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Famous Sake Poems by Famous Poets

These are examples of famous Sake poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous sake poems. These examples illustrate what a famous sake poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).

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Ode On The Insurrection In Candia

by Algernon Charles Swinburne
 STR. 1

I laid my laurel-leaf
At the white feet of grief,
Seeing how with covered face and plumeless wings,
With unreverted head
Veiled, as who mourns his dead,
Lay Freedom couched between the thrones of kings,
A wearied lion without lair,
And bleeding from base wounds, and vexed with alien air.

STR. 2

Who was it, who, put poison to thy mouth,
Who lulled with craft or chant thy...Read more of this...

For sake of these two splendours do the wise

by Hafez
For sake of these two splendours do the wise
Set store on riches, & for these alone:
For these two glories only do they prize
Power & majesty of kingly throne:

Or this: to succour friendship in distress,
To comfort humble sorrow, nor despise
To cheer the joyless heart of weariness,
To guard & aid whom fortune doth oppress
That he to life’s glad kingdom be restor’d
(& thus...Read more of this...

He is alive this morning --

by Emily Dickinson
 He is alive, this morning --
He is alive -- and awake --
Birds are resuming for Him --
Blossoms -- dress for His Sake.
Bees -- to their Loaves of Honey
Add an Amber Crumb
Him -- to regale -- Me -- Only --
Motion, and am dumb....Read more of this...

498. Song—For the sake o' Somebody

by Robert Burns
 MY heart is sair—I dare na tell,
 My heart is sair for Somebody;
I could wake a winter night
 For the sake o’ Somebody.
 O-hon! for Somebody!
 O-hey! for Somebody!
I could range the world around,
 For the sake o’ Somebody.


Ye Powers that smile on virtuous love,
 O, sweetly smile on Somebody!
Frae ilka danger keep him free,
 And send me safe...Read more of this...

Epilogue

by Richard Aldington
 Che son contenti nel fuoco

We are of those that Dante saw
Glad, for love's sake, among the flames of hell,
Outdaring with a kiss all-powerful wrath;
For we have passed athwart a fiercer hell,
Through gloomier, more desperate circles
Than ever Dante dreamed:
And yet love kept us glad....Read more of this...

The Faerie Queene Book III Canto VI

by Edmund Spenser
The birth of faire Belphoebe and
Of Amoret is told.
The Gardins of Adonis fraught
With pleasures manifold.
 
And gentle sprite deforme with rude rusticity.
 But to this faire Belphoebe in her berth
The heauens so fauourable were and free,
Looking with myld aspect vpon the earth,
In th'Horoscope of her natiuitee,
That all the gifts of grace and chastitee
On her they poured forth of plenteous horne;
Ioue...Read more of this...

Sonnet CXI: O for my sake do you with Fortune chide

by William Shakespeare
 O, for my sake do you with Fortune chide,
The guilty goddess of my harmful deeds,
That did not better for my life provide
Than public means which public manners breeds.
Thence comes it that my name receives a brand,
And almost thence my nature is subdu'd
To what it works in, like the dyer's hand.
Pity me then and wish I were renew'd;
Whilst, like a...Read more of this...

Clarence Fawcett

by Edgar Lee Masters
 The sudden death of Eugene Carman
Put me in line to be promoted to fifty dollars a month,
And I told my wife and children that night.
But it didn't come, and so I thought
Old Rhodes suspected me of stealing
The blankets I took and sold on the side
For money to pay a doctor's bill for my little girl.
Then like a bolt old...Read more of this...

A Tale of the Sea

by William Topaz McGonagall
 A pathetic tale of the sea I will unfold,
Enough to make one's blood run cold;
Concerning four fishermen cast adrift in a dory.
As I've been told I'll relate the story.
T'was on the 8th April on the afternoon of that day
That the village of Louisburg was thrown into a wild state or dismay, 

And the villagers flew to the beach in...Read more of this...

His Prayer To Ben Jonson

by Robert Herrick
 When I a verse shall make,
Know I have pray'd thee,
For old religion's sake,
Saint Ben to aid me.

Make the way smooth for me,
When I, thy Herrick,
Honouring thee, on my knee
Offer my lyric.

Candles I'll give to thee,
And a new altar,
And thou, Saint Ben, shalt be
Writ in my psalter....Read more of this...

The Last Oracle

by Algernon Charles Swinburne
 eipate toi basilei, xamai pese daidalos aula. 
ouketi PHoibos exei kaluban, ou mantida daphnen, 
ou pagan laleousan . apesbeto kai lalon udor. 

Years have risen and fallen in darkness or in twilight, 
Ages waxed and waned that knew not thee nor thine, 
While the world sought light by night and sought not thy light, 
Since the sad last pilgrim...Read more of this...

Itching Heels

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
Fu' de peace o' my eachin' heels, set down;
Don' fiddle dat chune no mo'.
Don' you see how dat melody stuhs me up
An' baigs me to tek to de flo'?
You knows I 's a Christian, good an' strong;
I wusship f'om June to June;
My pra'ahs dey ah loud an' my hymns ah long:
I baig you don' fiddle dat chune.
I 's a crick...Read more of this...

