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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Alastor: or the Spirit of Solitude

...d eddying irresistibly
Rage and resound forever.--Who shall save?--
The boat fled on,--the boiling torrent drove,--
The crags closed round with black and jagged arms,
The shattered mountain overhung the sea, 
And faster still, beyond all human speed,
Suspended on the sweep of the smooth wave,
The little boat was driven. A cavern there
Yawned, and amid its slant and winding depths
Ingulfed the rushing sea. The boat fled on
With unrelaxing speed.--'Vision and Love!'
The Poet cr...Read more of this...
by Shelley, Percy Bysshe


Beowulf (Modern English)

...lf-cliffs,
windy headlands, twisted paths through the swamp,
where the mountain-stream dives down
under the cover of crags, the waters under the earth. (ll. 1345-61a)

“It is not far from here, measured out by miles,
that that lake stands, over it hangs thick-barked trees,
fast with their roots, overshadowing the water.
There one can see every night a malevolent wonder:
fire in the water. None of the sons of men who live,
though wise, can sound out that lake bottom....Read more of this...
by Anonymous,

Beowulf (Old English)

...
wakeful, ready, with warrior’s wrath,
bold he bided the battle’s issue.



XI

THEN from the moorland, by misty crags,
with God’s wrath laden, Grendel came.
The monster was minded of mankind now
sundry to seize in the stately house.
Under welkin he walked, till the wine-palace there,
gold-hall of men, he gladly discerned,
flashing with fretwork. Not first time, this,
that he the home of Hrothgar sought, --
yet ne’er in his life-day, late or early,
such hardy ...Read more of this...
by Anonymous,

Frost at Midnight

...ht lovely but the sky and stars.
But thou, my babe! shalt wander like a breeze
By lakes and sandy shores, beneath the crags
Of ancient mountain, and beneath the clouds,
Which image in their bulk both lakes and shores
And mountain crags: so shalt thou see and hear
The lovely shapes and sounds intelligible
Of that eternal language, which thy God
Utters, who from eternity doth teach
Himself in all, and all things in himself.
Great universal Teacher! he shall mould
Thy...Read more of this...
by Coleridge, Samuel Taylor

Goblin Market

...ep
Lizzie plucked purple and rich golden flags,
Then turning homeward said: "The sunset flushes
Those furthest loftiest crags;
Come, Laura, not another maiden lags,
No wilful squirrel wags,
The beasts and birds are fast asleep."
But Laura loitered still among the rushes
And said the bank was steep.

And said the hour was early still,
The dew not fallen, the wind not chill:
Listening ever, but not catching
The customary cry,
"Come buy, come buy,"
With its iterated jingle
Of su...Read more of this...
by Rossetti, Christina


Humanitad

...mple life
To teach us what is Wisdom! speak ye hills
Of lone Helvellyn, for this note of strife
Shunned your untroubled crags and crystal rills,
Where is that Spirit which living blamelessly
Yet dared to kiss the smitten mouth of his own century!

Speak ye Rydalian laurels! where is he
Whose gentle head ye sheltered, that pure soul
Whose gracious days of uncrowned majesty
Through lowliest conduct touched the lofty goal
Where love and duty mingle! Him at least
The most high La...Read more of this...
by Wilde, Oscar

Monadnoc

...be,
And hands that stablish what these see:
And, by the moral of his place,
Hint summits of heroic grace;
Man in these crags a fastness find
To fight pollution of the mind;
In the wide thaw and ooze of wrong,
Adhere like this foundation strong,
The insanity of towns to stem
With simpleness for stratagem.
But if the brave old mould is broke,
And end in clowns the mountain-folk,
In tavern cheer and tavern joke,—
Sink, O mountain! in the swamp,
Hide in thy skies, O sovereign la...Read more of this...
by Emerson, Ralph Waldo

Mont Blanc

...nd raves.

2

Thus thou, Ravine of Arve - dark, deep Ravine-
Thou many-colored, many voiced vale,
Over whose pines, and crags, and caverns sail
Fast cloud-shadows and sunbeams: awful scene,
Where Power in likeness of the Arve comes down
From the ice-gulfs that gird his secret throne,
Bursting through these dark mountains like the flame
Of lightning through the tempest; -thou dost lie,
Thy giant brood of pines around thee clinging,
Children of elder time, in whose devotion
The...Read more of this...
by Shelley, Percy Bysshe

Song of the Future

...your secrets all their own. 

For years the fertile Western plains 
Were hid behind your sullen walls, 
Your cliffs and crags and waterfalls 
All weatherworn with tropic rains. 

Between the mountains and the sea 
Like Israelites with staff in hand, 
The people waited restlessly: 
They looked towards the mountains old 
And saw the sunsets come and go 
With gorgeous golden afterglow, 
That made the West a fairyland, 
And marvelled what that West might be 
Of which such wondrou...Read more of this...
by Paterson, Andrew Barton

The Ballad of the White Horse

...to ghostly seas.

Last of a race in ruin--
He spoke the speech of the Gaels;
His kin were in holy Ireland,
Or up in the crags of Wales.

