My favorite rhyming poem
#1 “Fate” by Ralph Waldo Emerson
Deep in the man sits fast his fate
To mould his fortunes, mean or great:
Unknown to Cromwell as to me
Was Cromwell’s measure or degree;
Unknown to him as to his horse,
If he than his groom be better or worse.
He works, plots, fights, in rude affairs,
With squires, lords, kings, his craft compares,
Till late he learned, through doubt and fear,
Broad England harbored not his peer:
Obeying time, the last to own
The Genius from its cloudy throne.
For the prevision is allied
Unto the thing so signified;
Or say, the foresight that awaits
Is the same Genius that creates.
This poem captures my fascination with its intricate weaving of rhyme and meaning.
It immediately grabs my attention by exploring the power of destiny and self-realization.
The lines skillfully rhyme, enhancing the poem’s rhythm and flow, drawing me deeper into the narrative of fate and greatness.
9 more rhyming poems
#2 “Eros” by Ralph Waldo Emerson
The sense of the world is short, —
Long and various the report,
To love and be beloved ;
Men and gods have not outlearned it ;
And, how oft soe’er they’ve turned it,
‘Tis not to be improved.
#3 “Imitation” by Edgar Allan Poe
A dark unfathomed tide
Of interminable pride,
A mystery, and a dream,
Should my early life seem;
I say that dream was fraught
With a wild and waking thought
Of beings that have been,
Which my spirit hath not seen,
Had I let them pass me by,
With a dreaming eye!
Let none of earth inherit
That vision of my spirit;
Those thoughts I would control,
As a spell upon his soul:
For that bright hope at last
And that light time have past,
And my worldly rest hath gone
With a sigh as it passed on:
I care not though it perish
With a thought I then did cherish.
#4 “On a Fair Morning” by Anonymous
On a fair morning, as I came by the way,
Met I with a merry maid in the merry month of May;
When a sweet love sings his lovely lay
And every bird upon the bush bechirps it up so gay:
With a heave and a ho! with a heave and a ho!
Thy wife shall be thy master, I trow.
Sing, care away, care away, let the world go!
Hey, lustily all in a row, all in a row,
Sing, care away, care away, let the world go!
#5 “Is Love, then, So Simple” by Irene Rutherford Mcleod
Is love, then, so simple my dear?
The opening of a door,
And seeing all things clear?
I did not know before.
I had thought it unrest and desire
Soaring only to fall,
Annihilation and fire:
It is not so at all.
I feel no desperate will,
But I think I understand
Many things, as I sit quite still,
With Eternity in my hand.
#6 “What Is Our Life” by Sir Walter Raleigh
What is our life? The play of passion.
Our mirth? The music of division:
Our mothers’ wombs the tiring-houses be,
Where we are dressed for life’s short comedy.
The earth the stage; Heaven the spectator is,
Who sits and views whosoe’er doth act amiss.
The graves which hide us from the scorching sun
Are like drawn curtains when the play is done.
Thus playing post we to our latest rest,
And then we die in earnest, not in jest.
#7 “Monotony” by Langston Hughes
Today like yesterday
Tomorrow like today;
The drip, drip, drip,
Of monotony
Is wearing my life away;
Today like yesterday,
Today like today.
#8 “My Love” by Russell Powell Jacoby
My love is beautiful and sweet.
All good and gentle graces meet
In her, in loveliness complete.
My love is precious. Nor for me
In all this world on land or sea
Can other worthy treasure be.
My love is constant. In her eyes
True, pure, and steadfast, beauty lies
Serene and noble as the skies.
#9 “The Wounded Deer” by Darwin
The Wounded deer pursues her headlong flight,
Pierced by some ambushed archer of the night;
Flies to the woodland with her bounding fawn,
While drops of blood bedew the verdant lawn,
There hid in shades she shuns the cheerful day,
Hangs o’er her young, and weeps her life away.
#10 “I Dreamed a Princess Came to Me” by Heinrich Heine
I dreamed a princess came to me
With pale and tearful face.
We sat beneath the linden tree
In lovers’ fond embrace.
“I do not want thy father’s throne,
Nor yet his sceptre of gold,
His diamond crown I would not own—
Thee, fairest, I want to hold.”
“That may not be,” she spake to me,
“I lie in my grave below—
Only at night I come to thee,
Because I love thee so.”