Famous Sons Poems by Famous Poets

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

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The Black Watch Memorial

by William Topaz McGonagall
 Ye Sons of Mars, it gives me great content
To think there has been erected a handsome monument
In memory of the Black Watch, which is magnificent to see,
Where they first were embodied at Aberfeldy. 

And as a Highland regiment they are worthy of what has been done for them,
Because a more courageous regiment we cannot find of men
Who have bravely...Read more of this...

Rugby Chapel

by Matthew Arnold
 Coldly, sadly descends
The autumn-evening. The field
Strewn with its dank yellow drifts
Of wither'd leaves, and the elms,
Fade into dimness apace,
Silent;--hardly a shout
From a few boys late at their play!
The lights come out in the street,
In the school-room windows;--but cold,
Solemn, unlighted, austere,
Through the gathering darkness, arise
The chapel-walls, in whose bound
Thou, my father! art laid.

There thou dost lie, in the gloom
Of the...Read more of this...

Psalm 106 part 2

by Isaac Watts
 v.7,8,12ff 
S. M.
Israel punished and pardoned; or, God's unchangeable love.

God of eternal love,
How fickle are our ways!
And yet how oft did Isr'el prove
Thy constancy of grace!

They saw thy wonders wrought,
And then thy praise they sung;
But soon thy works of power forgot,
And murmured with their tongue.

Now they believe his word
While rocks with rivers flow;
Now with their lusts provoke the Lord,
And...Read more of this...

The Sons of Martha

by Rudyard Kipling
 The Sons of Mary seldom bother, for they have inherited that good part;
But the Sons of Martha favour their Mother of the careful soul and the troubled heart.
And because she lost her temper once, and because she was rude to the Lord her Guest,
Her Sons must wait upon Mary's Sons, world without end, reprieve, or rest.

It is their care...Read more of this...

Inheritance—His

by Audre Lorde
 I. 
My face resembles your face
less and less each day. When I was young
no one mistook whose child I was.
Features build coloring
alone among my creamy fine-boned sisters
marked me Byron's daughter.

No sun set when you died, but a door
opened onto my mother. After you left
she grieved her crumpled world aloft
an iron fist sweated with business symbols
a printed blotter dwell in...Read more of this...

Having Lost My Sons I Confront The Wreckage Of The Moon: Christmas 1960

by James Wright
 After dark
Near the South Dakota border,
The moon is out hunting, everywhere,
Delivering fire,
And walking down hallways
Of a diamond.

Behind a tree,
It ights on the ruins
Of a white city
Frost, frost.

Where are they gone
Who lived there?

Bundled away under wings
And dark faces.

I am sick
Of it, and I go on
Living, alone, alone,
Past the charred silos, past the hidden graves
Of Chippewas and Norwegians.

This cold winter
Moon spills...Read more of this...

A Hymn to the Peoples

by W. E. B. Du Bois
O Truce of God!
And primal meeting of the Sons of Man,
Foreshadowing the union of the World!
From all the ends of earth we come!
Old Night, the elder sister of the Day,
Mother of Dawn in the golden East,
Meets in the misty twilight with her brood,
Pale and black, tawny, red and brown,
The mighty human rainbow of the world,
Spanning its wilderness of storm.
Softly in...Read more of this...

The Negro Boy

by James Henry Leigh Hunt
 Paupertas onus visa est grave.


Cold blows the wind, and while the tear
Bursts trembling from my swollen eyes,
The rain's big drop, quick meets it there,
And on my naked bosom flies!
O pity, all ye sons of Joy,
The little wand'ring *****-boy.

These tatter'd clothes, this ice-cold breast
By Winter harden'd into steel,
These eyes, that know not soothing rest,
But speak the half of what I...Read more of this...

Milton: The Sky is an Immortal Tent Built by the Sons of Los

by William Blake
 The sky is an immortal tent built by the Sons of Los: 
And every space that a man views around his dwelling-place
Standing on his own roof or in his garden on a mount
Of twenty-five cubits in height, such space is his universe:
And on its verge the sun rises and sets, the clouds bow
To meet the flat earth and the...Read more of this...

The Bell

by Ralph Waldo Emerson
 I love thy music, mellow bell,
I love thine iron chime,
To life or death, to heaven or hell,
Which calls the sons of Time.

Thy voice upon the deep
The home-bound sea-boy hails,
It charms his cares to sleep,
It cheers him as he sails.

To house of God and heavenly joys
Thy summons called our sires,
And good men thought thy sacred voice
Disarmed the thunder's fires.

And soon...Read more of this...

The Three Sons

by Mother Goose
There was an old woman had three sons,
Jerry and James and John,
Jerry was hanged, James was drowned,
John was lost and never was found;
And there was an end of her three sons,
Jerry and James and John!...Read more of this...

Equinox

by Joy Harjo
 I must keep from breaking into the story by force
for if I do I will find myself with a war club in my hand
and the smoke of grief staggering toward the sun,
your nation dead beside you.

I keep walking away though it has been an eternity
and from each drop of blood
springs up sons and daughters, trees,
a mountain of sorrows, of...Read more of this...

140. Masonic Song—Ye Sons of Old Killie

by Robert Burns
 YE sons of old Killie, assembled by Willie,
 To follow the noble vocation;
Your thrifty old mother has scarce such another
 To sit in that honoured station.
I’ve little to say, but only to pray,
 As praying’s the ton of your fashion;
A prayer from thee Muse you well may excuse
 ’Tis seldom her favourite passion.


