Famous Exile Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Exile poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous exile poems. These examples illustrate what a famous exile poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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...n every thought,
And bring the vessel of our love to port!
These are my birthday wishes. Dawn's at hand,
And you're an exile in a lonely land.
But what were magic if it could not give
My thought enough vitality to live?
Do not then dream this night has been a loss!
All night I have hung, a god, upon the cross;
All night I have offered incense at the shrine;
All night you have been unutterably mine,
Miner in the memory of the first wild hour
When my rough grasp tore the unwil...Read more of this...
by
Crowley, Aleister
...glory of love and the light of beauty, which are the reflections of God. I am here living, and the people are unable to exile me from the domain of life for they know I will live in death. If they pluck my eyes I will hearken to the murmers of love and the songs of beauty.
If they close my ears I will enjoy the touch of the breeze mixed with the incebse of love and the fragrance of beauty.
If they place me in a vacuum, I will live together with my soul, the child of love an...Read more of this...
by
Gibran, Kahlil
...she flies.
Had thus Old David, from whose loins you spring,
Not dar'd, when fortune call'd him, to be king.
At Gath an exile he might still remain;
And Heaven's anointing oil had been in vain.
Let his successful youth your hopes engage;
But shun th'example of declining age:
Behold him setting in his western skies,
The shadows lengthening as the vapours rise.
He is not now, as when on Jordan's sand
The joyful people throng'd to see him land,
Cov'ring the beach, and black'ning...Read more of this...
by
Dryden, John
...ee;
So have I done in earth, alas the while!
That, certes, but if thou my succour be,
To sink etern He will my ghost exile.
H.
He vouchesaf'd, tell Him, as was His will,
Become a man, *as for our alliance,* *to ally us with god*
And with His blood He wrote that blissful bill
Upon the cross, as general acquittance
To ev'ry penitent in full creance;* *belief
And therefore, Lady bright! thou ...Read more of this...
by
Chaucer, Geoffrey
...m thence,
Thence, so farre thence, that scantly any sparke
Of comfort dare come to this dungeon darke,
Where Rigours exile lockes vp al my sense?
But if I by a happie window passe,
If I but stars vppon mine armour beare;
Sicke, thirsty, glad (though but of empty glasse):
Your morall notes straight my hid meaning teare
From out my ribs, and, puffing, proues that I
Doe Stella loue: fooles, who doth it deny?
CV
Vnhappie sight, and hath shee vanisht by
So nere, in...Read more of this...
by
Sidney, Sir Philip
...a village miles away from us
Where now and then we paddled for the mail
And incidental small commodities
That perfect exile might require, and stayed
The night after the voyage with an antique
Survival of a broader world than ours
Whom Asher called The Admiral. This time,
A little out of sorts and out of tune
With paddling, I let Asher go alone,
Sure that his heart was happy. Then it was
That hell came. I sat gazing over there
Across the water, watching the sun’s last...Read more of this...
by
Robinson, Edwin Arlington
...servant. Never have I seen
many strange men thus, more haughty of bearing.
I reckon that you come in pride, hardly in exile,
but seeking Hrothgar out of majestic intentions.” (ll. 333-39)
The courage-bold one answered him then,
the chieftain of the Weders, speaking a word after,
hardy under his helmet: “We are the table-comrades
of Hygelac—Beowulf is my name.
I wish to speak to the son of Halfdane,
that famous prince, your lord, about my errand—
if he wishes to gr...Read more of this...
by
Anonymous,
...in moorland living,
in fen and fastness; fief of the giants
the hapless wight a while had kept
since the Creator his exile doomed.
On kin of Cain was the killing avenged
by sovran God for slaughtered Abel.
Ill fared his feud, {1f} and far was he driven,
for the slaughter’s sake, from sight of men.
Of Cain awoke all that woful breed,
Etins {1g} and elves and evil-spirits,
as well as the giants that warred with God
weary while: but their wage was paid them!
II...Read more of this...
by
Anonymous,
...le,--
"Let us bury him here by the sea. When a happier season
Brings us again to our homes from the unknown land of our exile,
Then shall his sacred dust be piously laid in the churchyard."
Such were the words of the priest. And there in haste by the sea-side,
Having the glare of the burning village for funeral torches,
But without bell or book, they buried the farmer of Grand-Pre.
And as the voice of the priest repeated the service of sorrow,
Lo! with a mournful sound, like ...Read more of this...
by
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...ree and inviolate,
From our sad lips another song is rung,
By our own hands our heads are desecrate,
Wanderers in drear exile, and dispossessed
Of what should be our own, we can but feed on wild unrest.
Somehow the grace, the bloom of things has flown,
And of all men we are most wretched who
Must live each other's lives and not our own
For very pity's sake and then undo
All that we lived for - it was otherwise
When soul and body seemed to blend in mystic symphonies.
