Famous Truthful Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Truthful poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous truthful poems. These examples illustrate what a famous truthful poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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...THE BRICKLAYER:
I tell this tale, which is strictly true,
Just by way of convincing you
How very little, since things were made,
Things have altered in building trade.
A year ago, come the middle of March,
We was building flats near the Marble Arch,
When a thin young man with coal-black hair
Came up to watch us working there.
Now there wasn't a ...Read more of this...
by
Kipling, Rudyard
...speaking.
Yet I see now why ye're roving;
For behind those eyes so bright,
To itself abandon'd quite,
Lies a bosom, truthful, loving,--
One that it must fill with pleasure
'Mongst so many, dull and blind,
One true look at length to find,
That its worth can rightly treasure.
Whilst I'm lost in studying ever
To explain these cyphers duly,--
To unravel my looks truly
In return be your endeavour!
1820....Read more of this...
by
von Goethe, Johann Wolfgang
...e famous king of the Danes—
nor must anything be kept secret here, as I see it.
You know too well, if we hear it said truthfully,
that among the Scyldings is some sort of scather,
an obscure deed-hater who reveals in the dark of night
a purposeless malice through his terror,
both an infamy and a glutting of corpses.
Out of my capacious spirit, I can teach Hrothgar this,
good counsel, how he, wise and excellent,
can vanquish this fiend, if reversal should come to him,...Read more of this...
by
Anonymous,
...rning shine,That, ere its time, they make my strength decline,Each wise and truthful word,Rare in the world, which lateShe smiling gave, no more are seen or heard.But this of all my fateIs hardest to endure,That here I am deniedThe gentle greeting, angel-like and pure,Which still t...Read more of this...
by
Petrarch, Francesco
...and looked no more--
But felt his young heart hammering in his ears,
And thought, 'For this half-shadow of a lie
The truthful King will doom me when I speak.'
Yet pressing on, though all in fear to find
Sir Gawain or Sir Modred, saw nor one
Nor other, but in all the listening eyes
Of those tall knights, that ranged about the throne,
Clear honour shining like the dewy star
Of dawn, and faith in their great King, with pure
Affection, and the light of victory,
And glo...Read more of this...
by
Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...vey'd,
So useful for him in his trade,
Whence he was able to procure
Example good and precept sure,
Recounting all with truthful care,
As though he had been present there.
His spirit seem'd from earth to fly,
He ne'er had turned away his eye,
Did he not just behind him hear
A rattle of bells approaching near.
And now a fool doth catch his eye,
With goat and ape's leap drawing nigh
A merry interlude preparing
With fooleries and jests unsparing.
Behind him, in a line drawn out,...Read more of this...
by
von Goethe, Johann Wolfgang
...open.
But whether our touch at the door gets forgotten
Or turned into other sights, light, form,
I hope you'll be truthful
To me. At least as truthful as lightning,
Skinning a tree.
THIS POEM WON THE 1996 National Poetry Prize...Read more of this...
by
Padel, Ruth
...why suffer it to be?
Say, do beauty's graces youthful,
Does this form so fair and bright,
Does this gaze, so kind, so truthful,
Chain thee with unceasing might?
Would I tear me from her boldly,
Courage take, and fly her coldly,
Back to her. I'm forthwith led
By the path I seek to tread.
By a thread I ne'er can sever,
For 'tis 'twined with magic skill,
Doth the cruel maid for ever
Hold me fast against my will.
While those magic chains confine me,
To her will I must re...Read more of this...
by
von Goethe, Johann Wolfgang
...begins-
not poor not rich
(only aware)
kind neither
nor cruel
(only complete)
i not not you
not possible;
only truthful
-truthfully once
if strangers(who
deep our most are
selves)touch:
forever
(and so to dark)
...Read more of this...
by
Cummings, Edward Estlin (E E)
..., and in which I do not pretend to do
more than attempt to give an idea of the minstrelsy of one so unrivalled,
by as truthful an interpretation of it as lies in my power.
The principles which have guided me on the present occasion are
the same as those followed in the translation of Schiller's complete
Poems that was published by me in 1851, namely, as literal a rendering
of the original as is consistent with good English, and also a very
strict adherence to the metre...Read more of this...
by
von Goethe, Johann Wolfgang
...sense consolatory.
