Get Your Premium Membership

Famous Columbus Poems by Famous Poets

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

See also:

by Brackenridge, Hugh Henry
...centers here 
America's own sons, begin O muse! 
Now thro' the veil of ancient days review 
The period fam'd when first Columbus touch'd 
The shore so long unknown, thro' various toils, 
Famine and death, the hero made his way, 
Thro' oceans bestowing with eternal storms. 
But why, thus hap'ly found, should we resume 
The tale of Cortez, furious chief, ordain'd 
With Indian blood to dye the sands, and choak 
Fam'd Amazonia's stream with dead! Or why, 
Once more revive the...Read more of this...



by Schiller, Friedrich von
...Steer on, bold sailor--Wit may mock thy soul that sees the land,
And hopeless at the helm may droop the weak and weary hand,
Yet ever--ever to the West, for there the coast must lie,
And dim it dawns, and glimmering dawns before thy reason's eye;
Yea, trust the guiding God--and go along the floating grave,
Though hid till now--yet now behold the New World ...Read more of this...

by Nash, Ogden
...orrow some money from Ferdinand
But Ferdinand said America was a bird in the bush and he'd rather have a berdinand,
But Columbus' brain was fertile, it wasn't arid,
And he remembered that Ferdinand was married,
And he thought, there is no wife like a misunderstood one,
Because if her husband thinks something is a terrible idea she is bound to think it a good one,
So he perfumed his handkerchief with bay rum and citronella,
And he went to see Isabella,
And he looked wonderful ...Read more of this...

by Wilcox, Ella Wheeler
...in all horrors blend, 
Declare the shameful cause, precursor of the end.

VIII.

When first this soil the great Columbus trod, 
He was less like the image of his God
Than those ingenuous souls, unspoiled by art, 
Who lived so near to Mother Nature's heart; 
Those simple children of the wood and wave, 
As frank as trusting, and as true as brave; 
Savage they were, when on some hostile raid
(For where is he so high, whom war does not degrade?) .

IX.

But dark d...Read more of this...

by Doty, Mark
...oral-reef en-
crustation--meant,
the brochure says,

to glorify America
and heaven simul-
taneously. Thus:
Mary and Columbus

and the Sacred Heart
equally enthroned
in a fantasia of quartz
and seashells, broken

dishes, stalactites
and stick-shift knobs--
no separation
of nature and art

for Father Wilerus!
He's built fabulous blooms
--bristling mosaic tiles
bunched into chipped,

permanent roses---
and more glisteny
stuff than I can catalogue,
which seems to he the point...Read more of this...



by Brautigan, Richard
...The petals of the vagina unfold
like Christofer Columbus
taking off his shoes.

Is there anything more beautiful
than the bow of a ship
touching a new world?...Read more of this...

by Masters, Edgar Lee
...of Genoa.
We went to Rome. He poisoned me, I think.
Now in the Campo Santo overlooking
The sea where young Columbus dreamed new worlds,
See what they chiseled: "Contessa Navigato
Implora eterna quiete."...Read more of this...

by Clough, Arthur Hugh
...How in all wonder Columbus got over,
That is a marvel to me, I protest,
Cabot, and Raleigh too, that well-read rover,
Frobisher, Dampier, Drake and the rest.
Bad enough all the same,
For them that after came,
But, in great Heaven's name,
How he should ever think
That on the other brink
Of this huge waste terra firma should be,
Is a pure wonder, I must say, to me.

How...Read more of this...

by Nash, Ogden
...may think, my friends, was that.
But it wasn't. Not by a fireman's hat.
Well enough wasn't left alone,
And Columbus was only a cornerstone.
There came the Spaniards,
There came the Greeks,
There came the Pilgrims in leather breeks.
There came the Dutch,
And the Poles and Swedes,
The Persians, too,
And perhaps the Medes,
The Letts, the Lapps, and the Lithuanians,
Regal Russians, and ripe Roumanians.
There came the French
And there came the Finns,
And t...Read more of this...

by Moore, Marianne
...p of opposites
opposed each to the other, not to unity,
which in cycloid inclusiveness
has dwarfed the demonstration
of Columbus with the egg --
a triumph of simplicity --
that charitive Euroclydon
of frightening disinterestedness
which the world hates,
admitting:

"I am such a cow,
if I had a sorrow,
I should feel it a long time;
I am not one of those
who have a great sorrow
in the morning
and a great joy at noon;"
which says: "I have encountered it
among those unpretentious...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...aist; vain covering, if to hide 
Their guilt and dreaded shame! O, how unlike 
To that first naked glory! Such of late 
Columbus found the American, so girt 
With feathered cincture; naked else, and wild 
Among the trees on isles and woody shores. 
Thus fenced, and, as they thought, their shame in part 
Covered, but not at rest or ease of mind, 
They sat them down to weep; nor only tears 
Rained at their eyes, but high winds worse within 
Began to rise, high passions, ang...Read more of this...

by Brautigan, Richard
...ays ago when I heard about a used trout stream

they had on sale out at the Yard. So I caught the Number 15

bus on Columbus Avenue and went out there for the first time.

