Famous Chronicles Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Late Light

by Philip Levine
 Rain filled the streets 
once a year, rising almost 
to door and window sills, 
battering walls and roofs 
until it cleaned away the mess 
we'd made. My father told 
me this, he told me it ran 
downtown and spilled into 
the river, which in turn 
emptied finally into the sea. 
He said this only once 
while I sat on...Read more of this...

Two Words

by Robert William Service
 'God' is composed of letters three,
 But if you put an 'l'
Before the last it seems to me
 A synonym for Hell.
For all of envy, greed and hate
 The human heart can hold
Respond unto the devil's bait
 Of Gold.

When God created Gold to be
 For our adorning fit,
I little think he dreamed that we
 Would come to worship it.
But...Read more of this...

To My Friends

by Friedrich von Schiller
 Yes, my friends!--that happier times have been
Than the present, none can contravene;
That a race once lived of nobler worth;
And if ancient chronicles were dumb,
Countless stones in witness forth would come
From the deepest entrails of the earth.
But this highly-favored race has gone,
Gone forever to the realms of night.
We, we live! The moments are our own,
And the living judge the right.

Brighter...Read more of this...

Voices Of the Night

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
 PRELUDE.

Pleasant it was, when woods were green,
And winds were soft and low,
To lie amid some sylvan scene,
Where, the long drooping boughs between
Shadows dark and sunlight sheen
Alternate come and go;

Or where the denser grove receives
No sunlight from above
But the dark foliage interweaves
In one unbroken roof of leaves,
Underneath whose sloping eaves
The shadows hardly move.

Beneath some patriarchal tree
I lay upon the ground;
His...Read more of this...

293. The Whistle: A Ballad

by Robert Burns
 I SING of a Whistle, a Whistle of worth,
I sing of a Whistle, the pride of the North.
Was brought to the court of our good Scottish King,
And long with this Whistle all Scotland shall ring.


Old Loda, still rueing the arm of Fingal,
The god of the bottle sends down from his hall—
“The Whistle’s your challenge, to Scotland get o’er,
And drink...Read more of this...

Richard Bone

by Edgar Lee Masters
 When I first came to Spoon River
I did not know whether what they told me
Was true or false.
They would bring me an epitaph
And stand around the shop while I worked
And say "He was so kind," "He was wonderful,"
"She was the sweetest woman," "He was a consistent Christian."
And I chiseled for them whatever they wished,
All in ignorance of its truth.
But...Read more of this...

Sonnet (Women Have Loved Before As I Love Now)

by Edna St. Vincent Millay
 Women have loved before as I love now;
At least, in lively chronicles of the past—
Of Irish waters by a Cornish prow
Or Trojan waters by a Spartan mast
Much to their cost invaded—here and there,
Hunting the amorous line, skimming the rest,
I find some woman bearing as I bear
Love like a burning city in the breast.
I think however that of all alive
I...Read more of this...

Prelude

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
 Pleasant it was, when woods were green,
And winds were soft and low,
To lie amid some sylvan scene.
Where, the long drooping boughs between,
Shadows dark and sunlight sheen
Alternate come and go;

Or where the denser grove receives
No sunlight from above,
But the dark foliage interweaves
In one unbroken roof of leaves,
Underneath whose sloping eaves
The shadows hardly move.

Beneath some patriarchal tree
I lay upon the ground;
His...Read more of this...

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