Famous Crete Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Crete poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous crete poems. These examples illustrate what a famous crete poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Homer,
...I should tell you truly what you ask. Doso is my name, for my stately mother gave it me. And now I am come from Crete over the sea's wide back, -- not willingly; but pirates brought me thence by force of strength against my liking. Afterwards they put in with their swift craft to Thoricus, and these the women landed on the shore in full throng and the men likewise, and they began to make ready a meal by the stern-cables of the ship. But my heart craved not ple...Read more of this...
by
Smart, Christopher
...
Let Rehoboam rejoice with Folium Montanum. God give grace to the Young King.
Let Hanan rejoice with Poley of Crete.
Let Sheshbazzar rejoice with Polygonatum Solomon's seal.
Let Zeboim rejoice with Bastard Dittany.
Let The Queen of Sheba rejoice with Bulapathon Herb Patience.
Let Cyrus rejoice with Baccharis Plowman's Spikenard. God be gracious to Warburton.
Let Lebanah rejoice with the Golden Wingged Flycatcher a Mexican Small Bird...Read more of this...
by
Hugo, Victor
...O'er wood and plain and mountain, till it fouls
Fair Paris in her pleasures; then it prowls,
A deadly stench, to Crete, to Mexico,
To Poland—wheresoe'er kings' armies go:
And Earth one Upas-tree of bitter sadness,
Opening vast blossoms of a bloody madness.
Throats cut by thousands—slain men by the ton!
Earth quite corpse-cumbered, though the half not done!
They lie, stretched out, where the blood-puddles soak,
Their black lips gaping with the last ...Read more of this...
by
Swinburne, Algernon Charles
...imminent light,
A glory of fame rearisen,
Of day rearisen afresh
From the hells of night.
In the hundred cities of Crete
Such glory was not of old,
Though her name was great upon earth
And her face was fair on the sea.
The words of her lips were sweet,
Her days were woven with gold,
Her fruits came timely to birth;
So fair she was, being free,
Who is bought and sold.
So fair, who is fairer now
With her children dead at her side,
Unsceptred, unconsecrated,
Unappa...Read more of this...
by
Milton, John
...urn: he from mightier Jove,
His own and Rhea's son, like measure found;
So Jove usurping reigned. These, first in Crete
And Ida known, thence on the snowy top
Of cold Olympus ruled the middle air,
Their highest heaven; or on the Delphian cliff,
Or in Dodona, and through all the bounds
Of Doric land; or who with Saturn old
Fled over Adria to th' Hesperian fields,
And o'er the Celtic roamed the utmost Isles.
All these and more came flocking; but with looks
D...Read more of this...
by
Milton, John
...ables or Atlantic stone
(For I have also heard, perhaps have read),
Their wines of Setia, Cales, and Falerne,
Chios and Crete, and how they quaff in gold,
Crystal, and myrrhine cups, imbossed with gems
And studs of pearl—to me should'st tell, who thirst
And hunger still. Then embassies thou shew'st
From nations far and nigh! What honour that,
But tedious waste of time, to sit and hear
So many hollow compliments and lies,
Outlandish flatteries? Then proceed'st to talk
Of ...Read more of this...
by
Gilbert, Jack
...ke off everything
but her pants
and take the pins from her hair
throwing them on the floor
with a great noise.
Like Crete.
We wouldn't make love.
She'd get on the bed
with those nipples
and we'd lie
sweating
and talking of my best friend.
They were in love.
When I got quiet
she'd put on usually Debussy
and
leaning down to the small ribs
bite me.
Hard....Read more of this...
by
Spenser, Edmund
...g Greece will tell the story
Of Jove's great image in Olympus placed,
Mausolus' work will be the Carian's glory,
And Crete will boast the Labybrinth, now 'rased;
The antique Rhodian will likewise set forth
The great Colosse, erect to Memory;
And what else in the world is of like worth,
Some greater learnèd wit will magnify.
But I will sing above all monuments
Seven Roman Hills, the world's seven wonderments.
