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Famous Wishes Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Crowley, Aleister
...art to heart!
God keep us every hour in every thought,
And bring the vessel of our love to port!

These are my birthday wishes. Dawn's at hand,
And you're an exile in a lonely land.
But what were magic if it could not give
My thought enough vitality to live?
Do not then dream this night has been a loss!
All night I have hung, a god, upon the cross;
All night I have offered incense at the shrine;
All night you have been unutterably mine,
Miner in the memory of the firs...Read more of this...



by Sidney, Sir Philip
...d blessed me
To her, where I my heart, safe-left, shall meet;
My Muse and I must you of dutie greet
With thankes and wishes, wishing thankfully.
Be you still faire, honord by publicke heede;
By no encroachment wrong'd, nor time forgot;
Nor blam'd for bloud, nor sham'd for sinfull deed;
And that you know I enuy you no lot
Of highest wish, I wish you so much bliss,
Hundreds of yeares you Stellaes feet may kisse. 
LXXXV 

I see the house, (my heart thy selfe ...Read more of this...

by Robinson, Edwin Arlington
...For all it was I saw of him. Sometimes
I heard of him, but only as one hears 
Of leprosy in Boston or New York 
And wishes it were somewhere else. He faded 
Out of my scene—yet never quite out of it: 
‘I shall know where you are until you die,’
Were his last words; and they are the same words
That I received thereafter once a year, 
Infallibly on my birthday, with no name; 
Only a card, and the words printed on it. 
No, I was never rid of him—not quite;
Although o...Read more of this...

by Emerson, Ralph Waldo
...
Bread kingdoms stars and sky that holds them all. 
I in my pleach¨¨d garden watched the pomp  
Forgot my morning wishes hastily 
Took a few herbs and apples and the Day 
Turned and departed silent. I too late 10 
Under her solemn fillet saw the scorn. ...Read more of this...

by Pope, Alexander
...Angels, Angels would be Gods. 
Aspiring to be Gods, if Angels fell, 
Aspiring to be Angels, Men rebel; 
And who but wishes to invert the laws 
Of ORDER, sins against th' Eternal Cause.

V. Ask for what end the heav'nly bodies shine, 
Earth for whose use? Pride answers, "Tis for mine: 
For me kind Nature wakes her genial pow'r, 
Suckles each herb, and spreads out ev'ry flow'r; 
Annual for me, the grape, the rose renew 
The juice nectareous, and the balmy dew; 
For ...Read more of this...



by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
..., all woven in gorgeous tissues,
Flaunting gayly in the golden light;
Large desires, with most uncertain issues,
Tender wishes, blossoming at night!


These in flowers and men are more than seeming;
Workings are they of the self-same powers,
Which the Poet, in no idle dreaming,
Seeth in himself and in the flowers.

Everywhere about us are they glowing,
Some like stars, to tell us Spring is born;
Others, their blue eyes with tears o'er-flowing,
Stand like Ruth amid the gol...Read more of this...

by Wordsworth, William
...nbsp; And Hopes, and Fears that kindle Hope,  An undistinguishable Throng!  And gentle Wishes long subdued,    Subdued and cherish'd long!   She wept with pity and delight,  She blush'd with love and maiden shame;  And, like the murmur of a dream,    I heard her breathe my name.   Her Bosom heav'd—she stepp'd aside; &n...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...his sex: for either 
He never shall find out fit mate, but such 
As some misfortune brings him, or mistake; 
Or whom he wishes most shall seldom gain 
Through her perverseness, but shall see her gained 
By a far worse; or, if she love, withheld 
By parents; or his happiest choice too late 
Shall meet, already linked and wedlock-bound 
To a fell adversary, his hate or shame: 
Which infinite calamity shall cause 
To human life, and houshold peace confound. 
He added not, an...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...suns, 
Bounding, O soul, thou journeyest forth; 
—What love, than thine and ours could wider amplify?
What aspirations, wishes, outvie thine and ours, O soul? 
What dreams of the ideal? what plans of purity, perfection, strength? 
What cheerful willingness, for others’ sake, to give up all? 
For others’ sake to suffer all? 

Reckoning ahead, O soul, when thou, the time achiev’d,
(The seas all cross’d, weather’d the capes, the voyage done,) 
Surrounded, copest, frontest God, y...Read more of this...

by Whittier, John Greenleaf
...ful sense of happiness 
For food and shelter, warmth and health, 
And love's contentment more than wealth, 
With simple wishes (not the weak, 
Vain prayers which no fulfilment seek, 
But such as warm the generous heart, 
O'er-prompt to do with Heaven its part) 
That none might lack, that bitter night, 
For bread and clothing, warmth and light. 

