Famous Sacrifice Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Sacrifice poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous sacrifice poems. These examples illustrate what a famous sacrifice poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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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
Isaac Watts
Christ's kingdom among the Gentiles.
Jesus shall reign where'er the sun
Does his successive journeys run;
His kingdom stretch from shore to shore,
Till moons shall wax and wane no more.
[Behold the islands with their kings,
And Europe her best tribute brings;
From north to south the princes meet,
To pay their homage at his feet.
There Persia, glorious to behold,
There India shines in eastern gold;
And barb'rous...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
I gave an eye to save from night
A babe born blind;
And now with eager semi-sight
Vast joy I find
To think a child can share with me
Earth ecstasy!
Delight of dawn with dewy gleam
On damask rose;
Crimson and gold as pennons stream
Where sunset flows;
And sight most nigh to paradise,
Star-studded skies.
Ah! How in old of age I feel,
...Read more of this...
by
Isaac Watts
v.10,11,14,15,23
C. M.
Obedience is better than sacrifice.
Thus saith the Lord, "The spacious fields,
And flocks, and herds, are mine;
O'er all the cattle of the hills
I claim a right divine.
"I ask no sheep for sacrifice,
Nor bullocks burnt with fire;
To hope and love, to pray and praise,
Is all that I require.
"Call upon me when trouble's near,
My hand shall set thee free
Then shall...Read more of this...
by
Siegfried Sassoon
In fifty years, when peace outshines
Remembrance of the battle lines,
Adventurous lads will sigh and cast
Proud looks upon the plundered past.
On summer morn or winter's night,
Their hearts will kindle for the fight,
Reading a snatch of soldier-song,
Savage and jaunty, fierce and strong;
And through the angry marching rhymes
Of blind regret and haggard mirth,
They'll envy us the dazzling times
When sacrifice absolved our earth.
Some...Read more of this...
by
Anne Sexton
1.
Mother, my Mary Gray,
once resident of Gloucester
and Essex County,
a photostat of your will
arrived in the mail today.
This is the division of money.
I am one third
of your daughters counting my bounty
or I am a queen alone
in the parlor still,
eating the bread and honey.
It is Good Friday.
Black birds pick at my window sill.
Your coat in my closet,
your bright stones on my...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
To love thee Year by Year --
May less appear
Than sacrifice, and cease --
However, dear,
Forever might be short, I thought to show --
And so I pieced it, with a flower, now....Read more of this...
by
Anne Kingsmill Finch
What art thou, SPLEEN, which ev'ry thing dost ape?
Thou Proteus to abus'd Mankind,
Who never yet thy real Cause cou'd find,
Or fix thee to remain in one continued Shape.
Still varying thy perplexing Form,
Now a Dead Sea thou'lt represent,
A Calm of stupid Discontent,
Then, dashing on the Rocks wilt rage into a Storm.
Trembling sometimes thou dost appear,
Dissolv'd into a Panick Fear;
On...Read more of this...
by
Marge Piercy
And thus the people every year
in the valley of humid July
did sacrifice themselves
to the long green phallic god
and eat and eat and eat.
They're coming, they're on us,
the long striped gourds, the silky
babies, the hairy adolescents,
the lumpy vast adults
like the trunks of green elephants.
Recite fifty zucchini recipes!
Zucchini tempura; creamed...Read more of this...
by
Robert Burns
HOW cruel are the parents
Who riches only prize,
And to the wealthy booby
Poor Woman sacrifice!
Meanwhile, the hapless Daughter
Has but a choice of strife;
To shun a tyrant Father’s hate—
Become a wretched Wife.
The ravening hawk pursuing,
The trembling dove thus flies,
To shun impelling ruin,
Awhile her pinions tries;
Till, of escape despairing,
No shelter or retreat,
She trusts the ruthless...Read more of this...
by
William Cowper
(Isaiah, xii.1)
I will praise Thee every day
Now Thine anger's turn'd away;
Comfortable thoughts arise
From the bleeding sacrifice.
Here, in the fair gospel-field,
Wells of free salvation yield
Stream of life, a plenteous store,
And my soul shall thirst no more.
Jesus is become at length
My salvation and my strength;
And His praises shall prolong,
While I live, my pleasant song.
Praise ye, then, His glorious name,
Publish His exalted...Read more of this...
by
Ralph Waldo Emerson
THOUGH love repine and reason chafe
There came a voice without reply ¡ª
'T is man's perdition to be safe,
When for the truth he ought to die. ...Read more of this...
by
Rudyard Kipling
Er-Heb beyond the Hills of Ao-Safai
Bears witness to the truth, and Ao-Safai
Hath told the men of Gorukh. Thence the tale
Comes westward o'er the peaks to India.
