Famous Rod Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Rod poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous rod poems. These examples illustrate what a famous rod poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Paul Laurence Dunbar
By Mystic's banks I held my dream.
(I held my fishing rod as well,)
The vision was of dace and bream,
A fruitless vision, sooth to tell.
But round about the sylvan dell
Were other sweet Arcadian shrines,
Gone now, is all the rural spell,
Arcadia has trolley lines.
Oh, once loved, sluggish, darkling stream,
For me no more, thy waters swell,
Thy music now the engines' scream,
Thy fragrance now...Read more of this...
by
Isaac Watts
v.1,2,7-14
C. M.
Saints chastised, and sinners destroyed; or, Instructive afflictions.
O God, to whom revenge belongs,
"Proclaim thy wrath aloud;
Let sovereign power redress our wrongs,
Let justice smite the proud.
They say, "The Lord nor sees nor hears:"
When will the fools be wise?
Can he be deaf who formed their ears?
Or blind, who made their eyes?
He knows their impious thoughts are vain,
And they shall...Read more of this...
by
Lucy Maud Montgomery
Across the meadow in brooding shadow
I walk to drink of the autumn's wine
The charm of story, the artist's glory,
To-day on these silvering hills is mine;
On height, in hollow, where'er I follow,
By mellow hillside and searing sod,
Its plumes uplifting, in light winds drifting,
I see the glimmer of golden-rod.
In this latest comer the vanished summer
Has left its sunshine the world...Read more of this...
by
Edgar Lee Masters
Both for the country and for the man,
And for a country as well as a man,
'Tis better to be feared than loved.
And if this country would rather part
With the friendship of every nation
Than surrender its wealth,
I say of a man 'tis worse to lose
Money than friends.
And I rend the curtain that hides the soul
Of an ancient aspiration:
When the people...Read more of this...
by
Robert Louis Stevenson
THE angler rose, he took his rod,
He kneeled and made his prayers to God.
The living God sat overhead:
The angler tripped, the eels were fed...Read more of this...
by
Dylan Thomas
Light breaks where no sun shines;
Where no sea runs, the waters of the heart
Push in their tides;
And, broken ghosts with glowworms in their heads,
The things of light
File through the flesh where no flesh decks the bones.
A candle in the thighs
Warms youth and seed and burns the seeds of age;
Where no seed stirs,
The fruit of man unwrinkles in the stars,
Bright...Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
By reason's dictates it is right to live,
But of ourselves we know not how to live,
So Fortune, like a master, rod in hand,
Raps our pates well to teach us how to live!...Read more of this...
by
William Browne
Now as an angler melancholy standing
Upon a green bank yielding room for landing,
A wriggling yellow worm thrust on his hook,
Now in the midst he throws, then in a nook:
Here pulls his line, there throws it in again,
Mendeth his cork and bait, but all in vain,
He long stands viewing of the curled stream;
At last a hungry pike, or well-grown bream
Snatch...Read more of this...
by
Francesco Petrarch
SONNET XXXI. Io temo sì de' begli occhi l' assalto. HE EXCUSES HIMSELF FOR HAVING SO LONG DELAYED TO VISIT HER. So much I fear to encounter her bright eye.Alway in which my death and Love reside,That, as a child the rod, its glance I fly,Though long the time has been since...Read more of this...
by
William Cowper
Lord, who hast suffer'd all for me,
My peace and pardon to procure,
The lighter cross I bear for Thee,
Help me with patience to endure.
The storm of loud repining hush;
I would in humble silence mourn;
Why should the unburnt, though burning bush,
Be angry as the crackling thorn?
Man should not faint at Thy rebuke,
Like Joshua falling on his face,
When the cursed thing that...Read more of this...
by
Francesco Petrarch
CANZONE VI. Spirto gentil che quelle membra reggi. TO RIENZI, BESEECHING HIM TO RESTORE TO ROME HER ANCIENT LIBERTY. Spirit heroic! who with fire divineKindlest those limbs, awhile which pilgrim holdOn earth a Chieftain, gracious, wise, and bold;Since, rightly, now the rod of state is thineRome and her wandering children to...Read more of this...
by
Francesco Petrarch
BALLATA V. Volgendo gli occhi al mio novo colore. HER KIND SALUTE SAVED HIM FROM DEATH. Late as those eyes on my sunk cheek inclined,Whose paleness to the world seems of the grave,Compassion moved you to that greeting kind,Whose soft smile to my worn heart spirit gave.The poor frail life which...Read more of this...
by
Isaac Watts
v.1-9
C. M.
Prayer and faith of persecuted saints.
Now plead my cause, Almighty God,
With all the sons of strife;
And fight against the men of blood,
Who fight against my life.
Draw out thy spear and stop their way,
Lift thine avenging rod;
But to my soul in mercy say,
"I am thy Savior God!"
