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Famous Arcadia Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Brackenridge, Hugh Henry
...ly fam'd; 
And poets old their pleasing pictures drew 
Of flow'ry meads, and groves and gliding streams. 
Hence old Arcadia, woodnymphs, satyrs, fauns, 
And hence Elysium, fancy'd heav'n below. 
Fair agriculture, not unworthy kings, 
Once exercis'd the royal hand, or those 
Whose virtue rais'd them to the rank of gods. 
See old Laertes in his shepherd weeds, 
Far from his pompous throne and court august, 
Digging the grateful soil, where peaceful blows 
The west w...Read more of this...



by Strode, William
...Whatever in Philoclea the fair
Or the discreet Pamela figur'd are,
Change but the name the virtues are your owne,
And for a fiction there a truth is knowne:
If any service here perform'd you see,
If duty and affection paynted bee
Within these leaves: may you be pleas'd to know
They only shadow what I truly owe
To your desart: thus I a glasse have sent
Whic...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...tar-proof,
Follow me, 
I will bring you where she sits
Clad in splendor as befits
Her deity.
Such a rural Queen
All Arcadia hath not seen.


3. SONG.

Nymphs and Shepherds dance no more
By sandy Ladons Lillied banks.
On old Lycaeus or Cyllene hoar,
Trip no more in twilight ranks,
Though Erynanth your loss deplore, 
A better soyl shall give ye thanks.
From the stony Maenalus,
Bring your Flocks, and live with us,
Here ye shall have greater grace,
To serv...Read more of this...

by Laurence Dunbar, Paul
...he vision was of dace and bream,
A fruitless vision, sooth to tell.
But round about the sylvan dell
Were other sweet Arcadian shrines,
Gone now, is all the rural spell,
Arcadia has trolley lines.
Oh, once loved, sluggish, darkling stream,
For me no more, thy waters swell,
Thy music now the engines' scream,
Thy fragrance now the factory's smell;
Too near for me the clanging bell;
A false light in the water shines
While Solitude lists to her knell,—
Arcadia has tro...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...of, 
 Follow me, 
I will bring you where she sits 
Clad in splendor as befits 
 Her deity. 
Such a rural Queen 
All Arcadia hath not seen. 

313. From 'Comus' 
i 

THE Star that bids the Shepherd fold, 
Now the top of Heav'n doth hold, 
And the gilded Car of Day, 
His glowing Axle doth allay 
In the steep Atlantick stream, 
And the slope Sun his upward beam 
Shoots against the dusky Pole, 
Pacing toward the other gole 
Of his Chamber in the East. 
Mean while w...Read more of this...



by Laurence Dunbar, Paul
...f the earth's designs,—
I 'll hie me otherwhere to dwell,
[Pg 205]Arcadia has trolley lines.
...Read more of this...

by Parker, Dorothy
...birth
Strewn along a patterned page;
Golden lad and chimbley sweep
Die; and so their song shall keep.

Wind that in Arcadia starts
In and out a couplet plays;
And the drums of bitter hearts
Beat the measure of a phrase.
Sweets and woes but come to print
Quae cum ita sint....Read more of this...

by Browning, Robert
...t was, 
Virgil, your legend in those strange three lines! 
No question, that adventure came to pass 
One black night in Arcadia: yes, the pines, 
Mountains and valleys mingling made one mass 
Of black with void black heaven: the earth's confines, 
The sky's embrace,--below, above, around, 
All hardened into black without a bound. 

Fill up a swart stone chalice to the brim 
With fresh-squeezed yet fast-thickening poppy-juice: 
See how the sluggish jelly, late a-swim, 
Tur...Read more of this...

by Sidney, Sir Philip
...My true love hath my heart, and I have his,
By Just Exchange, one for the other given.
I hold his dear, and mine he cannot miss,
There never was a better bargain driven.
His heart in me keeps me and him in one,
My heart in him his thoughts and senses guides;
He loves my heart, for once it was his own,
I cherish his, because in me it bides.
His ...Read more of this...

by Wilde, Oscar
...violet loiters by the well,
And sweet to hear the shepherd Daphnis sing
The song of Linus through a sunny dell
Of warm Arcadia where the corn is gold
And the slight lithe-limbed reapers dance about the wattled fold.

And sweet with young Lycoris to recline
In some Illyrian valley far away,
Where canopied on herbs amaracine
We too might waste the summer-tranced day
Matching our reeds in sportive rivalry,
While far beneath us frets the troubled purple of the sea.

But ...Read more of this...

by Turner Smith, Charlotte
...he strange vicissitude,
We ask anew, where happiness is found?------
Alas! in rural life, where youthful dreams
See the Arcadia that Romance describes,
Not even Content resides!--In yon low hut
Of clay and thatch, where rises the grey smoke
Of smold'ring turf, cut from the adjoining moor,
The labourer, its inhabitant, who toils
From the first dawn of twilight, till the Sun
Sinks in the rosy waters of the West,
Finds that with poverty it cannot dwell; 
For bread, and scanty br...Read more of this...

by Killigrew, Anne
...IN that so temperate Soil Arcadia nam'd,
For fertile Pasturage by Poets fam'd;
Stands a steep Hill, whose lofty jetting Crown,
Casts o'er the neighbouring Plains, a seeming Frown;
Close at its mossie Foot an aged Wood,
Compos'd of various Trees, there long has stood,
Whose thick united Tops scorn the Sun's Ray,
And hardly will admit the Eye of Day. 
By oblique windings through th...Read more of this...

by Schiller, Friedrich von
...d troubled wave,
Thou lookest with thy fearless smile upon the floating grave.
Play, loveliest innocence!--Thee yet Arcadia circles round,
A charmed power for thee has set the lists of fairy ground;
Each gleesome impulse Nature now can sanction and befriend,
Nor to that willing heart as yet the duty and the end.
Play, for the haggard labor soon will come to seize its prey.
Alas! when duty grows thy law, enjoyment fades away!...Read more of this...

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