Famous Spared Poems by Famous Poets

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

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A Thanksgiving Poem

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
The sun hath shed its kindly light,
Our harvesting is gladly o'er
Our fields have felt no killing blight,
Our bins are filled with goodly store.
From pestilence, fire, flood, and sword
We have been spared by thy decree,
And now with humble hearts, O Lord,
We come to pay our thanks to thee.
We feel that had our merits been
The measure of thy gifts to us,
We erring...Read more of this...

McGonagalls Ode to the King

by William Topaz McGonagall
 Oh! God, I thank Thee for restoring King Edward the Seventh's health again,
And let all his subjects throughout the Empire say Amen;
May God guard him by night and day,
At home and abroad, when he's far away. 

May angels guard his bed at night when he lies down,
And may his subjects revere him, and on him do not frown;
May he...Read more of this...

Lines On Hearing That Lady Byron Was Ill

by George (Lord) Byron
 And thou wert sad—yet I was not with thee!
And thou wert sick, and yet I was not near;
Methought that joy and health alone could be
Where I was not—and pain and sorrow here.
And is it thus?—it is as I foretold,
And shall be more so; for the mind recoils
Upon itself, and the wrecked heart lies cold,
While heaviness collects the shattered spoils.
It...Read more of this...

Lycidas

by John Milton
 In this Monody the author bewails a learned Friend, unfortunately
drowned in his passage from Chester on the Irish Seas, 1637;
and, by occasion, foretells the ruin of our corrupted Clergy, 
then in their height.


YET once more, O ye laurels, and once more,
Ye myrtles brown, with ivy never sere,
I come to pluck your berries harsh and crude,
And with forced fingers rude
Shatter...Read more of this...

The Death of Fred Marsden the American Playwright

by William Topaz McGonagall
 A pathetic tragedy I will relate,
Concerning poor Fred. Marsden's fate,
Who suffocated himself by the fumes of gas,
On the 18th of May, and in the year of 1888, alas! 

Fred. Marsden was a playwright, the theatrical world knows,
And was highly esteemed by the people, and had very few foes;
And in New York, in his bedroom, he took his life away,
And...Read more of this...

The Lament of the Border Cattle Thief

by Rudyard Kipling
 O woe is me for the merry life
 I led beyond the Bar,
And a treble woe for my winsome wife
 That weeps at Shalimar.

They have taken away my long jezail,
 My shield and sabre fine,
And heaved me into the Central jail
 For lifting of the kine.

The steer may low within the byre,
 The Jat may tend his grain,
But there'll...Read more of this...

The Boss of the Admiral Lynch

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 Did you ever hear tell of Chili? I was readin' the other day 
Of President Balmaceda and of how he was sent away. 
It seems that he didn't suit 'em -- they thought that they'd like a change, 
So they started an insurrection and chased him across the range. 
They seem to be restless people -- and, judging by...Read more of this...

The Dead-Beat

by Wilfred Owen
 He dropped, -- more sullenly than wearily,
Lay stupid like a cod, heavy like meat,
And none of us could kick him to his feet;
Just blinked at my revolver, blearily;
-- Didn't appear to know a war was on,
Or see the blasted trench at which he stared.
"I'll do 'em in," he whined, "If this hand's spared,
I'll murder them, I will."

 A low...Read more of this...

Tact

by Edwin Arlington Robinson
 Observant of the way she told
 So much of what was true,
No vanity could long withhold
 Regard that was her due:
She spared him the familiar guide,
 So easily achieved,
That only made a man to smile
 And left him undeceived.

Aware that all imagining
 Of more than what she meant
Would urge an end of everything,
 He stayed; and when he went,
They...Read more of this...

Peace XVIII

by Kahlil Gibran
 The tempest calmed after bending the branches of the trees and leaning heavily upon the grain in the field. The stars appeared as broken remnants of lightning, but now silence prevailed over all, as if Nature's war had never been fought. 

At that hour a young woman entered her chamber and knelt by her bed sobbing bitterly. Her heart...Read more of this...

To Posterity

by Bertolt Brecht
 Indeed I live in the dark ages!
A guileless word is an absurdity. A smooth forehead betokens
A hard heart. He who laughs
Has not yet heard
The terrible tidings.

Ah, what an age it is
When to speak of trees is almost a crime
For it is a kind of silence about injustice!
And he who walks calmly across the street,
Is he not out of reach...Read more of this...

Birthdays

by Robert William Service
 Let us have birthdays every day,
(I had the thought while I was shaving)
Because a birthday should be gay,
And full of grace and good behaving.
We can't have cakes and candles bright,
And presents are beyond our giving,
But let lt us cherish with delight
The birthday way of lovely living.

For I have passed three-score and ten
And I can count upon my fingers
The years...Read more of this...

The Booby-Trap

by Robert William Service
 I'm crawlin' out in the mangolds to bury wot's left o' Joe --
Joe, my pal, and a good un (God! 'ow it rains and rains).
I'm sick o' seein' him lyin' like a 'eap o' offal, and so
I'm crawlin' out in the beet-field to bury 'is last remains.

'E might 'a bin makin' munitions -- 'e 'adn't no need to go;
An'...Read more of this...

