Famous East Poems by Famous Poets

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

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When false dawn streaks the east with cold, grey line,

by Omar Khayyam
When false dawn streaks the east with cold, grey line,
Pour in your cups the pure blood of the vine;
The truth, they say, tastes bitter in the mouth,
This is a token that the «Truth» is wine....Read more of this...

London Voluntaries IV: Out of the Poisonous East

by William Ernest Henley
 Out of the poisonous East,
Over a continent of blight,
Like a maleficent Influence released
From the most squalid cellerage of hell,
The Wind-Fiend, the abominable--
The Hangman Wind that tortures temper and light--
Comes slouching, sullen and obscene,
Hard on the skirts of the embittered night;
And in a cloud unclean
Of excremental humours, roused to strife
By the operation of some ruinous change,
Wherever his evil mandate run...Read more of this...

Middle Passage

by Robert Hayden
 I 

Jesús, Estrella, Esperanza, Mercy: 

Sails flashing to the wind like weapons, 
sharks following the moans the fever and the dying; 
horror the corposant and compass rose. 

Middle Passage: 
voyage through death 
to life upon these shores. 

"10 April 1800-- 
Blacks rebellious. Crew uneasy. Our linguist says 
their moaning is a prayer for death, 
our and their own. Some...Read more of this...

East London

by Matthew Arnold
 'Twas August, and the fierce sun overhead
Smote on the squalid streets of Bethnal Green,
And the pale weaver, through his windows seen
In Spitalfields, looked thrice dispirited.
I met a preacher there I knew, and said:
"Ill and o'erworked, how fare you in this scene?"—
"Bravely!" said he; "for I of late have been
Much cheered with thoughts of Christ, the living bread."
O human soul!...Read more of this...

The Flask

by Charles Baudelaire
 THERE are some powerful odours that can pass 
Out of the stoppard flagon; even glass 
To them is porous. Oft when some old box 
Brought from the East is opened and the locks 
And hinges creak and cry; or in a press 
In some deserted house, where the sharp stress 
Of odours old and dusty fills the brain; 
An...Read more of this...

Go North South East and West Young Man

by Spike Milligan
 Drake is going west, lads
So Tom is going East
But tiny Fred
Just lies in bed,
The lazy little beast....Read more of this...

Easter Song

by George Herbert
 I Got me flowers to straw Thy way, 
I got me boughs off many a tree; 
But Thou wast up by break of day, 
And brought’st Thy sweets along with Thee. 

The sunne arising in the East, 
Though he give light, and th’ East perfume, 
If they should offer to contest 
With Thy arising, they presume. 

Can there be...Read more of this...

Four Quartets 2: East Coker

by T S (Thomas Stearns) Eliot
 I

In my beginning is my end. In succession
Houses rise and fall, crumble, are extended,
Are removed, destroyed, restored, or in their place
Is an open field, or a factory, or a by-pass.
Old stone to new building, old timber to new fires,
Old fires to ashes, and ashes to the earth
Which is already flesh, fur and faeces,
Bone of man and beast, cornstalk and...Read more of this...

As Watchers hang upon the East

by Emily Dickinson
 As Watchers hang upon the East,
As Beggars revel at a feast
By savory Fancy spread --
As brooks in deserts babble sweet
On ear too far for the delight,
Heaven beguiles the tired.

As that same watcher, when the East
Opens the lid of Amethyst
And lets the morning go --
That Beggar, when an honored Guest,
Those thirsty lips to flagons pressed,
Heaven to us, if true....Read more of this...

His Mind like Fabrics of the East

by Emily Dickinson
 His Mind like Fabrics of the East
Displayed to the despair
Of everyone but here and there
An humble Purchaser --
For though his price was not of Gold --
More arduous there is --
That one should comprehend the worth
Was all the price there was --...Read more of this...

The Ballad of East and West

by Rudyard Kipling
 Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,
Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God's great Judgment Seat;
But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,
When two strong men stand face to face, tho' they come from the ends of the earth!

Kamal is out with twenty men to raise the...Read more of this...

The Old Cow Man

by Badger Clark
  I rode across a valley range
    I hadn't seen for years.
  The trail was all so spoilt and strange
    It nearly fetched the tears.
  I had to let ten fences down
    (The fussy lanes ran wrong)
  And each new line would make me frown
  ...Read more of this...

Far in the Further East

by Adela Florence Cory Nicolson
   Far in the Further East the skilful craftsman
       Fashioned this fancy for the West's delight.
   This rose and azure Dragon, crouching softly
       Upon the satin skin, close-grained and white.