Ye powers who preside o’er the wind,...Read more of this...

Psalm 68 part 1

by Isaac Watts
 v.1-6,32-35 
L. M.
The vengeance and compassion of God.

Let God arise in all his might,
And put the troops of hell to flight,
As smoke that sought to cloud the skies
Before the rising tempest flies.

[He comes arrayed in burning flames
Justice and Vengeance are his names:
Behold his fainting foes expire,
Like melting wax before the fire.]

He rides and thunders through the sky;
His name, Jehovah,...Read more of this...

The New Helen

by Oscar Wilde
 Where hast thou been since round the walls of Troy
The sons of God fought in that great emprise?
Why dost thou walk our common earth again?
Hast thou forgotten that impassioned boy,
His purple galley and his Tyrian men
And treacherous Aphrodite's mocking eyes?
For surely it was thou, who, like a star
Hung in the silver silence of the night,
Didst lure the Old World's...Read more of this...

The Wild Goat

by Claude McKay
 O you would clothe me in silken frocks 
And house me from the cold, 
And bind with bright bands my glossy locks, 
And buy me chains of gold; 

And give me--meekly to do my will-- 
The hapless sons of men:-- 
But the wild goat bounding on the barren hill 
Droops in the grassy pen....Read more of this...

234. A Mother's Lament for her Son's Death

by Robert Burns
 FATE gave the word, the arrow sped,
 And pierc’d my darling’s heart;
And with him all the joys are fled
 Life can to me impart.


By cruel hands the sapling drops,
 In dust dishonour’d laid;
So fell the pride of all my hopes,
 My age’s future shade.


The mother-linnet in the brake
 Bewails her ravish’d young;
So I, for my lost darling’s sake,
 Lament...Read more of this...

The Sky is an Immortal Tent Built by the Sons of Los (from

by William Blake
 The sky is an immortal tent built by the Sons of Los: 
And every space that a man views around his dwelling-place
Standing on his own roof or in his garden on a mount
Of twenty-five cubits in height, such space is his universe:
And on its verge the sun rises and sets, the clouds bow
To meet the flat earth and the...Read more of this...

The Song of the Sons

by Rudyard Kipling
 One from the ends of the earth -- gifts at an open door --
Treason has much, but we, Mother, thy sons have more!
From the whine of a dying man, from the snarl of a wolf-pack freed,
Turn, and the world is thine. Mother, be proud of thy seed!
Count, are we feeble or few? Hear, is our speech so rude?
Look, are...Read more of this...

Early Poems

by Victor Hugo
 MOSES ON THE NILE. 
 
 ("Mes soeurs, l'onde est plus fraiche.") 
 
 {TO THE FLORAL GAMES, Toulouse, Feb. 10, 1820.} 


 "Sisters! the wave is freshest in the ray 
 Of the young morning; the reapers are asleep; 
 The river bank is lonely: come away! 
 The early murmurs of old Memphis creep 
 Faint on...Read more of this...

Death-lament Of The Noble Wife Of Asan Aga

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 [From the Morlack.)

WHAT is yonder white thing in the forest?
Is it snow, or can it swans perchance be?
Were it snow, ere this it had been melted,
Were it swans, they all away had hastend.
Snow, in truth, it is not, swans it is not,
'Tis the shining tents of Asan Aga.
He within is lying, sorely wounded;
To him come his mother and his...Read more of this...

Sonnet LXXI

by Francesco Petrarch
SONNET LXXI. Piangete, donne, e con voi pianga Amore. ON THE DEATH OF CINO DA PISTOIA.  Weep, beauteous damsels, and let Cupid weep,Of every region weep, ye lover train;He, who so skilfully attuned his strainTo your fond cause, is sunk in death's cold sleep!Such limits let not my affliction keep,As...Read more of this...

Psalm 139 part 3

by Isaac Watts
 Sincerity professed, and grace tried; or, The heart-searching God.

My God, what inward grief I feel
When impious men transgress thy will!
I mourn to hear their lips profane
Take thy tremendous name in vain.

Does not my soul detest and hate
The sons of malice and deceit?
Those that oppose thy laws and thee,
I count them enemies to me.

Lord, search my soul, try every thought;
Though...Read more of this...

Inscription for my little sons silver plate

by Eugene Field
 When thou dost eat from off this plate,
I charge thee be thou temperate;
Unto thine elders at the board
Do thou sweet reverence accord;
And, though to dignity inclined,
Unto the serving-folk be kind;
Be ever mindful of the poor,
Nor turn them hungry from the door;
And unto God, for health and food
And all that in thy life is good,
Give thou thy heart in gratitude....Read more of this...

Hymn 92

by Isaac Watts
 Christ the wisdom of God.

Prov. 8:1,22-32. 

Shall Wisdom cry aloud,
And not her speech be heard?
The voice of God's eternal Word,
Deserves it no regard?

"I was his chief delight,
His everlasting Son,
Before the first of all his works,
Creation, was begun.

["Before the flying clouds,
Before the solid land,
Before the fields, before the floods,
I dwelt at his right hand.

"When he adorned the skies,
And built them,...Read more of this...

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