Within our beds awhile we heard 
The wind that round the gables roared, 
With now and then a ruder shock, 
Which made our very b...Read more of this...

by Cowper, William
...left.

No braver chief could Albion boast
Than he with whom he went,
Nor ever ship left Albion's coast,
With warmer wishes sent.
He lov'd them both, but both in vain,
Nor him beheld, nor her again.

Not long beneath the whelming brine,
Expert to swim, he lay;
Nor soon he felt his strength decline,
Or courage die away;
But wag'd with death a lasting strife,
Supported by despair of life.

He shouted: nor his friends had fail'd
To check the vessel's course,
But s...Read more of this...

by Goldsmith, Oliver
...arken all the strand.
Contented toil, and hospitable care,
And kind connubial tenderness, are there;
And piety with wishes placed above,
And steady loyalty, and faithful love.
And thou, sweet Poetry, thou loveliest maid,
Still first to fly where sensual joys invade;
Unfit in these degenerate times of shame
To catch the heart, or strike for honest fame;
Dear charming nymph, neglected and decried,
My shame in crowds, my solitary pride;
Thou source of all my bliss, and a...Read more of this...

by Wordsworth, William
...d so the third:  Then did I try, in vain, the crowd's resort,  In deep despair by frightful wishes stirr'd,  Near the sea-side I reached a ruined fort:  There, pains which nature could no more support,  With blindness linked, did on my vitals fall;  Dizzy my brain, with interruption short  Of hideous sense; I sunk, nor step could crawl,  And thence was borne away to...Read more of this...

by Chaucer, Geoffrey
...wed the two *know
At once, although ye fight for evermo:
But one of you, *all be him loth or lief,* *whether or not he wishes*
He must *go pipe into an ivy leaf*: *"go whistle"*
This is to say, she may not have you both,
All be ye never so jealous, nor so wroth.
And therefore I you put in this degree,
That each of you shall have his destiny
As *him is shape*; and hearken in what wise *as is decreed for him*
Lo hear your end of that I shall devise.
My will is this, fo...Read more of this...

by Scott, Sir Walter
...issed:—
     'Yes, fair; the wandering poor
     Fitz-James The fealty of Scotland claims.
     To him thy woes, thy wishes, bring;
     He will redeem his signet ring.
     Ask naught for Douglas;—yester even,
     His Prince and he have much forgiven;
     Wrong hath he had from slanderous tongue,
     I, from his rebel kinsmen, wrong.
     We would not, to the vulgar crowd,
     Yield what they craved with clamor loud;
     Calmly we heard and judged his cause,
...Read more of this...

by Blake, William
...whom, tyrant, he calls free; lay the bound or build the
roof. Nor pale religious letchery call that virginity, that
wishes but acts not!

For every thing that lives is Holy...Read more of this...

by Trumbull, John
...the fop's reward;
They slight the generous hearts' esteem,
And sigh for those, who fly from them.


Just when your wishes would prevail,
Some rival bird with gayer tail,
Who sings his strain with sprightlier note,
And chatters praise with livelier throat,
Shall charm your flutt'ring fair one down,
And leave your choice, to hang or drown.


Ev'n I, my son, have felt the smart;
A Pheasant won my youthful heart.
For her I tuned the doleful lay,[4]
For her I watch'd ...Read more of this...

by Warton, Thomas
...ntide cheers the daedal globe,
And the blest regent of the golden day
Rejoices in his bright meridian tower,
How oft my wishes ask the night's return,
That best befriends the melancholy mind!
Hail, sacred Night! thou too shalt share my song!
Sister of ebon-scepter´d Hecate, hail!
Whether in congregated clouds thou wrapp'st
Thy viewless chariot, or with silver crown
Thy beaming head encirclest, ever hail!
What though beneath thy gloom the sorceress train,
Far in obscured haunt...Read more of this...

by Petrarch, Francesco
...weetest eyes,Dear anger, dear disdain, and pardon dear,Long o'er my wishes doubts and shadows cast."Scarce from my lips the venturous speech had pass'd,When o'er her fair face its old sun-smile beam'd,My sinking virtue which so oft redeem'd,And with a tender sigh she answer'd: "NeverCan or did...Read more of this...

by Schiller, Friedrich von
...py race of the plain! Not yet awakened to freedom,
Thou and thy pastures with joy share in the limited law;
Bounded thy wishes all are by the harvest's peaceable circuit,
And thy lifetime is spent e'en as the task of the day!

But what suddenly hides the beauteous view? A strange spirit
Over the still-stranger plain spreads itself quickly afar--
Coyly separates now, what scarce had lovingly mingled,
And 'tis the like that alone joins itself on to the like.
Orders I see de...Read more of this...

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Book: Reflection on the Important Things