Famous Vowed Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Astrophel and Stella

...

Because I breathe not loue to euery one,
Nor doe not vse sette colours for to weare,
Nor nourish speciall locks of vowed haire,
Nor giue each speech a full point of a grone,
The Courtly Nymphes, acquainted with the mone
Of them wich in their lips Loues Standard beare:
What, he! (say they of me): now I dare sweare
He cannot loue; no,no, let him alone.
And thinke so still, so Stella know my minde;
Profess in deede I do not Cupids art;
But you, fair maides, at lengt...Read more of this...
by Sidney, Sir Philip


Atalantas Race

...ughter is she verily, 
Who when her eyes first looked upon the sun 
Was fain to end her life but new begun, 
For he had vowed to leave but men alone 
Sprung from his loins when he from earth was gone.

"Therefore he bade one leave her in the wood, 
And let wild things deal with her as they might, 
But this being done, some cruel god thought good 
To save her beauty in the world's despite; 
Folk say that her, so delicate and white 
As now she is, a rough root-grubbing bear 
Am...Read more of this...
by Morris, William

Beowulf (Old English)

...d searched out counsel
how it were best for bold-hearted men
against harassing terror to try their hand.
Whiles they vowed in their heathen fanes
altar-offerings, asked with words {2e}
that the slayer-of-souls would succor give them
for the pain of their people. Their practice this,
their heathen hope; ’twas Hell they thought of
in mood of their mind. Almighty they knew not,
Doomsman of Deeds and dreadful Lord,
nor Heaven’s-Helmet heeded they ever,
Wielder-of-Wonde...Read more of this...
by Anonymous,

Christabel

...
Yet might I gain a boon of thee,
This day my journey should not be,
So strange a dream hath come to me;
That I had vowed with music loud
To clear yon wood from thing unblest,
Warned by a vision in my rest!
For in my sleep I saw that dove,
That gentle bird, whom thou dost love,
And call'st by thy own daughter's name-
Sir Leoline! I saw the same,
Fluttering, and uttering fearful moan,
Among the green herbs in the forest alone.
Which when I saw and when I heard,
I...Read more of this...
by Coleridge, Samuel Taylor

Comus

...om,
And makes one blot of all the air!
Stay thy cloudy ebon chair,
Wherein thou ridest with Hecat', and befriend
Us thy vowed priests, till utmost end
Of all thy dues be done, and none left out,
Ere the blabbing eastern scout,
The nice Morn on the Indian steep,
From her cabined loop-hole peep,
And to the tell-tale Sun descry
Our concealed solemnity.
Come, knit hands, and beat the ground
In a light fantastic round.

 The Measure.

 Break off, break off! I feel the different pa...Read more of this...
by Milton, John


Elegy IX: The Autumnal

...; if graves they were,
They were Love's graves; for else he is no where.
Yet lies not Love dead here, but here doth sit
Vowed to this trench, like an Anachorit.

And here, till hers, which must be his death, come,
He doth not dig a grave, but build a tomb.
Here dwells he, though he sojourn ev'ry where,
In progress, yet his standing house is here.
Here, where still evening is; not noon, nor night;
Where no voluptuousness, yet all delight
In all her words, unto all hearers fit,...Read more of this...
by Donne, John

Growltigers Last Stand

...ign ships,
And woe to any Cat with whom Growltiger came to grips!

But most to Cats of foreign race his hatred had been vowed;
To Cats of foreign name and race no quarter was allowed.
The Persian and the Siamese regarded him with fear--
Because it was a Siamese had mauled his missing ear.

Now on a peaceful summer night, all nature seemed at play,
The tender moon was shining bright, the barge at Molesey lay.
All in the balmy moonlight it lay rocking on the tide--
And Growltig...Read more of this...
by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)

Hymn to Demeter by Homer

...able to persuade her mind and will, so wroth was she in her heart; but she stubbornly rejected all their words: for she vowed that she would never set foot on fragrant Olympus nor let fruit spring out of the ground, until she beheld with her eyes her own fair-faced daughter.

[Line 334] Now when all-seeing Zeus the loud-thunderer heard this, he sent the Slayer of Argus whose wand is of gold to Erebus, so that having won over Hades with soft words, he might lead forth chaste...Read more of this...
by Homer,

Kinky

...and ashamed, especially about 
not having the breath to inflate her. But after a round
of pretend-tears, Barbie and Ken vowed to try
to make their relationship work. With their good memories 
as sustaining as good food, they listened to late-night radio 
talk shows, one featuring Doctor Ruth. When all else fails,
just hold each other, the small sex therapist crooned. 
Barbie and Ken, on cue, groped in the dark, 
their interchangeable skin glowing, the color of Band-Aids. 
The...Read more of this...
by Duhamel, Denise

Queen Mab in the Village

...
Her fingers healed the sorrow 
Her whisper would renew. 
We sighed and reigned and feasted 
Within a hollow tree, 
We vowed our love was boundless, 
Eternal as the sea. 