   And you lay silent, while his slender needles
    ...Read more of this...

The Wanderer

by Alan Seeger
 To see the clouds his spirit yearned toward so 
Over new mountains piled and unploughed waves, 
Back of old-storied spires and architraves 
To watch Arcturus rise or Fomalhaut,

And roused by street-cries in strange tongues when day 
Flooded with gold some domed metropolis, 
Between new towers to waken and new bliss 
Spread on his pillow in a wondrous way:

These were...Read more of this...

Blown from the west

by Yosa Buson
 Blown from the west,
fallen leaves gather
 in the east....Read more of this...

To the bright east she flies

by Emily Dickinson
 To the bright east she flies,
Brothers of Paradise
Remit her home,
Without a change of wings,
Or Love's convenient things,
Enticed to come.

Fashioning what she is,
Fathoming what she was,
We deem we dream --
And that dissolves the days
Through which existence strays
Homeless at home....Read more of this...

Star of the east

by Eugene Field
 Star of the East, that long ago
Brought wise men on their way
Where, angels singing to and fro,
The Child of Bethlehem lay--
Above that Syrian hill afar
Thou shinest out to-night, O Star!

Star of the East, the night were drear
But for the tender grace
That with thy glory comes to cheer
Earth's loneliest, darkest place;
For by that charity we see
Where there is hope for...Read more of this...

Who is the East?

by Emily Dickinson
 Who is the East?
The Yellow Man
Who may be Purple if He can
That carries in the Sun.

Who is the West?
The Purple Man
Who may be Yellow if He can
That lets Him out again....Read more of this...

To the East and to the West

by Walt Whitman
 TO the East and to the West; 
To the man of the Seaside State, and of Pennsylvania, 
To the Kanadian of the North—to the Southerner I love; 
These, with perfect trust, to depict you as myself—the germs are in all men; 
I believe the main purport of These States is to found a superb friendship, exalté,
 previously unknown,
Because I...Read more of this...

The Occultation Of Orion

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
 I saw, as in a dream sublime,
The balance in the hand of Time.
O'er East and West its beam impended;
And day, with all its hours of light,
Was slowly sinking out of sight,
While, opposite, the scale of night
Silently with the stars ascended.

Like the astrologers of eld,
In that bright vision I beheld
Greater and deeper mysteries.
I saw, with its celestial keys,
Its chords of...Read more of this...

Juvenilia An Ode to Natural Beauty

by Alan Seeger
 There is a power whose inspiration fills 
Nature's fair fabric, sun- and star-inwrought, 
Like airy dew ere any drop distils, 
Like perfume in the laden flower, like aught 
Unseen which interfused throughout the whole 
Becomes its quickening pulse and principle and soul. 
Now when, the drift of old desire renewing, 
Warm tides flow northward over valley and field, 
When...Read more of this...

There was an Old Man of the East

by Edward Lear
There was an Old Man of the East,Who gave all his children a feast;But they all ate so much, and their conduct was such,That it killed that Old Man of the East. ...Read more of this...

The Shepheardes Calender: October

by Edmund Spenser
 OCTOBER: Ægloga DecimaPIERCE & CUDDIE
Cuddie, for shame hold up thy heavye head,
And let us cast with what delight to chace,
And weary thys long lingring Phoebus race.
Whilome thou wont the shepheards laddes to leade,
In rymes, in ridles, and in bydding base:
Now they in thee, and thou in sleepe art dead.

CUDDY
Piers, I have pyped erst so long with payne,
That all mine...Read more of this...

A little East of Jordan

by Emily Dickinson
 A little East of Jordan,
Evangelists record,
A Gymnast and an Angel
Did wrestle long and hard --

Till morning touching mountain --
And Jacob, waxing strong,
The Angel begged permission
To Breakfast -- to return --

Not so, said cunning Jacob!
"I will not let thee go
Except thou bless me" -- Stranger!
The which acceded to --

Light swung the silver fleeces
"Peniel" Hills beyond,
And the bewildered Gymnast
Found he had...Read more of this...

Canto XIII

by Ezra Pound
 Kung walked
 by the dynastic temple
and into the cedar grove,
 and then out by the lower river,
And with him Khieu Tchi
 and Tian the low speaking
And "we are unknown," said Kung,
"You will take up charioteering?
 "Then you will become known,
"Or perhaps I should take up charioterring, or archery?
"Or the practice of public speaking?"
And Tseu-lou said, "I would put the...Read more of this...

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