Famous Flock Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Psalm 77 part 2

by Isaac Watts
 Comfort derived from ancient providences.

"How awful is thy chast'ning rod!"
May thy own children say:
"The great, the wise, the dreadful God!
How holy is his way !"

I'll meditate his works of old,
The King that reigns above;
I'll hear his ancient wonders told,
And learn to trust his love.

Long did the house of Joseph lie
With Egypt's yoke oppressed;
Long he delayed to hear their cry,
or...Read more of this...

12. Song—The Lass of Cessnock Banks

by Robert Burns
 ON Cessnock banks a lassie dwells;
 Could I describe her shape and mein;
Our lasses a’ she far excels,
 An’ she has twa sparkling roguish een.


She’s sweeter than the morning dawn,
 When rising Phoebus first is seen,
And dew-drops twinkle o’er the lawn;
 An’ she has twa sparkling roguish een.


She’s stately like yon youthful ash,
 That grows the cowslip braes between,
And...Read more of this...

Song of the Wheat

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 We have sung the song of the droving days, 
Of the march of the travelling sheep; 
By silent stages and lonely ways 
Thin, white battalions creep. 
But the man who now by the land would thrive 
Must his spurs to a plough-share beat. 
Is there ever a man in the world alive 
To sing the song of the Wheat!...Read more of this...

The Old Australian Ways

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 The London lights are far abeam 
Behind a bank of cloud, 
Along the shore the gaslights gleam, 
The gale is piping loud; 
And down the Channel, groping blind, 
We drive her through the haze 
Towards the land we left behind -- 
The good old land of `never mind', 
And old Australian ways. 

The narrow ways of English folk 
Are...Read more of this...

With the Cattle

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 The drought is down on field and flock, 
The river-bed is dry; 
And we must shift the starving stock 
Before the cattle die. 
We muster up with weary hearts 
At breaking of the day, 
And turn our heads to foreign parts, 
To take the stock away. 
And it’s hunt ‘em up and dog ‘em, 
And it’s get the whip...Read more of this...

The House Of Dust: Part 02: 05: Retrospect

by Conrad Aiken
 Round white clouds roll slowly above the housetops,
Over the clear red roofs they flow and pass.
A flock of pigeons rises with blue wings flashing,
Rises with whistle of wings, hovers an instant,
And settles slowly again on the tarnished grass.

And one old man looks down from a dusty window
And sees the pigeons circling about the fountain
And desires once more to walk...Read more of this...

A Creed

by John Masefield
 I HOLD that when a person dies 
His soul returns again to earth; 
Arrayed in some new flesh-disguise 
Another mother gives him birth. 
With sturdier limbs and brighter brain 
The old soul takes the road again. 

Such is my own belief and trust; 
This hand, this hand that holds the pen, 
Has many a hundred times been dust 
And...Read more of this...

The Gulls

by Lucy Maud Montgomery
 I 

Soft is the sky in the mist-kirtled east,
Light is abroad on the sea,
All of the heaven with silver is fleeced, 
Holding the sunrise in fee.
Lo! with a flash and uplifting of wings
Down where the long ripples break,
Cometh a bevy of glad-hearted things, 
'Tis morn, for the gulls are awake. 


II 

Slumberous calm on the ocean and shore 
Comes...Read more of this...

The Future

by Matthew Arnold
 A wanderer is man from his birth.
He was born in a ship
On the breast of the river of Time;
Brimming with wonder and joy
He spreads out his arms to the light,
Rivets his gaze on the banks of the stream.

As what he sees is, so have his thoughts been.
Whether he wakes,
Where the snowy mountainous pass,
Echoing the screams of the eagles,
Hems in...Read more of this...

At Fontainebleau

by Arthur Symons
 IT was a day of sun and rain, 
Uncertain as a child’s swift moods; 
And I shall never spend again 
So blithe a day among the woods. 

Was it because the Gods were pleased 
That they were awful in our eyes, 
Whom we in very deed appeased 
With barley-cakes of sacrifice? 

The forest knew her and was glad, 
And...Read more of this...

A Bush Christening

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 On the outer Barcoo where the churches are few,
 And men of religion are scanty,
On a road never cross'd 'cept by folk that are lost,
 One Michael Magee had a shanty. 

Now this Mike was the dad of a ten year old lad,
 Plump, healthy, and stoutly conditioned;
He was strong as the best, but poor Mike had no rest
...Read more of this...

snowdrop blaze

by Rg Gregory
 from late december onwards the day comes back
but not till february do we see those glimpses
that let us take deep darkness off the rack
and shake it free of lethargy that cramps us
through those dim months we’re made amanuensis
to what loud rain and bitter spells dictate
we seek bed early and must get up late

long january’s puffing in the right direction
but...Read more of this...

Pioneers

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 They came of bold and roving stock that would not fixed abide; 
There were the sons of field and flock since e’er they learned to ride; 
We may not hope to see such men in these degenerate years 
As those explorers of the bush – the brave old pioneers. 

‘Twas they who rode the trackless bush in heat and...Read more of this...

