Famous Fisher Poems by Famous Poets

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

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A Song at Cock-Crow

...crew!

The first time that Peter denied his Lord
 He had neither the Throne, nor the Keys nor the Sword--
A poor silly fisherman, what could he do,
 When the cock crew--when the cock crew--
But weep for his wickedness when the cock crew?
 . . . . . .

The next time that Peter denied his Lord
 He was Fisher of Men, as foretold by the Word,
With the Crown on his brow and the Cross on his shoe,
 When the cock crew--when the cock crew--
In Flanders and Picardy when the cock crew...Read more of this...
by Kipling, Rudyard


Autumn Meditations (7)

...ed sink cloud black Dew cold lotus pod fall powder red Pass fortified limit sky but bird road River lake fill earth one fisher old man The waters of the Kunming Lake were made in the time of Han, Banners and flags of the martial emperor are still in my mind's eye. The weaver girl's loom and thread are idle beneath the night's moon, The stone whale's scales and armour move in the autumn wind. Waves toss the wild rice seeds, black clouds sink, Dew ch...Read more of this...
by Fu, Du

Charmides

...with oil, and from the hold
Brought out his linen tunic and his sandals brazen-soled,

And a rich robe stained with the fishers' juice
Which of some swarthy trader he had bought
Upon the sunny quay at Syracuse,
And was with Tyrian broideries inwrought,
And by the questioning merchants made his way
Up through the soft and silver woods, and when the labouring day

Had spun its tangled web of crimson cloud,
Clomb the high hill, and with swift silent feet
Crept to the fane unnoti...Read more of this...
by Wilde, Oscar

Donica - A Ballad

...on a rock, whose castled shade
Darken'd the lake below,
In ancient strength majestic stood
The towers of Arlinkow.

The fisher in the lake below
Durst never cast his net,
Nor ever swallow in its waves
Her passing wings would wet.

The cattle from its ominous banks
In wild alarm would run,
Tho' parched with thirst and faint beneath
The summer's scorching sun.

For sometimes when no passing breeze
The long lank sedges waved,
All white with foam and heaving high
Its deafening bi...Read more of this...
by Southey, Robert

Endymion: Book III

...w past the midway from mortality,
And so I can prepare without a sigh
To tell thee briefly all my joy and pain.
I was a fisher once, upon this main,
And my boat danc'd in every creek and bay;
Rough billows were my home by night and day,--
The sea-gulls not more constant; for I had
No housing from the storm and tempests mad,
But hollow rocks,--and they were palaces
Of silent happiness, of slumberous ease:
Long years of misery have told me so.
Aye, thus it was one thousand year...Read more of this...
by Keats, John


I Sing the Body Electric

...drank water only—the blood show’d like scarlet through the clear-brown skin of his
 face; 
He was a frequent gunner and fisher—he sail’d his boat himself—he had a fine one
 presented to him by a ship-joiner—he had fowling-pieces, presented to him by men that
 loved him; 
When he went with his five sons and many grand-sons to hunt or fish, you would pick him
 out as the most beautiful and vigorous of the gang. 

You would wish long and long to be with him—you would wish to sit...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt

Jubilate Agno: Fragment B Part 1

...oice with the Landrail, God give his grace to the society for preserving the game. 

Let Hushim rejoice with the King's Fisher, who is of royal beauty, tho' plebeian size. 

Let Machir rejoice with Convolvulus, from him to the ring of Saturn, which is the girth of Job; to the signet of God -- from Job and his daughters BLESSED BE JESUS. 

Let Atad bless with Eleos, the nightly Memorialist e?e?s?? ????e . 

Let Jamim rejoice with the Bittern -- blessed be the name of Jesus for...Read more of this...
by Smart, Christopher

Julian and Maddalo (excerpt)

...d amphibious weeds,
Such as from earth's embrace the salt ooze breeds,
Is this; an uninhabited sea-side,
Which the lone fisher, when his nets are dried,
Abandons; and no other object breaks
The waste, but one dwarf tree and some few stakes
Broken and unrepair'd, and the tide makes
A narrow space of level sand thereon,
Where 'twas our wont to ride while day went down.
This ride was my delight. I love all waste
And solitary places; where we taste
The pleasure of believing what ...Read more of this...
by Shelley, Percy Bysshe

Lines Written Among The Euganean Hills

...reen sea-flowers overgrown
Like a rock of Ocean's own,
Topples o'er the abandoned sea
As the tides change sullenly.
The fisher on his watery way,
Wandering at the close of day,
Will spread his sail and seize his oar
Till he pass the gloomy shore,
Lest thy dead should, from their sleep
Bursting o'er the starlight deep,
Lead a rapid masque of death
O'er the waters of his path.

Those who alone thy towers behold
Quivering through aereal gold,
As I now behold them here,
Would ima...Read more of this...
by Shelley, Percy Bysshe

Poem of Joys

...d be employ’d there all my life!
O the briny and damp smell—the shore—the salt weeds exposed at low water, 
The work of fishermen—the work of the eel-fisher and clam-fisher. 

O it is I! 
I come with my clam-rake and spade! I come with my eel-spear; 
Is the tide out? I join the group of clam-diggers on the flats,
I laugh and work with them—I joke at my work, like a mettlesome young man. 

In winter I take my eel-basket and eel-spear and travel out on foot on the ice—I have
 a...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt

Poet As Fisherman

...ughing.