Success

by Rupert Brooke
 I think if you had loved me when I wanted;
If I'd looked up one day, and seen your eyes,
And found my wild sick blasphemous prayer granted,
And your brown face, that's full of pity and wise,
Flushed suddenly; the white godhead in new fear
Intolerably so struggling, and so shamed;
Most holy and far, if you'd come all too near,
If earth had seen...Read more of this...

Milton's Appeal To Cromwell

by Victor Hugo
 ("Non! je n'y puis tenir.") 
 
 {CROMWELL, Act III. sc. iv.} 


 Stay! I no longer can contain myself, 
 But cry you: Look on John, who bares his mind 
 To Oliver—to Cromwell, Milton speaks! 
 Despite a kindling eye and marvel deep 
 A voice is lifted up without your leave; 
 For I was never...Read more of this...

Psalm 39 part 3

by Isaac Watts
 v.9-13 
C. M.
Sick-bed devotion.

God of my life, look gently down,
Behold the pains I feel;
But I am dumb before thy throne,
Nor dare dispute thy will.

Diseases are thy servants, Lord,
They come at thy command;
I'll not attempt a murm'ring word
Against thy chast'ning hand.

Yet I may plead with humble cries,
Remove thy sharp rebukes;
My strength consumes, my spirit dies,
Through thy repeated strokes.

Crushed as a...Read more of this...

280. The Kirk of Scotland's Alarm: A Ballad

by Robert Burns
 ORTHODOX! orthodox, who believe in John Knox,
 Let me sound an alarm to your conscience:
A heretic blast has been blown in the West,
 That what is no sense must be nonsense,
Orthodox! That what is no sense must be nonsense.


Doctor Mac! Doctor Mac, you should streek on a rack,
 To strike evil-doers wi’ terror:
To join Faith and Sense, upon any...Read more of this...

daft icarus

by Rg Gregory
 it began as a secret desire (an itch
in the marrow too vague to get through
to the bone) an idea that never could
make it as flesh - there wasn't a part of me
sane i could tell that would have spared
it a breath to get started
   so i slept

one midday i woke up with a bang - light
was bashing...Read more of this...

Burning Drift-Wood

by John Greenleaf Whittier
Before my drift-wood fire I sit, 
And see, with every waif I burn, 
Old dreams and fancies coloring it, 
And folly's unlaid ghosts return. 

O ships of mine, whose swift keels cleft 
The enchanted sea on which they sailed, 
Are these poor fragments only left 
Of vain desires and hopes that failed? 

Did I not watch from them the light...Read more of this...

Binsey Poplars

by Gerard Manley Hopkins
 felled 1879


 My aspens dear, whose airy cages quelled,
 Quelled or quenched in leaves the leaping sun,
 All felled, felled, are all felled;
 Of a fresh and following folded rank
 Not spared, not one
 That dandled a sandalled
 Shadow that swam or sank
On meadow and river and wind-wandering weed-winding bank. 
 O if we but knew what we do
...Read more of this...

St. Winefreds Well

by Gerard Manley Hopkins
 ACT I. SC. I

Enter Teryth from riding, Winefred following.

T. WHAT is it, Gwen, my girl? why do you hover and haunt me? 

W. You came by Caerwys, sir? 
T. I came by Caerwys. 
W. There
Some messenger there might have met you from my uncle. 
T. Your uncle met the messenger—met me; and this the message:
Lord Beuno comes to-night. 
W....Read more of this...

Jim Carew

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 Born of a thoroughbred English race, 
Well proportioned and closely knit, 
Neat, slim figure and handsome face, 
Always ready and always fit, 
Hardy and wiry of limb and thew, 
That was the ne'er-do-well Jim Carew. 
One of the sons of the good old land -- 
Many a year since his like was known; 
Never a game but he took...Read more of this...

No matter -- now -- Sweet --

by Emily Dickinson
 No matter -- now -- Sweet --
But when I'm Earl --
Won't you wish you'd spoken
To that dull Girl?

Trivial a Word -- just --
Trivial -- a Smile --
But won't you wish you'd spared one
When I'm Earl?

I shan't need it -- then --
Crests -- will do --
Eagles on my Buckles --
On my Belt -- too --

Ermine -- my familiar Gown --
Say...Read more of this...

The Shepheardes Calender: October

by Edmund Spenser
 OCTOBER: Ægloga DecimaPIERCE & CUDDIE
Cuddie, for shame hold up thy heavye head,
And let us cast with what delight to chace,
And weary thys long lingring Phoebus race.
Whilome thou wont the shepheards laddes to leade,
In rymes, in ridles, and in bydding base:
Now they in thee, and thou in sleepe art dead.

CUDDY
Piers, I have pyped erst so long with payne,
That all mine...Read more of this...

The Afflicted

by Robert William Service
 Softly every night they come
 To the picture show,
That old couple, deaf and dumb
 In the second row;
Wistful watching, hand in hand,
 Proud they understand.

Shut-ins from the world away,
 All in all to each;
Knowing utter joy as they
 Read the lips of speech . . .
Would, I wonder, I be glum
 Were I deaf and dumb?

Were I quieted away,
...Read more of this...

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