Famous Servitude Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Servitude poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous servitude poems. These examples illustrate what a famous servitude poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Thomas, R S
...We met
under a shower
of bird-notes.
Fifty years passed,
love's moment
in a world in
servitude to time.
She was young;
I kissed with my eyes
closed and opened
them on her wrinkles.
`Come,' said death,
choosing her as his
partner for
the last dance, And she,
who in life
had done everything
with a bird's grace,
opened her bill now
for the shedding
of one sigh no
heavier than a feather....Read more of this...
by
Service, Robert William
...Oh I am neither rich nor poor,
No worker I dispoil;
Yet I am glad to be secure
From servitude and toil.
For with my lifelong savings I
Have bought annuity;
And so unto the day I die
I'll have my toast and tea.
When on the hob the kettle sings
I'll make an amber brew,
And crunch my toast and think of things
I do not have to do.
In dressing-gown and deep arm-chair
I'll give the fire a poke;
Then worlds away from cark and car...Read more of this...
by
Swinburne, Algernon Charles
...between the dusty trees,
At this lank edge of haggard wood,
Women with labour-loosened knees,
With gaunt backs bowed by servitude,
Stop, shift their loads, and pray, and fare
Forth with souls easier for the prayer.
The suns have branded black, the rains
Striped grey this piteous God of theirs;
The face is full of prayers and pains,
To which they bring their pains and prayers;
Lean limbs that shew the labouring bones,
And ghastly mouth that gapes and groans.
God of t...Read more of this...
by
Wilde, Oscar
...tars,
And here and there a daffodil waves tiny scimitars.
Hither the billow brought him, and was glad
Of such dear servitude, and where the land
Was virgin of all waters laid the lad
Upon the golden margent of the strand,
And like a lingering lover oft returned
To kiss those pallid limbs which once with intense fire burned,
Ere the wet seas had quenched that holocaust,
That self-fed flame, that passionate lustihead,
Ere grisly death with chill and nipping frost
Had with...Read more of this...
by
Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
...our own field of action
And comes to find that action of little importance
Though never indifferent. History may be servitude,
History may be freedom. See, now they vanish,
The faces and places, with the self which, as it could, loved them,
To become renewed, transfigured, in another pattern.
Sin is Behovely, but
All shall be well, and
All manner of thing shall be well.
If I think, again, of this place,
And of people, not wholly commendable,
Of no immediate k...Read more of this...
by
Southey, Robert
...temperance on my lonely ear
Burst with loud tumult, as recluse I sat,
Pondering on loftiest themes of man redeemed
From servitude, and vice, and wretchedness,
I blest you, HOUSEHOLD GODS! because I loved
Your peaceful altars and serener rites.
Nor did I cease to reverence you, when driven
Amid the jarring crowd, an unfit man
To mingle with the world; still, still my heart
Sighed for your sanctuary, and inly pined;
And loathing human converse, I have strayed
Where o'er the...Read more of this...
by
Butler, Ellis Parker
...ea to sea
And to the sky above;
And When Sir Cupid called for more,
I bid my hands and life,
That should be hers for servitude
If she became my wife.
Then “Going! going!” Cupid cried;
The silence was intense
Until old Goldbags said, “I bid
My stocks and four per cents!”
Then Cupid cried, “Fair Dora’s heart,
That ne’er was sold before!
Does anybody raise the bid?
Will any offer more?”
“If not—,” but Count Decrepit rose,
Infirm, decayed and slim;
“I hid my title...Read more of this...
by
Milton, John
...thou errest, nor end wilt find
Of erring, from the path of truth remote:
Unjustly thou depravest it with the name
Of servitude, to serve whom God ordains,
Or Nature: God and Nature bid the same,
When he who rules is worthiest, and excels
Them whom he governs. This is servitude,
To serve the unwise, or him who hath rebelled
Against his worthier, as thine now serve thee,
Thyself not free, but to thyself enthralled;
Yet lewdly darest our ministring upbraid.
Re...Read more of this...
by
Milton, John
...and who knows how long
Before had been contriving? though perhaps
Not longer than since I, in one night, freed
From servitude inglorious well nigh half
The angelick name, and thinner left the throng
Of his adorers: He, to be avenged,
And to repair his numbers thus impaired,
Whether such virtue spent of old now failed
More Angels to create, if they at least
Are his created, or, to spite us more,
Determined to advance into our room
A creature formed of earth, and hi...Read more of this...
by
Milton, John
...cured, or not obeyed,
Immediately inordinate desires,
And upstart passions, catch the government
From reason; and to servitude reduce
Man, till then free. Therefore, since he permits
Within himself unworthy powers to reign
Over free reason, God, in judgement just,
Subjects him from without to violent lords;
Who oft as undeservedly enthrall
His outward freedom: Tyranny must be;
Though to the tyrant thereby no excuse.
