Famous Flying Poems by Famous Poets

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

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The Maple

by Bob Hicok
 The Maple

is a system of posture for wood. 
A way of not falling down 
for twigs that happens 
to benefit birds. I don't know. 
I'm staring at a tree, 
at yellow leaves 
threshed by wind and want you 
reading this to be staring 
at the same tree. I could 
cut it down and laminate it 
or ask you to...Read more of this...

Blow Bugle blow

by Alfred Lord Tennyson
THE splendour falls on castle walls 
And snowy summits old in story: 
The long light shakes across the lakes  
And the wild cataract leaps in glory. 
Blow bugle blow set the wild echoes flying 5 
Blow bugle; answer echoes dying dying dying. 

O hark O hear! how thin and clear  
And thinner clearer farther going! 
O sweet and...Read more of this...

Spring in the South

by Henry Van Dyke
 Now in the oak the sap of life is welling,
Tho' to the bough the rusty leafage clings;
Now on the elm the misty buds are swelling,
See how the pine-wood grows alive with wings;
Blue-jays fluttering, yodeling and crying,
Meadow-larks sailing low above the faded grass,
Red-birds whistling clear, silent robins flying,--
Who has waked the birds up? What has come to pass?

Last year's cotton-plants,...Read more of this...

The Flying Gang

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 And I worked my way to the end, and I 
Was the head of the "Flying Gang". 
'Twas a chosen band that was kept at hand 
In case of an urgent need; 
Was it south or north, we were started forth 
And away at our utmost speed. 
If word reached town that a bridge was down, 
The imperious summons...Read more of this...

Flying at Forty

by Erica Jong
 You call me
courageous, 
I who grew up
gnawing on books,
as some kids
gnaw
on bubble gum,

who married disastrously
not once
but three times,
yet have a lovely daughter
I would not undo
for all the dope
in California.

Fear was my element,
fear my contagion.
I swam in it
till I became
immune.
The plane takes off
& I laugh aloud.
Call me courageous.

I am still alive....Read more of this...

The September Gale

by Oliver Wendell Holmes
 I'M not a chicken; I have seen 
Full many a chill September, 
And though I was a youngster then, 
That gale I well remember; 
The day before, my kite-string snapped, 
And I, my kite pursuing, 
The wind whisked off my palm-leaf hat; 
For me two storms were brewing!

It came as quarrels sometimes do, 
When married folks get clashing;
There was...Read more of this...

Sonnet VIII: Love Born In Greece

by Sir Philip Sidney
 Love, born in Greece, of late fled from his native place, 
Forc'd by a tedious proof, that Turkish harden'd heart 
Is no fit mark to pierce with his fine pointed dart, 
And pleas'd with our soft peace, stayed here his flying race. 

But finding these north climes do coldly him embrace, 
Not used to frozen clips, he strave to...Read more of this...

Like unto a sparrow-hawk, I am flying away from this

by Omar Khayyam
Like unto a sparrow-hawk, I am flying away from this
world of mysteries, hoping to lift myself to a higher
world; but, fallen, here below, and finding no one worthy
to share my secret thoughts, I go out through the door
by which I entered....Read more of this...

The Flying Dutchman

by Edwin Arlington Robinson
 Unyielding in the pride of his defiance, 
Afloat with none to serve or to command, 
Lord of himself at last, and all by Science, 
He seeks the Vanished Land.

Alone, by the one light of his one thought, 
He steers to find the shore from which he came, 
Fearless of in what coil he may be caught 
On seas that...Read more of this...

A Song Of A Girl From Loyang

by Wang Wei
There's a girl from Loyang in the door across the street, 
She looks fifteen, she may be a little older. 
...While her master rides his rapid horse with jade bit an bridle, 
Her handmaid brings her cod-fish in a golden plate. 
On her painted pavilions, facing red towers, 
Cornices are pink and green with peach-bloom and with willow, 
Canopies of...Read more of this...

The Beach

by Robert Graves
 Louder than gulls the little children scream 
Whom fathers haul into the jovial foam; 
But others fearlessly rush in, breast high, 
Laughing the salty water from their mouthes-- 
Heroes of the nursery. 

The horny boatman, who has seen whales 
And flying fishes, who has sailed as far 
As Demerara and the Ivory Coast, 
Will warn them, when they crowd...Read more of this...

Leaving Early

by Sylvia Plath
 Lady, your room is lousy with flowers.
When you kick me out, that's what I'll remember,
Me, sitting here bored as a loepard
In your jungle of wine-bottle lamps,
Velvet pillows the color of blood pudding
And the white china flying fish from Italy.
I forget you, hearing the cut flowers
Sipping their liquids from assorted pots,
Pitchers and Coronation goblets
Like Monday drunkards. The milky berries
Bow down,...Read more of this...

from Venus and Adonis

by William Shakespeare
 But, lo! from forth a copse that neighbours by,
A breeding jennet, lusty, young, and proud,
Adonis' trampling courser doth espy,
And forth she rushes, snorts and neighs aloud;
The strong-neck'd steed, being tied unto a tree,
Breaketh his rein, and to her straight goes he.

