Famous Resolve Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Cows

by Robert William Service
 I love to watch my seven cows
In meads of buttercups abrowse,
 With guilded knees;
But even more I love to see
Them chew the cud so tranquilly
 In twilight ease.

Each is the image of content
From fragrant hours in clover spent,
 'Mid leaf and bud;
As up and down without a pause
Mechanically move their jaws
 To chew the cud.

Friend, there's a hope for...Read more of this...

The Gardener XLIII: No My Friends

by Rabindranath Tagore
 No, my friends, I shall never be an
ascetic, whatever you may say.
I shall never be and ascetic if she
does not take the vow with me.
It is my firm resolve that if I 
cannot find a shady shelter and a 
companion for my penance, I shall
never turn ascetic.
No, my friends, I shall never leave
my hearth and home, and retire into
the...Read more of this...

The World

by Katherine Philips
 Wee falsely think it due unto our friends,
That we should grieve for their too early ends:
He that surveys the world with serious eys,
And stripps Her from her grosse and weak disguise,
Shall find 'tis injury to mourn their fate;
He only dy's untimely who dy's Late.
For if 'twere told to children in the womb,
To what a stage of mischief they must...Read more of this...

Hudsons Last Voyage

by Henry Van Dyke
 June 22, 1611 

THE SHALLOP ON HUDSON BAY 

One sail in sight upon the lonely sea
And only one, God knows! For never ship 
But mine broke through the icy gates that guard 
These waters, greater grown than any since
We left the shores of England. We were first, 
My men, to battle in between the bergs
And floes to these wide...Read more of this...

Poems to Mulgrave and Scroope

by John Wilmot
 Deare Friend. 

I heare this Towne does soe abound, 
With sawcy Censurers, that faults are found, 
With what of late wee (in Poetique Rage) 
Bestowing, threw away on the dull Age; 
But (howsoe're Envy, their Spleen may raise, 
To Robb my Brow, of the deserved Bays) 
Their thanks at least I merit since through me, 
They are Partakers of...Read more of this...

Resolve

by Sylvia Plath
 Day of mist: day of tarnish

with hands
unserviceable, I wait
for the milk van

the one-eared cat
laps its gray paw

and the coal fire burns

outside, the little hedge leaves are
become quite yellow
a milk-film blurs
the empty bottles on the windowsill

no glory descends

two water drops poise
on the arched green
stem of my neighbor's rose bush

o bent bow of thorns

the cat unsheathes its claws
the world turns

today
today I...Read more of this...

The Definition of Gardening

by Edward Taylor
 Jim just loves to garden, yes he does. 
He likes nothing better than to put on 
his little overalls and his straw hat. 
He says, "Let's go get those tools, Jim." 
But then doubt begins to set in.
He says, "What is a garden, anyway?"
And thoughts about a "modernistic" garden
begin to trouble him, eat away at his resolve. 
He stands...Read more of this...

In A Word

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 THUS to be chain'd for ever, can I bear?

A very torment that, in truth, would be.

This very day my new resolve shall see.--
I'll not go near the lately-worshipp'd Fair.

Yet what excuse, my heart, can I prepare

In such a case, for not consulting thee?

But courage! while our sorrows utter we
In tones where love, grief, gladness have a share.

But see! the...Read more of this...

The Dissolution

by John Donne
 She's dead; and all which die
To their first elements resolve;
And we were mutual elements to us,
And made of one another.
My body then doth hers involve,
And those things whereof I consist hereby
In me abundant grow, and burdenous,
And nourish not, but smother.
My fire of passion, sighs of air,
Water of tears, and earthly sad despair,
Which my materials be,
But near worn out by...Read more of this...

Lincoln The Man Of The People

by Edwin Markham
 WHEN the Norn Mother saw the Whirlwind Hour 
Greatening and darkening as it hurried on, 
She left the Heaven of Heroes and came down 
To make a man to meet the mortal need. 
She took the tried clay of the common road-- 
Clay warm yet with the genial heat of earth, 
Dashed through it all a strain of prophecy;...Read more of this...

On Your Asking

by Omer Tarin
You asked me what it was all about, 
Why men and women dwelt so much 
On the slanting tangents 
Of come vague philosophy
And what I felt it was, and why
It was like this?

Sometimes, then, to answer your questions,
I dress my thoughts in brilliant costumes,
Beautiful, eloquent words, 
But to tell the truth
There is no way I can really say
Anything at all;

People...Read more of this...

A Carol of Harvest for 1867

by Walt Whitman
 1
A SONG of the good green grass! 
A song no more of the city streets; 
A song of farms—a song of the soil of fields. 

A song with the smell of sun-dried hay, where the nimble pitchers handle the pitch-fork; 
A song tasting of new wheat, and of fresh-husk’d maize.

2
For the lands, and for these passionate days, and for...Read more of this...

454. Epistle from Esopus to Maria

by Robert Burns
 FROM those drear solitudes and frowsy cells,
Where Infamy with sad Repentance dwells;
Where turnkeys make the jealous portal fast,
And deal from iron hands the spare repast;
Where truant ’prentices, yet young in sin,
Blush at the curious stranger peeping in;
Where strumpets, relics of the drunken roar,
Resolve to drink, nay, half, to whore, no more;
Where tiny thieves not destin’d yet to swing,
Beat hemp...Read more of this...

