Famous Rights Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Rights poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous rights poems. These examples illustrate what a famous rights poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Rg Gregory
heeley (sheffield) autumn 1988
dodging the broken bottles
dog-**** the pavement spew
i wheel my young son matthew
through the heeley streets
shop to shop this early
morning (short of milk)
unsettled day - the sun
comes through the clouds in
ragged strips where windy
rain has had the night
to puff and piddle
puddles idle in
the dips of surfaces
neglected for decades
another place where caring's
lost a public vision
only detritus of hope
dares...Read more of this...
by
Robert Burns
LONG life, my Lord, an’ health be yours,
Unskaithed by hunger’d Highland boors;
Lord grant me nae duddie, desperate beggar,
Wi’ dirk, claymore, and rusty trigger,
May twin auld Scotland o’ a life
She likes—as butchers like a knife.
Faith you and Applecross were right
To keep the Highland hounds in sight:
I doubt na! they wad bid nae better,
Than let them ance out owre the water,
Then...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
Paul Laurence Dunbar
When summer time has come, and all
The world is in the magic thrall
Of perfumed airs that lull each sense
To fits of drowsy indolence;
When skies are deepest blue above,
And flow'rs aflush,—then most I love
To start, while early dews are damp,
And wend my way in woodland tramp
Where forests rustle, tree on tree,
And sing their silent songs to me;
Where pathways meet and path...Read more of this...
by
Paul Laurence Dunbar
Hurt was the nation with a mighty wound,
And all her ways were filled with clam'rous sound.
Wailed loud the South with unremitting grief,
And wept the North that could not find relief.
Then madness joined its harshest tone to strife:
A minor note swelled in the song of life.
'Till, stirring with the love that filled his breast,
But still, unflinching at the right's behest,
Grave Lincoln...Read more of this...
by
Annie Louisa Walker
You cannot rob us of the rights we cherish,
Nor turn our thoughts away
From the bright picture of a "Woman's Mission"
Our hearts portray.
We claim to dwell, in quiet and seclusion,
Beneath the household roof,--
From the great world's harsh strife, and jarring voices,
To stand aloof;--
Not in a dreamy and inane abstraction
To sleep our life away,
But, gathering up the brightness of home sunshine,
To...Read more of this...
by
Oliver Wendell Holmes
THERE was a giant in time of old,
A mighty one was he;
He had a wife, but she was a scold,
So he kept her shut in his mammoth fold;
And he had children three.
It happened to be an election day,
And the giants were choosing a king;
The people were not democrats then,
They did not talk of the rights...Read more of this...
by
Julia de Burgos
Already the people murmur that I am your enemy
because they say that in verse I give the world your me.
They lie, Julia de Burgos. They lie, Julia de Burgos.
Who rises in my verses is not your voice. It is my voice
because you are the dressing and the essence is me;
and the most profound abyss is spread between us.
You are the...Read more of this...
by
Isaac Watts
The Divine Perfections.
How shall I praise th' eternal God,
That infinite Unknown?
Who can ascend his high abode,
Or venture near his throne?
[The great Invisible! he dwells
Concealed in dazzling light;
But his all-searching eye reveals
The secrets of the night.
Those watchful eyes that never sleep
Survey the world around
His wisdom is a boundless deep
Where all our thoughts are drowned.]
[Speak we of strength? his arm is...Read more of this...
by
Marriott Edgar
There's a famous seaside place called Blackpool,
That's noted for fresh air and fun,
And Mr and Mrs Ramsbottom
Went there with young Albert, their son.
A grand little lad was young Albert,
All dressed in his best; quite a swell
With a stick with an 'orse's 'ead 'andle,
The finest that Woolworth's could sell.
They didn't think much of the Ocean:
The waves, they were fiddlin' and...Read more of this...
by
Robert Frost
I didn't make you know how glad I was
To have you come and camp here on our land.
I promised myself to get down some day
And see the way you lived, but I don't know!
With a houseful of hungry men to feed
I guess you'd find.... It seems to me
I can't express my feelings any...Read more of this...
by
Robert Seymour Bridges
Brothers in blood! They who this wrong began
To wreck our commonwealth, will rue the day
When first they challenged freeman to the fray,
And with the Briton dared the American.
Now are we pledged to win the Rights of man:
Labour and Justice now shall have their way,
And in a League of Peace -- God grant we...Read more of this...
by
Kenn Nesbitt
A nail.
A nickel.
A snail.
A pickle.
A twisted-up
slinky.
A ring for
my pinky.
A blackened
banana.
A love note
from Hannah.
My doodles
of rockets.
The lint from
my pockets.
A fork-like
utensil.
But sorry…
no pencil.
