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Famous Herdsmen Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Yeats, William Butler
...at he scarce had spoke
Before her love-worn heart had broke.
He ran and laughed until he came
To that high hill the herdsmen name
The Hill Seat of Laighen, because
Some god or king had made the laws
That held the land together there,
In old times among the clouds of the air.

That old man climbed; the day grew dim;
Two swans came flying up to him,
Linked by a gold chain each to each,
And with low murmuring laughing speech
Alighted on the windy grass.
They knew him...Read more of this...



by Belloc, Hilaire
...eace until the end;
With every evening's dust of gold to hear
The bells upon the pasture height, the clear
Full horn of herdsmen gathering in the kine
To ancient byres in hamlets Appenine,
And crown abundant age with generous ease:
Had these, Ausonian Muse, had these, had these.....

But since I would not, since I could not stay,
Let me remember even in this my day
How, when the ephemeral vision's lure is past
All, all, must face their Passion at the last
...Read more of this...

by Alighieri, Dante
...and tramples down, and strips, and bends, 
 And levels. The wild things in the woods that be 
 Cower down. The herdsmen from its trumpets flee. 
 With clouds of dust to trace its course it goes, 
 Superb, and leaving ruin. Such sound arose. 
 And he that held me loosened mine eyes, and said, 
 "Look back, and see what foam the black waves bear." 

 As frogs, the while the serpent picks his prey, 
 In panic scatter through the stream, and there 
 Flatt...Read more of this...

by García Lorca, Federico
...mothers 
lifted their heads. 
And across the ranches, 
an air of secret voices rose, 
shouting to celestial bulls, 
herdsmen of pale mist. 
There was no prince in Sevilla 
who could compare to him, 
nor sword like his sword 
nor heart so true. 
Like a river of lions 
was his marvellous strength, 
and like a marble toroso 
his firm drawn moderation. 
The air of Andalusian Rome 
gilded his head 
where his smile was a spikenard 
of wit and intelligence. 
What...Read more of this...

by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
...reet,
He sits in the High Street on market day;
The bullocks may bellow, the sheep they may bleat,
But the dogs and the herdsmen will turn them away.
The cars and the lorries run over the kerb,
And the villagers put up a notice: ROAD CLOSED--
So that nothing untoward may chance to distrub
Deuteronomy's rest when he feels so disposed
Or when he's engaged in domestic economy:
And the Oldest Inhabitant croaks: "Well, of all . . .
Things. . . Can it be...Read more of this...



by Jeffers, Robinson
...ir tongues, progress; with their eyes, pleasure; with their hearts, death.

Their ancestors were good hunters, good herdsmen and swordsman,
But now the world is turned upside down;
The good do evil, the hope's in criminals; in vice
That dissolves the cities and war to destroy them.
Through wars and corruptions the house will fall.
Mourn whom it falls on. Be glad: the house is mined, it will fall.

IV

Rain, hail and brutal sun, the plow in the roots,
The p...Read more of this...

by Kilmer, Joyce
...(For Thomas Walsh)

I

On nights like this the huddled sheep
Are like white clouds upon the grass,
And merry herdsmen guard their sleep
And chat and watch the big stars pass.
It is a pleasant thing to lie
Upon the meadow on the hill
With kindly fellowship near by
Of sheep and men of gentle will.
I lean upon my broken crook
And dream of sheep and grass and men --
O shameful eyes that cannot look
On any honest thing again!
On bloody feet I clambered down
And ...Read more of this...

by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...wood, and takes, and breaks, and cracks, and splits, 
And twists the grain with such a roar that Earth 
Reels, and the herdsmen cry; for everything 
Game way before him: only Florian, he 
That loved me closer than his own right eye, 
Thrust in between; but Arac rode him down: 
And Cyril seeing it, pushed against the Prince, 
With Psyche's colour round his helmet, tough, 
Strong, supple, sinew-corded, apt at arms; 
But tougher, heavier, stronger, he that smote 
And threw him:...Read more of this...

by Shelley, Percy Bysshe
...e enwombed rocks
Could have brought forth so beautiful a birth:
Her love subdued their wonder and their mirth.

The herdsmen and the mountain-maidens came,
And the rude kings of pastoral Garamant--
Their spirits shook within them, as a flame
Stirred by the air under a cavern gaunt:
Pygmies and Polyphemes, by many a name,
Centaurs and Satyrs, and such shapes as haunt
Wet clefts,--and lumps neither alive nor dead,
Dog-headed, bosom-eyed, and bird-footed.

For she was be...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...with oval countenances, learn’d and calm, 
Some naked and savage—Some like huge collections of insects, 
Some in tents—herdsmen, patriarchs, tribes, horsemen,
Some prowling through woods—Some living peaceably on farms, laboring, reaping,
 filling
 barns, 
Some traversing paved avenues, amid temples, palaces, factories, libraries, shows, courts,
 theatres, wonderful monuments. 

Are those billions of men really gone? 
Are those women of the old experience of the earth gon...Read more of this...

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Book: Shattered Sighs