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Famous Expedition Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Jong, Erica
...mountain, I am climbing you.
If I fall, you won't be all to blame,
but you'll wait years maybe
for the next doomed expedition....Read more of this...



by Ashbery, John
...es, worn conundrums. Morning is
Impermanent. Grab sex things, swing up
Over the horizon like a boy
On a fishing expedition. No one really knows
Or cares whether this is the whole of which parts
Were vouchsafed--once--but to be ambling on's
The tradition more than the safekeeping of it. This mulch for
Play keeps them interested and busy while the big,
Vaguer stuff can decide what it wants--what maps, what
Model cities, how much waste space. Life, our
Life a...Read more of this...

by Estep, Maggie
...t there fawning over me?

Don't you have any interests?
Hobbies?
Sailing Fly fishing
Archeology?

There's an archeology expedition leaving tomorrow
why don't you go?
I'll loan you the money,
my money is your money.
my life is your life
my soul is yours
without you I'm nothing.

Move in with me 
we'll get a studio apartment together, save on rent,
well, wait, I mean, a one bedroom,
so we don't get in each other's hair or anything
or, well,
maybe a two bedroom
I'll have...Read more of this...

by Dickinson, Emily
...Finding is the first Act
The second, loss,
Third, Expedition for
The "Golden Fleece"

Fourth, no Discovery --
Fifth, no Crew --
Finally, no Golden Fleece --
Jason -- sham -- too....Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...de of mind 
And celestial vigour arm'd, 
Thir Armories and Magazins contemns, 
Renders them useless, while 
With winged expedition 
Swift as the lightning glance he executes 
His errand on the wicked, who surpris'd 
Lose thir defence distracted and amaz'd. 

ALL is best, though we oft doubt, 
What th' unsearchable dispose 
Of highest wisdom brings about, 
And ever best found in the close. 
Oft he seems to hide his face, 
But unexpectedly returns 
And to his faithful C...Read more of this...



by Trumbull, John
...gem show'd wondrous force,
And modernized the Trojan horse,
Play'd o'er again the tricks Ulyssean,
In their famed Salem expedition?
For as that horse, the poets tell ye,
Bore Grecian armies in its belly,
Till their full reckoning run, with joy
Shrewd Sinon midwived them in Troy:
So in one ship was Leslie bold
Cramm'd with three hundred men in hold,
Equipp'd for enterprize and sail,
Like Jonas stow'd in womb of whale.
To Marblehead in depth of night
The cautious vessel win...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...may least rejoice 
In doing what we most in suffering feel? 
Nor will occasion want, nor shall we need 
With dangerous expedition to invade 
Heaven, whose high walls fear no assault or siege, 
Or ambush from the Deep. What if we find 
Some easier enterprise? There is a place 
(If ancient and prophetic fame in Heaven 
Err not)--another World, the happy seat 
Of some new race, called Man, about this time 
To be created like to us, though less 
In power and excellence, but ...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...thronged, and shields 
Various, with boastful argument portrayed, 
The banded Powers of Satan hasting on 
With furious expedition; for they weened 
That self-same day, by fight or by surprise, 
To win the mount of God, and on his throne 
To set the Envier of his state, the proud 
Aspirer; but their thoughts proved fond and vain 
In the mid way: Though strange to us it seemed 
At first, that Angel should with Angel war, 
And in fierce hosting meet, who wont to meet 
So oft in...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...nd thence diffuse 
His good to worlds and ages infinite. 
So sang the Hierarchies: Mean while the Son 
On his great expedition now appeared, 
Girt with Omnipotence, with radiance crowned 
Of Majesty Divine; sapience and love 
Immense, and all his Father in him shone. 
About his chariot numberless were poured 
Cherub, and Seraph, Potentates, and Thrones, 
And Virtues, winged Spirits, and chariots winged 
From the armoury of God; where stand of old 
Myriads, between two...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...tions he appear,
Their king, their leader, and supreme on Earth.
I, when no other durst, sole undertook 
The dismal expedition to find out
And ruin Adam, and the exploit performed
Successfully: a calmer voyage now
Will waft me; and the way found prosperous once
Induces best to hope of like success."
 He ended, and his words impression left
Of much amazement to the infernal crew,
Distracted and surprised with deep dismay
At these sad tidings. But no time was then
F...Read more of this...

by Herbert, George
...ther thy command, or thy permission
Lay hands on all: they are thy right and left.
The first puts on with speed and expedition;
The other curbs sinnes stealing pace and theft.

Nothing escapes them both; all must appeare,
And be dispos'd, and dress'd, and tun'd by thee,
Who sweetly temper'st all. If we could heare
Thy skill and art, what musick would it be!

Thou art in small things great, not small in any:
Thy even praise can neither rise, nor fall.
Thou art ...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...itude of mind
And celestial vigour arm'd, 
Thir Armories and Magazins contemns,
Renders them useless, while
With winged expedition
Swift as the lightning glance he executes
His errand on the wicked, who surpris'd
Lose thir defence distracted and amaz'd.
But patience is more oft the exercise
Of Saints, the trial of thir fortitude,
Making them each his own Deliverer,
And Victor over all 
That tyrannie or fortune can inflict,
Either of these is in thy lot,
Samson, with might...Read more of this...

by Graves, Robert
...pon
The trivial skirmish fought near Marathon.
As for the Greek theatrical tradition
Which represents that summer's expedition
Not as a mere reconnaisance in force
By three brigades of foot and one of horse
(Their left flank covered by some obsolete
Light craft detached from the main Persian fleet)
But as a grandiose, ill-starred attempt
To conquer Greece - they treat it with contempt;
And only incidentally refute
Major Greek claims, by stressing what repute
The Persian m...Read more of this...

by von Goethe, Johann Wolfgang
...ke this ode in any way intelligible. The Poet is supposed to 
leave his companions, who are proceeding on a hunting expedition 
in winter, in order himself to pay a visit to a hypochondriacal 
friend, and also to see the mining in the Hartz mountains. The ode 
alternately describes, in a very fragmentary and peculiar manner, 
the naturally happy disposition of the Poet himself and the unhappiness 
of his friend; it pictures the wildness of the road and the dreariness ...Read more of this...

by Hall, Donald
...In the mid August, in the second year
of my First Polar Expedition, the snow and ice of winter
almost upon us, Kantiuk and I
attempted to dash the sledge
along Crispin Bay, searching again for relics
of the Frankline Expedition. Now a storm blew,
and we turned back, and we struggled slowly
in snow, lest we depart land and venture onto ice
from which a sudden fog and thaw
would abandon us to the Providence
of ...Read more of this...

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