Famous Gateway Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Gateway poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous gateway poems. These examples illustrate what a famous gateway poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...way
Moaning and wailing for an heir, the two
Left the still King, and passing forth to breathe,
Then from the castle gateway by the chasm
Descending through the dismal night--a night
In which the bounds of heaven and earth were lost--
Beheld, so high upon the dreary deeps
It seemed in heaven, a ship, the shape thereof
A dragon winged, and all from stern to stern
Bright with a shining people on the decks,
And gone as soon as seen. And then the two
Dropt to the c...Read more of this...
by
Tebb, Barry
...ainst the
Folded house walls, relievo
Running and touching and
Scattering fast round
The binyards.
25
A gateway blocked for fifty years
By a standing elm opened a way
For the dead to come through:
See how they stretch and set forth
In cloth caps and Sunday suits
Fresh from their graves amidst
A grove of trees in Chapeltown
Where the downwind strokes the
Backs of leaves.
Margaret, I have
Carved your image in mother-of-pearl
Beauty like no other ...Read more of this...
by
Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...ed
The dragon-boughts and elvish emblemings
Began to move, seethe, twine and curl: they called
To Gareth, 'Lord, the gateway is alive.'
And Gareth likewise on them fixt his eyes
So long, that even to him they seemed to move.
Out of the city a blast of music pealed.
Back from the gate started the three, to whom
From out thereunder came an ancient man,
Long-bearded, saying, 'Who be ye, my sons?'
Then Gareth, 'We be tillers of the soil,
Who leaving share...Read more of this...
by
Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...ul trouble of the rain:
Yet not so misty were her meek blue eyes
As not to see before them on the path,
Right in the gateway of the bandit hold,
A knight of Arthur's court, who laid his lance
In rest, and made as if to fall upon him.
Then, fearing for his hurt and loss of blood,
She, with her mind all full of what had chanced,
Shrieked to the stranger 'Slay not a dead man!'
'The voice of Enid,' said the knight; but she,
Beholding it was Edyrn son of Nudd,
Was m...Read more of this...
by
Dyke, Henry Van
...see
A mighty city covering the isle
They call Manhattan, equal in her state
To all the older capitals of earth, --
The gateway city of a golden world, --
A city girt with masts, and crowned with spires,
And swarming with a host of busy men,
While to her open door across the bay
The ships of all the nations flock like doves.
My name will be remembered there, for men
Will say, "This river and this isle were found
By Henry Hudson, on his way to seek
The Northwest Pass...Read more of this...
by
Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...e blank day.
VIII
A happy lover who has come
To look on her that loves him well,
Who 'lights and rings the gateway bell,
And learns her gone and far from home;
He saddens, all the magic light
Dies off at once from bower and hall,
And all the place is dark, and all
The chambers emptied of delight:
So find I every pleasant spot
In which we two were wont to meet,
The field, the chamber, and the street,
For all is dark where thou art not.
...Read more of this...
by
Alighieri, Dante
...ow."
And we, with no more words' delay,
Went forward on that hard and dreadful way.
Canto III
THE gateway to the city of Doom. Through me
The entrance to the Everlasting Pain.
The Gateway of the Lost. The Eternal Three
Justice impelled to build me. Here ye see
Wisdom Supreme at work, and Primal Power,
And Love Supernal in their dawnless day.
Ere from their thought creation rose in flower
Eternal first were all things fix...Read more of this...
by
Alighieri, Dante
...a di san Pietro
e color cui tu fai cotanto mesti ».
to lead me to the place of which you spoke,
that I may see the gateway of Saint Peter
and those whom you describe as sorrowful."
Allor si mosse, e io li tenni dietro.
Then he set out, and I moved on behind him....Read more of this...
by
Alighieri, Dante
...ta;
per ch'io: «Maestro, il senso lor m'? duro ».
These words-their aspect was obscure-I read
inscribed above a gateway, and I said:
"Master, their meaning is difficult for me."
Ed elli a me, come persona accorta:
«Qui si convien lasciare ogne sospetto;
ogne vilt? convien che qui sia morta .
And he to me, as one who comprehends:
"Here one must leave behind all hesitation;
here every cowardice must meet its death.
Noi siam venuti al loco ov'i' ...Read more of this...
by
Meredith, George
...and their angel
She will be; she lifts them, and on she speeds again.
Black the driving raincloud breasts the iron gateway:
She is forth to cheer a neighbour lacking mirth.
So when sky and grass met rolling dumb for thunder
Saw I once a white dove, sole light of earth.
Prim little scholars are the flowers of her garden,
Trained to stand in rows, and asking if they please.
