Get Your Premium Membership

Famous Course Poems by Famous Poets

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

See also:

by Shakespeare, William
...say
'That horse his mettle from his rider takes:
Proud of subjection, noble by the sway,
What rounds, what bounds, what course, what stop
he makes!'
And controversy hence a question takes,
Whether the horse by him became his deed,
Or he his manage by the well-doing steed.

'But quickly on this side the verdict went:
His real habitude gave life and grace
To appertainings and to ornament,
Accomplish'd in himself, not in his case:
All aids, themselves made fairer by their pl...Read more of this...



by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...nests in the scales of the balance,
Having no fear of the sword that flashed in the sunshine above them.
But in the course of time the laws of the land were corrupted;
Might took the place of right, and the weak were oppressed, and the mighty
Ruled with an iron rod. Then it chanced in a nobleman's palace
That a necklace of pearls was lost, and erelong a suspicion
Fell on an orphan girl who lived as maid in the household.
She, after form of trial condemned to die o...Read more of this...

by Tagore, Rabindranath
...he ink-black river, 
by what far edge of the frowning forest, 
through what mazy depth of gloom art thou threading 
thy course to come to me, my friend?...Read more of this...

by Wilde, Oscar
...s this the end of all that primal force
Which, in its changes being still the same,
From eyeless Chaos cleft its upward course,
Through ravenous seas and whirling rocks and flame,
Till the suns met in heaven and began
Their cycles, and the morning stars sang, and the Word was Man!

Nay, nay, we are but crucified, and though
The bloody sweat falls from our brows like rain
Loosen the nails - we shall come down I know,
Staunch the red wounds - we shall be whole again,
No need ha...Read more of this...

by Sexton, Anne
...m in. 
All we need is someone to let us in. 
And one other thing: 
to consider the lilies in the field. 
Of course earth is a stranger, we pull at its 
arms and still it won't speak. 
The sea is worse. 
It comes in, falling to its knees 
but we can't translate the language. 
It is only known that they are here to worship, 
to worship the terror of the rain, 
the mud and all its people, 
the body itself, 
working like a city, 
the night and its slow blo...Read more of this...



by Keats, John
...content to stoop:
And in the proof much comfort will I give,
If ye will take that comfort in its truth.
We fall by course of Nature's law, not force
Of thunder, or of Jove. Great Saturn, thou
Hast sifted well the atom-universe;
But for this reason, that thou art the King,
And only blind from sheer supremacy,
One avenue was shaded from thine eyes,
Through which I wandered to eternal truth.
And first, as thou wast not the first of powers,
So art thou not the last; ...Read more of this...

by Alighieri, Dante
...d except, 
 That yawning rose, and stretched, and purred and leapt 
 So closely round my feet, that scarce I kept 
 The course I would. 
 That sleek and lovely thing, 
 The broadening light, the breath of morn and spring, 
 The sun, that with his stars in Aries lay, 
 As when Divine Love on Creation's day 
 First gave these fair things motion, all at one 
 Made lightsome hope; but lightsome hope was none 
 When down the slope there came with lifted head 
 And back-blown m...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...men. 
It skills not, boots not, step by step to trace 
His youth through all the mazes of its race; 
Short was the course his restlessness had run, 
But long enough to leave him half undone. 

III. 

And Lara left in youth his fatherland; 
But from the hour he waved his parting hand 
Each trace wax'd fainter of his course, till all 
Had nearly ceased his memory to recall. 
His sire was dust, his vassals could declare, 
'Twas all they knew, that Lara was not t...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...e. 
Thou Sun, of this great world both eye and soul, 
Acknowledge him thy greater; sound his praise 
In thy eternal course, both when thou climbest, 
And when high noon hast gained, and when thou fallest. 
Moon, that now meetest the orient sun, now flyest, 
With the fixed Stars, fixed in their orb that flies; 
And ye five other wandering Fires, that move 
In mystick dance not without song, resound 
His praise, who out of darkness called up light. 
Air, and ye Elem...Read more of this...

by Frost, Robert
...”

“What do you make of it?”

“There’s only one thing possible to make,
That is, assuming—that she has gone out.
Of course she hasn’t though.” They both sat down
Helpless. “There’s nothing we can do till morning.”

“Fred, I shan’t let you think of going out.”

“Hold on.” The double bell began to chirp.
They started up. Fred took the telephone.
“Hello, Meserve. You’re there, then!—And your wife?

