Famous Rites Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Rites poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous rites poems. These examples illustrate what a famous rites poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Isaac Watts
v.10-14
S. M.
The beauty of the church; or, Gospel worship and order.
Far as thy name is known,
The world declares thy praise;
Thy saints, O Lord, before thy throne,
Their songs of honor raise.
With joy let Judah stand
On Zion's chosen hill,
Proclaim the wonders of thy hand,
And counsels of thy will.
Let strangers walk around
The city where we dwell,
Compass and view thine holy ground,
And...Read more of this...
by
Friedrich von Schiller
The tyrant Dionys to seek,
Stern Moerus with his poniard crept;
The watchful guard upon him swept;
The grim king marked his changeless cheek:
"What wouldst thou with thy poniard? Speak!"
"The city from the tyrant free!"
"The death-cross shall thy guerdon be."
"I am prepared for death, nor pray,"
Replied that haughty man, "I to live;
Enough, if thou one grace wilt give
For three brief suns the...Read more of this...
by
Michael Drayton
In Ionia whence sprang old poets' fame,
From whom that sea did first derive her name,
The blessed bed whereon the Muses lay,
Beauty of Greece, the pride of Asia,
Whence Archelaus, whom times historify,
First unto Athens brought philosophy:
In this fair region on a goodly plain,
Stretching her bounds unto the bord'ring main,
The mountain Latmus overlooks the sea,
Smiling to see the ocean billows play:
Latmus,...Read more of this...
by
John Dryden
Consecrated to the Glorious Memory of His
Most Serene and Renowned Highness, Oliver,
Late Lord Protector of This Commonwealth, etc.
(Oliver Cromwell)
Written After the Celebration of his Funeral
1
And now 'tis time; for their officious haste,
Who would before have borne him to the sky,
Like eager Romans ere all rites were past
Did let too soon the sacred eagle fly....Read more of this...
by
Julia Ward Howe
I never made a poem, dear friend--
I never sat me down, and said,
This cunning brain and patient hand
Shall fashion something to be read.
Men often came to me, and prayed
I should indite a fitting verse
For fast, or festival, or in
Some stately pageant to rehearse.
(As if, than Balaam more endowed,
I of myself could bless or curse.)
Reluctantly I bade them go,
Ungladdened by...Read more of this...
by
Thomas Warton
Ah, stay thy treacherous hand, forbear to trace
Those faultless forms of elegance and grace!
Ah, cease to spread the bright transparent mass,
With Titian's pencil, o'er the speaking glass!
Nor steal, by strokes of art with truth combin'd,
The fond illusions of my wayward mind!
For long, enamour'd of a barbarous age,
A faithless truant to the classic page;
Long have I lov'd to catch the...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
These are the Signs to Nature's Inns --
Her invitation broad
To Whosoever famishing
To taste her mystic Bread --
These are the rites of Nature's House --
The Hospitality
That opens with an equal width
To Beggar and to Bee
For Sureties of her staunch Estate
Her undecaying Cheer
The Purple in the East is set
And in the North, the Star --...Read more of this...
by
Christopher Smart
The poker lost, poor Susan storm'd,
And all the rites of rage perform'd;
As scolding, crying, swearing, sweating,
Abusing, fidgetting, and fretting.
"Nothing but villany, and thieving;
Good heavens! what a world we live in!
If I don't find it in the morning,
I'll surely give my master warning.
He'd better far shut up his doors,
Than keep such...Read more of this...
by
Robert Burns
EXPECT na, sir, in this narration,
A fleechin, fleth’rin Dedication,
To roose you up, an’ ca’ you guid,
An’ sprung o’ great an’ noble bluid,
Because ye’re surnam’d like His Grace—
Perhaps related to the race:
Then, when I’m tir’d-and sae are ye,
Wi’ mony a fulsome, sinfu’ lie,
Set up a face how I stop short,
For fear your modesty be hurt.
This may do—maun do, sir,...Read more of this...
by
Robert Southey
The Raven croak'd as she sate at her meal,
And the Old Woman knew what he said,
And she grew pale at the Raven's tale,
And sicken'd and went to her bed.
'Now fetch me my children, and fetch them with speed,'
The Old Woman of Berkeley said,
'The Monk my son, and my daughter the Nun,
Bid them...Read more of this...
by
Rg Gregory
shaw had the gift of the crab
how he took the straight idea
and scuttled with it sideways
marking sand and word with sea's
inventions - what shaw perceived
went deeper than the lounger's eye
stripped for entertainment in the sun
shaw's art was nip and prick
sending the red-skinned lounger home
with buzzing brain shocked tongue
and sandstorms stinging in his ears
jung went for niches in the night
believing...Read more of this...
by
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
A DRUID.
SWEET smiles the May!
The forest gay
From frost and ice is freed;
No snow is found,
Glad songs resound
Across the verdant mead.
