"Just Once" Sweet Deity?...Read more of this...
by
Sir Walter Raleigh
Nature, that washed her hands in milk,
And had forgot to dry them,
Instead of earth took snow and silk,
At love's request to try them,
If she a mistress could compose
To please love's fancy out of those.
Her eyes he would should be of light,
A violet breath, and lips of jelly;
Her hair not black, nor overbright,...Read more of this...
by
Robert Herrick
Julia, if I chance to die
Ere I print my poetry,
I most humbly thee desire
To commit it to the fire:
Better 'twere my book were dead,
Than to live not perfected....Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
Quite empty, quite at rest,
The Robin locks her Nest, and tries her Wings.
She does not know a Route
But puts her Craft about
For rumored Springs --
She does not ask for Noon --
She does not ask for Boon,
Crumbless and homeless, of but one request --
The Birds she lost --...Read more of this...
by
Rainer Maria Rilke
Suddenly from all the green around you
something-you don't know what-has disappeared;
you feel it creeping closer to the window
in total silence. From the nearby wood
you hear the urgent whistling of a plover
reminding you of someone's Saint Jerome:
so much solitude and passion come
from that one voice whose fierce request the downpour
will grant. The walls with their ancient portraits glide
away from us cautiously...Read more of this...
by
Rg Gregory
for what my heart held clear
and didn’t have the wit to show
for what my path proposed
and got lost in its diversions
for what my beginnings dreamed
and my ends cannot lay hold of
for what promises i made
and have not had the shine to keep to
i ask your understanding
for what i have been
and could not be another
i ask your love...Read more of this...
by
Isaac Watts
v.1-5
L. M.
Public prayer and praise.
The praise of Zion waits for thee,
My God, and praise becomes thy house;
There shall thy saints thy glory see,
And there perform their public vows.
O thou whose mercy bends the skies
To save when humble sinners pray,
All lands to thee shall lift their eyes,
And islands of the northern sea.
Against my will my sins prevail,
But grace shall...Read more of this...
by
Henry Van Dyke
A tale that the poet Rückert told
To German children, in days of old;
Disguised in a random, rollicking rhyme
Like a merry mummer of ancient time,
And sent, in its English dress, to please
The little folk of the Christmas trees.
A little fir grew in the midst of the wood
Contented and happy, as young trees should.
His body was straight and...Read more of this...
by
Ogden Nash
This is a song to celebrate banks,
Because they are full of money and you go into them and all
you hear is clinks and clanks,
Or maybe a sound like the wind in the trees on the hills,
Which is the rustling of the thousand dollar bills.
Most bankers dwell in marble halls,
Which they get to dwell in because they encourage deposits
and discourage...Read more of this...
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