Yet sometimes nations will decline so low...Read more of this...
by
Milton, John
...l wait:
They themselves rather are occasion best—
Zeal of thy Father's house, duty to free
Thy country from her heathen servitude.
So shalt thou best fulfil, best verify,
The Prophets old, who sung thy endless reign—
The happier reign the sooner it begins.
Rein then; what canst thou better do the while?"
To whom our Saviour answer thus returned:—
"All things are best fulfilled in their due time;
And time there is for all things, Truth hath said.
If of my reign P...Read more of this...
by
Shelley, Percy Bysshe
...: not a thought, a will, an act,
No working of the tyrant's moody mind,
Nor one misgiving of the slaves who boast
Their servitude to hide the shame they feel,
Nor the events enchaining every will,
That from the depths of unrecorded time
Have drawn all-influencing virtue, pass
Unrecogniz'd or unforeseen by thee,
Soul of the Universe! eternal spring
Of life and death, of happiness and woe,
Of all that chequers the phantasmal scene
That floats before our eyes in wavering light,
...Read more of this...
by
Milton, John
...ath,
And lorded over them whom now they serve;
But what more oft in Nations grown corrupt,
And by thir vices brought to servitude,
Then to love Bondage more then Liberty,
Bondage with ease then strenuous liberty;
And to despise, or envy, or suspect
Whom God hath of his special favour rais'd
As thir Deliverer; if he aught begin,
How frequent to desert him, and at last
To heap ingratitude on worthiest deeds?
Chor: Thy words to my remembrance bring
How Succoth and the Fort of ...Read more of this...
by
Service, Robert William
...a feudal spell, -
The cost of freedom is too dear.
Let us be the cattle kind,
Praying the goad be not a sword;
In servitude obeying blind
The tyrant ruling of our Lord.
His army can be swift to slay,
His Church teach us humility . . .
But never never will we pay
Again blood-price for Liberty....Read more of this...
by
Robinson, Edwin Arlington
...?
Why not make one good leap and then be done
Forever and at once with Argan’s ghost
And all such outworn churchyard servitude?
For it was Argan’s ghost that held the string,
And her sick fancy that held Argan’s ghost—
Held it and pitied it. She laughed, almost,
There for the moment; but her strained eyes filled
With tears, and she was angry for those tears—
Angry at first, then proud, then sorry for them.
So she grew calm; and after a vain chase
For thoughts...Read more of this...
by
Service, Robert William
...ngly stare,
Till deft of hand and deep of eye
He captures on a canvas square
The joy of earth and sky.
Aloof from servitude and strife,
From carking care and greed apart,
Beneath the blue he lives his life
Of Nature and of Art.
He grieves his pictures must be sold,
Aye, even when his funds are low,
And fat men pay a purse of gold
He sighs to see them go.
My loving toil is of the pen,
Yet while my verse is not unread,
His pictures will be living when
My trope...Read more of this...
by
Muir, Edwin
...w as if they had come from their own Eden.
Since then they have pulled our plows and borne our loads,
But that free servitude still can pierce our hearts.
Our life is changed; their coming our beginning....Read more of this...
by
Service, Robert William
...
What shall we do, Oh God, to gain
Your mercy seat?
Shall we live out our lives in pain
And dark defeat?
Shall we in servitude bow low
Unto the end?
How we would hope, could we but know
You are our friend!
We are the disinherited,
The doomed, the lost.
For breath with dust and ashes fed,
We pay the cost.
Dumb mouths! Yet though we bleed, with prayer
We kiss the sword;
Aye, even dying we forbear
To curse Thee, Lord....Read more of this...
by
Gibran, Kahlil
...ves by singing praise to a potential despot, and while the angels of heaven were weeping over the people's weakness and servitude, a sick woman was thinking. She lived in an old, deserted hovel and, lying in her hard bed beside her newly born infant wrapped with ragged swaddles, was starving to death. She was a penurious and miserable young wife neglected by humanity; her husband had fallen into the trap of death set by the prince's oppression, leaving a solitary woma...Read more of this...
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