Upon the height
The snow lies light,
Yet thither now we go,
There to extol our Father's name,
Whom we for ages know.
Amid the smoke shall gleam the flame;
Thus pure the heart will grow.
THE DRUIDS.
Amid the smoke shall...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
There's sunshine in the heart of me,
My blood sings in the breeze;
The mountains are a part of me,
I'm fellow to the trees.
My golden youth I'm squandering,
Sun-libertine am I;
A-wandering, a-wandering,
Until the day I die.
I was once, I declare, a Stone-Age man,
And I roomed in the cool of a cave;
I have known, I will swear, in a new life-span,
The...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
Edmund Spenser
ANd thou great Iuno, which with awful might
the lawes of wedlock still dost patronize,
And the religion of the faith first plight
With sacred rites hast taught to solemnize:
and eeke for comfort often called art
Of women in their smart,
Eternally bind thou this louely band,
And all thy blessings vnto vs impart.
And thou glad Genius, in whose gentle hand,
The bridale bowre and geniall...Read more of this...
by
Isaac Watts
Regeneration.
John 1:13; 3:3, etc.
Not all the outward forms on earth,
Nor rites that God has giv'n,
Nor will of man, nor blood, nor birth,
Can raise a soul to heav'n.
The sovereign will of God alone
Creates us heirs of grace
Born in the image of his Son,
A new, peculiar race.
The Spirit, like some heav'nly wind,
Blows on the sons of flesh,
New-models all the carnal...Read more of this...
by
Robert Southey
Fly, son of Banquo! Fleance, fly!
Leave thy guilty sire to die.
O'er the heath the stripling fled,
The wild storm howling round his head.
Fear mightier thro' the shades of night
Urged his feet, and wing'd his flight;
And still he heard his father cry
Fly, son of Banquo! Fleance, fly.
Fly, son of Banquo! Fleance, fly
Leave thy guilty sire to die.
On every blast was heard...Read more of this...
by
Ben Jonson
XIII. — EPISTLE TO KATHARINE LADY AUBIGNY. As what they have lost t' expect, they dare deride. So both the prais'd and praisers suffer ; yet, For others ill ought none their good forget. I therefore, who profess myself in love With every virtue, wheresoe'er it move, And howsoever ; as I am at feudBy arts, and practice of the...Read more of this...
by
William Vaughn Moody
After seeing at Boston the statue of Robert Gould Shaw, killed while storming Fort Wagner, July 18, 1863, at the head of the first enlisted ***** regiment, the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts.
I
Before the solemn bronze Saint Gaudens made
To thrill the heedless passer's heart with awe,
And set here in the city's talk and trade
To the good memory of...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
Robert Herrick
The Rose was sick, and smiling died;
And, being to be sanctified,
About the bed, there sighing stood
The sweet and flowery sisterhood.
Some hung the head, while some did bring,
To wash her, water from the spring;
Some laid her forth, while others wept,
But all a solemn fast there kept.
The holy sisters some among,
The sacred dirge and trental sung;
But ah! what sweets smelt everywhere,
As...Read more of this...
by
Wystan Hugh (W H) Auden
The piers are pummelled by the waves;In a lonely field the rainLashes an abandoned train;Outlaws fill the mountain caves. Fantastic grow the evening gowns;Agents of the Fisc pursueAbsconding tax-defaulters throughThe sewers of provincial towns. Private rites of magic sendThe temple prostitutes to sleep;All the literati keepAn imaginary friend. Cerebrotonic Cato mayExtol the Ancient Disciplines,But the muscle-bound MarinesMutiny for food and...Read more of this...
by
Anne Sexton
Almost yesterday, those gentle ladies stole
to their baths in Atlantic Cuty, for the lost
rites of the first sea of the first salt
running from a faucet. I have heard they sat
for hours in briny tubs, patting hotel towels
sweetly over shivered skin, smelling the stale
harbor of a lost ocean, praying at last
for impossible loves, or new skin, or still
another child. And...Read more of this...
by
Ezra Pound
And then went down to the ship,
Set keel to breakers, forth on the godly sea, and
We set up mast and sail on that swart ship,
Bore sheep aboard her, and our bodies also
Heavy with weeping, and winds from sternward
Bore us onward with bellying canvas,
Crice's this craft, the trim-coifed goddess.
Then sat we amidships, wind jamming the tiller,
Thus with stretched sail, we...Read more of this...
by
Alan Seeger
Who shall invoke her, who shall be her priest,
With single rites the common debt to pay?
On some green headland fronting to the East
Our fairest boy shall kneel at break of day.
Naked, uplifting in a laden tray
New milk and honey and sweet-tinctured wine,
Not without twigs of clustering apple-spray
To wreath a garland for Our Lady's shrine.
The morning planet poised above the...Read more of this...
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