But his soul stood with his mother's folk,
That were of the rain-wrapped isle,
Where Patrick and Brandan westerly
Looked out at last on a landless sea
And the sun's last smile.

His harp was carved and cunning,
As the Celtic craftsman makes,
Graven all over with twisting shapes
Like many headless snakes.

His harp was carved and cunning,
His...Read more of this...
by Chesterton, G K

The Giaour

...eft a channel bleak and bare,
Save shrubs that spring to perish there:
Each side the midway path there lay
Small broken crags of granite grey
By time, or mountain lightning, riven
From summits clad in mists of heaven;
For where is he that hath beheld
The peak of Liakura unveiled?


They reach the grove of pine at last:
'Bismillah! now the peril's past;
For yonder view the opening plain,
And there we'll prick our steeds amain.'
The Chiaus spake, and as he said,
A bullet whistl...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)

The Holy Grail

...n, with small adventure met, Sir Bors 
Rode to the lonest tract of all the realm, 
And found a people there among their crags, 
Our race and blood, a remnant that were left 
Paynim amid their circles, and the stones 
They pitch up straight to heaven: and their wise men 
Were strong in that old magic which can trace 
The wandering of the stars, and scoffed at him 
And this high Quest as at a simple thing: 
Told him he followed--almost Arthur's words-- 
A mocking fire: "what ot...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord

The Hunting Of The Snark

...xes, portmanteaus, and bags:
Yet at first sight the crew were not pleased with the view,
 Which consisted to chasms and crags.

The Bellman perceived that their spirits were low,
 And repeated in musical tone
Some jokes he had kept for a season of woe--
 But the crew would do nothing but groan.

He served out some grog with a liberal hand,
 And bade them sit down on the beach:
And they could not but own that their Captain looked grand,
 As he stood and delivered his speech.

...Read more of this...
by Carroll, Lewis

The Ideal And The Actual Life

...er his tribe prevails;
In life the victory only crowns the strong--
He who is feeble fails.

But life, whose source, by crags around it piled,
Chafed while confined, foams fierce and wild,
Glides soft and smooth when once its streams expand,
When its waves, glassing in their silver play,
Aurora blent with Hesper's milder ray,
Gain the still beautiful--that shadow-land!
Here, contest grows but interchange of love,
All curb is but the bondage of the grace;
Gone is each foe,--pe...Read more of this...
by Schiller, Friedrich von

The Lady of the Lake

...by side,
     Emblems of punishment and pride,
     Grouped their dark hues with every stain
     The weather-beaten crags retain.
     With boughs that quaked at every breath,
     Gray birch and aspen wept beneath;
     Aloft, the ash and warrior oak
     Cast anchor in the rifted rock;
     And, higher yet, the pine-tree hung
     His shattered trunk, and frequent flung,
     Where seemed the cliffs to meet on high,
     His boughs athwart the narrowed sky.
   ...Read more of this...
by Scott, Sir Walter

The Palace of Art

...ground black with stones and slags,
Beyond, a line of heights, and higher
All barr'd with long white cloud the scornful crags,
And highest, snow and fire.

And one, an English home--gray twilight pour'd
On dewy pastures, dewy trees,
Softer than sleep--all things in order stored,
A haunt of ancient Peace.

Nor these alone, but every landscape fair,
As fit for every mood of mind,
Or gay, or grave, or sweet, or stern, was there,
Not less than truth design'd.* * * * *

Or the mai...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord

The Prisoner of Chillon

...ad no thought, no feeling - none -
Among the stones I stood a stone,
And was, scare conscious what I wist,
As shrubless crags within the mist;
For all was blank, and bleak, and grey;
It was not night - it was day;
It was not even the dungeon-light,
So hateful to my heavy sight,
But vacancy absorbing space,
And fixedness - without a place;
There were no stars - no earth - no time -
No check - no change - no good, no crime -
But silence, and a stirless breath
Which neither was ...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)

The Witch Of Atlas

...ed the burning brand.

This Lady never slept, but lay in trance
All night within the fountain--as in sleep.
Its emerald crags glowed in her beauty's glance:
Through the green splendour of the water deep
She saw the constellations reel and dance
Like fireflies--and withal did ever keep
The tenor of her contemplations calm,
With open eyes, closed feet, and folded palm.

And, when the whirlwinds and the clouds descended
From the white pinnacles of that cold hill,
She passed at d...Read more of this...
by Shelley, Percy Bysshe

Ulysses

...It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Matched with an aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.

I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
Life to the lees: all times I have enjoyed
Greatly, have suffered greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone; on shore, and when
Through scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vest the ...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord

Wilderness

...eagle in me and a mockingbird … and the eagle flies among the Rocky Mountains of my dreams and fights among the Sierra crags of what I want … and the mockingbird warbles in the early forenoon before the dew is gone, warbles in the underbrush of my Chattanoogas of hope, gushes over the blue Ozark foothills of my wishes—And I got the eagle and the mockingbird from the wilderness.

O, I got a zoo, I got a menagerie, inside my ribs, under my bony head, under my red-valve heart—a...Read more of this...
by Sandburg, Carl

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