Long Modernization Poems
Long Modernization Poems. Below are the most popular long Modernization by PoetrySoup Members. You can search for long Modernization poems by poem length and keyword.
Ballad
by William Soutar
translation/modernization by Michael R. Burch
O, surely you have seen my love
Down where the waters wind:
He walks like one who fears no man
And yet his eyes are kind!
O, surely you have seen my love
At the turning of the tide:
For then he gathers in his nets
Down by the waterside!
Yes, lassie we have seen your love
At the turning of the tide:
For he was with the fisher folk
Down by the waterside.
The fisher folk worked at their trade
No far from Walnut Grove:
They gathered in their dripping nets
And found your one true love!
Keywords/Tags: William Soutar, Scottish, Scot, Scotsman, ballad, water, waterside, tide, nets, nets, fisher, fishers, fisher folk, fishermen, love, sea, ocean, lost, lost love, loss
Patience
by Rabindranath Tagore
loose translation/interpretation/modernization by Michael R. Burch
If you refuse to speak, I will fill my heart with your silence and endure it.
I will remain still and wait like the night through its starry vigil
with its head bent low in patience.
The morning will surely come, the darkness will vanish,
and your voice will pour down in golden streams breaking through the heavens.
Then your words will take wing in songs from each of my birds' nests,
and your melodies will break forth in flowers in all my forest groves.
Keywords/Tags: patience, Tagore, translation, Bengali, heart, heartbreak, silence, night, stars, vigil, darkness, voice, streams, heaven, birds, songs, nests, melodies, flowers, groves
Heirloom is kept as family’s treasure
Legacy of cultural values’ worth
Defying heritage-loss amidst dearth
Yon third generation-wealth’s exposure.
Transcending all modernization-trends
While transformed for functional need
Heirloom’s style exudes our forefathers’ creed
Expressing close ties among clans and friends.
Grateful to have worn such heirloom with pride
I praise the Lord* for my lineage that’s blest
Around home’s warmth and parental care’s zest
Cherishing to stay in the victor’s side.
Winning “Best Costume” for this heirloom’s seal
My heart does soar toward triumphant flight
Then photo displays thanksgiving delight
Revealing gracious patriotism zeal.
*Psalm 34:1 I will bless the Lord at all times: his praise shall continually be in my mouth.
June 17, 2026
10th place, "THE MARVELOUS THINGAMAJIG" Poetry Writing Contest
Sponsored by Daniel Henry Rodgers; judged on 7/2/2026
Forty two years and I've finally returned
back on the shores of the place I've long yearned.
So what pains of time have corrupted my dream,
where are the things that my memory has seen.
A mixture of people with one common cause
to nurture the freedom once lost in the wars.
To honour the past, but to live for today
and learn from life's struggles as they pass their way.
Penang now has altered, it grown with the times,
with modern and ancient now both intertwined.
Hawkers and Restaurants, Street Stalls and Malls,
the old and the new both now trading as pals.
I miss the old memories, warped now with time
as I now look at skyscrapers all in a line.
I long for the time when life passed by so slow
and wish it was all like I once used to know.
But people deserve all that life has to give
and the past only points to the way we should live.
With pleasure and comfort for all to enjoy
and not simply reserved as a millionaire's toy.
Penang has not altered, it's stayed just the same
with modernization relieving some pain.
It's beaches and gardens still open to all
let's hope that it's commerce is not it's downfall.
Penang's grown so quickly, compared to the rest
that it's old worldly culture is being compressed.
Whilst tourism flourishes, hotels take space,
let's hope that it's culture's not lost in the race.
So what now my feelings some forty years on
of this 'Pearl of the Orient' where life was such fun.
I still feel the warmth of Penang in my heart,
for in who I am now... Penang played the best part.
Ivor G Davies
Yes modernization is here
Islamic rules have made it clear
Pick up a small stick
And beat her to the wick
Make her understand
Obey your command
Pakistan is the modern land
Live like a man and beat at command
Only though because you care
To make her subservient and thus obey
She must follow your Islamic commands
And bend over for perverted desires in your satanic land
Now death to Israel
For they have committed the crime
Of being modern in un-modern times
As they saved the wounded of Syrians blood
They embrace humanity
Pakistan grabs a small stick
And strikes fear in the sexes
My god is there no common senses?
