Famous Rewards Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Rewards poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous rewards poems. These examples illustrate what a famous rewards poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Thomas Chatterton
Sharp was the frost, the wind was high
And sparkling stars bedeckt the sky
Sly Dick in arts of cunning skill'd,
Whose rapine all his pockets fill'd,
Had laid him down to take his rest
And soothe with sleep his anxious breast.
'Twas thus a dark infernal sprite
A native of the blackest night,
Portending mischief to devise
Upon...Read more of this...
by
Friedrich von Schiller
A gentle was Fridolin,
And he his mistress dear,
Savern's fair Countess, honored in
All truth and godly fear.
She was so meek, and, ah! so good!
Yet each wish of her wayward mood,
He would have studied to fulfil,
To please his God, with earnest will.
From the first hour when daylight shone
Till rang the vesper-chime,
He lived but for her will alone,
And deemed e'en that scarce...Read more of this...
by
Robert Herrick
Still to our gains our chief respect is had ;
Reward it is that makes us good or bad....Read more of this...
by
Isaac Watts
The Divine nature, providence, and grace.
Praise ye the Lord; 'tis good to raise
Our hearts and voices in his praise;
His nature and his works invite
To make this duty our delight.
The Lord builds up Jerusalem,
And gathers nations to his name;
His mercy melts the stubborn soul,
And makes the broken spirit whole.
He formed the stars, those heav'nly flames;
He counts their numbers, calls their...Read more of this...
by
Rg Gregory
in the shadow
of the flower
is the sting
the bee driven by need
uses its painful gift
to keep its sense of beauty
in proportion
it does its job with
a thoughtless dedication
its honeyed world
excites no inner space
bees are not poets
who wade through words
with too much brain
around their ankles
each itching bee-part
is attuned
to a cosmic web
each buzz miraculous
flowers put powder
on their private parts
to call the bees...Read more of this...
by
Rudyard Kipling
1918
We're not so old in the Army List,
But we're not so young at our trade,
For we had the honour at Fontenoy
Of meeting the Guards'Brigade.
'Twas Lally, Dillon, Bulkeley, Clare,
And Lee that led us then,
And after a hundred and seventy years
We're fighting for France again!
Old Days! The wild geese are flighting,
Head to fhe sform as they...Read more of this...
by
William Blake
In seed time learn, in harvest teach, in winter enjoy.
Drive your cart and your plow over the bones of the dead.
The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.
Prudence is a rich, ugly old maid courted by Incapacity.
He who desires but acts not, breeds pestilence.
The cut worm forgives the plow.
Dip him in the river who loves water.
A fool...Read more of this...
by
Rudyard Kipling
"Brother Square-Toes"--Rewards and Fairies.
If you're off to Philadelphia in the morning,
You mustn't take my stories for a guide.
There's little left, indeed, of the city you will read of,
And all the folk I write about have died.
Now few will understand if you mention Talleyrand,
Or remember what his cunning and his skill did;
And the cabmen at the wharf...Read more of this...
by
John Dryden
Feed a flame within, which so torments me
That it both pains my heart, and yet contains me:
'Tis such a pleasing smart, and I so love it,
That I had rather die than once remove it.
Yet he, for whom I grieve, shall never know it;
My tongue does not betray, nor my eyes show it.
Not a...Read more of this...
by
Matthew Arnold
'Tis death! and peace, indeed, is here,
And ease from shame, and rest from fear.
There's nothing can dismarble now
The smoothness of that limpid brow.
But is a calm like this, in truth,
The crowning end of life and youth,
And when this boon rewards the dead,
Are all debts paid, has all been said?
And is the heart of youth so light,
Its step so firm,...Read more of this...
by
Dejan Stojanovic
There is a moonlight note
In the Moonlight Sonata;
There is a thunder note
In an angry sky.
Sound unbound by nature
Becomes bounded by art.
There is no competition of sounds
Between a nightingale and a violin.
Nature rewards and punishes
By offering unpredictable ways;
Art is apotheosis;
Often, the complaint of beauty.
Nature is an outcry,
Unpolished truth;
The art—a euphemism—
Tamed wilderness. ...Read more of this...
by
Philip Larkin
Love again: wanking at ten past three
(Surely he's taken her home by now?),
The bedroom hot as a bakery,
The drink gone dead, without showing how
To meet tomorrow, and afterwards,
And the usual pain, like dysentery.