Good! Why I asked—she didn’t seem to answ...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...falling like a veil over my countenance; 
Upon a door-step—upon the horse-block of hard wood outside; 
Upon the race-course, or enjoying picnics or jigs, or a good game of base-ball;
At he-festivals, with blackguard jibes, ironical license, bull-dances, drinking,
 laughter; 
At the cider-mill, tasting the sweets of the brown mash, sucking the juice
 through a straw; 
At apple-peelings, wanting kisses for all the red fruit I find; 
At musters, beach-parties, friendly ...Read more of this...

by Bridges, Robert Seymour
...with hurried hoofs and scattering dust
I race by field or highway, and my horse
Spare not, but urge direct in headlong course
Unto some fair far hill that gain I must:
But near arrived the vision soon mistrust,
Rein in, and stand as one who sees the source
Of strong illusion, shaming thought to force
From off his mind the soil of passion's gust. 

My brow I bare then, and with slacken'd speed
Can view the country pleasant on all sides,
And to kind salutation give good he...Read more of this...

by Carroll, Lewis
...l principles so cautiously inculcated in it, or to its noble teachings in Natural History--I will take the more prosaic course of simply explaining how it happened. 

The Bellman, who was almost morbidly sensitive about appearances, used to have the bowsprit unshipped once or twice a week to be revarnished, and it more than once happened, when the time came for replacing it, that no one on board could remember which end of the ship it belonged to. They knew it was not...Read more of this...

by Chaucer, Geoffrey
...g
"Have on us wretched women some mercy,
And let our sorrow sinken in thine heart."

This gentle Duke down from his courser start
With hearte piteous, when he heard them speak.
Him thoughte that his heart would all to-break,
When he saw them so piteous and so mate* *abased
That whilom weren of so great estate.
And in his armes he them all up hent*, *raised, took
And them comforted in full good intent,
And swore his oath, as he was true knight,
He woulde do *so far...Read more of this...

by Scott, Sir Walter
...m, misplaced,
     The welcome of expected guest.
     A wanderer, here by fortune toss,
     My way, my friends, my courser lost,
     I ne'er before, believe me, fair,
     Have ever drawn your mountain air,
     Till on this lake's romantic strand
     I found a fey in fairy land!'—
     XXIII.

     'I well believe,' the maid replied,
     As her light skiff approached the side,—
     'I well believe, that ne'er before
     Your foot has trod Loch Katrine's s...Read more of this...

by Blake, William
...his fires in the burdend air;
Hungry clouds swag on the deep

Once meek, and in a perilous path,
The just man kept his course along 
The vale of death.
Roses are planted where thorns grow.
And on the barren heath
Sing the honey bees.

Then the perilous path was planted:
And a river, and a spring
On every cliff and tomb;
And on the bleached bones
Red clay brought forth.

Till the villain left the paths of ease,
To walk in perilous paths, and drive
The just man...Read more of this...

by Bukowski, Charles
...seen. I placed my arm about her waist and kissed her once. 
"Do you think I'm pretty?" she asked. 
"Yes, of course, but there's something else... there's more than your
looks..." 
"People are always accusing me of being pretty. Do you really think I'm
pretty?" 
"Pretty isn't the word, it hardly does you fair."
Cass reached into her handbag. I thought she was reaching for her handkerchief. She
came out with a long hatpin....Read more of this...

by Shelley, Percy Bysshe
...ose who have created, even
"If it be but a world of agony."--
"Whence camest thou & whither goest thou?
How did thy course begin," I said, "& why?
"Mine eyes are sick of this perpetual flow
Of people, & my heart of one sad thought.--
Speak."--"Whence I came, partly I seem to know,
"And how & by what paths I have been brought
To this dread pass, methinks even thou mayst guess;
Why this should be my mind can compass not;
"Whither the conqueror hurries me still less....Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...me readers may object, in these objectionable times, to the freedom with which saints, angels, and spiritual persons discourse in this 'Vision.' But, for precedents upon such points, I must refer him to Fielding's 'Journey from the World to the next,' and to the Visions of myself, the said Quevedo, in Spanish or translated. The reader is also requested to observe, that no doctrinal tenets are insisted upon or discussed; that the person of the Deity is carefully withhe...Read more of this...

by Miller, Alice Duer
...w. 
We saw King Charles a-prancing
On his long-tailed horse, 
And thought him more entrancing
Than better kings, of course. 
At a strange early hour, 
In St. James's palace yard, 
We watched in a shower 
The changing of the guard.
And I said, what a pity,
To have just a week to spend,
When London is a city
Whose beauties never end!

VI 
When the sun shines on England, it atones 
For low-hung leaden skies, and rain and dim 
Moist fogs that paint the verdure on ...Read more of this...

Dont forget to view our wonderful member Course poems.


Book: Shattered Sighs