Famous Security Poems by Famous Poets

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

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II. Safety

by Rupert Brooke
 Dear! of all happy in the hour, most blest
He who has found our hid security,
Assured in the dark tides of the world that rest,
And heard our word, `Who is so safe as we?'
We have found safety with all things undying,
The winds, and morning, tears of men and mirth,
The deep night, and birds singing, and clouds flying,
And sleep, and freedom,...Read more of this...

A Carol of Harvest for 1867

by Walt Whitman
 1
A SONG of the good green grass! 
A song no more of the city streets; 
A song of farms—a song of the soil of fields. 

A song with the smell of sun-dried hay, where the nimble pitchers handle the pitch-fork; 
A song tasting of new wheat, and of fresh-husk’d maize.

2
For the lands, and for these passionate days, and for...Read more of this...

The Gift

by David Lehman
 "He gave her class. She gave him sex." 
 -- Katharine Hepburn on Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers 

He gave her money. She gave him head. 
He gave her tips on "aggressive growth" mutual funds. She gave him a red rose 
 and a little statue of eros. 
He gave her Genesis 2 (21-23). She gave him Genesis 1...Read more of this...

My heart is weary of hypocrisy,

by Omar Khayyam
My heart is weary of hypocrisy,
Cupbearer, bring some wine, I beg of thee!
This hooded cowl and prayer-mat pawn for wine,
Then will I boast me in security....Read more of this...

Lambert Hutchins

by Edgar Lee Masters
 I have two monuments besides this granite obelisk:
One, the house I built on the hill,
With its spires, bay windows, and roof of slate;
The other, the lake-front in Chicago,
Where the railroad keeps a switching yard,
With whistling engines and crunching wheels,
And smoke and soot thrown over the city,
And the crash of cars along the boulevard, --
A blot like a hog-pen on...Read more of this...

My Will

by Robert William Service
 I've made my Will. I don't believe
 In luxury and wealth;
And to those loving ones who grieve
 My age and frailing health
I give the meed to soothe their ways
 That they may happy be,
And pass serenely all their days
 In snug security.

That duty done, I leave behind
 The all I have to give
To crippled children and the blind
 Who...Read more of this...

(I have already said) the entire world, like a bowl,

by Omar Khayyam
[I have already said] the entire world, like a bowl,
was rolling in a hollow which, when I slept dead drunk,
I noticed no more than if I saw a grain of barley rolling
along. Yesterday, at evening, I put myself in pawn at
the tavern for a cup of wine. The wine merchant never
ceased to say: O excellent security that here I hold....Read more of this...

Sonnet XLIII

by Francesco Petrarch
SONNET XLIII. Quel rosignuol che sì soave piagne. THE SONG OF THE NIGHTINGALE REMINDS HIM OF HIS UNHAPPY LOT.  Yon nightingale, whose bursts of thrilling tone,Pour'd in soft sorrow from her tuneful throat,Haply her mate or infant brood bemoan,Filling the fields and skies with pity's note;Here lingering till the long long...Read more of this...

Birth-Day Ode 02

by Robert Southey
 Small is the new-born plant scarce seen
Amid the soft encircling green,
Where yonder budding acorn rears,
Just o'er the waving grass, its tender head:
Slow pass along the train of years,
And on the growing plant, their dews and showers they shed.
Anon it rears aloft its giant form,
And spreads its broad-brown arms to meet the storm.
Beneath its boughs far shadowing o'er the plain,
From...Read more of this...

Letter From Leeds

by Barry Tebb
 Would ‘any woman’ find me difficult to live with?

My tastes are simple: space for several thousand books,

The smoke from my pipe stuffed with aromatic Balkan Sobranie, 

A leftover from the Sixties, frequent brief absences to fulfil

My duties as a carer, unending phone calls

And the unenviable reputation as England’s worst or best complainer,

"Treading on toes or keeping people on their...Read more of this...

Graydiggers Home

by William Stafford
 Paw marks near one burrow show Graydigger
at home, I bend low, from down there swivel
my head, grasstop level--the world
goes on forever, the mountains a bigger
burrow, their snow like last winter. From a room
inside the world even the strongest wind
has a soft sound: a new house will hide
in the grass; footsteps are only the summer people.

The real estate agent is...Read more of this...

Shiva

by Robinson Jeffers
 There is a hawk that is picking the birds out of our sky,
She killed the pigeons of peace and security,
She has taken honesty and confidence from nations and men,
She is hunting the lonely heron of liberty.
She loads the arts with nonsense, she is very cunning
Science with dreams and the state with powers to catch them at last.
Nothing will escape...Read more of this...

