Famous Crags Poems by Famous Poets

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

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In Sark

by Algernon Charles Swinburne
 Abreast and ahead of the sea is a crag's front cloven asunder
With strong sea-breach and with wasting of winds whence terror is
shed
As a shadow of death from the wings of the darkness on waters that
thunder
Abreast and ahead.

At its edge is a sepulchre hollowed and hewn for a lone man's bed,
Propped open with rock and agape on the sky and...Read more of this...

Lachin Y Gair

by George (Lord) Byron
 Away, ye gay landscapes, ye garden of roses! 
In you let the minions of luxury rove; 
Restore me to the rocks, where the snowflake reposes, 
Though still they are sacred to freedom and love: 
Yet, Caledonia, beloved are thy mountains, 
Round their white summits though elements war; 
Though cataracts foam 'stead of smooth-flowing fountains, 
I sigh for the valley...Read more of this...

His Dream Of The Skyland

by Li Po
 The seafarers tell of the Eastern Isle of Bliss,
It is lost in a wilderness of misty sea waves.
But the Sky-land of the south, the Yueh-landers say,
May be seen through cracks of the glimmering cloud.
This land of the sky stretches across the leagues of heaven;
It rises above the Five Mountains and towers over the Scarlet Castle,

While, as if staggering before...Read more of this...

The Man From Snowy River

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 There was movement at the station, for the word has passed around
That the colt from old Regret had got away,
And had joined the wild bush horses—he was worth a thousand pound,
So all the cracks had gathered to the fray.
All the tried and noted riders from the stations near and far
Had mustered at the homestead overnight,
For the bushmen love hard...Read more of this...

The Peace-Pipe

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
 On the Mountains of the Prairie,
On the great Red Pipe-stone Quarry,
Gitche Manito, the mighty,
He the Master of Life, descending,
On the red crags of the quarry
Stood erect, and called the nations,
Called the tribes of men together.
From his footprints flowed a river,
Leaped into the light of morning,
O'er the precipice plunging downward
Gleamed like Ishkoodah, the comet.
And the Spirit, stooping earthward,
With his finger...Read more of this...

legs rivers and age

by Rg Gregory
 with landbound legs a wish
for the easy flow of a river - not 
the clambering up crags to seek 
more favour from the sun
(or long-haired moon) harped for
since those sparks of who am i 
first clicked through consciousness

how the river sidles round 
rocks blocking the painful straight
seems to brush aside
all snags disrupting its ambition
to be sea - certain from...Read more of this...

The Two Old Bachelors

by Edward Lear
 Two old Bachelors were living in one house;
One caught a Muffin, the other caught a Mouse.
Said he who caught the Muffin to him who caught the Mouse, - 
"This happens just in time! For we've nothing in the house, 
"Save a tiny slice of lemon and a teaspoonful of honey, 
"And what to do for dinner - since we...Read more of this...

The Ideal And The Actual Life

by Friedrich von Schiller
 Forever fair, forever calm and bright,
Life flies on plumage, zephyr-light,
For those who on the Olympian hill rejoice--
Moons wane, and races wither to the tomb,
And 'mid the universal ruin, bloom
The rosy days of Gods--With man, the choice,
Timid and anxious, hesitates between
The sense's pleasure and the soul's content;
While on celestial brows, aloft and sheen,
The beams of both are blent.

Seekest thou on...Read more of this...

The Red Son

by Carl Sandburg
 I LOVE your faces I saw the many years
I drank your milk and filled my mouth
With your home talk, slept in your house
And was one of you.
But a fire burns in my heart.
Under the ribs where pulses thud
And flitting between bones of skull
Is the push, the endless mysterious command,
Saying:
"I leave you behind--
You for the little hills and the years...Read more of this...

84. Address to the Deil

by Robert Burns
 O THOU! whatever title suit thee—
Auld Hornie, Satan, Nick, or Clootie,
Wha in yon cavern grim an’ sootie,
 Clos’d under hatches,
Spairges about the brunstane cootie,
 To scaud poor wretches!


Hear me, auld Hangie, for a wee,
An’ let poor damned bodies be;
I’m sure sma’ pleasure it can gie,
 Ev’n to a deil,
To skelp an’ scaud poor dogs like me,
 An’ hear us...Read more of this...

Winged Man

by Stephen Vincent Benet
 The moon, a sweeping scimitar, dipped in the stormy straits, 
The dawn, a crimson cataract, burst through the eastern gates, 
The cliffs were robed in scarlet, the sands were cinnabar, 
Where first two men spread wings for flight and dared the hawk afar. 

There stands the cunning workman, the crafty past all praise, 
The man who chained the Minotaur,...Read more of this...

Greenlands Icy Mountains

by William Topaz McGonagall
 Greenland's icy mountains are fascinating and grand,
And wondrously created by the Almighty's command;
And the works of the Almighty there's few can understand:
Who knows but it might be a part of Fairyland? 

Because there are churches of ice, and houses glittering like glass,
And for scenic grandeur there's nothing can it surpass,
Besides there's monuments and spires, also ruins,
Which serve for a...Read more of this...

