Get Your Premium Membership

Famous Urge Poems by Famous Poets

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

See also:

by Finch, Anne Kingsmill
...s sleep;
When a sedate content the spirit feels,
And no fierce light disturbs, whilst it reveals;
But silent musings urge the mind to seek
Something, too high for syllables to speak;
Till the free soul to a composedness charmed,
Finding the elements of rage disarmed,
O'er all below a solemn quiet grown,
Joys in th' inferior world, and thinks it like her own:
In such a night let me abroad remain,
Till morning breaks, and all's confused again;
Our cares, our toils, o...Read more of this...



by Gibran, Kahlil
...t a temple to Cain who slew his brother Abel. 

Is self-preservation the first law of Nature? Why, then, does Greed urge you to self-sacrifice in order only to achieve his aim in hurting your brothers? Beware, my brother, of the leader who says, "Love of existence obliges us to deprive the people of their rights!" I say unto you but this: protecting others' rights is the noblest and most beautiful human act; if my existence requires that I kill others, then death is more ...Read more of this...

by Dryden, John
...?)
His father could not, or he would not see.
Some warm excesses, which the Law forbore,
Were constru'd youth that purged by boiling o'er:
And Amnon's murther, by a specious name,
Was call'd a just revenge for injur'd fame.
Thus prais'd, and lov'd, the noble youth remain'd,
While David, undisturb'd, in Sion reign'd.
But life can never be sincerely blest:
Heav'n punishes the bad, and proves the best.
The Jews, a headstrong, moody, murm'ring race,
As ever tri'd ...Read more of this...

by Walker, Alice
...On surprise.
become a stranger
To need of pity
Or, if compassion be freely
Given out
Take only enough
Stop short of urge to plead
Then purge away the need.

Wish for nothing larger
Than your own small heart
Or greater than a star;
Tame wild disappointment
With caress unmoved and cold
Make of it a parka
For your soul.

Discover the reason why
So tiny human midget
Exists at all
So scared unwise
But expect nothing. Live frugally
On surprise....Read more of this...

by Browning, Robert
...orld our own, 


Without a risk to run of either sort? 
I can't--to put the strongest reason first. 
"But try," you urge, "the trying shall suffice; 
"The aim, if reached or not, makes great the life: 
"Try to be Shakespeare, leave the rest to fate!" 
Spare my self-knowledge--there's no fooling me! 
If I prefer remaining my poor self, 
I say so not in self-dispraise but praise. 
If I'm a Shakespeare, let the well alone; 
Why should I try to be what now I am? 
If I'm n...Read more of this...



by Wilcox, Ella Wheeler
...reacherous quicksands, and with storms that blight, 
Entrapped their footsteps and confused their sight.
'Yet on, ' urged Custer, 'on at any cost, 
No hour is there to waste, no moment to be lost.'

VIII.

Determined, silent, on they rode, and on, 
Like fabled Centaurs, men and steeds seemed one.
No bugle echoed and no voice spoke near, 
Lest on some lurking Indian's list'ning ear
The sound might fall. Through swift descending snow 
The stealthy guides cre...Read more of this...

by Walker, Alice
...prise.
become a stranger
To need of pity
Or, if compassion be freely
Given out
Take only enough
Stop short of urge to plead
Then purge away the need.


Wish for nothing larger
Than your own small heart
Or greater than a star;
Tame wild disappointment
With caress unmoved and cold
Make of it a parka
For your soul.


Discover the reason why
So tiny human midget
Exists at all
So scared unwise
But expect nothing. Live frugally
On surprise.Read more of this...

by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
...y on a distant shore.
Since our concern was speech, and speech impelled us
 To purify the dialect of the tribe
 And urge the mind to aftersight and foresight,
Let me disclose the gifts reserved for age
 To set a crown upon your lifetime's effort.
 First, the cold friction of expiring sense
Without enchantment, offering no promise
 But bitter tastelessness of shadow fruit
 As body and soul begin to fall asunder.
Second, the conscious impotence of rage
 At human fol...Read more of this...

by Carroll, Lewis
...t reach the point at length
Of absolute prostration. 

At such a moment ladies learn to give,
To partners who would urge them over-much,
A flat and yet decided negative -
Photographers love such. 

There comes a welcome summons - hope revives,
And fading eyes grow bright, and pulses quicken:
Incessant pop the corks, and busy knives
Dispense the tongue and chicken. 

Flushed with new life, the crowd flows back again:
And all is tangled talk and mazy motion -
Much l...Read more of this...

by Schiller, Friedrich von
...ound
All spirits streaming to the spiritual sun
As brooks that ever into ocean run!

Did not the same strong mainspring urge and guide
Our hearts to meet in love's eternal bond?
Linked to thine arm, O Raphael, by thy side
Might I aspire to reach to souls beyond
Our earth, and bid the bright ambition go
To that perfection which the angels know!

Happy, O happy--I have found thee--I
Have out of millions found thee, and embraced;
Thou, out of millions, mine!--Let earth and sky
R...Read more of this...

by Alighieri, Dante
...backward beat 
 Or sideward flung them on their walls. And I - 
 "Master who are they next that drive anigh 
 So scourged amidst the blackness?" 