The Souls of the Slain

by Thomas Hardy
 I 

 The thick lids of Night closed upon me 
 Alone at the Bill 
 Of the Isle by the Race {1} - 
 Many-caverned, bald, wrinkled of face - 
And with darkness and silence the spirit was on me 
 To brood and be still. 

II 

 No wind fanned the flats of the ocean, 
 Or...Read more of this...

Escape

by Robert William Service
 Tell me, Tramp, where I may go
To be free from human woe;
Say where I may hope to find
Ease of heart and peace of mind;
Is thee not some isle you know
Where I may leave Care behind?

So spoke one is sore distress,
And I answered softly: "Yes,
There's an isle so sweet and kind
So to clemency inclined,
So serene in loveliness
That the blind may...Read more of this...

Sonnet 21

by John Milton
 XXI

Cyriac, whose grandsire on the royal bench
Of British Themis, with no mean applause
Pronounced and in his volumes taught our laws,
Which others at their bar so often wrench;
Today deep thoughts resolve with me to drench
In mirth, that after no repenting draws;
Let Euclid rest and Archimedes pause,
And what the Swede intends, and what the French.
To measure life learn thou betimes, and...Read more of this...

Memoir

by Carl Sandburg
 We look on the shoulders filling the stage of the Chicago Auditorium.

A fat mayor has spoken much English and the mud of his speech is crossed with quicksilver hisses elusive and rapid from floor and gallery.

A neat governor speaks English and the listeners ring chimes to his clear thoughts.

Joffre speaks a few words in French; this is a voice...Read more of this...

Alphonso Of Castile

by Ralph Waldo Emerson
 I Alphonso live and learn,
Seeing nature go astern.
Things deteriorate in kind,
Lemons run to leaves and rind,
Meagre crop of figs and limes,
Shorter days and harder times.
Flowering April cools and dies
In the insufficient skies;
Imps at high Midsummer blot
Half the sun's disk with a spot;
'Twill not now avail to tan
Orange cheek, or skin of man:
Roses bleach, the goats are dry,
Lisbon quakes, the...Read more of this...

Ah! thou hast snared this head, though white as snow,

by Omar Khayyam
Ah! thou hast snared this head, though white as snow,
Which oft has vowed the wine-cup to forego;
And wrecked the mansion long resolve did build,
And rent the vesture penitence did sew!...Read more of this...

The Ideal And The Actual Life

by Friedrich von Schiller
 Forever fair, forever calm and bright,
Life flies on plumage, zephyr-light,
For those who on the Olympian hill rejoice--
Moons wane, and races wither to the tomb,
And 'mid the universal ruin, bloom
The rosy days of Gods--With man, the choice,
Timid and anxious, hesitates between
The sense's pleasure and the soul's content;
While on celestial brows, aloft and sheen,
The beams of both are blent.

Seekest thou on...Read more of this...

Resolve

by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
 Build on resolve, and not upon regret, 
The structure of thy future. Do not grope
Among the shadows of old sins, but let
Thine own soul’s light shine on the path of hope
And dissipate the darkness. Waste no tears
Upon the blotted record of lost years, 
But turn the leaf, and smile, oh! smile, to see
The fair white pages that remain for...Read more of this...

On Love

by Bliss Carman
 TO the assembled folk 
At great St. Kavin’s spoke 
Young Brother Amiel on Christmas Eve; 
I give you joy, my friends, 
That as the round year ends, 
We meet once more for gladness by God’s leave. 

On other festal days 
For penitence or praise 
Or prayer we meet, or fullness of thanksgiving; 
To-night we calendar 
The rising of that...Read more of this...

The Scribes Prayer

by Robert William Service
 When from my fumbling hand the tired pen falls,
And in the twilight weary droops my head;
While to my quiet heart a still voice calls,
Calls me to join my kindred of the Dead:
Grant that I may, O Lord, ere rest be mine,
Write to Thy praise one radiant, ringing line.

For all of worth that in this clay abides,
The leaping rapture and...Read more of this...

The Sightless Man

by Robert William Service
 Out of the night a crash,
A roar, a rampart of light;
A flame that leaped like a lash,
Searing forever my sight;
Out of the night a flash,
Then, oh, forever the Night!

Here in the dark I sit,
I who so loved the sun;
Supple and strong and fit,
In the dark till my days be done;
Aye, that's the hell of it,
Stalwart and twenty-one.

Marie is stanch...Read more of this...

The Country Schoolmaster

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 I.

A MASTER of a country school
Jump'd up one day from off his stool,
Inspired with firm resolve to try
To gain the best society;
So to the nearest baths he walk'd,
And into the saloon he stalk'd.
He felt quite. startled at the door,
Ne'er having seen the like before.
To the first stranger made he now
A very low and graceful bow,
But quite forgot to bear...Read more of this...

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