Famous Euphrates Poems by Famous Poets

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

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A poem on the rising glory of America

...t our India then, 
Laden with pearl and burning gems and gold. 
Far in the South I see a Babylon, 
As once by Tigris or Euphrates stream, 
With blazing watch towr's and observatories 
Rising to heav'n; from thence astronomers 
With optic glass take nobler views of God 
In golden suns and shining worlds display'd 
Than the poor Chaldean with the naked eye. 
A Niniveh where Oronoque descends 
With waves discolour'd from the Andes high, 
Winding himself around a hundred isles 
W...Read more of this...
by Brackenridge, Hugh Henry


Cain and Abel

...ch it dried.

For he banked, and he sluiced, and he ditched and he led
 (And the Corn don't care for the Horn)--
A-half Euphrates out of her bed
 To water his dam' Corn!

But Abel herded out on the plains
Where you have to go by the dams and rains.

It happened, after a three-year drought,
The wells, and the springs, and the dams gave out.

The Herd-bulls came to Cain's new house
 ( They wanted water so!--)
With the hot red Sun between their brows,
Sayin' "Give us water for o...Read more of this...
by Kipling, Rudyard

Darling Daughter of Babylon

...s own spirit whipped you forth
From Istar's shrine, from Istar's stair.

Darling daughter of Babylon—
Rose by the black Euphrates flood—
Again your beauty grew more dear
Than my slave's bread, than my heart's blood.
We sang of Zion, good to know,
Where righteousness and peace abide. . . .
What of your second sacrilege
Carousing at Belshazzar's side?

Once, by a stream, we clasped tired hands—
Your paint and henna washed away.
Your place, you said, was with the slaves
Who sewe...Read more of this...
by Lindsay, Vachel

Into the Dusk-Charged Air

...and the Magdalena
The jungle flowers, the Tagus
Would still flow serenely, and the Ohio
Abrade its slate banks. The tan Euphrates would
Sidle silently across the world. The Yukon
Was choked with ice, but the Susquehanna still pushed
Bravely along. The Dee caught the day's last flares
Like the Pilcomayo's carrion rose.
The Peace offered eternal fragrance
Perhaps, but the Mackenzie churned livid mud
Like tan chalk-marks. Near where
The Brahmaputra slapped swollen dikes
And the ...Read more of this...
by Ashbery, John

Last Instructions to a Painter

...s top to wave; 
Of former glories the reproachful thought 
With present shame compared, his mind destraught. 
Such from Euphrates' bank, a tigress fell 
After the robber for her whelps doth yell; 
But sees enraged the river flow between, 
Frustrate revenge and love, by loss more keen, 
At her own breast her useless claws does arm: 
She tears herself, since him she cannot harm. 

The guards, placed for the chain's and fleet's defence, 
Long since were fled on many a feigned pr...Read more of this...
by Marvell, Andrew


Paradise Lost: Book 01

...hard by hate, 
Till good Josiah drove them thence to Hell. 
With these came they who, from the bordering flood 
Of old Euphrates to the brook that parts 
Egypt from Syrian ground, had general names 
Of Baalim and Ashtaroth--those male, 
These feminine. For Spirits, when they please, 
Can either sex assume, or both; so soft 
And uncompounded is their essence pure, 
Not tried or manacled with joint or limb, 
Nor founded on the brittle strength of bones, 
Like cumbrous flesh; b...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Paradise Lost: Book 12

...ation to select 
From all the rest, of whom to be invoked, 
A nation from one faithful man to spring: 
Him on this side Euphrates yet residing, 
Bred up in idol-worship: O, that men 
(Canst thou believe?) should be so stupid grown, 
While yet the patriarch lived, who 'scaped the flood, 
As to forsake the living God, and fall 
To worship their own work in wood and stone 
For Gods! Yet him God the Most High vouchsafes 
To call by vision, from his father's house, 
His kindred, a...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Paradise Regained: The Third Book

...thou behold'st
Assyria, and her empire's ancient bounds, 
Araxes and the Caspian lake; thence on
As far as Indus east, Euphrates west,
And oft beyond; to south the Persian bay,
And, inaccessible, the Arabian drouth:
Here, Nineveh, of length within her wall
Several days' journey, built by Ninus old,
Of that first golden monarchy the seat,
And seat of Salmanassar, whose success
Israel in long captivity still mourns;
There Babylon, the wonder of all tongues, 
As ancient, but re...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Passage to India

...and bridegrooms hand in hand. 

