Famous Chariot Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Translations: Dante - Inferno Canto XXVI

by Alan Seeger
 Florence, rejoice! For thou o'er land and sea 
So spread'st thy pinions that the fame of thee 
Hath reached no less into the depths of Hell. 
So noble were the five I found to dwell 
Therein -- thy sons -- whence shame accrues to me 
And no great praise is thine; but if it be 
That truth unveil in...Read more of this...

As onward and onward the chariot flies

by Kalidasa
As onward and onward the chariot flies,
The small flashes large to my dizzy eyes.
What is cleft in twain, seems to blur and mate;
What is crooked in nature, seems to be straight.
Things at my side in an instant appear
Distant, and things in the distance, near....Read more of this...

To His Coy Mistress

by Andrew Marvell
  Had we but world enough, and time,
This coyness, lady, were no crime.
We would sit down, and think which way
To walk, and pass our long love's day.
Thou by the Indian Ganges' side
Shouldst rubies find; I by the tide
Of Humber would complain.  I would
Love you ten years before the Flood,
And you should, if you please, refuse
Till the conversion of...Read more of this...

Psalm 104

by Isaac Watts
 The glory of God in creation and providence.

My soul, thy great Creator praise:
When clothed in his celestial rays,
He in full majesty appears,
And, like a robe, his glory wears.

The heav'ns are for his curtains spread,
The unfathomed deep he makes his bed.
Clouds are his chariot when he flies
On winged storms across the skies.

Angels, whom his own breath inspires,
His ministers, are flaming...Read more of this...

The Moon

by Henry David Thoreau
 Time wears her not; she doth his chariot guide; 
Mortality below her orb is placed.
--Raleigh

The full-orbed moon with unchanged ray 
Mounts up the eastern sky, 
Not doomed to these short nights for aye, 
But shining steadily. 

She does not wane, but my fortune, 
Which her rays do not bless, 
My wayward path declineth soon, 
But she shines not the...Read more of this...

Wedding Song

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 THE tale of the Count our glad song shall record

Who had in this castle his dwelling,
Where now ye are feasting the new-married lord,

His grandson of whom we are telling.
The Count as Crusader had blazon'd his fame,
Through many a triumph exalted his name,
And when on his steed to his dwelling he came,

His castle still rear'd its proud head,
But servants and...Read more of this...

The Hymn

by John Milton
 I

It was the Winter wilde,
While the Heav'n-born-childe, 
All meanly wrapt in the rude manger lies;
Nature in aw to him
Had doff't her gawdy trim,
With her great Master so to sympathize:
It was no season then for her
To wanton with the Sun her lusty Paramour.

II

Only with speeches fair
She woo'd the gentle Air
To hide her guilty front with innocent Snow,
And on her naked...Read more of this...

The Philosophers

by Barry Tebb
 Lavender musk rose from the volume I was reading through,

The college crest impressed in gold, tooled gold lettering on the spine.

It was not mine but my son’s, jammed in the corner of a cardboard box

With dozens more; just one box of a score, stored in a heap

Across my ex-wife’s floor, our son gone far, as far as Samarkand and...Read more of this...

The Gardener LXXXI: Why Do You Whisper So Faintly

by Rabindranath Tagore
 Why do you whisper so faintly in
my ears, O Death, my Death?
When the flowers droop in the
evening and cattle come back to their
stalls, you stealthily come to my side
and speak words that I do not
understand.
Is this how you must woo and win
me with the opiate of drowsy murmur
and cold kisses, O Death, my Death?
Will there be no proud ceremony
for...Read more of this...

Hymn on the Morning of Christs Nativity

by John Milton
 IT was the Winter wilde, 
While the Heav'n-born-childe, 
 All meanly wrapt in the rude manger lies; 
Nature in aw to him 
Had doff't her gawdy trim, 
 With her great Master so to sympathize: 
It was no season then for her 
To wanton with the Sun her lusty Paramour. 

Only with speeches fair 
She woo's the gentle Air...Read more of this...

Stanzas to Love

by Mary Darby Robinson
 TELL ME, LOVE, when I rove o'er some far distant plain,
Shall I cherish the passion that dwells in my breast?
Or will ABSENCE subdue the keen rigours of pain,
And the swift wing of TIME bring the balsam of rest? 

Shall the image of HIM I was born to adore,
Inshrin'd in my bosom my idol still prove?
Or seduced by caprice shall...Read more of this...

An Ode to Himself

by Ben Jonson
 Where dost thou careless lie,
Buried in ease and sloth?
Knowledge that sleeps doth die;
And this security,
It is the common moth
That eats on wits and arts, and oft destroys them both.

Are all th' Aonian springs
Dried up? lies Thespia waste?
Doth Clarius' harp want strings,
That not a nymph now sings?
Or droop they as disgrac'd,
To see their seats and bowers by chatt'ring pies defac'd?

If...Read more of this...

Silent Steps

by Rabindranath Tagore
 Have you not heard his silent steps? 
He comes, comes, ever comes. 

Every moment and every age, 
every day and every night he comes, comes, ever comes. 

Many a song have I sung in many a mood of mind, 
but all their notes have always proclaimed, 
`He comes, comes, ever comes.' 

