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Famous Hight Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Field, Eugene
...trewe love with sweet discourse and divers plaisaunt wiles.
In soche a time ye noblesse liege that ben Kyng Arthure hight
Let cry a joust and tournament for evereche errant knyght,
And, lo! from distant Joyous-garde and eche adjacent spot
A company of noblesse lords fared unto Camelot,
Wherein were mighty feastings and passing merrie cheere,
And eke a deale of dismal dole, as you shall quickly heare.

It so befell upon a daye when jousts ben had and while
Sir Launcelo...Read more of this...



by Spenser, Edmund
...is sheep, his litle stock and store.
Full carefully he kept them day and night,
In fairest fields, and Astrophel he hight.

Young Astrophel the pride of shepheards praise,
Young Astrophel the rusticke lasses loue:
Far passing all the pastors of his daies,
In all that seemly shepheard might behoue.
In one thing onely fayling of the best,
That he was not so happie as the rest.

For from the time that first the Nymph his mother
Him forth did bring, and taught her...Read more of this...

by Spenser, Edmund
...is sheep, his litle stock and store.
Full carefully he kept them day and night,
In fairest fields, and Astrophel he hight.

Young Astrophel the pride of shepheards praise,
Young Astrophel the rusticke lasses loue:
Far passing all the pastors of his daies,
In all that seemly shepheard might behoue.
In one thing onely fayling of the best,
That he was not so happie as the rest.

For from the time that first the Nymph his mother
Him forth did bring, and taught her...Read more of this...

by Clare, John
...
The larks like thunder rise and suthy round,
Then drop and nestle in the stubble ground.
The wild swan hurries hight and noises loud
With white neck peering to the evening clowd.
The weary rooks to distant woods are gone.
With lengths of tail the magpie winnows on
To neighbouring tree, and leaves the distant crow
While small birds nestle in the edge below....Read more of this...

by Manrique, Jorge
...what lamentable
Fate the lords of yesterday
Have fallen upon.

Of fair Don Juan the king that ruled us,—
Of those hight heirs of Aragon,—
What are the tidings?
Of him, whose courtly graces schooled us,
Whom song and wisdom smiled upon,
Where the abidings?

The jousts and tourneys where vaunted
With trappings, and caparison,
And armor sheathing,—
Were they but phantasies that taunted,—
But blades of grass that vanished on
A summer's breathing?

What of the d...Read more of this...



by Spenser, Edmund
...his day is holy; doe ye write it downe, 
That ye for ever it remember may. 
This day the sunne is in his chiefest hight, 265 
With Barnaby the bright, 
From whence declining daily by degrees, 
He somewhat loseth of his heat and light, 
When once the Crab behind his back he sees. 
But for this time it ill ordain¨¨d was, 270 
To chose the longest day in all the yeare, 
And shortest night, when longest fitter weare: 
Yet never day so long, but late would passe....Read more of this...

by Marvell, Andrew
...d the object vain,
They might be ready to complain.

And since the Self-deluding Sight,
In a false Angle takes each hight;
These Tears which better measure all,
Like wat'ry Lines and Plummets fall.

Two Tears, which Sorrow long did weigh
Within the Scales of either Eye,
And then paid out in equal Poise,
Are the true price of all my Joyes.

What in the World most fair appears,
Yea even Laughter, turns to Tears:
And all the Jewels which we prize,
Melt in these Penda...Read more of this...

by Marlowe, Christopher
...n view and opposite two cities stood,
3 Sea-borderers, disjoin'd by Neptune's might;
4 The one Abydos, the other Sestos hight.
5 At Sestos Hero dwelt; Hero the fair,
6 Whom young Apollo courted for her hair,
7 And offer'd as a dower his burning throne,
8 Where she could sit for men to gaze upon.
9 The outside of her garments were of lawn,
10 The lining purple silk, with gilt stars drawn;
11 Her wide sleeves green, and border'd with a grove,
12 Where Venus in her naked...Read more of this...

by Dryden, John
...fair Augusta much to fears inclin'd)
An ancient fabric, rais'd t'inform the sight,
There stood of yore, and Barbican it hight:
A watch tower once; but now, so fate ordains,
Of all the pile an empty name remains.
From its old ruins brothel-houses rise,
Scenes of lewd loves, and of polluted joys.
Where their vast courts, the mother-strumpets keep,
And, undisturb'd by watch, in silence sleep.
Near these a nursery erects its head,
Where queens are form'd, and future h...Read more of this...

by Clare, John
...ecchos in the porch
And jilting oer the weather cock
Viewing wi jealous eyes the clock
Oft leaping grave stones leaning hights
Uncheckt wi mellancholy sights
The green grass swelld in many a heap
Where kin and friends and parents sleep
Unthinking in their jovial cry
That time shall come when they shall lye
As lowly and as still as they
While other boys above them play
Heedless as they do now to know
The unconcious dust that lies below
The shepherd goes wi happy stride
Wi moms...Read more of this...

