Famous Speak Up Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Speak Up poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous speak up poems. These examples illustrate what a famous speak up poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Charlotte Bronte
Speak of the North! A lonely moor
Silent and dark and tractless swells,
The waves of some wild streamlet pour
Hurriedly through its ferny dells.
Profoundly still the twilight air,
Lifeless the landscape; so we deem
Till like a phantom gliding near
A stag bends down to drink the stream.
And far away a mountain zone,
A cold, white waste of snow-drifts lies,
And one star, large and soft...Read more of this...
by
Matthew Prior
Dear Chloe, how blubbered is that pretty face;
Thy cheek all on fire, and thy hair all uncurled!
Prithee quit this caprice, and (as old Falstaff says)
Let us e'en talk a little like folks of this world.
How canst thou presume thou hast leave to destroy
The beauties which Venus but lent to thy keeping?
Those looks were designed to inspire love and joy:
More...Read more of this...
by
Razvan Tupa
A Romanian body is the other
to whom you transfer all that you are
you always had a cousin at school who’d seen who’d done it all
he was the Romanian body for each of us
who’d trafficked in luxury cars for each of us
as our debt as our possibility
the same for any fear in the hair on...Read more of this...
by
Sir Philip Sidney
Some lovers speak when they their Muses entertain,
Of hopes begot by fear, of wot not what desires:
Of force of heav'nly beams, infusing hellish pain:
Of living deaths, dear wounds, fair storms, and freezing fires.
Some one his song in Jove, and Jove's strange tales attires,
Broidered with bulls and swans, powdered with golden rain;
Another humbler wit...Read more of this...
by
Robert Lowell
"It is the future generation that presses into being by means of
these exuberant feelings and supersensible soap bubbles of ours."
--Schopenhauer
"The hot night makes us keep our bedroom windows open.
Our magnolia blossoms. Life begins to happen.
My hopped up husband drops his home disputes,
and hits the streets to cruise for prostitutes,
free-lancing out along the razor's edge.
This screwball might kill...Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
How long will you speak of Yassin and Berat, O cupbearer?
Give me a treatise upon the tavern, O cupbearer!
The day that it is closed will be for me the night of
Berat, O cupbearer!...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
I have a King, who does not speak --
So -- wondering -- thro' the hours meek
I trudge the day away --
Half glad when it is night, and sleep,
If, haply, thro' a dream, to peep
In parlors, shut by day.
And if I do -- when morning comes --
It is as if a hundred drums
Did round my pillow roll,
And shouts fill all...Read more of this...
by
T S (Thomas Stearns) Eliot
The river's tent is broken: the last fingers of leaf
Clutch and sink into the wet bank. The wind
Crosses the brown land, unheard. The nymphs are departed.
Sweet Thames, run softly, till I end my song.
The river bears no empty bottles, sandwich papers,
Silk handkerchiefs, cardboard boxes, cigarette ends
Or...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
To try to speak, and miss the way
And ask it of the Tears,
Is Gratitude's sweet poverty,
The Tatters that he wears --
A better Coat if he possessed
Would help him to conceal,
Not subjugate, the Mutineer
Whose title is "the Soul."...Read more of this...
by
Alfred Lord Tennyson
The wind, that beats the mountain, blows
More softly round the open wold,
And gently comes the world to those
That are cast in gentle mould.
And me this knowledge bolder made,
Or else I had not dare to flow
In these words toward you, and invade
Even with a verse your holy woe.
'Tis strange that those we lean on most,
Those in whose laps our...Read more of this...
by
William Blake
Thou fair hair'd angel of the evening,
Now, while the sun rests on the mountains light,
Thy bright torch of love; Thy radiant crown
Put on, and smile upon our evening bed!
Smile on our loves; and when thou drawest the
Blue curtains, scatter thy silver dew
On every flower that shuts its sweet eyes
In timely sleep. Let thy west wind sleep on
The lake;...Read more of this...
by
Michael Drayton
Love's Lunacy
Why do I speak of joy, or write of love,
When my heart is the very den of horror,
And in my soul the pains of Hell I prove,
With all his torments and infernal terror?
What should I say? What yet remains to do?
My brain is dry with weeping all too long,
My sighs be spent...Read more of this...
by
William Topaz McGonagall
Immortal Robert Burns of Ayr,
There's but few poets can with you compare;
Some of your poems and songs are very fine:
To "Mary in Heaven" is most sublime;
And then again in your "Cottar's Saturday Night,"
Your genius there does shine most bright,
As pure as the dewdrops of the night.