She banished from her kingdom 
The mortal boy I grew — 
So tall and crude and noisy, 
I killed grasshoppers too. 
I threw big rocks at pigeons, 
I plucked and tore apart 
The weeping, wailing daisies, 
And broke my lady's heart. 
At length I grew to manhood, 
I scarcely could believe 
I ever loved the lady...Read more of this...
by Lindsay, Vachel

Rosalind and Helen: a Modern Eclogue

...reen
Upon my mother's grave--that mother
Whom to outlive, and cheer, and make 
My wan eyes glitter for her sake,
Was my vowed task, the single care
Which once gave life to my despair--
When she was a thing that did not stir,
And the crawling worms were cradling her
To a sleep more deep and so more sweet
Than a baby's rocked on its nurse's knee,
I lived; a living pulse then beat
Beneath my heart that awakened me.
What was this pulse so warm and free? 
Alas! I knew it could not...Read more of this...
by Shelley, Percy Bysshe

South Africa

...nd their bones with fever;
Greeted them with cruel lies;
Treated them despiteful-wise;
Meted them calamities
 Till they vowed to leave her!

They took ship and they took sail,
 Raging, from her borders --
In a little, none the less,
They forgat their sore duresse;
They forgave her waywardness
 And returned for orders!

They esteemed her favour more
 Than a Throne's foundation.
For the glory of her face
Bade farewell to breed and race --
Yea, and made their burial-place
 Altar...Read more of this...
by Kipling, Rudyard

The Ballad Of One-Eyed Mike

...treamed, and the bottle of "hooch" was dry.

A man once aimed that my life be shamed, and wrought me a deathly wrong;
I vowed one day I would well repay, but the heft of his hate was strong.
He thonged me East and he thonged me West; he harried me back and forth,
Till I fled in fright from his peerless spite to the bleak, bald-headed North.

And there I lay, and for many a day I hatched plan after plan,
For a golden haul of the wherewithal to crush and to kill my man;
And the...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William

The Cremona Violin

...and wept for Theodore's sake.
She had loved Heinrich also, and the core
Of truth, unlovely, startled her. Wherefore
She vowed from now to break this double life
And see herself only as Theodore's wife.

Part Fifth
It was no easy matter to convince
Heinrich that it was finished. Hard to say
That though they could not meet (he saw her wince)
She still must keep the locket to allay
Suspicion in her husband. She would pay
Him from her savings bit by bit -- the oath
He swore at th...Read more of this...
by Lowell, Amy

The Fight With The Dragon

...raised the pile.
Though humble, mean, and small it shows
Its walls a miracle enclose,--
The Virgin and her infant Son,
Vowed by the three kings of Cologne.
By three times thirty steps is led
The pilgrim to the giddy height;
Yet, when he gains it with bold tread,
He's quickened by his Saviour's sight."

"Deep in the rock to which it clings,
A cavern dark its arms outflings,
Moist with the neighboring moorland's dew,
Where heaven's bright rays can ne'er pierce through.
There d...Read more of this...
by Schiller, Friedrich von

The Holy Grail

...s hall, 
And she a slender maiden, all my heart 
Went after her with longing: yet we twain 
Had never kissed a kiss, or vowed a vow. 
And now I came upon her once again, 
And one had wedded her, and he was dead, 
And all his land and wealth and state were hers. 
And while I tarried, every day she set 
A banquet richer than the day before 
By me; for all her longing and her will 
Was toward me as of old; till one fair morn, 
I walking to and fro beside a stream 
That flashed a...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord

The Lady of the Lake

...ince you came,
     Bewildered in the mountain-game,
     Whence the bold boast by which you show
     Vich-Alpine's vowed and mortal foe?'
     'Warrior, but yester-morn I knew
     Naught of thy Chieftain, Roderick Dhu,
     Save as an outlawed desperate man,
     The chief of a rebellious clan,
     Who, in the Regent's court and sight,
     With ruffian dagger stabbed a knight;
     Yet this alone might from his part
     Sever each true and loyal heart.'
    ...Read more of this...
by Scott, Sir Walter

The Marriage Of Geraint

...e her like the sun in Heaven. 
Thereafter, when I reached this ruined hall, 
Beholding one so bright in dark estate, 
I vowed that could I gain her, our fair Queen, 
No hand but hers, should make your Enid burst 
Sunlike from cloud--and likewise thought perhaps, 
That service done so graciously would bind 
The two together; fain I would the two 
Should love each other: how can Enid find 
A nobler friend? Another thought was mine; 
I came among you here so suddenly, 
That thou...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord

The Runaway Slave at Pilgrims Point

...d between the canes,
He said "I love you" as he passed:
When the shingle-roof rang sharp with the rains,
I heard how he vowed it fast:
While others shook, he smiled in the hut
As he carved me a bowl of the cocoa-nut,
Through the roar of the hurricanes.

XII.
I sang his name instead of a song;
Over and over I sang his name--
Upward and downward I drew it along
My various notes; the same, the same!
I sang it low, that the slave-girls near
Might never guess from aught they could...Read more of this...
by Browning, Elizabeth Barrett

Verses on the Death of Doctor Swift

...villain
As modern Scroggs, or old Tresilian;
Who long all justice had discarded,
Nor feared he God, nor man regarded - 
Vowed on the Dean his rage to vent,
And make him of his zeal repent.
But Heaven his innocence defends,
The grateful people stand his friends:
Not strains of law, nor judge's frown,
Nor topics brought to please the crown,
Nor witness hired, nor jury picked,
Prevail to bring him in convict.
In exile, with a steady heart,
He spent his life's declining part;
Whe...Read more of this...
by Swift, Jonathan

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