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Famous High Up Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Browning, Robert
...to do his foes offence, 
There, and I will that he begin to live, 
Fly to yon rock-top, nip me off the horns 
Of grigs high up that make the merry din, 
Saucy through their veined wings, and mind me not. 
In which feat, if his leg snapped, brittle clay, 
And he lay stupid-like,--why, I should laugh; 
And if he, spying me, should fall to weep, 
Beseech me to be good, repair his wrong, 
Bid his poor leg smart less or grow again,-- 
Well, as the chance were, this might take...Read more of this...



by Wilde, Oscar
...long had lain
Within some shepherd's hut in Arcady,
On team of silver doves and gilded wain
Was journeying Paphos-ward, high up afar
From mortal ken between the mountains and the morning star,

And when low down she spied the hapless pair,
And heard the Oread's faint despairing cry,
Whose cadence seemed to play upon the air
As though it were a viol, hastily
She bade her pigeons fold each straining plume,
And dropt to earth, and reached the strand, and saw their dolorous
doom....Read more of this...

by Rilke, Rainer Maria
...ed young.
Didn't their fate whenever you stepped into a church
In Naples or Rome quietly come to address you?
Or high up some eulogy entrusted you with a mission
as last year on the plaque in Santa Maria Formosa.
What they want of me is that I gently remove the appearance
of injustice about their death-which at times
slightly hinders their souls from proceeding onward.
Of course it is strange to inhabit the earth no longer
to give up customs one barely ha...Read more of this...

by Ammons, A R
...blackwinged, whitenecked
and –headed, came from the south oaring
the great wings steadily; they went
directly over me, high up, and kept on
due north: but then one bird,
the one behind, veered a little to the
left and the other bird kept on seeming
not to notice for a minute: the first
began to circle as if looking for
something, coasting, resting its wings
on the down side of some of the circles:
the other bird came back and they both
circled, looking perhaps for a draft;
t...Read more of this...

by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...>
In those two deaths he read God's warning `wait.' 

The mountain wooded to the peak, the lawns
And winding glades high up like ways to Heaven,
The slender coco's drooping crown of plumes,
The lightning flash of insect and of bird,
The lustre of the long convolvuluses
That coil'd around the stately stems, and ran
Ev'n to the limit of the land, the glows
And glories of the broad belt of the world,
All these he saw; but what he fain had seen
He could not see, the kindly hu...Read more of this...



by Hughes, Langston
...ere and I hollered!
I stood there and I cried!
If it hadn't a-been so high
I might've jumped and died.

 But it was High up there! It was high!

So since I'm still here livin',
I guess I will live on.
I could've died for love--
But for livin' I was born

Though you may hear me holler,
And you may see me cry--
I'll be dogged, sweet baby,
If you gonna see me die.

 Life is fine! Fine as wine! Life is fine!...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...n her kings barbaric pearl and gold, 
Satan exalted sat, by merit raised 
To that bad eminence; and, from despair 
Thus high uplifted beyond hope, aspires 
Beyond thus high, insatiate to pursue 
Vain war with Heaven; and, by success untaught, 
His proud imaginations thus displayed:-- 
 "Powers and Dominions, Deities of Heaven!-- 
For, since no deep within her gulf can hold 
Immortal vigour, though oppressed and fallen, 
I give not Heaven for lost: from this descent 
Celestial...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...sion put to try once more 
What thou and thy gay legions dare against; 
Whose easier business were to serve their Lord 
High up in Heaven, with songs to hymn his throne, 
And practised distances to cringe, not fight, 
To whom the warriour Angel soon replied. 
To say and straight unsay, pretending first 
Wise to fly pain, professing next the spy, 
Argues no leader but a liear traced, 
Satan, and couldst thou faithful add? O name, 
O sacred name of faithfulness profaned! 
F...Read more of this...

by Brautigan, Richard
...muddy from the snow melting off the Marble Mountains.

 I also heard there were some Eastern brook trout in there,

high up in the mountains, living in the wakes of beaver darns.

 The guy who drove the school bus drew a map of Grider

Creek, showing where the good fishing was. We were standing

in front of Steelhead Lodge when he drew the map. It was

a very hot day. I'd imagine it was a hundred degrees.

 You had to have a car to get to Grider Creek ...Read more of this...

by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...n path: he twitched the reins, 
And made his beast that better knew it, swerve 
Now off it and now on; but when he saw 
High up in heaven the hall that Merlin built, 
Blackening against the dead-green stripes of even, 
`Black nest of rats,' he groaned, `ye build too high.' 

