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Famous Curlew Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Herrick, Robert
...thy veals, thy fat
Wethers, and never grudged at.
The pheasant, partridge, gotwit, reeve, ruff, rail,
The cock, the curlew, and the quail,
These, and thy choicest viands, do extend
Their tastes unto the lower end
Of thy glad table; not a dish more known
To thee, than unto any one:
But as thy meat, so thy immortal wine
Makes the smirk face of each to shine,
And spring fresh rose-buds, while the salt, the wit,
Flows from the wine, and graces it;
While Reverence, waiting at ...Read more of this...



by Allingham, William
...deep,
From Dooran to the Fairy Bridge, and round by Tullen Strand,
Level and long, and white with waves, where gull and Curlew stand;
Head out to sea when on your lee the breakers you Discern!
Adieu to all the billowy coast, and winding banks ofErne!

Farewell, Coolmore - Bundoran! And your summercrowds that run
From inland homes to see with joy th'Atlantic-setting sun;
To breathe the buoyant salted air, and sport among the waves; 
To gather shells on sandy beach, and tempt t...Read more of this...

by Thomas, Dylan
...ly dark
With Welsh and reverent rook,
Coo rooning the woods' praise,
who moons her blue notes from her nest
Down to the curlew herd!
Ho, hullaballoing clan
Agape, with woe
In your beaks, on the gabbing capes!
Heigh, on horseback hill, jack
Whisking hare! who
Hears, there, this fox light, my flood ship's
Clangour as I hew and smite
(A clash of anvils for my
Hubbub and fiddle, this tune
On atounged puffball)
But animals thick as theives
On God's rough tumbling grounds
(Hail to ...Read more of this...

by Yeats, William Butler
...ead, told to each a story of the other's death, so
that their hearts were broken and they died.

 I hardly hear the curlew cry,
 Nor thegrey rush when the wind is high,
 Before my thoughts begin to run
 On the heir of Uladh, Buan's son,
 Baile, who had the honey mouth;
 And that mild woman of the south,
 Aillinn, who was King Lugaidh's heir.
 Their love was never drowned in care
 Of this or that thing, nor grew cold
 Because their hodies had grown old.
 Being forb...Read more of this...

by Allingham, William
...s leap on the rocky steep 
Like wolves up a traveller's tree; 
Where the foam flies wide, and an angry blast 
Blows the curlew off, with a screech; 
Where the brown sea-wrack, torn up by the roots, 
Is flung out of fishes' reach; 
And the tall ship rolls on the hidden shoals, 
And scatters her planks on the beach; 
Where slate and straw through the village spin, 
And a cottage fronts the fiercest din 
With a sailor's wife sitting sad within, 
Hearkening the wind and the water...Read more of this...



by Yeats, William Butler
...O curlew, cry no more in the air,
Or only to the water in the West;
Because your crying brings to my mind
passion-dimmed eyes and long heavy hair
That was shaken out over my breast:
There is enough evil in the crying of wind....Read more of this...

by Kingsley, Charles
...
Every plunging pike. 
Fill the lake with wild fowl; 
Fill the marsh with snipe; 
While on dreary moorlands 
Lonely curlew pipe. 
Through the black fir-forest 
Thunder harsh and dry, 
Shattering down the snowflakes 
Off the curdled sky. 
Hark! The brave Northeaster! 
Breast-high lies the scent, 
On by holt and headland, 
Over heath and bent. 
Chime, ye dappled darlings, 
Through the sleet and snow. 
Who can override you? 
Let the horses go! 
Chime, ye dapp...Read more of this...

by Yeats, William Butler
...e spite
Of our old paudeen in his shop, I stumbled blind
Among the stones and thorn-trees, under morning light;
Until a curlew cried and in the luminous wind
A curlew answered; and suddenly thereupon I thought
That on the lonely height where all are in God's eye,
There cannot be, confusion of our sound forgot,
A single soul that lacks a sweet crystalline cry....Read more of this...

by Lawson, Henry
...k are you?' 
And the bell-bird in the ranges -- but his `silver chime' is harsh 
When it's heard beside the solo of the curlew in the marsh. 

Yes, I heard the shearers singing `William Riley', out of tune, 
Saw 'em fighting round a shanty on a Sunday afternoon, 
But the bushman isn't always `trapping brumbies in the night', 
Nor is he for ever riding when `the morn is fresh and bright', 
And he isn't always singing in the humpies on the run -- 
And the camp-fire's `cheer...Read more of this...

by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...h the forest, 
Froze the ponds, the lakes, the rivers, 
Drove the loon and sea-gull southward, 
Drove the cormorant and curlew 
To their nests of sedge and sea-tang 
In the realms of Shawondasee.
Once the fierce Kabibonokka
Issued from his lodge of snow-drifts 
From his home among the icebergs, 
And his hair, with snow besprinkled, 
Streamed behind him like a river, 
Like a black and wintry river, 
As he howled and hurried southward, 
Over frozen lakes and moorlands.
...Read more of this...

by Scott, Sir Walter
...
     'Have then thy wish!'—He whistled shrill
     And he was answered from the hill;
     Wild as the scream of the curlew,
     From crag to crag the signal flew.
     Instant, through copse and heath, arose
     Bonnets and spears and bended bows
     On right, on left, above, below,
     Sprung up at once the lurking foe;
     From shingles gray their lances start,
     The bracken bush sends forth the dart,
     The rushes and the willow-wand
     Are bristli...Read more of this...

by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...The tide rises, the tide falls, 
The twilight darkens, the curlew calls; 
Along the sea-sands damp and brown 
The traveller hastens toward the town, 
  And the tide rises, the tide falls. 

Darkness settles on roofs and walls, 
But the sea, the sea in the darkness calls; 
The little waves, with their soft, white hands, 
Efface the footprints in the sands, 
  And the tide rises, the tide falls. 

T...Read more of this...

by Yeats, William Butler
...I cried when the moon was mutmuring to the birds:
'Let peewit call and curlew cry where they will,
I long for your merry and tender and pitiful words,
For the roads are unending, and there is no place to my mind.'
The honey-pale moon lay low on the sleepy hill,
And I fell asleep upon lonely Echtge of streams.
No boughs have withered because of the wintry wind;
The boughs have withered because I have told them my, dreams...Read more of this...

by Green, Adrian
...The curlew and the heron call,
the hissing mud and whispering wings
beat eery through the idle air
until the moonlit midnight silence falls
and then the tide flows softly
through the gut and sluice of estuary sands
and dark against the dreamlit sky
the trees arise from hedgerows,
and the hills
alive with monstrous shapes
are menacing with soundless fear,
and sti...Read more of this...

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Book: Reflection on the Important Things