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Famous Oratory Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry
...when you throw things away
After a funeral: clean and empty in the morning dark.
There was no time for locker-room oratory.
They knew they were facing a do-or-die situation,
With their backs to the wall, and no tomorrow....Read more of this...
by Lehman, David



...nd find that it had been the wolf's indeed: 
And oft I talked with Dubric, the high saint, 
Who, with mild heat of holy oratory, 
Subdued me somewhat to that gentleness, 
Which, when it weds with manhood, makes a man. 
And you were often there about the Queen, 
But saw me not, or marked not if you saw; 
Nor did I care or dare to speak with you, 
But kept myself aloof till I was changed; 
And fear not, cousin; I am changed indeed.' 

He spoke, and Enid easily believed,...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...ea, or Homer – all moves by love’s glow.
Which should I hear? Now Homer is silent,
and the Black Sea thundering its oratory, turbulent,
and, surging, roars against my pillow....Read more of this...
by Mandelstam, Osip
...thou would'st cull,
Trust Nature, do not labour to be dull;
But write thy best, and top; and in each line,
Sir Formal's oratory will be thine.
Sir Formal, though unsought, attends thy quill,
And does thy Northern Dedications fill.
Nor let false friends seduce thy mind to fame,
By arrogating Jonson's hostile name.
Let Father Flecknoe fire thy mind with praise,
And Uncle Ogleby thy envy raise.
Thou art my blood, where Jonson has no part;
What share have we in Na...Read more of this...
by Dryden, John
...w breathed 
Unutterable; which the Spirit of prayer 
Inspired, and winged for Heaven with speedier flight 
Than loudest oratory: Yet their port 
Not of mean suitors; nor important less 
Seemed their petition, than when the ancient pair 
In fables old, less ancient yet than these, 
Deucalion and chaste Pyrrha, to restore 
The race of mankind drowned, before the shrine 
Of Themis stood devout. To Heaven their prayers 
Flew up, nor missed the way, by envious winds 
Blown vag...Read more of this...
by Milton, John



...nely taught, and better teaching
The solid rules of civil government,
In their majestic, unaffected style,
Than all the oratory of Greece and Rome. 
In them is plainest taught, and easiest learnt,
What makes a nation happy, and keeps it so,
What ruins kingdoms, and lays cities flat;
These only, with our Law, best form a king."
 So spake the Son of God; but Satan, now
Quite at a loss (for all his darts were spent),
Thus to our Saviour, with stern brow, replied:—
 "Sinc...Read more of this...
by Milton, John
...turn the wheel of Mind on your three hundred tons!
 Your name enters mankind's ear! I embody your
 ultimate powers!
My oratory advances on your vaunted Mystery! This 
 breath dispels your braggart fears! I sing your 
 form at last
behind your concrete & iron walls inside your fortress
 of rubber & translucent silicon shields in filtered
 cabinets and baths of lathe oil,
My voice resounds through robot glove boxes & ignot 
 cans and echoes in electric vaults inert of atmo-
 s...Read more of this...
by Ginsberg, Allen
...s' cages. 
--And never to have had to listen to rain 
so much like politicians' speeches: 
two hours of unrelenting oratory 
and then a sudden golden silence 
in which the traveller takes a notebook, writes: 

"Is it lack of imagination that makes us come 
to imagined places, not just stay at home? 
Or could Pascal have been not entirely right 
about just sitting quietly in one's room? 

Continent, city, country, society: 
the choice is never wide and never free. 
And...Read more of this...
by Bishop, Elizabeth
...”

Can a dome of iron dream deeper than living men?
Can the float of a shape hovering among tree-tops—can this speak an oratory sad, singing and red beyond the speech of the living men?

A mother of men, a sister, a lover, a woman past the dreams of the living—
Does she go sad, singing and red out of the float of this dome?

There is … something … here … men die for....Read more of this...
by Sandburg, Carl
...it of my dream.
There was an ancient mansion, and before
Its walls there was a steed caparisoned:
Within an antique Oratory stood
The Boy of whom I spake;—he was alone,
And pale, and pacing to and fro: anon
He sate him down, and seized a pen, and traced
Words which I could not guess of; then he leaned
His bowed head on his hands and shook, as 'twere
With a convulsion—then rose again,
And with his teeth and quivering hands did tear
What he had written, but he shed no tears...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)
...e and sacrifice
He eastward hath upon the gate above,
In worship of Venus, goddess of love,
*Done make* an altar and an oratory; *caused to be made*
And westward, in the mind and in memory
Of Mars, he maked hath right such another,
That coste largely of gold a fother*. *a great amount
And northward, in a turret on the wall,
Of alabaster white and red coral
An oratory riche for to see,
In worship of Diane of chastity,
Hath Theseus done work in noble wise.
But yet had I...Read more of this...
by Chaucer, Geoffrey

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Book: Reflection on the Important Things