Famous Saviour Poems by Famous Poets

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

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An Ode Of The Birth Of Our Saviour

by Robert Herrick
 In numbers, and but these few,
I sing thy birth, oh JESU!
Thou pretty Baby, born here,
With sup'rabundant scorn here;
Who for thy princely port here,
Hadst for thy place
Of birth, a base
Out-stable for thy court here.

Instead of neat enclosures
Of interwoven osiers;
Instead of fragrant posies
Of daffadils and roses,
Thy cradle, kingly stranger,
As gospel tells,
Was nothing else,
But, here, a homely manger.

But we with silks, not...Read more of this...

For I Will Consider My Cat Jeoffry (excerpt Jubilate Agno)

by Christopher Smart
 For I will consider my Cat Jeoffry. 
For he is the servant of the Living God duly and daily serving him.
For at the first glance of the glory of God in the East he worships in his way.
For this is done by wreathing his body seven times round with elegant quickness.
For then he leaps up to catch the musk,...Read more of this...

One Being Brought From Africa To America

by Phillis Wheatley
 'TWAS mercy brought me from my Pagan land,
Taught my benighted soul to understand
That there's a God, that there's a Saviour too:
Once I redemption neither sought now knew,
Some view our sable race with scornful eye,
'Their colour is a diabolic die.'
Remember, Christians, *******, black as Cain,
May be refin'd, and join th' angelic train....Read more of this...

To His Saviour A Child;a Present By A Child

by Robert Herrick
 Go, pretty child, and bear this flower
Unto thy little Saviour;
And tell him, by that bud now blown,
He is the Rose of Sharon known.
When thou hast said so, stick it there
Upon his bib or stomacher;
And tell him, for good handsel too,
That thou hast brought a whistle new,
Made of a clean straight oaten reed,
To charm his cries at time of need;
Tell...Read more of this...

Christmas Antiphones

by Algernon Charles Swinburne
 I -- In Church

Thou whose birth on earth
Angels sang to men,
While thy stars made mirth,
Saviour, at thy birth,
This day born again;

As this night was bright
With thy cradle-ray,
Very light of light,
Turn the wild world's night
To thy perfect day.

God whose feet made sweet
Those wild ways they trod,
From thy fragrant feet
Staining field and street
With the blood of God;

God whose breast is rest
In...Read more of this...

The House of Prayer

by William Cowper
 (Mark, xi.17)

Thy mansion is the Christian's heart,
O Lord, Thy dwelling place secure!
Bid the unruly throng depart,
And leave the consecrated door.

Devoted as it is to Thee,
A thievish swarm frequents the place,
They steal away my hopes from me,
And rob my Saviour of His praise.

There, too, a sharp designing trade
Sin, Satan, and the World maintain;
Nor cease to press me, and persuade
To part...Read more of this...

Why?

by Robert William Service
 He was our leader and our guide;
He was our saviour and our star.
We walked in friendship by his side,
Yet set him where our heroes are.

He taught disdain of fame and wealth;
With courage he inspired our youth;
He preached the purity of health,
And held aloft the torch of truth.

He bade us battle for the Right,
And led us in the carnage grim;
He...Read more of this...

The Twins

by Aleister Crowley
 [Dedicated to Austin Osman Spare]


Have pity ! show no pity !
Those eyes that send such shivers
Into my brain and spine : oh let them
Flame like the ancient city
Swallowed up by the sulphurous rivers
When men let angels fret them !

Yea ! let the south wind blow,
And the Turkish banner advance,
And the word go out : No quarter !
But I shall...Read more of this...

Chanting the Square Deific

by Walt Whitman
 1
CHANTING the square deific, out of the One advancing, out of the sides; 
Out of the old and new—out of the square entirely divine, 
Solid, four-sided, (all the sides needed)... from this side JEHOVAH am I, 
Old Brahm I, and I Saturnius am; 
Not Time affects me—I am Time, old, modern as any;
Unpersuadable, relentless, executing righteous judgments; 
As the...Read more of this...

Lovest Thou Me?

by William Cowper
 (John, xxi.16)

Hark my soul! it is the Lord;
'Tis Thy Saviour, hear His word;
Jesus speaks and speaks to thee,
"Say poor sinner, lovst thou me?

"I deliver'd thee when bound,
And when bleeding, heal'd thy wound;
Sought thee wandering, set thee right,
Turn'd thy darkness into light.

"Can a woman's tender care
Cease towards the child she bare?
Yes, she may forgetful be,
Yet will I remember thee.

"Mine is...Read more of this...

King Louis Xvii

by Victor Hugo
 ("En ce temps-là du ciel les portes.") 
 
 {Bk. I. v., December, 1822.} 


 The golden gates were opened wide that day, 
 All through the unveiled heaven there seemed to play 
 Out of the Holiest of Holy, light; 
 And the elect beheld, crowd immortal, 
 A young soul, led up by young angels bright, 
...Read more of this...

Dream Song 102: The sunburnt terraces which swans make home

by John Berryman
 The sunburnt terraces which swans make home
with water purling, Macchu Pichu died
like Delphi long ago-”
a message to Justinian closing it out,
the thousand years' authority, although
tho' never found exactly wrong

political patterns did indeed emerge;
the Oracle was conservative, like Lippmann,
roared the winds on the height,
The Shining Ones behind the shrine, whose verge
saw the impious plunged, 6000 statures
above the Temple shone

plundered, centuries...Read more of this...