But we ...Read more of this...
by
Wilde, Oscar
...ase
He shall not cease, nor any cowering-place
Her fear shall find her, till he drive her back,
From city to city exiled, from wrack to wrack
Slain out of life, to find the native hell
Whence envy loosed her.
For thyself were
well
To follow where I lead, and thou shalt see
The spirits in pain, and hear the hopeless woe,
The unending cries, of those whose only plea
Is judgment, that the second death to be
Fall quickly. Further shalt thou climb, and go
...Read more of this...
by
Alighieri, Dante
...wide domain, [2]
And slavery half forgets her feudal chain;
He, their unhoped, but unforgotten lord —
The long self-exiled chieftain is restored:
There be bright faces in the busy hall,
Bowls on the board, and banners on the wall;
Far chequering o'er the pictured window, plays
The unwonted fagots' hospitable blaze;
And gay retainers gather round the hearth,
With tongues all loudness, and with eyes all mirth.
II.
The chief of Lara is return'd again:
And why had ...Read more of this...
by
Byron, George (Lord)
...next divided, and the third we've none.
They, by the name, mistook it for that isle
Where Pilgrim Palmer travelled in exile
With the bull's horn to measure his own head
And on Pasipha?'s tomb to drop a bead.
But Morice learn'd dem?nstrates, by the post,
This Isle of Candy was on Essex' coast.
Fresh messengers still the sad news assure;
More timorous now we are than first secure.
False terrors our believing fears devise,
And the French army one from Calais spies.
B...Read more of this...
by
Marvell, Andrew
...ke these, could ever know repulse?
For who can yet believe, though after loss,
That all these puissant legions, whose exile
Hath emptied Heaven, shall fail to re-ascend,
Self-raised, and repossess their native seat?
For me, be witness all the host of Heaven,
If counsels different, or danger shunned
By me, have lost our hopes. But he who reigns
Monarch in Heaven till then as one secure
Sat on his throne, upheld by old repute,
Consent or custom, and his regal state
P...Read more of this...
by
Milton, John
...o at the spear are bold
And venturous, if that fail them, shrink, and fear
What yet they know must follow--to endure
Exile, or igominy, or bonds, or pain,
The sentence of their Conqueror. This is now
Our doom; which if we can sustain and bear,
Our Supreme Foe in time may much remit
His anger, and perhaps, thus far removed,
Not mind us not offending, satisfied
With what is punished; whence these raging fires
Will slacken, if his breath stir not their flames.
Our pur...Read more of this...
by
Milton, John
...me in Heaven
Long had foretold, a fabrick wonderful
Of absolute perfection! therein Man
Placed in a Paradise, by our exile
Made happy: Him by fraud I have seduced
From his Creator; and, the more to encrease
Your wonder, with an apple; he, thereat
Offended, worth your laughter! hath given up
Both his beloved Man, and all his world,
To Sin and Death a prey, and so to us,
Without our hazard, labour, or alarm;
To range in, and to dwell, and over Man
To rule, as over a...Read more of this...
by
Milton, John
...otto seems to rise
A marble lily under sapphire skies!
Alas! my Dante! thou hast known the pain
Of meaner lives, - the exile's galling chain,
How steep the stairs within kings' houses are,
And all the petty miseries which mar
Man's nobler nature with the sense of wrong.
Yet this dull world is grateful for thy song;
Our nations do thee homage, - even she,
That cruel queen of vine-clad Tuscany,
Who bound with crown of thorns thy living brow,
Hath decked thine empty tomb with l...Read more of this...
by
Wilde, Oscar
...guest,
While thus he communed with his breast:—
'Why is it, at each turn I trace
Some memory of that exiled race?
Can I not mountain maiden spy,
But she must bear the Douglas eye?
Can I not view a Highland brand,
But it must match the Douglas hand?
Can I not frame a fevered dream,
But still the Douglas is the theme?
I'll dream no more,—by manly mind
Not even in sleep is will resigned.
My midnight orisons...Read more of this...
by
Scott, Sir Walter
...arely given:And such joy smooth'd my path from earth to heaven,As from long exile to sweet home I turn'd,While but for you alone my soul with pity yearn'd.""But tell me, lady," said I, "by that trueAnd loyal faith, on earth well known to you[Pg 379]Now better known before the Omniscient'...Read more of this...
by
Petrarch, Francesco
...w could unguarded Virtue stand!
With horror, grief, despair, the Dean
Beheld the dire destructive scene:
His friends in exile, or the tower,
Himself within the frown of power,
Pursued by base envenomed pens,
Far to the land of slaves and fens;
A servile race in folly nursed,
Who truckle most when treated worst.
By innocence and resolution,
He bore continual persecution;
While numbers to preferment rose,
Whose merits were, to be his foes;
When ev'n his own familiar friends,
In...Read more of this...
by
Swift, Jonathan
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