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Famous Adventure Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Aiken, Conrad
...s' of love,
of these it was, in verse, that Li Po wove
the magic cloak for his last going forth,
into the Gorge for his adventure north.
What is not seen or said? The cloak of words
loves all, says all, sends back the word
whether from Green Spring, and the yellow bird
'that sings unceasing on the banks of Kiang,'
or 'from the Green Moss Path, that winds and winds,
nine turns for every hundred steps it winds,
up the Sword Parapet on the road to Shuh.'
‘Dead pinetrees ...Read more of this...



by Crapsey, Adelaide
...Sun and wind and beat of sea,
Great lands stretching endlessly…
Where be bonds to bind the free?
All the world was made for me! ...Read more of this...

by Robinson, Edwin Arlington
...e town and its iniquities 
To die of their own dust. But having his wits, 
Henceforth he may conceivably avoid 
The adventure unattended. Last October
He took me with him into the Maine woods, 
Where, by the shore of a primeval lake, 
With woods all round it, and a voyage away 
From anything wearing clothes, he had reared somehow 
A lodge, or camp, with a stone chimney in it,
And a wide fireplace to make men forget 
Their sins who sat before it in the evening, 
Hearin...Read more of this...

by Hugo, Victor
...NIGHT ERRANT. 
 
 ("Qu'est-ce que Sigismond et Ladislas ont dit.") 
 
 {Bk. XV. iii. 1.} 


 I. 
 
 THE ADVENTURER SETS OUT. 
 
 What was it Sigismond and Ladisläus said? 
 
 I know not if the rock, or tree o'erhead, 
 Had heard their speech;—but when the two spoke low, 
 Among the trees, a shudder seemed to go 
 Through all their branches, just as if that way 
 A beast had passed to trouble and dismay. 
 More dark the shadow of the rock was seen, 
 ...Read more of this...

by Thomas, Dylan
...our,
Finding the water final,
On the consumptives' terrace taking their two farewells,
Sail on the level, the departing adventure,
To the sea-blown arrival.

II

They climb the country pinnacle,
Twelve winds encounter by the white host at pasture,
Corner the mounted meadows in the hill corral;
They see the squirrel stumble,
The haring snail go giddily round the flower,
A quarrel of weathers and trees in the windy spiral.

As they dive, the dust settles,
The cadaverous...Read more of this...



by Dyke, Henry Van
...own, 
O'er rough or smooth, the journey will be joy: 
Still seeking what I sought when but a boy, 
New friendship, high adventure, and a crown, 
My heart will keep the courage of the quest, 
And hope the road's last turn will be the best....Read more of this...

by Service, Robert William
..."Let's make him a sailor," said Father,
"And he will adventure the sea."
"A soldier," said Mother, "is rather
What I would prefer him to be."
"A lawyer," said Father, "would please me,
For then he could draw up my will."
"A doctor," said Mother, "would ease me;
Maybe he could give me a pill."

Said Father: "Lt's make him a curate,
A Bishop in gaiters to be."
Said Mother: "I couldn't endure ...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...
His rivals, winning cheap the high repute 
Which he through hazard huge must earn. But they 
Dreaded not more th' adventure than his voice 
Forbidding; and at once with him they rose. 
Their rising all at once was as the sound 
Of thunder heard remote. Towards him they bend 
With awful reverence prone, and as a God 
Extol him equal to the Highest in Heaven. 
Nor failed they to express how much they praised 
That for the general safety he despised 
His own: f...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...st Hell 
Many a dark league, reduced in careful watch 
Round their metropolis; and now expecting 
Each hour their great adventurer, from the search 
Of foreign worlds: He through the midst unmarked, 
In show plebeian Angel militant 
Of lowest order, passed; and from the door 
Of that Plutonian hall, invisible 
Ascended his high throne; which, under state 
Of richest texture spread, at the upper end 
Was placed in regal lustre. Down a while 
He sat, and round about him saw...Read more of this...

by Stevenson, Robert Louis
...air, they are blowing in the spring, 
And waves are on the meadow like the waves there are at sea. 

Where shall we adventure, to-day that we're afloat, 
Wary of the weather and steering by a star? 
Shall it be to Africa, a-steering of the boat, 
To Providence, or Babylon or off to Malabar? 