Not long thereafter from the city gates 
Issued Sir Lancelot riding airily, 
Warm with a gracious parting from the Queen, 
Peace at his heart, and gazing at a star 
And marvelling what it was: on whom...Read more of this...

by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...eyes on two fair images,
Both crown'd with stars and high among the stars,--
The Virgin Mother standing with her child
High up on one of those dark minster-fronts--
Till she began to totter, and the child
Clung to the mother, and sent out a cry
Which mixt with little Margaret's, and I woke,
And my dream awed me:--well--but what are dreams?
Yours came but from the breaking of a glass,
And mine but from the crying of a child.' 

`Child? No!' said he, `but this tide's roar,...Read more of this...

by Ferlinghetti, Lawrence
...Freer
than most birds
an eagle flies up
over San Francisco
freer than most places
soars high up
floats and glides high up
in the still
open spaces

flown from the mountains
floated down
far over ocean
where the sunset has begun
a mirror of itself

He sails high over
turning and turning
where seaplanes might turn
where warplanes might burn

He wheels about burning
in the red sun
climbs and glides
and doubles back upon himself
now over ocean
now ...Read more of this...

by Arnold, Matthew
...--like those which men in treeless plains
To build them boats fish from the flooded rivers,
Hyphasis or Hydaspes, when, high up
By their dark springs, the wind in winter-time
Hath made in Himalayan forests wrack,
And strewn the channels with torn boughs--so huge
The club which Rustum lifted now, and struck
One stroke; but again Sohrab sprang aside,
Lithe as the glancing snake, and the club came
Thundering to earth, and leapt from Rustum's hand.
And Rustum follow'd his own...Read more of this...

by Lowell, Amy
...d-dipped arrows, which savages make
And tip with feathers, orange and green,
A quivering death, in harlequin sheen.
High up, a fan of glancing steel
Was formed of claymores in a wheel.
Jewelled swords worn at kings' levees
Were suspended next midshipmen's dirks, and these
Elbowed stilettos come from Spain,
Chased with some splendid Hidalgo's name.
There were Samurai swords from old Japan,
And scimitars from Hindoostan,
While the blade of a Turkish yataghan
Made a ...Read more of this...

by Chesterton, G K
...ding a ruined cross on high,
Under warm westland grass to lie,
Shall we come home at last?"

And a voice came human but high up,
Like a cottage climbed among
The clouds; or a serf of hut and croft
That sits by his hovel fire as oft,
But hears on his old bare roof aloft
A belfry burst in song.

"The gates of heaven are lightly locked,
We do not guard our gain,
The heaviest hind may easily
Come silently and suddenly
Upon me in a lane.

"And any little maid that walks
In...Read more of this...

by Jeffers, Robinson
...d ran from under stone to look up at the sky: so shrill and mournful,
So fierce and final, a brazen
Pealing of trumpets high up in the air, in the summer blue over Tuscany.
They marvelled; the soothsayers answered:
"Although the Gods are little troubled toward men, at the end of each period
A sign is declared in heaven
Indicating new times, new customs, a changed people; the Romans
Rule, and Etruria is finished;
A wise mariner will trim the sails to the wind."

 I hea...Read more of this...

by Stevens, Wallace
...alcon, green toucan 
93 And jay, still to the night-bird made their plea, 
94 As if raspberry tanagers in palms, 
95 High up in orange air, were barbarous. 
96 But Crispin was too destitute to find 
97 In any commonplace the sought-for aid. 
98 He was a man made vivid by the sea, 
99 A man come out of luminous traversing, 
100 Much trumpeted, made desperately clear, 
101 Fresh from discoveries of tidal skies, 
102 To whom oracular rockings gave no rest. ...Read more of this...

by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...ers snow'd upon his breast,
From cheek and throat and chin.


Above, the fair hall-ceiling stately-set
Many an arch high up did lift,
And angels rising and descending met
With interchange of gift.


Below was all mosaic choicely plann'd
With cycles of the human tale
Of this wide world, the times of every land
So wrought, they will not fail.


The people here, a beast of burden slow,
Toil'd onward, prick'd with goads and stings;
Here play'd, a tiger, rolling to and...Read more of this...

by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...r bells. 

The fat earth feed thy branchy root, 
That under deeply strikes! 
The northern morning o'er thee shoot, 
High up, in silver spikes! 

Nor ever lightning char thy grain, 
But, rolling as in sleep, 
Low thunders bring the mellow rain, 
That makes thee broad and deep! 

And hear me swear a solemn oath, 
That only by thy side 
Will I to Olive plight my troth, 
And gain her for my bride. 

And when my marriage morn may fall, 
She, Dryad-like, shall wear 
Alterna...Read more of this...

by Darwish, Mahmoud
...Here on the slopes of hills, facing the dusk and the cannon of time 
Close to the gardens of broken shadows, 
We do what prisoners do, 
And what the jobless do: 
We cultivate hope. 

*** 
A country preparing for dawn. We grow less intelligent 
For we closely watch the hour of victory: 
No night in our night lit up by the shelling 
Our enemies are w...Read more of this...

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Book: Reflection on the Important Things