by Spenser, Edmund
...rrived there they passed in forth right;
For still to all the gates stood open wide,
Yet charge of them was to a Porter hight
Cald Malven{'u}, who entrance none denide:
Thence to the hall, which was on every side,
With rich array and costly arras dight:
Infinite sorts of people did abide
There waiting long, to win the wished sight
Of her, that was the Lady of that Pallace bright.

vii

By them they passe, all gazing on them round,
And to the Presence mount; whose glorious...Read more of this...

by Chaucer, Geoffrey
...WHILOM*, as olde stories tellen us, *formerly
There was a duke that highte* Theseus. *was called 
Of Athens he was lord and governor,
And in his time such a conqueror
That greater was there none under the sun.
Full many a riche country had he won.
What with his wisdom and his chivalry,
He conquer'd all the regne of Feminie,
That whilom was y-cleped Scythia;
And weddede the Queen Hippolyta
And brought her ho...Read more of this...

by Chaucer, Geoffrey
...half a peck
Of corn by sleight, nor them by force bereave* *take away
And at the last the warden give them leave:
John hight the one, and Alein hight the other,
Of one town were they born, that highte Strother,
Far in the North, I cannot tell you where.
This Alein he made ready all his gear,
And on a horse the sack he cast anon:
Forth went Alein the clerk, and also John,
With good sword and with buckler by their side.
John knew the way, him needed not no guide,
An...Read more of this...

by Field, Eugene
...When I am in New York, I like to drop around at night,
To visit with my honest, genial friends, the Stoddards hight;
Their home in Fifteenth street is all so snug, and furnished so,
That, when I once get planted there, I don't know when to go;
A cosy cheerful refuge for the weary homesick guest,
Combining Yankee comforts with the freedom of the west.

The first thing you discover, as you maunder through the hall,
Is a curious little clock upon a bracket on the w...Read more of this...

by Chaucer, Geoffrey
...phrast,
And with that book he laugh'd alway full fast.
And eke there was a clerk sometime at Rome,
A cardinal, that highte Saint Jerome,
That made a book against Jovinian,
Which book was there; and eke Tertullian,
Chrysippus, Trotula, and Heloise,
That was an abbess not far from Paris;
And eke the Parables* of Solomon, *Proverbs
Ovide's Art, 29 and bourdes* many one; *jests
And alle these were bound in one volume.
And every night and day was his custume
(When he had l...Read more of this...

by Chaucer, Geoffrey
...was Calkas,
That in science so expert was, that he
Knew wel that Troye sholde destroyed be,
By answere of his god, that highte thus,
Daun Phebus or Apollo Delphicus. 

So whan this Calkas knew by calculinge,
And eek by answere of this Appollo,
That Grekes sholden swich a peple bringe,
Thorugh which that Troye moste been for-do,
He caste anoon out of the toun to go; 
For wel wiste he, by sort, that Troye sholde
Destroyed ben, ye, wolde who-so nolde.

For which, for to ...Read more of this...

by Chaucer, Geoffrey
...unte wel,' quod Pandare, 'by my trouthe. 

'But may I truste wel ther-to,' quod he,
'That of this thing that ye han hight me here,
Ye wol it holden trewly un-to me?'
'Ye, doutelees,' quod she, 'myn uncle dere.'
'Ne that I shal han cause in this matere,' 
Quod he, 'to pleyne, or after yow to preche?'
'Why, no, parde; what nedeth more speche?'

Tho fillen they in othere tales glade,
Til at the laste, 'O good eem,' quod she tho,
'For love of god, which that us bothe made...Read more of this...

by Chaucer, Geoffrey
...whom myn herte enhabit is by right,
Shal han me holly hires til that I deye.
For, Pandarus, sin I have trouthe hir hight, 
I wol not been untrewe for no wight;
But as hir man I wol ay live and sterve,
And never other creature serve.

'And ther thou seyst, thou shalt as faire finde
As she, lat be, make no comparisoun 
To creature y-formed here by kinde.
O leve Pandare, in conclusioun,
I wol not be of thyn opinioun,
Touching al this; for whiche I thee biseche,
So h...Read more of this...

by Chaucer, Geoffrey
...ele, by my maladye,
And by my dremes now and yore ago,
Al certeinly, that I mot nedes dye.
The owle eek, which that hight Ascaphilo,
Hath after me shright alle thise nightes two. 
And, god Mercurie! Of me now, woful wrecche,
The soule gyde, and, whan thee list, it fecche!'

Pandare answerde, and seyde, 'Troilus,
My dere freend, as I have told thee yore,
That it is folye for to sorwen thus, 
And causeles, for whiche I can no-more.
But who-so wol not trowen reed ne ...Read more of this...

by Marvell, Andrew
...Quails, for Manna Dew.

Unhappy Birds! what does it boot
To build below the Grasses Root;
When Lowness is unsafe as Hight,
And Chance o'retakes what scapeth spight?
And now your Orphan Parents Call
Sounds your untimely Funeral.
Death-Trumpets creak in such a Note,
And 'tis the Sourdine in their Throat.

Or sooner hatch or higher build:
The Mower now commands the Field;
In whose new Traverse seemeth wrought
A Camp of Battail newly fought:
Where, as the Meads with H...Read more of this...

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