Famous Selfless Poems by Famous Poets

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

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A Display Of Mackeral

...rilliant classrooms, 

in which no verb is singular,
or every one is. How happy they seem,
even on ice, to be together, selfless, 

which is the price of gleaming....Read more of this...
by Doty, Mark


As the Ruin Falls

...All this is flashy rhetoric about loving you.
I never had a selfless thought since I was born.
I am mercenary and self-seeking through and through:
I want God, you, all friends, merely to serve my turn.

Peace, re-assurance, pleasure, are the goals I seek,
I cannot crawl one inch outside my proper skin:
I talk of love --a scholar's parrot may talk Greek--
But, self-imprisoned, always end where I begin.

Only that now...Read more of this...
by Lewis, C S

Corn

..., to grow
By double increment, above, below;
Soul homely, as thou art, yet rich in grace like thee,
Teaching the yeomen selfless chivalry
That moves in gentle curves of courtesy;
Soul filled like thy long veins with sweetness tense,
By every godlike sense
Transmuted from the four wild elements.
Drawn to high plans,
Thou lift'st more stature than a mortal man's,
Yet ever piercest downward in the mould
And keepest hold
Upon the reverend and steadfast earth
That gave thee birth;...Read more of this...
by Lanier, Sidney

Ghana Calls

...s might and power   
Not in its color nor its flower   
But in its wondrous breadth of soul   
Its Joy of Life 
Its selfless role 
Of giving. 
School and clinic, home and hall   
Road and garden bloom and call   
Socialism blossoms bold 
On Communism centuries old. 

I lifted my last voice and cried   
I cried to heaven as I died: 
O turn me to the Golden Horde   
Summon all western nations   
Toward the Rising Sun. 

From reeking West whose day is done,   
...Read more of this...
by Du Bois, W. E. B.

On the Portrait of Two Beautiful Young People

...nting when Good weighed. 

Man lives that list, that leaning in the will
No wisdom can forecast by gauge or guess, 
The selfless self of self, most strange, most still, 
Fast furled and all foredrawn to No or Yes. 

Your feast of; that most in you earnest eye 
May but call on your banes to more carouse.
Worst will the best. What worm was here, we cry, 
To have havoc-pocked so, see, the hung-heavenward boughs?

Enough: corruption was the world’s first woe. 
What need I strain ...Read more of this...
by Hopkins, Gerard Manley


Sekhmet the Lion-headed Goddess of War

...ven blood
and bread, flowers and prayer,
and lip service.

Maybe there's something in all of this
I missed. But if it's selfless
love you're looking for,
you've got the wrong goddess.

I just sit where I'm put, composed
of stone and wishful thinking:
that the deity who kills for pleasure
will also heal,
that in the midst of your nightmare,
the final one, a kind lion
will come with bandages in her mouth
and the soft body of a woman,
and lick you clean of fever,
and pick your s...Read more of this...
by Atwood, Margaret

The Untrustworthy Speaker

...her arm where the sleeve ends . . .

In my own mind, I'm invisible: that's why I'm dangerous.
People like me, who seem selfless.
We're the cripples, the liars:
We're the ones who should be factored out
In the interest of truth.

When I'm quiet, that's when the truth emerges.
A clear sky, the clouds like white fibers.
Underneath, a little gray house. The azaleas
Red and bright pink.

If you want the truth, you have to close yourself
To the older sister, block her out:
When I ...Read more of this...
by Gluck, Louise

Travelling Again

...s"> Temple remember once travel place Bridge remember again cross time River mountain like waiting Flower willow become selfless Country vivid mist shine thin Sand soft sun colour late Traveller sorrow all become decrease Stay here again what this I remember the temple, this route I've travelled before, I recall the bridge as I cross it again. It seems the hills and rivers have been waiting, The flowers and willows all are selfless now. The field i...Read more of this...
by Fu, Du

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