Hi! but here's a squadron a-rowing on the sea-- 
Cattle on the meadow a-charging with a roar! 
Quick, and we'll escape them, they're as mad as they can be, 
The wicket is the harbour...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...patient; 
Nigh the coffin’d corpse when all is still, examining with a candle: 
Voyaging to every port, to dicker and adventure;
Hurrying with the modern crowd, as eager and fickle as any; 
Hot toward one I hate, ready in my madness to knife him; 
Solitary at midnight in my back yard, my thoughts gone from me a long while; 
Walking the old hills of Judea, with the beautiful gentle God by my side; 
Speeding through space—speeding through heaven and the stars;
Speeding ...Read more of this...

by Carver, Raymond
...at
is, say, two cubits long and one wide.
The darkness in the room teems with insight.
Could be he'll write an adventure novel. Or else 
a children's story. A play for two female characters,
one of whom is blind. Cutthroat should be coming
into the river. One thing he'll do is learn
to tie his own flies. Maybe he should give
more money to each of his surviving
family members. The ones who already expect a little
something in the mail first of ...Read more of this...

by Browning, Robert
...r, those straying
Sad gloves she was always mislaying,
While the King took the closet to chat in,---
But of course this adventure came pat in.
And never the King told the story,
How bringing a glove brought such glory,
But the wife smiled---``His nerves are grown firmer:
``Mine he brings now and utters no murmur.''

_Venienti occurrite morbo!_
With which moral I drop my theorbo.

*1 A beetle....Read more of this...

by Bridges, Robert Seymour
...are wed:
And knit, with beams and knees of strength, a bed
For decks of purity, her floor and ceil.
Upon her masts, Adventure, Pride, and Zeal,
To fortune's wind the sails of purpose spread:
And at the prow make figured maidenhead
O'erride the seas and answer to the wheel. 
And let him deep in memory's hold have stor'd
Water of Helicon: and let him fit
The needle that doth true with heaven accord:
Then bid her crew, love, diligence and wit
With justice, courage, tempe...Read more of this...

by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...
If God would send the vision, well: if not, 
The Quest and he were in the hands of Heaven. 

`And then, with small adventure met, Sir Bors 
Rode to the lonest tract of all the realm, 
And found a people there among their crags, 
Our race and blood, a remnant that were left 
Paynim amid their circles, and the stones 
They pitch up straight to heaven: and their wise men 
Were strong in that old magic which can trace 
The wandering of the stars, and scoffed at him 
And this...Read more of this...

by Aiken, Conrad
....
I walk in a cloud of wonder; I am glad.
I mingle among the crowds; my heart is pounding;
You do not guess the adventure I have had! . . .

Yet you, too, all have had your dark adventures,
Your sudden adventures, or strange, or sweet . . .
My peril goes out from me, is blown among you.
We loiter, dreaming together, along the street.


V. RETROSPECT

Round white clouds roll slowly above the housetops,
Over the clear red roofs they f...Read more of this...

by Yeats, William Butler
...n:
For there's no human life at the full or the dark.
From the first crescent to the half, the dream
But summons to adventure and the man
Is always happy like a bird or a beast;
But while the moon is rounding towards the full
He follows whatever whim's most difficult
Among whims not impossible, and though scarred.
As with the cat-o'-nine-tails of the mind,
His body moulded from within his body
Grows comelier. Eleven pass, and then
Athene takes Achilles by the hair...Read more of this...

by Bronte, Charlotte
...s; I was tired, but not at heart; 
No­that beats full of sweet content, 
For now I have my natural part 
Of action with adventure blent; 
Cast forth on the wide vorld with thee, 
And all my once waste energy
To weighty purpose bent. 

Yet­say'st thou, spies around us roam, 
Our aims are termed conspiracy ? 
Haply, no more our English home 
An anchorage for us may be ? 
That there is risk our mutual blood 
May redden in some lonely wood 
The knife of treachery ? 

Say'st t...Read more of this...

by Bronte, Charlotte
...s; I was tired, but not at heart; 
No­that beats full of sweet content, 
For now I have my natural part 
Of action with adventure blent; 
Cast forth on the wide vorld with thee, 
And all my once waste energy
To weighty purpose bent. 

Yet­say'st thou, spies around us roam, 
Our aims are termed conspiracy ? 
Haply, no more our English home 
An anchorage for us may be ? 
That there is risk our mutual blood 
May redden in some lonely wood 
The knife of treachery ? 

Say'st t...Read more of this...

by Dickinson, Emily
...ed unto Men --

How adequate unto itself
Its properties shall be
Itself unto itself and none
Shall make discovery.

Adventure most unto itself
The Soul condemned to be --
Attended by a single Hound
Its own identity....Read more of this...

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