Eighth Air Force

by Randall Jarrell
 If, in an odd angle of the hutment,
A puppy laps the water from a can
Of flowers, and the drunk sergeant shaving
Whistles O Paradiso!--shall I say that man
Is not as men have said: a wolf to man?

The other murderers troop in yawning;
Three of them play Pitch, one sleeps, and one
Lies counting missions, lies there sweating
Till even his heart beats: One;...Read more of this...

To His Sweet Saviour

by Robert Herrick
 Night hath no wings to him that cannot sleep;
And Time seems then not for to fly, but creep;
Slowly her chariot drives, as if that she
Had broke her wheel, or crack'd her axletree.
Just so it is with me, who list'ning, pray
The winds to blow the tedious night away,
That I might see the cheerful peeping day.
Sick is my heart; O Saviour!...Read more of this...

Jubilate Agno (excerpt)

by Christopher Smart
 For I will consider my Cat Jeoffry. 
For he is the servant of the Living God duly and daily serving him.
For at the first glance of the glory of God in the East he worships in his way.
For this is done by wreathing his body seven times round with elegant quickness.
For then he leaps up to catch the musk,...Read more of this...

A Word To The Calvinists

by Anne Bronte
 You may rejoice to think yourselves secure,
You may be grateful for the gift divine,
That grace unsought which made your black hearts pure
And fits your earthborn souls in Heaven to shine. 
But is it sweet to look around and view
Thousands excluded from that happiness,
Which they deserve at least as much as you,
Their faults not greater nor their virtues less? 

And...Read more of this...

There Was A Saviour

by Dylan Thomas
 There was a saviour
 Rarer than radium,
 Commoner than water, crueller than truth;
 Children kept from the sun
 Assembled at his tongue
 To hear the golden note turn in a groove,
Prisoners of wishes locked their eyes
In the jails and studies of his keyless smiles.

 The voice of children says
 From a lost wilderness
 There was calm to be done...Read more of this...

Jehovah Jesus

by William Cowper
 My song shall bless the Lord of all,
My praise shall climb to His abode;
Thee, Saviour, by that name I call,
The great Supreme, the mighty God.

Without beginning or decline,
Object of faith and not of sense;
Eternal ages saw Him shine,
He shines eternal ages hence.

As much when in the manger laid,
Almighty Ruler of the sky,
As when the six days' work He made,
Fill'd...Read more of this...

When sorrow hath outsoar'd our nature's clime

by Hafez
When sorrow hath outsoar’d our nature’s clime,
Leaving it far remote &, like a strong
Eagle lone brooding on her peak sublime,
Graspeth in solitude her towering wrong;

& no more hankereth for petty prey
Nor bleeding victim wherewithal to still
Her hunger of desolate passion, but thus aye
Sitteth, devour’d by her own vital ill,

Motionless, nerveless, where for her no sound
Of life is, only the wind’s...Read more of this...

Isaiah LXIII

by Phillis Wheatley
 Say, heav'nly muse, what king or mighty God,
That moves sublime from Idumea's road?
In Bosrah's dies, with martial glories join'd,
His purple vesture waves upon the wind.
Why thus enrob'd delights he to appear
In the dread image of the Pow'r of war?
Compres'd in wrath the swelling wine-press groan'd,
It bled, and pour'd the gushing purple round.

"Mine was the act," th' Almighty Saviour said,
And...Read more of this...

Tenebrae

by Algernon Charles Swinburne
 At the chill high tide of the night,
At the turn of the fluctuant hours,
When the waters of time are at height,
In a vision arose on my sight
The kingdoms of earth and the powers.

In a dream without lightening of eyes
I saw them, children of earth,
Nations and races arise,
Each one after his wise,
Signed with the sign of his birth.

Sound was none...Read more of this...

from Jubilate Agno Fragment B lines 695-768

by Christopher Smart
 For I will consider my Cat Jeoffry.
For he is the servant of the Living God, duly and daily serving him.
For at the first glance of the glory of God in the East he worships in his way.
For is this done by wreathing his body seven times round with elegant quickness.
For then he leaps up to catch the musk, which...Read more of this...

Of St. Francis and the Ass

by Katharine Tynan
 Our father, ere he went 
Out with his brother, Death, 
Smiling and well-content 
As a bridegroom goeth, 
Sweetly forgiveness prayed 
From man or beast whom he 
Had ever injured
Or burdened needlessly. 

'Verily,' then said he,
'I crave before I pass 
Forgiveness full and free
Of my little brother, the ass.
Many a time and oft, 
When winds and ways were hot, 
He...Read more of this...

A Watch In The Night

by Algernon Charles Swinburne
 Watchman, what of the night? - 
Storm and thunder and rain, 
Lights that waver and wane,
Leaving the watchfires unlit. 
Only the balefires are bright, 
And the flash of the lamps now and then 
From a palace where spoilers sit, 
Trampling the children of men.

Prophet, what of the night? - 
I stand by the verge of the sea, 
Banished, uncomforted,...Read more of this...

Not Dead, but Sleeping

by Fannie Isabelle Sherrick
[To the memory of Edwin B. Foster, a member of the Howards, who nobly sacrificed his own life for others, and in remembrance of those unknown to fame or friends who have silently followed in the steps of our Saviour.]

The shadow of death is around us all,
  And life is a sorrowful thing;
For the winds sweep by with a...Read more of this...

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