Parable Of The Dove

by Louise Gluck
 A dove lived in a village.
When it opened its mouth
sweetness came out, sound
like a silver light around
the cherry bough. But
the dove wasn't satisfied.

It saw the villagers
gathered to listen under
the blossoming tree.
It didn't think: I
am higher that they are.
It wanted to wealk among them,
to experience the violence of human feeling,
in part for its song's sake.

So it became human.
It found passion,...Read more of this...

Sonnet 111: O for my sake do you with Fortune chide

by William Shakespeare
 O, for my sake do you with Fortune chide,
The guilty goddess of my harmful deeds,
That did not better for my life provide
Than public means which public manners breeds.
Thence comes it that my name receives a brand,
And almost thence my nature is subdued
To what it works in, like the dyer's hand.
Pity me then, and wish I were renewed,
Whilst like a...Read more of this...

Two Songs Rewritten For The Tunes Sake

by William Butler Yeats
 I

My Paistin Finn is my sole desire,
And I am shrunken to skin and bone,
For all my heart has had for its hire
Is what I can whistle alone and alone.
 Oro, oro!
Tomorrow night I will break down the door.

What is the good of a man and he
Alone and alone, with a speckled shin?
I would that I drank with my love...Read more of this...

Sainte-Nitouche

by Edwin Arlington Robinson
 Though not for common praise of him, 
Nor yet for pride or charity, 
Still would I make to Vanderberg 
One tribute for his memory: 

One honest warrant of a friend
Who found with him that flesh was grass— 
Who neither blamed him in defect 
Nor marveled how it came to pass; 

Or why it ever was that he— 
That Vanderberg,...Read more of this...

Sonnet LXI

by William Shakespeare
 Is it thy will thy image should keep open
My heavy eyelids to the weary night?
Dost thou desire my slumbers should be broken,
While shadows like to thee do mock my sight?
Is it thy spirit that thou send'st from thee
So far from home into my deeds to pry,
To find out shames and idle hours in me,
The scope and tenor of thy...Read more of this...

Sonnets 10: Oh My Beloved Have You Thought Of This

by Edna St. Vincent Millay
 Oh, my beloved, have you thought of this:
How in the years to come unscrupulous Time,
More cruel than Death, will tear you from my kiss,
And make you old, and leave me in my prime?
How you and I, who scale together yet
A little while the sweet, immortal height
No pilgrim may remember or forget,
As sure as the world turns, some granite night
Shall...Read more of this...

Vita? Lampada

by Sir Henry Newbolt
 There's a breathless hush in the Close to-night -- 
Ten to make and the match to win -- 
A bumping pitch and a blinding light, 
An hour to play and the last man in. 
And it's not for the sake of a ribboned coat, 
Or the selfish hope of a season's fame, 
But his Captain's hand on his shoulder...Read more of this...

A Prayer For Old Age

by William Butler Yeats
 God guard me from those thoughts men think
In the mind alone;
He that sings a lasting song
Thinks in a marrow-bone;

From all that makes a wise old man
That can be praised of all;
O what am I that I should not seem
For the song's sake a fool?

I pray -- for word is out
And prayer comes round again --
That I may seem, though...Read more of this...

Mater Dolorosa

by Algernon Charles Swinburne
 Who is this that sits by the way, by the wild wayside,
In a rent stained raiment, the robe of a cast-off bride,
In the dust, in the rainfall sitting, with soiled feet bare,
With the night for a garment upon her, with torn wet hair?
She is fairer of face than the daughters of men, and her eyes,
Worn through with her tears,...Read more of this...

St. Francis and the Birds

by Katharine Tynan
 Little sisters, the birds: 
We must praise God, you and I­ 
You, with songs that fill the sky, 
I, with halting words. 

All things tell His praise,
Woods and waters thereof sing, 
Summer, Winter, Autumn, Spring, 
And the night and days. 

Yea, and cold and heat,
And the sun and stars and moon,
Sea with her monotonous tune,
Rain and hail and sleet,...Read more of this...

Grif of the Bloody Hand

by William Topaz McGonagall
 In an immense wood in the south of Kent,
There lived a band of robbers which caused the people discontent;
And the place they infested was called the Weald,
Where they robbed wayside travellers and left them dead on the field. 

Their leader was called Grif, of the Bloody Hand,
And so well skilled in sword practice there's few could him withstand;
And sometimes...Read more of this...

Song VII: Dawn Talks to Day

by William Morris
 Dawn talks to Day
Over dew-gleaming flowers,
Night flies away
Till the resting of hours:
Fresh are thy feet
And with dreams thine eyes glistening,
Thy still lips are sweet
Though the world is a-listening.
O Love, set a word in my mouth for our meeting,
Cast thine arms round about me to stay my heart's beating!
O fresh day, O fair day, O long day made ours! 

Morn...Read more of this...

Sonnet 61: Is it thy will thy image should keep open

by William Shakespeare
 Is it thy will thy image should keep open
My heavy eyelids to the weary night?
Dost thou desire my slumbers should be broken
While shadows like to thee do mock my sight?
Is it thy spirit that thou send'st from thee
So far from home into my deeds to pry,
To find out shames and idle hours in me,
The scope and tenure of thy...Read more of this...

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