In Memoriam A. H. H.: 2. Old Yew which graspest at the sto

by Alfred Lord Tennyson
 Old Yew, which graspest at the stones 
That name the under-lying dead,
Thy fibres net the dreamless head,
Thy roots are wrapt about the bones.
The seasons bring the flower again,
And bring the firstling to the flock;
And in the dusk of thee, the clock
Beats out the little lives of men.
O not for thee the glow, the bloom,
Who changest not in any gale,
Nor...Read more of this...

The City

by Constantine P Cavafy
 WHAT domination of what darkness dies this hour,
And through what new, rejoicing, winged, ethereal power
O’erthrown, the cells opened, the heart released from fear?
Gay twilight and grave twilight pass. The stars appear
O’er the prodigious, smouldering, dusky, city flare.
The hanging gardens of Babylon were not more fair
Than these blue flickering glades, where childhood in its glee
Re-echoes with fresh voice the heaven-lit...Read more of this...

The Last Of The Flock

by William Wordsworth
  In distant countries I have been,  And yet I have not often seen  A healthy man, a man full grown,  Weep in the public roads alone.  But such a one, on English ground,  And in the broad high-way, I met;  Along the broad high-way he came,  His cheeks with tears were wet.  Sturdy he seemed, though he was sad;  And in his arms a lamb he had.   He saw...Read more of this...

A Singer of the Bush

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 There is waving of grass in the breeze
And a song in the air,
And a murmur of myriad bees
That toil everywhere.
There is scent in the blossom and bough,
And the breath of the Spring
Is as soft as a kiss on a brow --
And Spring-time I sing.

There is drought on the land, and the stock
Tumble down in their tracks
Or follow -- a...Read more of this...

The Bells of Malines

by Henry Van Dyke
 AUGUST 17, 1914 

The gabled roofs of old Malines
Are russet red and gray and green,
And o'er them in the sunset hour
Looms, dark and huge, St. Rombold's tower.
High in that rugged nest concealed,
The sweetest bells that ever pealed,
The deepest bells that ever rung,
The lightest bells that ever sung,
Are waiting for the master's hand
To fling their music o'er the land. 

And...Read more of this...

The City Bushman

by Henry Lawson
 It was pleasant up the country, City Bushman, where you went, 
For you sought the greener patches and you travelled like a gent; 
And you curse the trams and buses and the turmoil and the push, 
Though you know the squalid city needn't keep you from the bush; 
But we lately heard you singing of the `plains where shade...Read more of this...

Beauty XXV

by Kahlil Gibran
 And a poet said, "Speak to us of Beauty." 

Where shall you seek beauty, and how shall you find her unless she herself be your way and your guide? 

And how shall you speak of her except she be the weaver of your speech? 

The aggrieved and the injured say, "Beauty is kind and gentle. 

Like a young mother...Read more of this...

The Troops

by Siegfried Sassoon
 Dim, gradual thinning of the shapeless gloom 
Shudders to drizzling daybreak that reveals 
Disconsolate men who stamp their sodden boots 
And turn dulled, sunken faces to the sky 
Haggard and hopeless. They, who have beaten down
The stale despair of night, must now renew 
Their desolation in the truce of dawn, 
Murdering the livid hours that grope for peace. 

Yet...Read more of this...

Psalm 81

by John Milton
 To God our strength sing loud, and clear,
Sing loud to God our King,
To Jacobs God, that all may hear
Loud acclamations ring.
Prepare a Hymn, prepare a Song
The Timbrel hither bring
The cheerfull Psaltry bring along
And Harp with pleasant string.
Blow, as is wont, in the new Moon
With Trumpets lofty sound, 
Th'appointed time, the day wheron
Our solemn Feast comes round.
This was a Statute...Read more of this...

The Ballad Of Father Gilligan

by William Butler Yeats
 The old priest Peter Gilligan
Was weary night and day;
For half his flock were in their beds,
Or under green sods lay.

Once, while he nodded on a chair,
At the moth-hour of eve,
Another poor man sent for him,
And he began to grieve.

'I have no rest, nor joy, nor peace,
For people die and die';
And after cried he, 'God forgive!
My body spake, not I!'

He...Read more of this...

The Alpine Hunter

by Friedrich von Schiller
 Wilt thou not the lambkins guard?
Oh, how soft and meek they look,
Feeding on the grassy sward,
Sporting round the silvery brook!
"Mother, mother, let me go
On yon heights to chase the roe!"

Wilt thou not the flock compel
With the horn's inspiring notes?
Sweet the echo of yon bell,
As across the wood it floats!
"Mother, mother, let me go
On yon heights to hunt the roe!"

Wilt...Read more of this...

The Grandmother

by Alfred Lord Tennyson
 I.
And Willy, my eldest-born, is gone, you say, little Anne?
Ruddy and white, and strong on his legs, he looks like a man.
And Willy's wife has written: she never was over-wise,
Never the wife for Willy: he would n't take my advice. 

II.
For, Annie, you see, her father was not the man to save,
Had n't a head to manage, and drank...Read more of this...

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