Famous Seek Poems by Famous Poets

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

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If you seek Him, abandon child and wife,

by Omar Khayyam
If you seek Him, abandon child and wife,
Arise, and sever all these ties to life;
All these are bonds to check you on your course.
Arise, and cut these bonds, as with a knife....Read more of this...

Song IX: Ho Ye Who Seek Saving

by William Morris
 Love is enough: ho ye who seek saving,
Go no further; come hither; there have been who have found it,
And these know the House of Fulfilment of Craving;
These know the Cup with the roses around it;
These know the World's Wound and the balm that hath bound it:
Cry out, the World heedeth not, 'Love, lead us home!' 

He leadeth, He hearkeneth,...Read more of this...

Saul And David

by Anthony Hecht
 It was a villainous spirit, snub-nosed, foul
Of breath, thick-taloned and malevolent,
That squatted within him wheresoever he went
.......And possessed the soul of Saul.

There was no peace on pillow or on throne.
In dreams the toothless, dwarfed, and squinny-eyed
Started a joyful rumor that he had died
.......Unfriended and alone.

The doctors were confounded. In his distress, he
Put aside arrogant ways and condescended
To seek among...Read more of this...

Modern Love XLVIII: Their Sense

by George Meredith
 Their sense is with their senses all mixed in, 
Destroyed by subleties these women are! 
More brain, O Lord, more brain! or we shall mar 
Utterly this fair garden we might win. 
Behold! I looked for peace, and thought it near. 
Our inmost hearts had opened, each to each. 
We drank the pure daylight of honest speech. 
Alas I...Read more of this...

Sonnet 42 - My future will not copy fair my past

by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
 'My future will not copy fair my past'—
I wrote that once; and thinking at my side
My ministering life-angel justified
The word by his appealing look upcast
To the white throne of God, I turned at last,
And there, instead, saw thee, not unallied
To angels in thy soul! Then I, long tried
By natural ills, received the comfort fast,
While budding, at thy sight, my...Read more of this...

I seek a flask of ruby wine, a book of verse, a momentary

by Omar Khayyam
I seek a flask of ruby wine, a book of verse, a momentary
peace in life and bread enough. And if with
these, my friend, in some lone spot with thee I could
repose, 'twould be a happiness above a Sultan's regal joy....Read more of this...

Playthings

by Rabindranath Tagore
 Child, how happy you are sitting in the dust, playing with a broken twig all the morning. 
I smile at your play with that little bit of a broken twig. 
I am busy with my accounts, adding up figures by the hour. 
Perhaps you glance at me and think, "What a stupid game to spoil your morning with!" 
Child,...Read more of this...

Commination

by Alec Derwent (A D) Hope
 He that is filthy let him be filthy still. 
Rev. 22.11 

Like John on Patmos, brooding on the Four 
Last Things, I meditate the ruin of friends 
Whose loss, Lord, brings this grand new curse to mind 
Now send me foes worth cursing, or send more 
- Since means should be proportionate to ends - 
For mine are few...Read more of this...

A Song Of Winter Weather

by Robert William Service
 It isn't the foe that we fear;
 It isn't the bullets that whine;
It isn't the business career
 Of a shell, or the bust of a mine;
It isn't the snipers who seek
 To nip our young hopes in the bud:
No, it isn't the guns,
And it isn't the Huns --
 It's the MUD,
 MUD,
 MUD.

It isn't the melee we mind.
That often...Read more of this...

Hide-And-Seek

by Vasko Popa
 Someone hides from someone else 
Hides under his tongue 
The other looks for him under the earth 

He hides on his forehead 
The other looks for him in the sky 

He hides inside his forgetfulness 
The other looks for him in the grass 

Looks for him looks 
There's no place he doesn't look 
And looking he loses himself...Read more of this...

The Lie

by Sir Walter Raleigh
 Go, Soul, the body's guest,
Upon a thankless errand;
Fear not to touch the best;
The truth shall be thy warrant:
Go, since I needs must die,
And give the world the lie.

Say to the court, it glows
And shines like rotten wood;
Say to the church, it shows
What's good, and doth no good:
If church and court reply,
Then give them both the lie.

Tell potentates, they live
Acting...Read more of this...

VERSES Occasioned by a Young Ladys asking the Author What was a Cure for Love?

by Thomas Godfrey
 From me, my Dear, O seek not to receive
What e'en deep-read Experience cannot give.
We may, indeed, from the Physician's skill
Some Med'cine find to cure the body's ill.
But who e'er found the physic for the soul,
Or made th' affections bend to his controul?
When thro' the blaze of passion objects show
How dark 's the shade! how bright the colours glow!
All the...Read more of this...

Off the Ground

by Walter de la Mare
 Three jolly Farmers 
Once bet a pound 
Each dance the others would 
Off the ground. 
Out of their coats 
They slipped right soon, 
And neat and nicesome 
Put each his shoon. 
One--Two--Three! 
And away they go, 
Not too fast, 
And not too slow; 
Out from the elm-tree's 
Noonday shadow, 
Into the sun 
And across the meadow. 
Past the schoolroom,...Read more of this...