They plant their snares to catch my feet,
And nets of mischief spread;
Plunge...Read more of this...
by
Oscar Wilde
To drift with every passion till my soul
Is a stringed lute on which can winds can play,
Is it for this that I have given away
Mine ancient wisdom and austere control?
Methinks my life is a twice-written scroll
Scrawled over on some boyish holiday
With idle songs for pipe and virelay,
Which do but mar the secret of the whole.
Surely there was a time...Read more of this...
by
Homer
Achilles' wrath, to Greece the direful spring
Of woes unnumber'd, heavenly goddess, sing!
That wrath which hurl'd to Pluto's gloomy reign
The souls of mighty chiefs untimely slain;
Whose limbs unburied on the naked shore,
Devouring dogs and hungry vultures tore.(41)
Since great Achilles and Atrides strove,
Such was the sovereign...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
Seamus Heaney
As you plaited the harvest bow
You implicated the mellowed silence in you
In wheat that does not rust
But brightens as it tightens twist by twist
Into a knowable corona,
A throwaway love-knot of straw.
Hands that aged round ashplants and cane sticks
And lapped the spurs on a lifetime of game cocks
Harked to their gift and worked with fine intent
Until your fingers moved somnambulant:
I...Read more of this...
by
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
IF Venus in the evening sky
Is seen in radiant majesty,
If rod-like comets, red as blood,
Are 'mongst the constellations view'd,
Out springs the Ignoramus, yelling:
"The star's exactly o'er my dwelling!
What woeful prospect, ah, for me!
Then calls his neighbour mournfully:
"Behold that awful sign of evil,
Portending woe to me, poor devil!
My mother's asthma ne'er will leave her,
My child is sick with wind and...Read more of this...
by
Alexander Pope
Est brevitate opus, ut currat sententia, neu se
Impediat verbis lassas onerantibus aures:
Et sermone opus est modo tristi, saepe jocoso,
Defendente vicem modo Rhetoris atque Poetae,
Interdum urbani, parcentis viribus, atque
Extenuantis eas consulto.
(Horace, Satires, I, x, 17-22)
'Tis strange, the miser should his cares employ
To gain those riches he can ne'er enjoy:
Is it less strange, the prodigal should...Read more of this...
by
Isaac Watts
Unfruitfulness, ignorance, and unsanctified affections.
Long have I sat beneath the sound
Of thy salvation, Lord;
But still how weak my faith is found,
And knowledge of thy word!
Oft I frequent thy holy place,
And hear almost in vain;
How small a portion of thy grace
My memory can retain!
[My dear Almighty, and my God,
How little art thou known
By all the judgments of thy rod,
And blessings...Read more of this...
by
William Cowper
Hatred and vengeance, my eternal portion,
Scarce can endure delay of execution,
Wait, with impatient readiness, to seize my
Soul in a moment.
Damned below Judas:more abhorred than he was,
Who for a few pence sold his holy Master.
Twice betrayed Jesus me, this last delinquent,
Deems the profanest.
Man disavows, and Deity disowns me:
Hell might afford my miseries a shelter;
Therefore hell keeps her ever hungry mouths...Read more of this...
by
Isaac Watts
Now plead my cause, Almighty God,
With all the sons of strife;
And fight against the men of blood,
Who fight against my life.
Draw out thy spear and stop their way,
Lift thine avenging rod;
But to my soul in mercv say,
"I am thy Savior God!"
They plant their snares to catch my feet,
And nets of mischief spread;
Plunge the destroyers in the pit
That their own...Read more of this...
by
Robert Burns
THOU, Liberty, thou art my theme;
Not such as idle poets dream,
Who trick thee up a heathen goddess
That a fantastic cap and rod has;
Such stale conceits are poor and silly;
I paint thee out, a Highland filly,
A sturdy, stubborn, handsome dapple,
As sleek’s a mouse, as round’s an apple,
That when thou pleasest canst do wonders;
But when thy luckless rider blunders,
Or if thy...Read more of this...
by
Isaac Watts
God holy, just, and sovereign.
Job 9:2-10.
How should the sons of Adam's race
Be pure before their God?
If he contend in righteousness,
We fall beneath his rod.
To vindicate my words and thoughts
I'll make no more pretence;
Not one of all my thousand faults
Can bear a just defence.
Strong is his arm, his heart is wise;
What vain presumer's dare
Against their Maker's hand to rise,
Or...Read more of this...
by
Isaac Watts
Christ dying, rising, interceding, and reigning.
Acts 4:24, etc.
[Maker and sovereign Lord
Of heav'n, and earth, and seas,
Thy providence confirms thy word,
And answers thy decrees.
The things so long foretold
By David are fulfilled,
When Jews and Gentiles joined to slay
Jesus, thine holy child.]
Why did the Gentiles rage,
And Jews, with one accord,
Bend all their counsels to destroy
Th' Anointed of the Lord?
Rulers and kings...Read more of this...
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