Famous Eldest Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Eldest poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous eldest poems. These examples illustrate what a famous eldest poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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...out, amang the farmers roun’;
Some ca’ the pleugh, some herd, some tentie rin
A cannie errand to a neibor town:
Their eldest hope, their Jenny, woman-grown,
In youthfu’ bloom-love sparkling in her e’e—
Comes hame, perhaps to shew a braw new gown,
Or deposite her sair-won penny-fee,
To help her parents dear, if they in hardship be.
With joy unfeign’d, brothers and sisters meet,
And each for other’s weelfare kindly speirs:
The social hours, swift-wing’d, unnotic’d fleet:
...Read more of this...
by
Burns, Robert
...-day, from one side, the nobles of Asia come to you;
As to-morrow, from the other side, the Queen of England sends her eldest son to you.
7
The sign is reversing, the orb is enclosed,
The ring is circled, the journey is done;
The box-lid is but perceptibly open’d—nevertheless the perfume pours copiously out of the
whole
box.
8
Young Libertad!
With the venerable Asia, the all-mother,
Be considerate with her, now and ever, hot Libertad—for you are all;
Bend your proud...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...pocket handkerchiefs, and hints
From 's neighbor, and the comedy,
To court, and pay, his landlady.
The third, a lady's eldest son
Within few years of twenty-one
Who hopes from his propitious fate,
Against he comes to his estate,
By these two worthies to be made
A most accomplished tearing blade.
One, in a strain 'twixt tune and nonsense,
Cries, "Madam, I have loved you long since.
Permit me your fair hand to kiss";
When at her mouth her **** cries, "Yes!"
In short, without ...Read more of this...
by
Wilmot, John
...Resolve on death, or conquest by the sword,
Which for no less a stake than life, you draw;
And self-defence is Nature's eldest law.
Leave the warm people no considering time;
For then rebellion may be thought a crime.
Prevail yourself of what occasion gives,
But try your title while your father lives:
And that your arms may have a fair pretence,
Proclaim, you take them in the king's defence:
Whose sacred life each minute would expose
To plots from seeming friends and secret f...Read more of this...
by
Dryden, John
...-sailors,
heed my fixed request: to hurry is best
revealing whence you have come.” (ll. 251b-57)
IIII.
The eldest among them gave him answer,
the leader of the troop unlocking his word-hoard:
“We are of the people of the Geats, their kin,
and hearth-brethren of Hygelac.
My father was well-known to many peoples,
a noble first at the front called Ecgtheow.
He endured a host of winters before he went his way,
aged in the yards—readily will every wise man
rem...Read more of this...
by
Anonymous,
...he loathlier found me,
bairn in the burg, than his birthright sons,
Herebeald and Haethcyn and Hygelac mine.
For the eldest of these, by unmeet chance,
by kinsman’s deed, was the death-bed strewn,
when Haethcyn killed him with horny bow,
his own dear liege laid low with an arrow,
missed the mark and his mate shot down,
one brother the other, with bloody shaft.
A feeless fight, {32b} and a fearful sin,
horror to Hrethel; yet, hard as it was,
unavenged must the athel...Read more of this...
by
Anonymous,
...nge dancing girl for keeps.
He went to their house and the two sisters
were delighted because they had lovely feet.
The eldest went into a room to try the slipper on
but her big toe got in the way so she simply
sliced it off and put on the slipper.
The prince rode away with her until the white dove
told him to look at the blood pouring forth.
That is the way with amputations.
They just don't heal up like a wish.
The other sister cut off her heel
but the blood told as blood wi...Read more of this...
by
Sexton, Anne
...and like goddesses in the flower of their girlhood, Callidice and Cleisidice and lovely Demo and Callithoe who was the eldest of them all. They knew her not, -- for the gods are not easily discerned by mortals --, but startling near by her spoke winged words:
"Old mother, whence are you of folk born long ago? Why are you gone away from the city and do not draw near the houses? For there in the shady halls are women of just such age as you, and others younger; and they wou...Read more of this...
by
Homer,
...the Green:
And each true Briton is to Ben so civil,
He swears the Muses met him at the Devil.
Though justly Greece her eldest sons admires,
Why should not we be wiser than our sires?
In ev'ry public virtue we excel:
We build, we paint, we sing, we dance as well,
And learned Athens to our art must stoop,
Could she behold us tumbling through a hoop.
If time improve our wit as well as wine,
Say at what age a poet grows divine?
Shall we, or shall we not, account him so,
Who die...Read more of this...
by
Pope, Alexander
...,
And thief-like step of liberal hours
Which thawed the snow-drift into flowers.
O wondrous craft of plant and stone
By eldest science done and shown!
Happy, I said, whose home is here,
Fair fortunes to the mountaineer!
Boon nature to his poorest shed
Has royal pleasure-grounds outspread.
Intent I searched the region round,
And in low hut my monarch found.