Once, dreaming of fish in far-off waters,
I hooked a two-foot carp in Michigan,
on nylon line so fine
a fellow-fisher shook his head:
"He'll break it, sure; he'll roll on it and get away."
A quarter-hour it took to bring him in;
back-and-forth toward my net,
syllable by syllable I let him have his way
till he lay flopping on the grass—
beside no other, himself enough in size:
he fed the three of us (each differently)
new strategies of hook, leader, line, and rod.

Wo...Read more of this...
by Emanuel, James A

Song of Myself

...ch other, the plougher ploughs, the mower mows, and the
 winter-grain falls in the ground; 
Off on the lakes the pike-fisher watches and waits by the hole in the frozen
 surface;
The stumps stand thick round the clearing, the squatter strikes deep with his
 axe; 
Flatboatmen make fast, towards dusk, near the cottonwood or pekan-trees; 
Coon-seekers go through the regions of the Red river, or through those
 drain’d by the Tennessee, or through those of the Arkansaw; 
...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt

The Ballad Of Moll Magee

...d me, little childer;
There, don't fling stones at me
Because I mutter as I go;
But pity Moll Magee.

My man was a poor fisher
With shore lines in the say;
My work was saltin' herrings
The whole of the long day.

And sometimes from the Saltin' shed
I scarce could drag my feet,
Under the blessed moonlight,
Along thc pebbly street.

I'd always been but weakly,
And my baby was just born;
A neighbour minded her by day,
I minded her till morn.

I lay upon my baby;
Ye little childe...Read more of this...
by Yeats, William Butler

The Ballad of the White Horse

...dure,
How shall it profit her?
Who shall go groaning to the grave,
With many a meek and mighty slave,
Field-breaker and fisher on the wave,
And woodman and waggoner.

"Bake ye the big world all again
A cake with kinder leaven;
Yet these are sorry evermore--
Unless there be a little door,
A little door in heaven."

And as he wept for the woman
He let her business be,
And like his royal oath and rash
The good food fell upon the ash
And blackened instantly.

Screaming, the woman...Read more of this...
by Chesterton, G K

The Son Of The Evening Star

...ach low and level.
"Still their glittering lodge is seen there,
On the tranquil Summer evenings,
And upon the shore the fisher
Sometimes hears their happy voices,
Sees them dancing in the starlight !"
When the story was completed,
When the wondrous tale was ended,
Looking round upon his listeners,
Solemnly Iagoo added:
"There are great men, I have known such,
Whom their people understand not,
Whom they even make a jest of,
Scoff and jeer at in derision.
From the story of Osse...Read more of this...
by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth

The Vain King

...s court
Beside the river, seeking to devise
New ways to show his skill to wondering eyes.
There in the stream a patient fisher stood,
And cast his line across the rippling flood.
His silver spoil lay near him on the green:
"Such fish," the courtiers cried, "were never seen!"
"Three salmon larger than a cloth-yard shaft---
"This man must be the master of his craft!"
"An easy art!" the jealous King replied:
"Myself could learn it better, if I tried,
"And catch a hundred larger ...Read more of this...
by Dyke, Henry Van

The Waste Land

...in Part IV. The Man with Three Staves
(an authentic member of the Tarot pack) I associate, quite arbitrarily,
with the Fisher King himself.
60. Cf. Baudelaire:
 "Fourmillante cite;, cite; pleine de
reves,
 Ou le spectre en plein jour raccroche le
passant."
63. Cf. Inferno, iii. 55-7.

"si lunga tratta
 di gente, ch'io non avrei mai creduto
 che morte tanta n'avesse disfatta."
64. Cf. Inferno, iv. 25-7:
 "Quivi, secondo che per ascoltare,
 "non avea pianto, ma' che di sospiri...Read more of this...
by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)

When the Dark Comes Down

...s the harbor bar
With many a jest and many a shout from fishing grounds afar.
So furl your sails and take your rest, ye fisher folk so brown,
For task and quest are ended when the dark comes down. 

When the dark comes down, oh, the landward valleys fill
Like brimming cups of purple, and on every landward hill
There shines a star of twilight that is watching evermore
The low, dim lighted meadows by the long, dim-lighted shore,
For there, where vagrant daisies weave the grass ...Read more of this...
by Montgomery, Lucy Maud

Who will cry for the little boy?

...who will cry for the little boy?
Lost and all alone.
Who will cry for the little boy?
Abandoned without his own?

Who will cry for the little boy?
He cried himself to sleep.
Who will cry for the little boy?
He never had for keeps.

Who will cry for the little boy?
He walked the burning sand
Who will cry for the little boy?
The boy inside the ma...Read more of this...
by Fisher, Antwone

Written among the Euganean Hills North Italy

...flowers overgrown, 
Like a rock of ocean's own, 
Topples o'er the abandon'd sea 
As the tides change sullenly. 
The fisher on his watery way, 95 
Wandering at the close of day, 
Will spread his sail and seize his oar 
Till he pass the gloomy shore, 
Lest thy dead should, from their sleep, 
Bursting o'er the starlight deep, 100 
Lead a rapid masque of death 
O'er the waters of his path. 

Noon descends around me now: 
'Tis the noon of autumn's glow, 
When a soft...Read more of this...
by Shelley, Percy Bysshe

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