The story of Bisesa, Armod's child, --
A maiden plighted to the Chief in War,
The Man of Sixty Spears, who held the Pass
That leads to Thibet, but to-day is gone
To seek his comfort of the...Read more of this...
by
Victor Hugo
("Fuyons ensemble.")
{HERNANI, Act II.}
DONNA SOL. Together let us fly!
HERNANI. Together? No! the hour is past for flight.
Dearest, when first thy beauty smote my sight,
I offered, for the love that bade me live,
Wretch that I was, what misery had to give:
My wood, my stream,...Read more of this...
by
Robert Frost
Even the bravest that are slain
Shall not dissemble their surprise
On waking to find valor reign,
Even as on earth, in paradise;
And where they sought without the sword
Wide fields of asphodel fore'er,
To find that the utmost reward
Of daring should be still to dare.
The light of heaven falls whole and white
And is not shattered into dyes,
The light forever is morning light;
The hills...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
Alas! upon some starry height,
The Gods of Excellence to please,
This hand of mine will never smite
The Harp of High Serenities.
Mere minstrel of the street am I,
To whom a careless coin you fling;
But who, beneath the bitter sky,
Blue-lipped, yet insolent of eye,
Can shrill a song of Spring;
A song of merry mansard days,
The cheery chimney-tops among;
Of rolics and of roundelays
When we...Read more of this...
by
Lucy Maud Montgomery
A prisoner under the stars I lie,
With no friend near;
To-morrow they lead me forth to die,
The stake is ready, the torments set,
They will pay in full their deadly debt;
But I fear them not! Oh, none could fear
Of those who stood by Daulac's side
While he prayed and laughed and sang and fought
In the...Read more of this...
by
Isaac Watts
Christ's intercession.
Lift up your eyes to th' heav'nly seats
Where your Redeemer stays;
Kind Intercessor, there he sits,
And loves, and pleads, and prays.
'Twas well, my soul, he died for thee,
And shed his vital blood;
Appeased stern justice on the tree,
And then arose to God.
Petitions now, and praise may rise,
And saints their off'rings bring;
The Priest, with his own sacrifice,
Presents them to the King.
[Let...Read more of this...
by
Ogden Nash
Husbands are things that wives have to get used to putting up with.
And with whom they breakfast with and sup with.
They interfere with the discipline of nurseries,
And forget anniversaries,
And when they have been particularly remiss
They think they can cure everything with a great big kiss,
And when you tell them about something awful they have done they just
look unbearably patient...Read more of this...
by
Amy Lowell
Before the Altar, bowed, he stands
With empty hands;
Upon it perfumed offerings burn
Wreathing with smoke the sacrificial urn.
Not one of all these has he given,
No flame of his has leapt to Heaven
Firesouled, vermilion-hearted,
Forked, and darted,
Consuming what a few spare pence
Have cheaply bought, to fling from hence
In idly-asked petition.
His sole condition
Love and poverty.
And while the moon
Swings slow across the sky,
Athwart a...Read more of this...
by
Emma Lazarus
Well-nigh two thousand years hath Israel
Suffered the scorn of man for love of God;
Endured the outlaw's ban, the yoke, the rod,
With perfect patience. Empires rose and fell,
Around him Nebo was adored and Bel;
Edom was drunk with victory, and trod
On his high places, while the sacred sod
Was desecrated by the infidel.
His faith...Read more of this...
by
Gerard Manley Hopkins
The dappled die-away
Cheek and wimpled lip,
The gold-wisp, the airy-grey
Eye, all in fellowship—
This, all this beauty blooming,
This, all this freshness fuming,
Give God while worth consuming.
Both thought and thew now bolder
And told by Nature: Tower;
Head, heart, hand, heel, and shoulder
That beat and breathe in power—
This pride of prime's enjoyment
Take as for tool, not toy meant
And hold at Christ's employment.
The...Read more of this...
by
Edgar Lee Masters
You praise my self-sacrifice, Spoon River,
In rearing Irene and Mary,
Orphans of my older sister!
And you censure Irene and Mary
For their contempt of me!
But praise not my self-sacrifice,
And censure not their contempt;
I reared them, I cared for them, true enough!--
But I poisoned my benefactions
With constant reminders of their dependence....Read more of this...
by
George Herbert
I cannot ope mine eyes,
But thou art ready there to catch
My morning-soul and sacrifice:
Then we must needs for that day make a match.
My God, what is a heart?
Silver, or gold, or precious stone,
Or star, or rainbow, or a part
Of all these things or all of them in one?
My God, what is a heart?
That...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
Oh ye whose hearts are resonant, and ring to War's romance,
Hear ye the story of a boy, a peasant boy of France;
A lad uncouth and warped with toil, yet who, when trial came,
Could feel within his soul upleap and soar the sacred flame;
Could stand upright, and scorn and smite, as only heroes may:
Oh, harken! Let me try to tell...Read more of this...
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