 "These," he said, 
 "So lashed and harried, by that queen are led, 
 Empress of alien tongues, Semiramis, 
 Who made her laws her lawless lusts to kiss, 
 So was she broken by desire; and this 
 Who comes behind, back-blown and beaten thus, 
 Love's fool, who broke her faith to Sich?us, 
 Dido; and bare of all her luxury, 
 Ni...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...guest had honour gain'd, 
Nor had Sir Ezzelin his host disdain'd, 
But that some previous proof forbade his stay, 
And urged him to prepare against to-day; 
The word I pledge for his I pledge again, 
Or will myself redeem his knighthood's stain." 

He ceased — and Lara answer'd, "I am here 
To lend at thy demand a listening ear, 
To tales of evil from a stranger's tongue, 
Whose words already might my heart have wrung, 
But that I deem'd him scarcely less than mad, 
Or, ...Read more of this...

by Whittier, John Greenleaf
...s sin-sick air, I heard: 
"Does not the voice of reason cry, 
Claim the first right which Nature gave, 
From the red scourge of bondage to fly, 
Nor deign to live a burdened slave!" 
Our father rode again his ride 
On Memphremagog's wooded side; 
Sat down again to moose and samp 
In trapper's hut and Indian camp; 
Lived o'er the old idyllic ease 
Beneath St. François' hemlock-trees; 
Again for him the moonlight shone 
On Norman cap and bodiced zone; 
Again he heard the vi...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...now; 
And will never be any more perfection than there is now, 
Nor any more heaven or hell than there is now.

Urge, and urge, and urge; 
Always the procreant urge of the world. 

Out of the dimness opposite equals advance—always substance and increase,
 always sex; 
Always a knit of identity—always distinction—always a breed of life. 

To elaborate is no avail—learn’d and unlearn’d feel that it is
 so.

Sure as the most certain sure, plumb in t...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...ep were my anguish, thus compell'd 
To wed with one I ne'er beheld: 
This wherefore should I not reveal? 
Why wilt thou urge me to conceal! 
I know the Pacha's haughty mood 
To thee hath never boded good: 
And he so often storms at naught, 
Allah! forbid that e'er he ought! 
And why I know not, but within 
My heart concealment weighs like sin. 
If then such secresy be crime, 
And such it feels while lurking here, 
Oh, Selim! tell me yet in time, 
Nor leave me thus to thou...Read more of this...

by Bridges, Robert Seymour
.... 
Ah, but her launchèd passion, when she sings,
Wins on the hearing like a shapen prow
Borne by the mastery of its urgent wings:
Or if she deign her wisdom, she doth show
She hath the intelligence of heavenly things,
Unsullied by man's mortal overthrow. 

32
Thus to be humbled: 'tis that ranging pride
No refuge hath; that in his castle strong
Brave reason sits beleaguer'd, who so long
Kept field, but now must starve where he doth hide;
That industry, who once the foe...Read more of this...

by Scott, Sir Walter
...The headmost horseman rode alone.
     VII.

     Alone, but with unbated zeal,
     That horseman plied the scourge and steel;
     For jaded now, and spent with toil,
     Embossed with foam, and dark with soil,
     While every gasp with sobs he drew,
     The laboring stag strained full in view.
     Two dogs of black Saint Hubert's breed,
     Unmatched for courage, breath, and speed,
     Fast on his flying traces came,
     And all but won that desperat...Read more of this...

by Dryden, John
...to sloth too great a slave; 
None are so busy as the fool and knave. 
Those let me curse; what vengeance will they urge, 
Whose ordures neither plague nor fire can purge, 
Nor sharp experience can to duty bring 
Nor angry Heaven nor a forgiving king! 
In gospel-phrase their chapmen they betray; 
Their shops are dens, the buyer is their prey; 
The knack of trades is living on the spoil; 
They boast e'en when each other they beguile. 
Customs to steal is such a trivial...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...I, for one, 
Have told them what I though beneath the sun.' 

LXX 

'Above the sun repeat, then, what thou hast 
To urge against him,' said the Archangel. 'Why,' 
Replied the spirit, 'since old scores are past, 
Must I turn evidence? In faith, not I. 
Besides, I beat him hollow at the last, 
With all his Lords and Commons: in the sky 
I don't like ripping up old stories, since 
His conduct was but natural in a prince. 

LXXI 

'Foolish, no doubt, and wicked, t...Read more of this...

by Miller, Alice Duer
...nd hold.

XLIII 
My father came over now and then 
To look at the boy and talk to me, 
Never staying long, 
For the urge was strong 
To get back to his yawl and the summer sea. 
He came like a nomad passing by, 
Hands in his pockets, hat over one eye, 
Teasing every one great and small 
With a blank straight face and a Yankee drawl; 
Teasing the Vicar on Apostolic Succession 
And what the Thirty-Nine Articles really meant to convey,
Teasing Nanny, though he did not
Ma...Read more of this...

Dont forget to view our wonderful member Urge poems.


Book: Reflection on the Important Things