3
Thou stranger, which for Rome in Rome here s...Read more of this...
by
Finch, Anne Kingsmill
...
'Tis good to fear the worst.
In ancient History we meet
A flying Nymph betray'd;
Who, had she kept in fruitful Crete,
New Conquest might have made.
And sure, as on the Beach she stood,
To view the parting Sails;
She curs'd her self, more than the Flood,
Or the conspiring Gales.
False Theseus, since thy Vows are broke,
May following Nymphs beware:
Methinks I hear how thus she spoke,
And will not trust too far.
In Love, in Play, in Trade, in Wa...Read more of this...
by
Robinson, Edwin Arlington
...a king’s release—
Woe for the wings of pride and the shafts of doom!
And thou, the saddest wind
That ever blew from Crete,
Sing the fell tidings back to that thrice unhappy ship!—
Sing to the western flame,
Sing to the dying foam.
A dirge for the sundered years and a dirge for the years to be!
Better his end had been as the end of a cloudless day,
Bright, by the word of Zeus, with a golden star,
Wrought of a golden fame, and flung to the central sky,
To gleam on...Read more of this...
by
Swinburne, Algernon Charles
...was she;
Here, as dead time his deathless things,
Eurotas and Cephisus keep their sleepless springs.
O hills of Crete, are these things dead? O waves,
O many-mouthed streams, are these springs dry?
Earth, dost thou feed and hide now none but slaves?
Heaven, hast thou heard of men that would not die?
Is the land thick with only such men's graves
As were ashamed to look upon the sky?
Ye dead, whose name outfaces and outbraves
Death, is the seed of such as you gone by?
S...Read more of this...
by
Sassoon, Siegfried
...>. 'That's the best I've done.
'And now I've got a necklace to begin.'
This was at Gnossos, in the isle of Crete...
A girl was selling flowers along the street....Read more of this...
by
Chaucer, Geoffrey
...banner borne is his pennon
Of gold full rich, in which there was y-beat* *stamped
The Minotaur which that he slew in Crete
Thus rit this Duke, thus rit this conqueror
And in his host of chivalry the flower,
Till that he came to Thebes, and alight
Fair in a field, there as he thought to fight.
But shortly for to speaken of this thing,
With Creon, which that was of Thebes king,
He fought, and slew him manly as a knight
In plain bataille, and put his folk to flight:
And b...Read more of this...
by
Petrarch, Francesco
...him a nobler line in two degreesReduced Numidia to reluctant peace.Crete, Spain, and Macedonia's conquer'd lordAdorn'd their triumphs and their treasures stored.Vespasian, with his son, I next survey'd,An angel soul in angel form array'd;Nor less his brother seem'd in outward grace,But hell withi...Read more of this...
by
Chaucer, Geoffrey
...and no more durst he sayn,
But, "Ere the thunder stint* there cometh rain." *ceases
Of Phasiphae, that was queen of Crete,
For shrewedness* he thought the tale sweet. *wickedness
Fy, speak no more, it is a grisly thing,
Of her horrible lust and her liking.
Of Clytemnestra, for her lechery
That falsely made her husband for to die,
He read it with full good devotion.
He told me eke, for what occasion
Amphiorax at Thebes lost his life:
My husband had a legend of ...Read more of this...
by
Lear, Edward
...
There was a Young Person of Crete,Whose toilette was far from complete;She dressed in a sack spickle-speckled with black,That ombliferous Person of Crete. ...Read more of this...
by
MacLeish, Archibald
...f evening widen and steal on
And deepen on Palmyra's street
The wheel rut in the ruined stone
And Lebanon fade out and Crete
High through the clouds and overblown
And over Sicily the air
Still flashing with the landward gulls
And loom and slowly disappear
The sails above the shadowy hulls
And Spain go under the the shore
Of Africa the gilded sand
And evening vanish and no more
The low pale light across that land
Nor now the long light on the sea
And here face downward in...Read more of this...
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