8
Passage to India!
Cooling airs from Caucasus far, soothing cradle of man, 
The river Euphrates flowing, the past lit up again. 

Lo, soul, the retrospect, brought forward; 
The old, most populous, wealthiest of Earth’s lands, 
The streams of the Indus and the Ganges, and their many affluents;
(I, my shores of America walking to-day, behold, resuming all,) 
The tale of Alexander, on his warlike marches, suddenly dying, 
On one side China, and...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt

Ravenna

...didst see
Caesar ride forth to royal victory.
Mighty thy name when Rome's lean eagles flew
From Britain's isles to far Euphrates blue;
And of the peoples thou wast noble queen,
Till in thy streets the Goth and Hun were seen.
Discrowned by man, deserted by the sea,
Thou sleepest, rocked in lonely misery!
No longer now upon thy swelling tide,
Pine-forest-like, thy myriad galleys ride!
For where the brass-beaked ships were wont to float,
The weary shepherd pipes his mournful no...Read more of this...
by Wilde, Oscar

Salut au Monde

...ground!
You other Jews waiting in all lands for your Messiah! 
You thoughtful Armenian, pondering by some stream of the Euphrates! you peering amid the
 ruins
 of
 Nineveh! you ascending Mount Ararat! 
You foot-worn pilgrim welcoming the far-away sparkle of the minarets of Mecca! 
You sheiks along the stretch from Suez to Bab-el-mandeb, ruling your families and tribes!

You olive-grower tending your fruit on fields of Nazareth, Damascus, or Lake Tiberias!
You Thibet trader on...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt

Sonnet CXVI

...se nymphs excel her who loved Adon,Fair Tamesis, nor Ister large, nor Rhine,Euphrates, Tigris, Indus, Hermus, Gange,Pearly Hydaspes, serpent-like Meander,—The gulf bereft sweet Hero her Leander—Nile, that far, far his hidden head doth range,Have ever had so rare a cause of praiseAs Ora, where this northern Phœnix stays.Read more of this...
by Petrarch, Francesco

Sonnet XLIV

...ains dwell,The sun set in the East, by that old wellAlike whence Tigris and Euphrates flow,Ere in this strife I peace or truce shall find,Ere Love or Laura practise kinder ways,Sworn friends, against me wrongfully combined.After such bitters, if some sweet allays,Balk'd by long fasts my palate spurns the fare,Read more of this...
by Petrarch, Francesco

The Negro Speaks Of Rivers

...world and older than the
 flow of human blood in human veins.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.
I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.
I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.
I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln 
 went down to New Orleans, and I've seen its muddy 
 bosom turn all golden in the sunset.

I've known rivers:
Ancient, dusky rivers.

My soul has grown deep...Read more of this...
by Hughes, Langston

The Sompnours Tale

...Lord in the land of the living"

21. The Gysen: Seneca calls it the Gyndes; Sir John Mandeville
tells the story of the Euphrates. "Gihon," was the name of one
of the four rivers of Eden (Gen. ii, 13).

22. Him that harrowed Hell: Christ. See note 14 to the Reeve's
Tale.

23. Mr. Wright says that "it was a common practice to grant
under the conventual seal to benefactors and others a brotherly
participation in the spiritual good works of the convent, and in
their expected rew...Read more of this...
by Chaucer, Geoffrey

The Triumph Of Fame

...gerous art of magic tried?O Crassus! much I mourn the baleful starThat o'er Euphrates led the storm of war.Thy troops, by Parthian snares encircled round,Mark'd with Hesperia's shame the bloody ground;And Mithridates, Rome's incessant foe,Who fled through burning plains and tracts of snowTheir fell pursuit. But now, the part...Read more of this...
by Petrarch, Francesco

The Triumph Of Woman

...orobabel one vacant hour,
He lov'd on Babylon's high wall to roam,
And stretch the gaze towards his distant home,
Or on Euphrates' willowy banks reclin'd
Hear the sad harp moan fitful to the wind.

As now the perfum'd lamps stream wide their light,
And social converse chears the livelong night,
Thus spake Zorobabel, "too long in vain
"For Sion desolate her sons complain;
"In anguish worn the joyless years lag slow,
"And these proud conquerors mock their captive's woe.
"Whilst...Read more of this...
by Southey, Robert

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