--Kenn Nesbitt
Copyright © Kenn Nesbitt 2009. All Rights Reserved....Read more of this...
by
Ben Jonson
VIII. ? SONG. ? TO SICKNESS. To thy altars, by their nights Spent in surfeits ; and their days, And nights too, in worser ways ? Take heed, Sickness, what you do, I shall fear you'll surfeit too. Live not we, as all thy stalls,And this age will build no more. 'Pray thee, feed contented then, Sickness, only on us men ; Or if it...Read more of this...
by
Andrew Marvell
Holland, that scarce deserves the name of Land,
As but th'Off-scouring of the Brittish Sand;
And so much Earth as was contributed
By English Pilots when they heav'd the Lead;
Or what by th' Oceans slow alluvion fell,
Of shipwrackt Cockle and the Muscle-shell;
This indigested vomit of the Sea
Fell to the Dutch by just Propriety.
Glad then, as Miners that have found the Oar,
They with...Read more of this...
by
Robert Browning
My first thought was, he lied in every word,
That hoary cripple, with malicious eye
Askance to watch the working of his lie
On mine, and mouth scarce able to afford
Suppression of the glee, that pursed and scored
Its edge, at one more victim gained thereby.
What else should he be set for, with his staff?
What, save to waylay with his lies, ensnare
All travellers who...Read more of this...
by
Victor Hugo
("Toi qu'aimais Juvénal.")
{Nox (PRELUDE) ix., Jersey, November, 1852.}
Thou who loved Juvenal, and filed
His style so sharp to scar imperial brows,
And lent the lustre lightening
The gloom in Dante's murky verse that flows—
Muse Indignation! haste, and help
My building up before this roseate realm,
And its...Read more of this...
by
Langston Hughes
When a man starts out with nothing,
When a man starts out with his hands
Empty, but clean,
When a man starts to build a world,
He starts first with himself
And the faith that is in his heart-
The strength there,
The will there to build.
First in the heart is the dream-
Then the mind starts seeking a way.
His eyes look out on...Read more of this...
by
Paul Laurence Dunbar
What if the wind do howl without,
And turn the creaking weather-vane;
What if the arrows of the rain
Do beat against the window-pane?
Art thou not armored strong and fast
Against the sallies of the blast?
Art thou not sheltered safe and well
Against the flood's insistent swell?
What boots it, that thou stand'st alone,
And laughest in the battle's face
When all the weak have fled the place
And...Read more of this...
by
William Topaz McGonagall
Alas! Sir John Ogilvy is dead, aged eighty-seven,
But I hope his soul is now in heaven;
For he was a generous-hearted gentleman I am sure,
And, in particular, very kind unto the poor.
He was a Christian gentleman in every degree,
And, for many years, was an M.P. for Bonnie Dundee,
And, while he was an M.P., he didn't neglect
To advocate the rights of...Read more of this...
by
Robert Burns
WHILE Europe’s eye is fix’d on mighty things,
The fate of Empires and the fall of Kings;
While quacks of State must each produce his plan,
And even children lisp the Rights of Man;
Amid this mighty fuss just let me mention,
The Rights of Woman merit some attention.
First, in the Sexes’ intermix’d connection,
One sacred Right of Woman is, protection.—
The tender flower that lifts...Read more of this...
by
Rudyard Kipling
"For here lay the excellent wisdom of him that built Mansoul, thatthe
walls could never be broken down nor hurt by the most mighty adverse
potentate unless the townsmen gave consent thereto."--Bunyan's Holy War.)
A tinker out of Bedford,
A vagrant oft in quod,
A privet under Fairfax,
A minister of God--
Two hundred years and thirty
Ere Armageddon came
His single hand portrayed it,
And Bunyan...Read more of this...
by
Kenn Nesbitt
Our teacher likes Minecraft.
She plays it all day.
She tells us to study
so she can go play.
She’ll dig in her mine,
going deeper and deeper,
then fight off a skeleton,
zombie, or creeper.
She’ll engineer buildings
from dirt, wood, and stone,
then go out exploring
the landscape alone.
She’ll build and collect and
she’ll run, jump, and swing.
There’s only one problem…
we don’t learn a thing.
--Kenn Nesbitt
Copyright © Kenn Nesbitt...Read more of this...
by
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
I.
Dead ! One of them shot by the sea in the east,
And one of them shot in the west by the sea.
Dead ! both my boys ! When you sit at the feast
And are wanting a great song for Italy free,
Let none look at me !
II.
Yet I was a poetess only last year,
And good at my art, for a...Read more of this...
by
Maria Mazziotti Gillan
I watch you walk up our front path,
the entire right side of your body,
stiff and unbending, your leg,
dragging on the ground,
your arm not moving.
Six different times you ask me
the date of our daughter's wedding,
seem surprised each time,
forget who called, though you can name
obscure desert animals,
and every detail of events...Read more of this...
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