Someone else feeling her breasts and ****,
Someone else drowned in that lash-wide stare,
And me supposed to be ignorant,
Or find it funny, or not to care,
Even ... but...Read more of this...
by
Anne Kingsmill Finch
Farewell, lov'd Youth! since 'twas the Will of Heaven
So soon to take, what had so late been giv'n;
And thus our Expectations to destroy,
Raising a Grief, where we had form'd a Joy;
Who once believ'd, it was the Fates Design
In Him to double an Illustrious Line,
And in a second Channel spread that Race
Where ev'ry...Read more of this...
by
Rg Gregory
(a)
they seek to celebrate the word
not to bring their knives out on a poem
dissecting it to find a heart
whose beat lies naked on a table
not to score in triumph on a line
no sensitive would put a nostril to
but simply to receive it as an
offering glimpsing the sacred there
poem probes the poet's once-intention
but each time said budges its truth
afresh (leaving...Read more of this...
by
William Cowper
God gives his mercies to be spent;
Your hoard will do your soul no good.
Gold is a blessing only lent,
Repaid by giving others food.
The world's esteem is but a bribe,
To buy their peace you sell your own;
The slave of a vainglorious tribe,
Who hate you while they make you known.
The joy that vain amusements give,
Oh! sad conclusion that it brings!
The honey...Read more of this...
by
Friedrich von Schiller
Joy, thou goddess, fair, immortal,
Offspring of Elysium,
Mad with rapture, to the portal
Of thy holy fame we come!
Fashion's laws, indeed, may sever,
But thy magic joins again;
All mankind are brethren ever
'Neath thy mild and gentle reign.
CHORUS.
Welcome, all ye myriad creatures!
Brethren, take the kiss of love!
Yes, the starry realms above
Hide a Father's smiling features!
He, that noble prize possessing--
He that boasts a friend...Read more of this...
by
Isaac Watts
The books of nature and scripture.
For a Lord's-day morning
Behold, the lofty sky
Declares its Maker God,
And all his starry works on high
Proclaim his power abroad.
The darkness and the light
Still keep their course the same;
While night to day, and day to night,
Divinely teach his name.
In every diff'rent land
Their general voice is known;
They show the wonders of his hand,
And orders of his...Read more of this...
by
Edmund Spenser
OCTOBER: Ægloga DecimaPIERCE & CUDDIE
Cuddie, for shame hold up thy heavye head,
And let us cast with what delight to chace,
And weary thys long lingring Phoebus race.
Whilome thou wont the shepheards laddes to leade,
In rymes, in ridles, and in bydding base:
Now they in thee, and thou in sleepe art dead.
CUDDY
Piers, I have pyped erst so long with payne,
That all mine...Read more of this...
by
Andrew Marvell
When I beheld the Poet blind, yet bold,
In slender Book his vast Design unfold,
Messiah Crown'd, Gods Reconcil'd Decree,
Rebelling Angels, the Forbidden Tree,
Heav'n, Hell, Earth, Chaos, All; the Argument
Held me a while misdoubting his Intent,
That he would ruine (for I saw him strong)
The sacred Truths to Fable and old Song,
(So Sampson groap'd the Temples Posts in spight)
The World o'rewhelming to...Read more of this...
by
Ben Jonson
LXVI. — TO SIR HENRY CARY. That neither fame, nor love might wanting be To greatness, CARY, I sing that and thee ; Whose house, if it no other honor had, In only thee, might be both great and glad : Who, to upbraid the sloth of this our time, Durst valor make, almost, but not a crime. Which deed I...Read more of this...
by
Robert Duncan
My mother would be a falconress,
And I, her gay falcon treading her wrist,
would fly to bring back
from the blue of the sky to her, bleeding, a prize,
where I dream in my little hood with many bells
jangling when I'd turn my head.
My mother would be a falconress,
and she sends me as far as her will goes.
She...Read more of this...
by
Phillis Wheatley
SAMUEL, Chap. xvii.
YE martial pow'rs, and all ye tuneful nine,
Inspire my song, and aid my high design.
The dreadful scenes and toils of war I write,
The ardent warriors, and the fields of fight:
You best remember, and you best can sing
The acts of heroes to the vocal string:
Resume the lays with which your sacred lyre,
Did then the poet and the sage...Read more of this...
by
Sylvia Plath
I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions.
Whatever I see I swallow immediately
Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike.
I am not cruel, only truthful‚
The eye of a little god, four-cornered.
Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall.
It is pink, with speckles. I have looked at it so long
I think it is part of my heart....Read more of this...
by
Mark Strand
We have done what we wanted.
We have discarded dreams, preferring the heavy industry
of each other, and we have welcomed grief
and called ruin the impossible habit to break.
And now we are here.
The dinner is ready and we cannot eat.
The meat sits in the white lake of its dish.
The wine waits.
Coming to this
has its rewards: nothing is promised, nothing is taken...Read more of this...
by
Dejan Stojanovic
It is not possible to say more than it is possible.
Ambition kills value; if unjustified it will
Eat its own life,
Kill someone else's desire to fly,
Cut their wings, suck their air.
Get out, but don't cause unneeded accidents;
There is only as much space, only as much time,
Only as much desire, only as many words,
Only...Read more of this...
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