In the fragrant days of sunny April through...Read more of this...

Strange Meeting

by Wilfred Owen
 It seemed that out of the battle I escaped
Down some profound dull tunnel, long since scooped
Through granites which Titanic wars had groined.
Yet also there encumbered sleepers groaned,
Too fast in thought or death to be bestirred.
Then, as I probed them, one sprang up, and stared
With piteous recognition in fixed eyes,
Lifting distressful hands as if to bless.
And by his smile, I...Read more of this...

The Alarm

by Thomas Hardy
 In Memory of one of the Writer's Family who was a Volunteer during the War
with Napoleon

In a ferny byway
Near the great South-Wessex Highway,
A homestead raised its breakfast-smoke aloft;
The dew-damps still lay steamless, for the sun had made no sky-way,
And twilight cloaked the croft.

'Twas hard to realize on
This snug side the mute horizon
That beyond it hostile armaments might steer,
Save from...Read more of this...

Hero and Leander: The First Sestiad

by Christopher Marlowe
 1 On Hellespont, guilty of true love's blood,
2 In view and opposite two cities stood,
3 Sea-borderers, disjoin'd by Neptune's might;
4 The one Abydos, the other Sestos hight.
5 At Sestos Hero dwelt; Hero the fair,
6 Whom young Apollo courted for her hair,
7 And offer'd as a dower his burning throne,
8 Where she could sit for men to gaze upon.
9 The...Read more of this...

And Did Those Feet In Ancient Time

by William Blake
 And did those feet in ancient time
Walk upon England's mountains green?
And was the holy Lamb of God
On England's pleasant pastures seen?

And did the Countenance Divine
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here
Among these dark satanic mills?

Bring me my bow of burning gold!
Bring me my arrows of desire!
Bring me my spear! O clouds, unfold!
Bring me my chariot of...Read more of this...

When Malindy Sings

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
 G'way an' quit dat noise, Miss Lucy--
Put dat music book away;
What's de use to keep on tryin'?
Ef you practise twell you're gray,
You cain't sta't no notes a-flyin'
Lak de ones dat rants and rings
F'om de kitchen to de big woods
When Malindy sings.

You ain't got de nachel o'gans
Fu' to make de soun' come right,
You ain't got de tu'ns an' twistin's
Fu' to...Read more of this...

Journey Home

by Rabindranath Tagore
 The time that my journey takes is long and the way of it long. 

I came out on the chariot of the first gleam of light, and pursued my 
voyage through the wildernesses of worlds leaving my track on many a star and planet. 

It is the most distant course that comes nearest to thyself, 
and that training is...Read more of this...

Saturday Night in the Parthenon

by Kenneth Patchen
 Tiny green birds skate over the surface of the room.
A naked girl prepares a basin with steaming water,
And in the corner away from the hearth, the red wheels
Of an up-ended chariot slowly turn.
After a long moment, the door to the other world opens
And the golden figure of a man appears. He stands
Ruddy as a salmon beside the niche where...Read more of this...

Ripe Fruit

by Robert William Service
 Through eyelet holes I watched the crowd
Rain of confetti fling;
Their joy is lush, their laughter loud,
For Carnival is King.
Behind his chariot I pace
To ean my petty pay;
They laugh to see my monster face:
"Ripe Fruit," I hear them say.

I do not laugh: my shoulders sag;
No heart have I for glee,
Because I hold aloft a hag
Who grins enough for me;
A hideous...Read more of this...

Hymn 76

by Isaac Watts
 Christ dwells in heaven, but visits on earth.

SS 6:1-3,12. 

When strangers stand and hear me tell
What beauties in my Savior dwell,
Where he is gone they fain would know,
That they may seek and love him too.

My best Beloved keeps his throne
On hills of light, in worlds unknown;
But he descends and shows his face
In the young gardens of his grace.

[In vineyards...Read more of this...

From Victor Hugo

by Thomas Hardy
 Child, were I king, I'd yield my royal rule, 
 My chariot, sceptre, vassal-service due, 
My crown, my porphyry-basined waters cool, 
My fleets, whereto the sea is but a pool, 
 For a glance from you! 

Love, were I God, the earth and its heaving airs, 
 Angels, the demons abject under me, 
Vast chaos with its teeming womby...Read more of this...

Song of the Bowmen of Shu

by Ezra Pound
 Here we are, picking the first fern-shoots 
And saying: When shall we get back to our country? 
Here we are because we have the Ken-nin for our foemen, 
We have no comfort because of these Mongols. 
We grub the soft fern-shoots, 
When anyone says "Return," the others are full of sorrow. 
Sorrowful minds, sorrow is strong, we are hungry...Read more of this...

The Challenge of Thor

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
 I am the God Thor,
I am the War God,
I am the Thunderer!
Here in my Northland, 
My fastness and fortress, 
Reign I forever!
Here amid icebergs 
Rule I the nations; 
This is my hammer, 
Mi?lner the mighty; 
Giants and sorcerers 
Cannot withstand it!

These are the gauntlets 
Wherewith I wield it, 
And hurl it afar off; 
This is my girdle; 
Whenever I...Read more of this...

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