Famous Coursing Poems by Famous Poets

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

See also:

There are Days

by John Montague
 There are days when 
one should be able 
to pluck off one's head 
like a dented or worn 
helmet, straight from 
the nape and collarbone 
(those crackling branches!)

and place it firmly down 
in the bed of a flowing stream. 
Clear, clean, chill currents 
coursing and spuming through 
the sour and stale compartments 
of the brain, dimmed eardrums, 
bleared eyesockets,...Read more of this...

At Fontainebleau

by Arthur Symons
 IT was a day of sun and rain, 
Uncertain as a child’s swift moods; 
And I shall never spend again 
So blithe a day among the woods. 

Was it because the Gods were pleased 
That they were awful in our eyes, 
Whom we in very deed appeased 
With barley-cakes of sacrifice? 

The forest knew her and was glad, 
And...Read more of this...

Impossible To Tell

by Robert Pinsky
 to Robert Hass and in memory of Elliot Gilbert


Slow dulcimer, gavotte and bow, in autumn,
Bashõ and his friends go out to view the moon;
In summer, gasoline rainbow in the gutter,

The secret courtesy that courses like ichor
Through the old form of the rude, full-scale joke,
Impossible to tell in writing. "Bashõ"

He named himself, "Banana Tree": banana
After the plant some grateful students...Read more of this...

Nero's Incendiary Song

by Victor Hugo
 ("Amis! ennui nous tue.") 
 
 {Bk. IV. xv., March, 1825.} 


 Aweary unto death, my friends, a mood by wise abhorred, 
 Come to the novel feast I spread, thrice-consul, Nero, lord, 
 The Caesar, master of the world, and eke of harmony, 
 Who plays the harp of many strings, a chief of minstrelsy. 
 
 My...Read more of this...

Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking

by Walt Whitman
 1
OUT of the cradle endlessly rocking, 
Out of the mocking-bird’s throat, the musical shuttle, 
Out of the Ninth-month midnight, 
Over the sterile sands, and the fields beyond, where the child, leaving his bed, wander’d
 alone, bare-headed, barefoot, 
Down from the shower’d halo,
Up from the mystic play of shadows, twining and twisting as if they were alive, 
Out from the...Read more of this...

Early Poems

by Victor Hugo
 MOSES ON THE NILE. 
 
 ("Mes soeurs, l'onde est plus fraiche.") 
 
 {TO THE FLORAL GAMES, Toulouse, Feb. 10, 1820.} 


 "Sisters! the wave is freshest in the ray 
 Of the young morning; the reapers are asleep; 
 The river bank is lonely: come away! 
 The early murmurs of old Memphis creep 
 Faint on...Read more of this...

A Lovers Call XXVII

by Kahlil Gibran
 Where are you, my beloved? Are you in that little 
Paradise, watering the flowers who look upon you 
As infants look upon the breast of their mothers? 


Or are you in your chamber where the shrine of 
Virtue has been placed in your honor, and upon 
Which you offer my heart and soul as sacrifice? 


Or amongst the books,...Read more of this...

At Pleasure Bay

by Robert Pinsky
 In the willows along the river at Pleasure Bay
A catbird singing, never the same phrase twice.
Here under the pines a little off the road
In 1927 the Chief of Police
And Mrs. W. killed themselves together,
Sitting in a roadster. Ancient unshaken pilings
And underwater chunks of still-mortared brick
In shapes like bits of puzzle strew the bottom
Where the landing was for Price's Hotel...Read more of this...

The Guardian Angel Of The Private Life

by Jorie Graham
 All this was written on the next day's list.
On which the busyness unfurled its cursive roots,
pale but effective,
and the long stem of the necessary, the sum of events,
built-up its tiniest cathedral...
(Or is it the sum of what takes place? )
If I lean down, to whisper, to them,
down into their gravitational field, there where they head busily on
into the woods,...Read more of this...

Pink Champagne (for Digby Fairweather)

by Adrian Green
 Not blues in twelve
but there is joy
and pink champagne,

the maker’s music
trading eights
in syncopated synergy
from Dixieland to Rock ‘n’ Roll,

and here the cornet-master
leads in tones
a trumpet cannot blow.

The sidemen nod their harmonies,
engrossed;
their music coursing
through an energy of swing;

piano-player’s fingers
dancing round the tune;
a lover’s touch
caressing melody from bass;
and sax, deep throated tenor
shouting counterpoint
above the drums’
percussive ricochets.

Not blues in twelve,
but upbeat late
and...Read more of this...

Dont forget to view our wonderful member Coursing poems.

Get a Premium Membership
Turn off ads, get more exposure for your poetry, and get more features with a Premium Membership.
Book: Diverse Voices: The Poetry of Human Rights and the Pursuit of Peace