Safety

by Rupert Brooke
 Dear! of all happy in the hour, most blest 
He who has found our hid security, 
Assured in the dark tides of the world that rest, 
And heard our word, 'Who is so safe as we?' 
We have found safety with all things undying, 
The winds, and morning, tears of men and mirth, 
The deep night, and birds singing,...Read more of this...

The Dissolution

by John Donne
 She's dead; and all which die
To their first elements resolve;
And we were mutual elements to us,
And made of one another.
My body then doth hers involve,
And those things whereof I consist hereby
In me abundant grow, and burdenous,
And nourish not, but smother.
My fire of passion, sighs of air,
Water of tears, and earthly sad despair,
Which my materials be,
But near worn out by...Read more of this...

1914 II: Safety

by Rupert Brooke
 Dear! of all happy in the hour, most blest 
He who has found our hid security, 
Assured in the dark tides of the world that rest, 
And heard our word, 'Who is so safe as we?' 
We have found safety with all things undying, 
The winds, and morning, tears of men and mirth, 
The deep night, and birds singing,...Read more of this...

Right's Security

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
What if the wind do howl without,
And turn the creaking weather-vane;
What if the arrows of the rain
Do beat against the window-pane?
Art thou not armored strong and fast
Against the sallies of the blast?
Art thou not sheltered safe and well
Against the flood's insistent swell?
What boots it, that thou stand'st alone,
And laughest in the battle's face
When all the weak have fled the place
And...Read more of this...

An Ode to Himself

by Ben Jonson
 Where dost thou careless lie,
Buried in ease and sloth?
Knowledge that sleeps doth die;
And this security,
It is the common moth
That eats on wits and arts, and oft destroys them both.

Are all th' Aonian springs
Dried up? lies Thespia waste?
Doth Clarius' harp want strings,
That not a nymph now sings?
Or droop they as disgrac'd,
To see their seats and bowers by chatt'ring pies defac'd?

If...Read more of this...

Security

by Robert William Service
 There once was a limpet puffed with pride
Who said to the ribald sea:
"It isn't I who cling to the rock,
It's the rock that clings to me;
It's the silly old rock who hugs me tight,
Because he loves me so;
And though I struggle with all my might,
He will not let me go."

Then said the sea, who hates the rock
That defies him...Read more of this...

Of Paul and Silas it is said

by Emily Dickinson
 Of Paul and Silas it is said
There were in Prison laid
But when they went to take them out
They were not there instead.

Security the same insures
To our assaulted Minds --
The staple must be optional
That an Immortal binds....Read more of this...

When Etna basks and purrs

by Emily Dickinson
 When Etna basks and purrs
Naples is more afraid
Than when she show her Garnet Tooth --
Security is loud --...Read more of this...

Second Love

by Dorothy Parker
 "So surely is she mine," you say, and turn
Your quick and steady mind to harder things-
To bills and bonds and talk of what men earn-
And whistle up the stair, of evenings.
And do you see a dream behind my eyes,
Or ask a simple question twice of me-
"Thus women are," you say; for men are wise
And tolerant, in their security.

How shall...Read more of this...

Security

by Robert William Service
 Young man, gather gold and gear,
they will wear you well;
You can thumb your nose at fear,
Wish the horde in hell.
With the haughty you can be
Insolent and bold:
Young man, if you would be free
Gather gear and gold.

Mellow man o middle age,
Buy a little farm;
Then let revolution rage,
you will take no ham.
Cold and hunger, hand in hand
May red ruin spread;
With your...Read more of this...

Security

by William Stafford
 Tomorrow will have an island. Before night
I always find it. Then on to the next island.
These places hidden in the day separate
and come forward if you beckon.
But you have to know they are there before they exist.

Some time there will be a tomorrow without any island.
So far, I haven't let that happen, but after
I'm gone others may become faithless...Read more of this...

Bankers Are Just Like Anybody Else Except Richer

by Ogden Nash
 This is a song to celebrate banks,
Because they are full of money and you go into them and all
you hear is clinks and clanks,
Or maybe a sound like the wind in the trees on the hills,
Which is the rustling of the thousand dollar bills.
Most bankers dwell in marble halls,
Which they get to dwell in because they encourage deposits
and discourage...Read more of this...

A Ramble in St. Jamess Park

by John Wilmot
 Much wine had passed, with grave discourse
Of who fucks who, and who does worse
(Such as you usually do hear
From those that diet at the Bear),
When I, who still take care to see
Drunkenness relieved by lechery,
Went out into St. James's Park
To cool my head and fire my heart.
But though St. James has th' honor on 't,
'Tis consecrate to prick and...Read more of this...

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