Merlin I

by Ralph Waldo Emerson
 Thy trivial harp will never please
Or fill my craving ear;
Its chords should ring as blows the breeze,
Free, peremptory, clear.
No jingling serenader's art,
Nor tinkle of piano strings,
Can make the wild blood start
In its mystic springs.
The kingly bard
Must smite the chords rudely and hard,
As with hammer or with mace,
That they may render back
Artful thunder that conveys
Secrets of the solar track,
Sparks of...Read more of this...

Across the Sea Along the Shore

by Arthur Hugh Clough
 Across the sea, along the shore,
In numbers more and ever more,
From lonely hut and busy town,
The valley through, the mountain down,
What was it ye went out to see,
Ye silly folk Galilee?
The reed that in the wind doth shake?
The weed that washes in the lake?
The reeds that waver, the weeds that float?
A young man preaching in a boat.
What was it...Read more of this...

That which is wisest is to seek joy in our hearts in

by Omar Khayyam
That which is wisest is to seek joy in our hearts in
a cup of wine; and not preoccupy ourselves too much
with the present or the past; and, finally, were it only
for an instant, to free from the shackles of reason that
soul which has been loaned us and which groans in its
prison....Read more of this...

To a Gentleman and Lady on the Death of the Ladys Brother and Sister

by Phillis Wheatley
 On Death's domain intent I fix my eyes,
Where human nature in vast ruin lies,
With pensive mind I search the drear abode,
Where the great conqu'ror has his spoils bestow'd;
There there the offspring of six thousand years
In endless numbers to my view appears:
Whole kingdoms in his gloomy den are thrust,
And nations mix with their primeval dust:
Insatiate still he gluts the ample...Read more of this...

Hide and Seek

by Henry Van Dyke
 All the trees are sleeping, all the winds are still,
All the flocks of fleecy clouds have wandered past the hill;
Through the noonday silence, down the woods of June,
Hark, a little hunter's voice comes running with a tune.
"Hide and seek!
"When I speak,
"You must answer me:
"Call again,
"Merry men,
"Coo-ee, coo-ee, coo-ee!"

Now I hear his footsteps, rustling through the grass:
Hidden in my leafy...Read more of this...

Never Seek to Tell thy Love

by William Blake
 Never seek to tell thy love 
Love that never told can be;
For the gentle wind does move
Silently, invisibly.

I told my love, I told my love,
I told her all my heart,
Trembling, cold, in ghastly fears--
Ah, she doth depart.

Soon as she was gone from me
A traveller came by
Silently, invisibly--
O, was no deny....Read more of this...

In Memory Of Eva Gore-Booth And Con Markiewicz

by William Butler Yeats
 The light of evening, Lissadell,
Great windows open to the south,
Two girls in silk kimonos, both
Beautiful, one a gazelle.
But a raving autumn shears
Blossom from the summer's wreath;
The older is condemned to death,
Pardoned, drags out lonely years
Conspiring among the ignorant.
I know not what the younger dreams -
Some vague Utopia - and she seems,
When withered old and skeleton-gaunt,
An image of such politics.
Many...Read more of this...

To drink wine and seek beautiful faces is wiser than

by Omar Khayyam
To drink wine and seek beautiful faces is wiser than
to practise hypocrisy and apparent devotion. It is evident
that if there exist a Hell for lovers and drinkers,
no one would wish for Paradise....Read more of this...

Thoreaus Flute

by Louisa May Alcott
 We sighing said, "Our Pan is dead; 
His pipe hangs mute beside the river 
Around it wistful sunbeams quiver, 
But Music's airy voice is fled. 
Spring mourns as for untimely frost; 
The bluebird chants a requiem; 
The willow-blossom waits for him; 
The Genius of the wood is lost." 

Then from the flute, untouched by hands, 
There came a low,...Read more of this...

Sonnet XXXIV

by Francesco Petrarch
SONNET XXXIV. Levommi il mio pensier in parte ov' era. SOARING IN IMAGINATION TO HEAVEN, HE MEETS LAURA, AND IS HAPPY.  Fond fancy raised me to the spot, where straysShe, whom I seek but find on earth no more:There, fairer still and humbler than before,I saw her, in the third heaven's blessèd...Read more of this...

Glad hearts, who seek not notoriety,

by Omar Khayyam
Glad hearts, who seek not notoriety,
Nor flaunt in gold and silken bravery,
Haunt not this ruined earth like gloomy owls,
But wing their way, Simurgh-like, to the sky....Read more of this...

Go Seek Her Out

by James Joyce
 Go seek her out all courteously, 
And say I come, 
Wind of spices whose song is ever 
Epithalamium. 
O, hurry over the dark lands 
And run upon the sea 
For seas and lands shall not divide us 
My love and me. 

Now, wind, of your good courtesy 
I pray you go, 
And come into her little garden 
And sing...Read more of this...

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