I might love them well but for loving more the wild ones:
O my wild ones! they tell me ...Read more of this...
by
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...tree some fruit may bear;
Not Oedipus Coloneus, or Greek Ode,
Or tales of pilgrims that one morning rode
Out of the gateway of the Tabard Inn,
But other something, would we but begin;
For age is opportunity no less
Than youth itself, though in another dress,
And as the evening twilight fades away
The sky is filled with stars, invisible by day....Read more of this...
by
Morris, William
...ry;
And round it a carved wreath he seemed to see:
But taking note of these things, at the last
The mariner beneath the gateway passed.
And there a lovely cloistered court he found,
A fountain in the mist o'erthrown and dry,
And in the cloister briers twining round
The slender shafts; the wondrous imagery
Outworn by more than many years gone by;
Because the country people, in their fear
Of wizardry, had wrought destruction here,
And piteously these fair things had been...Read more of this...
by
McGonagall, William Topaz
...ling down their faces,
And the mourners from shedding tears couldn't refrain;
And in respect of the good man, above the gateway glared a bituminous flame.
Then the coffin was placed on the funeral car,
By the kings and princes that came from afar;
And the Crown Prince William heads the procession alone,
While behind him are the four heirs-apparent to the throne.
Then followed the three Kings of Saxony, and the King of the Belgians also,
Together with the Prince of...Read more of this...
by
Lowell, Amy
...ome, through the emptying streets, Max took Christine,
Who would have hid her sorrow from his gaze.
Before the iron gateway, clasped between
Each garden wall, he stopped. She, in amaze,
Asked, "Do you enter not then, Mynheer Breuck?
My father told me of your courtesy.
Since I am now your charge, 'tis meet for me
To show such hospitality as maiden may,
Without disdaining rules must not be broke.
Katrina will have coffee, and she bakes today."
27
She straig...Read more of this...
by
Swinburne, Algernon Charles
...men's dust, and stirred
Death; for Italia was risen,
And risen her light upon Rome.
The light of her sword in the gateway
Shone, an unquenchable flame,
Bloodless, a sword to release,
A light from the eyes of peace,
To bid grief utterly cease,
And the wrong of the old world straightway
Pass from the face of her fame:
Hers, whom we turn to and cry on,
Italy, mother of men:
From the light of the face of her glory,
At the sound of the storm of her story,
That the sanguine ...Read more of this...
by
Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...mighty hill,
And on the top, a city walled: the spires
Pricked with incredible pinnacles into heaven.
And by the gateway stirred a crowd; and these
Cried to me climbing, "Welcome, Percivale!
Thou mightiest and thou purest among men!"
And glad was I and clomb, but found at top
No man, nor any voice. And thence I past
Far through a ruinous city, and I saw
That man had once dwelt there; but there I found
Only one man of an exceeding age.
"Where is that goo...Read more of this...
by
Scott, Sir Walter
...s were snared,
And when the banquet they prepared,
And wide their loyal portals flung,
O'er their own gateway struggling hung.
Loud cries their blood from Meggat's mead,
From Yarrow braes and banks of Tweed,
Where the lone streams of Ettrick glide,
And from the silver Teviot's side;
The dales, where martial clans did ride,
Are now one sheep-walk, waste and wide.
This tyrant of the Scottish throne,
So faithless ...Read more of this...
by
Gordon, Adam Lindsay
...he dawn at "Moorabinda" was a mist rack dull and dense,
The sun-rise was a sullen, sluggish lamp;
I was dozing in the gateway at Arbuthnot's bound'ry fence,
I was dreaming on the Limestone cattle camp.
We crossed the creek at Carricksford, and sharply through the haze,
And suddenly the sun shot flaming forth;
To southward lay "Katawa", with the sand peaks all ablaze,
And the flushed fields of Glen Lomond lay to north.
Now westward winds the bridle-path that le...Read more of this...
by
Hardy, Thomas
...hat cross and whirl and wind
To music throbbing through?" -
III
"The Keeper of the Field of Tombs
Dwells by its gateway-pier;
He celebrates with feast and dance
His daughter's twentieth year:
He celebrates with wine of France
The birthday of his dear." -
IV
"The gates are shut when evening glooms:
Lay down your wreath, sad wight;
To-morrow is a time more fit
For placing flowers aright:
The morning is the time for it;
Come, wake with us to-night!"...Read more of this...
by
Robinson, Edwin Arlington
...not saying
That I should come to Rome? I did say that;
And I said furthermore that I should go
On westward, where the gateway of the world
Lets in the central sea. I did say that,
But I say only, now, that I am Paul—
A prisoner of the Law, and of the Lord
A voice made free. If there be time enough
To live, I may have more to tell you then
Of western matters. I go now to Rome,
Where Cæsar waits for me, and I shall wait,
And Cæsar knows how long. In Cæs...Read more of this...
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