They may be to the next.
All the poet can do to-day is to warn.
That is why the true Poets must be truthful.
If I thought the letter of this book would last,
I might have used proper names; but if the spirit of it survives Prussia, --
my ambition and those names will be content; for they will have
achieved themselves fresher fields than Flanders.
Note. -- This Preface was found, in an unfinished condition, among Wilfred Owen's papers....Read more of this...
by
Owen, Wilfred
...is a small mistake
there, where the kiss revives;
Jenny, we make just dreams
out of our unjust lives.
Still, when your truthful eyes,
your keen, attentive stare,
endow the vacuous ****
with royalty, when you match
her soul to her shimmering hair,
what can she do but rise
to your imagined throne?
And what can I, but see
beyond the world that is,
when, faithful, you insist
I have the golden key--
and learn from you once more
the terror and the bliss,
the world as it might be?...Read more of this...
by
Mueller, Lisel
...f scorn.
There, too, our elder sister plied
Her evening task the stand beside;
A full, rich nature, free to trust,
Truthful and almost sternly just,
Impulsive, earnest, prompt to act,
And make her generous thought a fact,
Keeping with many a light disguise
The secret of self-sacrifice.
O heart sore-tried! thou hast the best
That Heaven itself coud give thee, -- rest,
Rest from all bitter thoughts and things!
How many a poor one's blessing went
With thee beneath ...Read more of this...
by
Whittier, John Greenleaf
...ory bearThis lofty honour and surpassing grace:From her descends the tender truthful thought,Which follow'd, bliss supreme shall thee repay,Who spurn'st the vanities that win the crowd:From her that gentle graceful love is caught,To heaven which leads thee by the right-hand way,And crowns e'en here with hopes both pure and p...Read more of this...
by
Petrarch, Francesco
...one another
Is let our blunders and our blind mischances
Argue a certain brusque abrupt compassion.
We might as well be truthful. I should say
They're luckiest who know they're not unique;
But only art or common interchange
Can teach that kindest truth. And even art
Can only hint at what disturbed a Melville
Or calmed a Mahler's frenzy; you and I
Still look from separate windows every morning
Upon the same white daylight in the square.
And when we come into each other's room...Read more of this...
by
Rich, Adrienne
...and death---
With a loyal gravity.
Lead her from the festive boards,
Point her to the starry skies,
Guard her, by your truthful words,
Pure from courtship's flatteries.
By your truth she shall be true---
Ever true, as wives of yore---
And her Yes, once said to you,
SHALL be Yes for evermore....Read more of this...
by
Browning, Elizabeth Barrett
...slips in sensual mire,
But whole and one: and take them all-in-all,
Were we ourselves but half as good, as kind,
As truthful, much that Ida claims as right
Had ne'er been mooted, but as frankly theirs
As dues of Nature. To our point: not war:
Lest I lose all.'
'Nay, nay, you spake but sense'
Said Gama. 'We remember love ourself
In our sweet youth; we did not rate him then
This red-hot iron to be shaped with blows.
You talk almost like Ida: ~she~ can talk;
And the...Read more of this...
by
Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...thou for faults
Lived over: lift thine eyes; my doubts are dead,
My haunting sense of hollow shows: the change,
This truthful change in thee has killed it. Dear,
Look up, and let thy nature strike on mine,
Like yonder morning on the blind half-world;
Approach and fear not; breathe upon my brows;
In that fine air I tremble, all the past
Melts mist-like into this bright hour, and this
Is morn to more, and all the rich to-come
Reels, as the golden Autumn woodland reels...Read more of this...
by
Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...I suffer'd, what effected,
To this wreath as flow'rs belong;
For the aged, and the youthful,
And the vicious, and the truthful,
All are fair when viewed in song.
1800.*
-----...Read more of this...
by
von Goethe, Johann Wolfgang
...
It will blind you with tears
like a lover.
It will make your reflection
a wobbling photo of grief.
I am trying to be truthful.
Not a cute card or a kissogram.
I give you an onion.
Its fierce kiss will stay on your lips,
possessive and faithful
as we are,
for as long as we are.
Take it.
Its platinum loops shrink to a wedding-ring,
if you like.
Lethal.
Its scent will cling to your fingers,
cling to your knife....Read more of this...
by
Duffy, Carol Ann
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