Notes: This is not to condone or condemn any Country. Merely to show how at times biases take things way out of context. At times the world decries one death, as in humane as next door hundreds of thousands take place under the silent ones of oppression.
Secondly this is specifically about The Council of Islamic Ideology a powerful constitutional body that advises the Pakistani legislature whether laws are in line with the teachings of Islam. There interpretation is of course ludicrous and I am well aware true Muslim worshipers would never follow such violent and antiquated teachings.
This came about from the CNN article http://www.cnn.com/2016/05/28/asia/pakistan-women-light-beating/index.html on the topic. On weekends I often partake in discussions at a Middle Eastern coffee shop, people from all over the middle east, where we have lively discussions. So it’s of note that this poem was the summary and views of the Muslim mates are I was sharing tea with.
Of note, many of them in their own countries could never voice any dissenting views without being tortured or killed.
Somewhere there is a system
If one decides to study and listen
Finding global position
To finish its mission
Here we go shooting for the moon
Showing the kids lovely cartoons
And teaching them of a big blue marble
Such a life full of marvel
Then later in the day
There are sports all over the world they say
Using a satellite link
This is great the post-Vietnam innocent does think
For into space
Visual communication technology builds its case
Now in the two thousands
Mostly climbed this planet’s mountains
It is the darkness that has us eager to explore
Trying to open a mysterious door
This is how it goes
Being a super power you know
We are the best
From all the rest
Having beauty and brains
In our arsenal of gains
And paths to peacefully complain
But there seems to be something wrong
With our patriotic song
Did we over play our moralistic hand?
Helping others take a stand?
Or was it the fantasy we love to boast
Celebrating modernization coast to coast
On this Fourth of July
When we recount separation from King George’s lies
Let’s rehabilitate the red, white and blue patient
And make it a healthy nation
First prescription is respect and trust
Second would understand others without a fuss
If we can handle that
Not acting like spoiled brats
Our goals may come alive
Returning to the energy that is giving the best try
While exhibiting the all American rally cry
A Red, Red Rose
by Robert Burns
translation/interpretation/modernization by Michael R. Burch
Oh, my love is like a red, red rose
that's newly sprung in June
and my love is like the melody
that's sweetly played in tune.
And you're so fair, my lovely lass,
and so deep in love am I,
that I will love you still, my dear,
till all the seas run dry.
Till all the seas run dry, my dear,
and the rocks melt with the sun!
And I will love you still, my dear,
while the sands of life shall run.
And fare you well, my only love!
And fare you well, awhile!
And I will come again, my love,
though it were ten thousand miles!
Original Scots Dialect Poem:
A Red, Red Rose
by Robert Burns
O my Luve is like a red, red rose
That’s newly sprung in June;
O my Luve is like the melody
That’s sweetly played in tune.
So fair art thou, my bonnie lass,
So deep in luve am I;
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
Till a’ the seas gang dry.
Till a’ the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt wi’ the sun;
I will love thee still, my dear,
While the sands o’ life shall run.
And fare thee weel, my only luve!
And fare thee weel awhile!
And I will come again, my luve,
Though it were ten thousand mile.
Keywords/Tags: Robert Burns, mouse, translation, modernization, update, interpretation, schemes, mice, men, agley, awry, nature, field, plow, den, home, modern English
Welcome, Summer
by Geoffrey Chaucer
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Now welcome, Summer, with your sun so soft,
since you’ve banished Winter with her icy weather
and driven away her long nights’ frosts.
Saint Valentine, in the heavens aloft,
the songbirds sing your praises together!
Now welcome, Summer, with your sun so soft,
since you’ve banished Winter with her icy weather.
We have good cause to rejoice, not to scoff,
since love’s in the air, and also in the heather,
whenever we find such blissful warmth, together.
Now welcome, Summer, with your sun so soft,
since you’ve banished Winter with her icy weather
and driven away her long nights’ frosts.
Whoso List to Hunt
by Sir Thomas Wyatt
loose translation/interpretation/modernization by Michael R. Burch
Whoever longs to hunt, I know the deer;
but as for me, alas!, I may no more.
This vain pursuit has left me so bone-sore
I'm one of those who falters, at the rear.