Edinburgh

by William Topaz McGonagall
 Beautiful city of Edinburgh!
Where the tourist can drown his sorrow
By viewing your monuments and statues fine
During the lovely summer-time.
I'm sure it will his spirits cheer
As Sir Walter Scott's monument he draws near,
That stands in East Prince's Street
Amongst flowery gardens, fine and neat. 

And Edinburgh Castle is magnificent to be seen
With its beautiful walks and trees so green,
Which seems like...Read more of this...

Kiama

by Henry Kendall
TOWARDS the hills of Jamberoo 
Some few fantastic shadows haste, 
Uplit with fires 
Like castle spires 
Outshining through a mirage waste. 
Behold, a mournful glory sits 
On feathered ferns and woven brakes, 
Where sobbing wild like restless child 

The gusty breeze of evening wakes! 
Methinks I hear on every breath 
A lofty tone go passing by, 
That whispers - ``Weave,...Read more of this...

New York at Night

by Amy Lowell
 A near horizon whose sharp jags
Cut brutally into a sky
Of leaden heaviness, and crags
Of houses lift their masonry
Ugly and foul, and chimneys lie
And snort, outlined against the gray
Of lowhung cloud. I hear the sigh
The goaded city gives, not day
Nor night can ease her heart, her anguished labours stay.
Below, straight streets, monotonous,
From north and south, from east and west,
Stretch glittering;...Read more of this...

Masses

by Carl Sandburg
 AMONG the mountains I wandered and saw blue haze and
red crag and was amazed;
On the beach where the long push under the endless tide
maneuvers, I stood silent;
Under the stars on the prairie watching the Dipper slant
over the horizon's grass, I was full of thoughts.
Great men, pageants of war and labor, soldiers and workers,
mothers lifting their children--these all I
touched, and...Read more of this...

Chasers

by Carl Sandburg
 THE SEA at its worst drives a white foam up,
The same sea sometimes so easy and rocking with green mirrors.
So you were there when the white foam was up
And the salt spatter and the rack and the dulse—
You were done fingering these, and high, higher and higher
Your feet went and it was your voice went, “Hai, hai, hai,”
Up where...Read more of this...

The Ballad Of How Macpherson Held The Floor

by Robert William Service
 Said President MacConnachie to Treasurer MacCall:
"We ought to have a piper for our next Saint Andrew's Ball.
Yon squakin' saxophone gives me the syncopated gripes.
I'm sick of jazz, I want to hear the skirling of the pipes."
"Alas! it's true," said Tam MacCall. "The young folk of to-day
Are fox-trot mad and dinna ken a reel from Strathspey.
Now, what we want's a...Read more of this...

Leaving White King City

by Li Po
 White King City I left at dawn
in the morning-glow of the clouds;
The thousand miles to Chiang-ling
we sailed in a single day.
On either shore the gibbons' chatter
sounded without pause
While my light boat skimmed past
ten thousand sombre crags....Read more of this...

Winter Blues

by Barry Tebb
 For Penny Abraham



I wish I had Auden’s penchant 

For going about in carpet slippers 

Or the late HRH Margaret’s panache-

A chauffered Rolls with six outriders-

This late December day with its sparkle of sun on frost

I’d so much rather be in Haworth’s cobbled street

With cascades of carols in torchlit procession

Or still better with a passionate friend to make love to

By...Read more of this...

Strong Beer

by Robert Graves
 “What do you think 
The bravest drink 
Under the sky?” 
“Strong beer,” said I. 

“There’s a place for everything,
Everything, anything, 
There’s a place for everything 
Where it ought to be: 
For a chicken, the hen’s wing; 
For poison, the bee’s sting;
For almond-blossom, Spring; 
A beerhouse for me.” 

“There’s a prize for every one 
Every one, any one, 
There’s a...Read more of this...

avalanche

by Rg Gregory
 all is still on this starless night
the mountain waits
quiescent as a cat
smoothing crag and chasm
to a white fur

then against the black sky
puffs of snow
flutter from a jutting cliff
into obscurity

a drumroll utters
from the mountain's throat
and stops
reprehended by a silence so intense
that even night
seems shallow in its presence

high up a front of snow
crumples and cascades down
plashing from rock to rock
spawning further...Read more of this...

Break Break Break

by Alfred Lord Tennyson
 Break, break, break,
 On thy cold gray stones, O Sea!
And I would that my tongue could utter
 The thoughts that arise in me.

O, well for the fisherman's boy,
 That he shouts with his sister at play!
O, well for the sailor lad,
 That he sings in his boat on the bay!

And the stately ships go on
 To their haven under...Read more of this...

The Cloud

by Percy Bysshe Shelley
 I bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers,
From the seas and the streams;
I bear light shade for the leaves when laid
In their noonday dreams.
From my wings are shaken the dews that waken
The sweet buds every one,
When rocked to rest on their mother's breast,
As she dances about the sun.
I wield the flail of the lashing hail,
And whiten the green plains...Read more of this...

The Tale Of The Forest

by Mihai Eminescu
Mighty emperor is the forest, 
High dominion does he wield, 
And a thousand races prosper 
'Neath the shelter of his shield. 

The moon, the sun and Lucifer 
Do round his kingdom ever sphere;  
While lords and ladies of his court 
Are of the noble race of deer. 

Hares, his heralds and his postmen, 
Carry rapidly his mails; 
Birds his...Read more of this...

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