Your "Tam O'Shanter" is very fine,
Both funny, racy, and divine,
From John O'Groats to...Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
How long will you speak to me of the mosque, of
prayer and fasting? Go rather to the tavern and intoxicate
yourself, and even for that ask alms. O Khayyam!
drink wine, drink; for this earth of which thou
art composed will be made into cups, bowls, and pitchers.
371...Read more of this...
by
Stevie Smith
I do not ask for mercy for understanding for peace
And in these heavy days I do not ask for release
I do not ask that suffering shall cease.
I do not pray to God to let me die
To give an ear attentive to my cry
To pause in his marching and not hurry by.
I do not ask for anything I do not...Read more of this...
by
Robert Frost
There was never a sound beside the wood but one,
And that was my long scythe whispering to the ground.
What was it it whispered? I knew not well myself;
Perhaps it was something about the heat of the sun,
Something, perhaps, about the lack of sound--
And that was why it whispered and did not speak.
It was no dream of the gift of...Read more of this...
by
George (Lord) Byron
I speak not, I trace not, I breathe not thy name;
There is grief in the sound, there is guilt in the fame;
But the tear that now burns on my cheek may impart
The deep thoughts that dwell in that silence of heart.
Too brief for our passion, too long for our peace,
Were those hours - can their joy or their bitterness...Read more of this...
by
George Meredith
Madam would speak with me. So, now it comes:
The Deluge or else Fire! She's well, she thanks
My husbandship. Our chain on silence clanks.
Time leers between, above his twiddling thumbs.
Am I quite well? Most excellent in health!
The journals, too, I diligently peruse.
Vesuvius is expected to give news:
Niagara is no noisier. By stealth
Our eyes dart scrutinizing snakes. She's glad
I'm happy, says...Read more of this...
by
Emily Brontë
O, thy bright eyes must answer now,
When Reason, with a scornful brow,
Is mocking at my overthrow!
O, thy sweet tongue must plead for me,
And tell why I have chosen thee!
Stern Reason is to judgment come,
Arrayed in all her forms of gloom:
Wilt thou, my advocate, be dumb?
No, radiant angel, speak and say
Why I did cast the world away;
Why I have presevered...Read more of this...
by
Lewis Carroll
And with that she
began nursing her child again, singing a sort of
lullaby to it as she did so, and giving it a vio
lent shake at the end of every line: -- --
"Speak roughly to your little boy,
And beat him when he sneezes;
He only does it to annoy,
Because he knows it teases."CHORUS
(in which the cook and...Read more of this...
by
Mari Evans
Speak the truth to the people
Talk sense to the people
Free them with honesty
Free the people with Love and Courage for their Being
Spare them the fantasy
Fantasy enslaves
A slave is enslaved
Can be enslaved by unwisdom
Can be re-enslaved while in flight from the enemy
Can be enslaved by his brother whom he loves
His brother whom he trusts whom he loves
His brother whom he trusts
His...Read more of this...
by
Robert Lowell
It is the future generation that presses into being by means of these exuberant feelings and supersensible soap bubbles of ours.
Schopenhauer
The hot night makes us keep our bedroom windows open.
Our magnolia blossoms. Life begins to happen.
My hopped up husband drops his home disputes,
and hits the streets to cruise for prostitutes,
free-lancing out along the razor's edge.
This screwball might kill his...Read more of this...
by
Edwin Arlington Robinson
I
Said the Watcher by the Way
To the young and the unladen,
To the boy and to the maiden,
"God be with you both to-day.
First your song came ringing,
Now you come, you two--
Knowing naught of what you do,
Or of what your dreams are bringing.
"O you children who go singing
To the Town down the River,...Read more of this...
by
Carl Sandburg
YES, the Dead speak to us.
This town belongs to the Dead, to the Dead and to the Wilderness.
Back of the clamps on a fireproof door they hold the papers of the Dead in a house here
And when two living men fall out, when one says the Dead spoke a Yes, and the other says the Dead spoke a No,...Read more of this...
by
Francesco Petrarch
CANZONE XXI. I' vo pensando, e nel pensier m' assale. SELF-CONFLICT. Ceaseless I think, and in each wasting thoughtSo strong a pity for myself appears,[Pg 227]That often it has broughtMy harass'd heart to new yet natural tears;Seeing each day my end of life draw nigh,Instant in prayer,...Read more of this...
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