Yet friend, how can I draw my anguished mind
away from the doe? Thus, as she flees before
me, fainting I follow. I must leave off, therefore,
since in a net I seek to hold the wind.
Whoever seeks her out, I relieve of any doubt,
that he, like me, must spend his time in vain.
For graven with diamonds, set in letters plain,
these words appear, her fair neck ringed about:
"Touch me not, for Caesar's I am,
And wild to hold, though I seem tame."
Brut
by Layamon, circa 1100 AD, an excerpt
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Now he stands on a hill overlooking the Avon,
seeing steel fishes girded with swords in the stream,
their swimming days done,
their scales a-gleam like gold-plated shields,
their fish-spines floating like shattered spears.
If you see a busker singing for tips, you're seeing someone carrying on an Anglo-Saxon tradition that goes back to the days of Beowulf …
He sits with his harp at his thane's feet,
Earning his hire, his rewards of rings,
Sweeping the strings with his skillful nail;
Hall-thanes smile at the sweet song he sings.
—"Fortunes of Men" loose translation by Michael R. Burch
Keywords/Tags: Chaucer, rondel, roundel, welcome, summer, sun, winter, weather, frost, songbirds, song, love, night, nights, ice, icy, heaven, heavens, sky, Wyatt, hunt, busker, thanes, Anglo-Saxon, Beowulf
BENEATH THE CONCRETE
Born to a hard, brown, and rocky soil,
A world where Adam's fall makes us all toil.
I thought I couldn't bloom and blosom,
thought I wouldn't sprout, so they assume.
Here I find myself, where I live & birth;
A world of weighty woes and hardened earth,
Concrete buries the soil and nature I spoil,
Modernization is sent as a necessary decoy.
But cracks are the first glimpse of hope,
to unsovocate the strangled sandy slope
where life leads I, the rolling stone.
Each one of us fights hard to hold our own.
But I became like the rose that grew from the cracks,
sprout in chokehold despite barages of attacks.
'The Lord lift the rose that grew from the concrete'
and set him high as the cynosure of the country.
The scars garnered from the forceful growth
And the hope has the same virtue in both.
I embrace the changes and put defeat to bed.
I transition like the pepper when it turns to red,
Bcos it allows itself transform to a vibrant hue
no matter the impediments & what I go through.
I'll uncover the vast beauty that lies in me slowly.
My scars are the receipt & evidence of victory,
how I survived battles lined-up in my history,
A testament to resilience beyond compare.
Cracks are not to be fixed cos I didn't put them there.
Instead, I embrace those little cracks
So the sunshine may warm my weiry backs.
For in these cracks , I find my strength & might
And sprout again to take full flight.
The colourless world witnessed my light.
I bloomed against all obstacles...
Oh, it was but a rare miracle.
This pepper seed defied the gods in their fiasco.
Then it was written of me and so they say:
"In a world of concrete, hot, under the Sun Ray,
A tiny seed found its destined way."
VICK MANUEL POETRY
{VMP}
FORM: Rhymes
Copyright ©24th October 2023.
Digging into and detecting deep roots gives me a thrill.
Though raking up the foregone quarrels is a tiresome drill,
Values I have lost in the name of modernization,
Traditions that, like ancient hills, succumbed to damnation...
Should threads of exuberant cultures be quickly broken?
Isn't repristination an existential token?
These broken vessels of my ancestors... these torn garments,
Each has its fingerprints of involvements and debarments.
Would the spirit hovering around these yet be chased out?
Don't these cups that touched their lips have an endless silhouette?
Each rusted shoe of lost horses has tall tales to tell.
Of curses of petty kingdoms and kings, that, on them fell...
The processes and procedures of progress proceed fast.
Changes, as though perpetually changeless, seem to last.
Temples, mosques, churches, synagogues, Jinjas—what else is left?
Towers, bridges, forts, ramparts, glamorously cleaving clefts
Quality and quantity have, now, quickly shaken hands.
Don't, yet, covertly clouded hopes construct castles on sands...
Thick layers of dust and dirt constrict entire peripheries,
of principles of pristine prophetic epiphanies;
These should be removed! Truths, like the galaxies, should brightly shine.
May past foundations pave fraternal paths for a sacred shrine;
May virtues, values, and visions fill the veins of the past,
Flow flawlessly through blood vessels, cells, and the heart at last!