He was no eagle and no earl,
Alas! my foundling was a churl,
With heart of cat, and eyes of bug,
Dull victim of his pipe ...Read more of this...
by
Emerson, Ralph Waldo
...tree wild; 45
White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine;
Fast-fading violets cover'd up in leaves;
And mid-May's eldest child,
The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine,
The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves. 50
Darkling I listen; and, for many a time
I have been half in love with easeful Death,
Call'd him soft names in many a mus¨¨d rhyme,
To take into the air my quiet breath;
Now more than ever seems it rich to die, 55
To cease upon the midnight...Read more of this...
by
Keats, John
...able ocean, without bound,
Without dimension; where length, breadth, and height,
And time, and place, are lost; where eldest Night
And Chaos, ancestors of Nature, hold
Eternal anarchy, amidst the noise
Of endless wars, and by confusion stand.
For Hot, Cold, Moist, and Dry, four champions fierce,
Strive here for mastery, and to battle bring
Their embryon atoms: they around the flag
Of each his faction, in their several clans,
Light-armed or heavy, sharp, smooth, swif...Read more of this...
by
Milton, John
...In mystick dance not without song, resound
His praise, who out of darkness called up light.
Air, and ye Elements, the eldest birth
Of Nature's womb, that in quaternion run
Perpetual circle, multiform; and mix
And nourish all things; let your ceaseless change
Vary to our great Maker still new praise.
Ye Mists and Exhalations, that now rise
From hill or steaming lake, dusky or gray,
Till the sun paint your fleecy skirts with gold,
In honour to the world's great Author...Read more of this...
by
Milton, John
...same.
Seven days within my chamber lay
That corse, and my babes made holiday.
At last, I told them what is death.
The eldest, with a kind of shame,
Came to my knees with silent breath,
And sate awe-stricken at my feet;
And soon the others left their play,
And sate there too. It is unmeet
To shed on the brief flower of youth
The withering knowledge of the grave.
From me remorse then wrung that truth.
I could not bear the joy which gave
Too just a response to mine own.
In va...Read more of this...
by
Shelley, Percy Bysshe
...
Behind the set of sun,
Heareth between star and other star,
Through the door of the darkness fallen ajar,
The council, eldest of things that are,
The talk of the Three in One.
"The gates of heaven are lightly locked,
We do not guard our gold,
Men may uproot where worlds begin,
Or read the name of the nameless sin;
But if he fail or if he win
To no good man is told.
"The men of the East may spell the stars,
And times and triumphs mark,
But the men signed of the cross of Chr...Read more of this...
by
Chesterton, G K
...nd free,
As they of yore were wont to be;
It might be fancy - but to me
They never sounded like our own.
IV
I was the eldest of the three,
And to uphold and cheer the rest
I ought to do - and did my best -
And each did well in his degree.
The youngest, whom my father loved,
Because our mother's brow was given
To him, with eyes as blue as heaven -
For him my soul was sorely moved:
And truly might it be distress'd
To see such a bird in such a nest;
For he was as beautiful as ...Read more of this...
by
Byron, George (Lord)
...Woman;
And they heard him murmur softly,
'Ah, showain nemeshin, Nosa!
Pity, pity me, my father!'
'Listen!' said the eldest sister,
'He is praying to his father!
What a pity that the old man
Does not stumble in the pathway,
Does not break his neck by falling!'
And they laughed till all the forest
Rang with their unseemly laughter.
"On their pathway through the woodlands
Lay an oak, by storms uprooted,
Lay the great trunk of an oak-tree,
Buried half in leaves and mo...Read more of this...
by
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...igned sleep however
and the princesses sprang out of their beds
and fussed around like a Miss America Contest.
Then the eldest went to her bed
and knocked upon it and it sank into the earth.
They descended down the opening
one after the other. They crafty soldier
put on his invisisble cloak and followed.
Yikes, said the youngest daughter,
something just stepped on my dress.
But the oldest thought it just a nail.
Next stood an avenue of trees,
each leaf make of sterling silve...Read more of this...
by
Sexton, Anne
...alk, a pleasant talk,
Along the briny beach;
We cannot do with more than four,
To give a hand to each."
The eldest Oyster looked at him,
But never a word he said;
The eldest Oyster winked his eye,
And shook his heavy head—
Meaning to say he did not choose
To leave the oyster-bed.
But four young Oysters hurried up,
All eager for the treat;
Their coats were brushed, their faces washed,
Their shoes were clean and neat—
And this was odd, bec...Read more of this...
by
Carroll, Lewis
...— his life
Would shrink and lose its meaning. How unjust,
I thought. Why do they feel it must
Go to that idle, insolent eldest son?
Well, in the end it went to neither one.
XIV
A red brick manor-house in Devon,
In a beechwood of old grey trees,
Ivy climbing to the clustered chimneys,
Rustling in the wet south breeze.
Gardens trampled down by Cromwell's army,
Orchards of apple-trees and pears,
Casements that had looked for the Armada,
And a ghost on the stairs.
XV
...Read more of this...
by
Miller, Alice Duer
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