Imperiously he leaps, he neighs, he bounds,
And now his woven girths he breaks asunder;
The bearing earth with his hard...Read more of this...

Hawker the Standard Bearer

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 The grey gull sat on a floating whale, 
On a floating whale sat he, 
And he told his tale of the storm and the gale, 
And the ships that he saw with steam and sail, 
As he flew by the Northern Sea. 
"I have seen a sign that is strange and new, 
That I never before did see: 
A...Read more of this...

The Dove of Dacca

by Rudyard Kipling
 1892
The freed dove flew to the Rajah's tower--
 Fled from the slaughter of Moslem kings--
And the thorns have covered the city of Guar.
 Dove--dove--oh, homing dove!
Little white traitor, with woe on thy wings!


The Rajah of Dacca rode under the wall;
 He set in his bosom a dove of flight--
"If she return, be sure that I fall."
 Dove--dove--oh, homing dove!
Pressed...Read more of this...

Ballad of a Ship

by Edwin Arlington Robinson
 Down by the flash of the restless water 
The dim White Ship like a white bird lay; 
Laughing at life and the world they sought her, 
And out she swung to the silvering bay. 
Then off they flew on their roystering way, 
And the keen moon fired the light foam flying 
Up from the flood where the faint stars...Read more of this...

By an Autumn Fire

by Lucy Maud Montgomery
 Now at our casement the wind is shrilling, 
Poignant and keen 
And all the great boughs of the pines between 
It is harping a lone and hungering strain 
To the eldritch weeping of the rain; 
And then to the wild, wet valley flying 
It is seeking, sighing, 
Something lost in the summer olden. 
When night was silver and day...Read more of this...

The Walrus and the Carpenter

by Lewis Carroll
The sun was shining on the sea,
   Shining with all his might;
He did his very best to make
   The billows smooth and bright—
And this was odd, because it was
   The middle of the night.

The moon was shining sulkily,
   Because she thought the sun
Had got no business to be there
   After...Read more of this...

My Aviary

by Oliver Wendell Holmes
 THROUGH my north window, in the wintry weather,--
My airy oriel on the river shore,--
I watch the sea-fowl as they flock together
Where late the boatman flashed his dripping oar.

The gull, high floating, like a sloop unladen,
Lets the loose water waft him as it will;
The duck, round-breasted as a rustic maiden,
Paddles and plunges, busy, busy still.

I see the solemn gulls in...Read more of this...

from Flying Home

by Galway Kinnell
3 
As this plane dragged 
its track of used ozone half the world long 
thrusts some four hundred of us 
toward places where actual known people 
live and may wait, 
we diminish down in our seats, 
disappeared into novels of lives clearer than ours, 
and yet we do not forget for a moment 
the life down there, the doorway each...Read more of this...

Jueju Free Mood, No. 3 of 9 (I Know Well That My Thatched Hut)

by Du Fu
 Know well thatched building very low small River on swallows therefore come often Hold in mouth mud bit dirt zither books inside Furthermore catch flying insects hit person I know well that my thatched hut is very low and small, Because of that, the swallows on the river often come. The bits of mud they bring...Read more of this...

The Walkers

by Robert William Service
 (He speaks.)

Walking, walking, oh, the joy of walking!
Swinging down the tawny lanes with head held high;
Striding up the green hills, through the heather stalking,
Swishing through the woodlands where the brown leaves lie;
Marveling at all things -- windmills gaily turning,
Apples for the cider-press, ruby-hued and gold;
Tails of rabbits twinkling, scarlet berries burning,
Wedge of geese high-flying in the sky's clear cold,
Light...Read more of this...

Flying Inside Your Own Body

by Margaret Atwood
 Your lungs fill & spread themselves,
wings of pink blood, and your bones
empty themselves and become hollow.
When you breathe in you’ll lift like a balloon
and your heart is light too & huge,
beating with pure joy, pure helium.
The sun’s white winds blow through you,
there’s nothing above you,
you see the earth now as an oval jewel,
radiant & seablue with love.
It’s only in...Read more of this...

Flying Fish

by Carl Sandburg
 I HAVE lived in many half-worlds myself … and so I know you.

I leaned at a deck rail watching a monotonous sea, the same circling birds and the same plunge of furrows carved by the plowing keel.

I leaned so … and you fluttered struggling between two waves in the air now … and then under the water and out...Read more of this...

The Flying Pig

by Mother Goose
Dickory, dickory, dare,
The pig flew up in the air;
The man in brown soon brought
      him down,
          Dickory,
            dickory,
              dare....Read more of this...

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