 There were two ***** boys sitting behind me on the bus.

They were talking about Chubby Checker and the Twist. They

thought that Chubby Checker was only fifteen years old be-

cause he didn't have a mustache. Then they talked about some

other guy who did the twist forty-four hours in ...Read more of this...

by Brautigan, Richard
...want vanilla pudding again.










 ROOM 208, HOTEL

 TROUT FISHING IN AMERICA



Half a block from Broadway and Columbus is Hotel Trout

Fishing in America, a cheap hotel. It is very old and run by

some Chinese. They are young and ambitious Chinese and

the lobby is filled with the smell of Lysol.

 The Lysol sits like another guest on the stuffed furniture

reading a copy of the Chronicle, the Sports Section. It is the

only furniture I have ever see...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...A BATTER’D, wreck’d old man, 
Thrown on this savage shore, far, far from home, 
Pent by the sea, and dark rebellious brows, twelve dreary months, 
Sore, stiff with many toils, sicken’d, and nigh to death, 
I take my way along the island’s edge,
Venting a heavy heart. 

I am too full of woe! 
Haply, I may not live another day; 
I can not rest, O God—I c...Read more of this...

by Cocteau, Jean
...ts aglow

and so
sinks the evening-dress ball
into the thousand mirrors 
of the palace hotel

And now
it is I

the thin Columbus of phenomena
alone 
in the front 
of a mirror-paneled wardrobe
full of linen
and locking with a key

The obstinate miner
of the void
exploits
his fertile mine

the potential in the rough
glitters there
mingling with its white rock

 Oh
 princess of the mad sleep
listen to my horn
 and my pack of hounds

I deliver you
from the forest
where we came up...Read more of this...

by Dickinson, Emily
...e tree!

The earth upon an axis
Was once supposed to turn,
By way of a gymnastic
In honor of the sun!

It was the brave Columbus,
A sailing o'er the tide,
Who notified the nations
Of where I would reside!

Mortality is fatal --
Gentility is fine,
Rascality, heroic,
Insolvency, sublime!

Our Fathers being weary,
Laid down on Bunker Hill;
And tho' full many a morning,
Yet they are sleeping still, --

The trumpet, sir, shall wake them,
In dreams I see them rise,
Each with a sole...Read more of this...

by Dickinson, Emily
...e tree!

The earth upon an axis
Was once supposed to turn,
By way of a gymnastic
In honor of the sun!

It was the brave Columbus,
A sailing o'er the tide,
Who notified the nations
Of where I would reside!

Mortality is fatal --
Gentility is fine,
Rascality, heroic,
Insolvency, sublime!

Our Fathers being weary,
Laid down on Bunker Hill;
And tho' full many a morning,
Yet they are sleeping still, --

The trumpet, sir, shall wake them,
In dreams I see them rise,
Each with a sole...Read more of this...

by Schwartz, Delmore
...r the famous names upon the pediment:
 Thales, Aristotle,
Cicero, Augustine, Scotus, Galileo,
Joseph, Odysseus, Hamlet, Columbus and Spinoza,
Anna Karenina, Alyosha Karamazov, Sherlock Holmes.

And the last three also live upon the silver screen
Three blocks away, in moonlight's artificial day,
A double bill in the darkened palace whirled,
And the veritable glittering light of the turning world's
Burning mind and blazing imagination, showing, day by
 day
And week after we...Read more of this...

by Service, Robert William
...Would I be here to tell the story?

Nay, lad and lass, don't flout romance,
Nor heed this cynical old sinner;
Like bold Columbus take a chance,
And may your number be a winner.

Far be it from me to advise,
But in the marital relation
The safest bet is Compromise
And Mutual Consideration....Read more of this...

by Lindsay, Vachel
...ar came. 
They tour from Memphis, Atlanta, Savannah, 
Tallahassee and Texarkana. 
They tour from St. Louis, Columbus, Manistee,
They tour from Peoria, Davenport, Kankakee.
Cars from Concord, Niagara, Boston,
Cars from Topeka, Emporia, and Austin.
Cars from Chicago, Hannibal, Cairo.
Cars from Alton, Oswego, Toledo.
Cars from Buffalo, Kokomo, Delphi,
Cars from Lodi, Carmi, Loami.
Ho for Kansas, land that restores us
When houses choke us, and grea...Read more of this...

Dont forget to view our wonderful member Columbus poems.


Book: Reflection on the Important Things