Famous Historian Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Historian poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous historian poems. These examples illustrate what a famous historian poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Thomson, James
...d alone; and, to the source (involv'd
Deep in primeval gloom) ascending, rais'd
His lights at equal distances, to guide
Historian wilder'd on his darksome way.
But who can number up his labours? who
His high discoveries sing? When but a few
Of the deep-studying race can stretch their minds
To what he knew--in fancy's lighter thought
How shall the muse then grasp the mighty theme?
What wonder thence that his devotion swell'd
Responsive to his knowledge? For could he,
W...Read more of this...
by
Graves, Robert
...illed lions, he’s killed bears,
And those that scorn the God of Zion
Shall perish so like bear or lion.
But … the historian of that fight
Had not the heart to tell it right.
Striding within javelin range,
Goliath marvels at this strange
Goodly-faced boy so proud of strength.
David’s clear eye measures the length;
With hand thrust back, he cramps one knee,
Poises a moment thoughtfully,
And hurls with a long vengeful swing.
The pebble, humming from th...Read more of this...
by
Hope, Alec Derwent (A D)
...ve
My urgent Now explode continually into flower,
To be the Eater of Time, a poet and not that sly
Anus of mind the historian. It was so simple and plain
To live by the sole, insatiable influx of the eye.
But something went wrong with the plan: I am still on the train....Read more of this...
by
Keats, John
...THOU still unravish'd bride of quietness
Thou foster-child of Silence and slow Time
Sylvan historian who canst thus express
A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:
What leaf-fringed legend haunts about thy shape 5
Of deities or mortals or of both
In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?
What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?
What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?
What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy? 10
Heard melod...Read more of this...
by
Ransom, John Crowe
...covers maybe thirty unwidowed years
Of not dishonoring the faithful stem;
Is nameless and has authored for the evil
Historian headhunters neither book
Nor state and is therefore distinct from tart
Heads with crowns and guilty gallery heads;
Wherefore the extravagant device of art
Unhousing by abstraction this once head
Was capital irony by a loving hand
That knew the no treason of a head like this;
Makes repentance in an unlovely head
For having vinegarly traduc...Read more of this...
by
Milton, John
...waked, thus gratefully replied.
What thanks sufficient, or what recompence
Equal, have I to render thee, divine
Historian, who thus largely hast allayed
The thirst I had of knowledge, and vouchsafed
This friendly condescension to relate
Things, else by me unsearchable; now heard
With wonder, but delight, and, as is due,
With glory attributed to the high
Creator! Something yet of doubt remains,
Which only thy solution can resolve.
When I behold this goodly ...Read more of this...
by
Masters, Edgar Lee
...ill I chiseled whatever they paid me to chisel
And made myself party to the false chronicles
Of the stones,
Even as the historian does who writes
Without knowing the truth,
Or because he is influenced to hide it....Read more of this...
by
Goldsmith, Oliver
...y ****** from the thorn,
To seek her nightly shed, and weep till morn;
She only left of all the harmless train,
The sad historian of the pensive plain.
Near yonder copse, where once the garden smiled,
And still where many a garden flower grows wild;
There, where a few torn shrubs the place disclose,
The village preacher's modest mansion rose.
A man he was to all the country dear,
And passing rich with forty pounds a year;
Remote from towns he ran his godly race,
Nor ...Read more of this...
by
Russell, George William
...armth of heart to heart
Chased the shadows from my brow.
Oh, I am so old, meseems
I am next of kin to Time,
The historian of her dreams
From the long-forgotten prime.
You have come a path of flowers.
What a way was mine to roam!
Many a fallen empire’s towers,
Many a ruined heart my home.
No, there is no comfort, none.
All the dewy tender breath
Idly falls when life is done
On the starless brow of death.
Though the dream of love may tire,...Read more of this...
by
Petrarch, Francesco
...d by herself appearA theme for poems, and might well inciteThe best historian: they bore a white[Pg 372]Unspotted ermine, in a field of green,About whose neck a topaz chain was seenSet in pure gold; their heavenly words and gait,Express'd them blest were born for ...Read more of this...
by
Kipling, Rudyard
...ce on a time there was a Man."
Thrones, Powers, Dominions block the view
With episodes and underlings --
The meek historian deems them true
Nor heeds the song that Clio sings --
The simple central truth that stings
The mob to boo, the priest to ban;
Things never yet created things --
"Once on a time there was a Man."
A bolt is fallen from the blue.
A wakened realm full circle swings
Where Dothan's dreamer dreams anew
Of vast and farborne harvestings;
An...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...YOU who celebrate bygones!
Who have explored the outward, the surfaces of the races—the life that has
exhibited itself;
Who have treated of man as the creature of politics, aggregates, rulers and
priests;
I, habitan of the Alleghanies, treating of him as he is in himself, in his own
rights,
Pressing the pulse of the life that has seldom exhibited it...Read more of this...
by
Marvell, Andrew
...ifie that he was wrong.
Cups more then civil of Emilthian wine,
I sing (said he) and the Pharsalian Sign,
Where the Historian of the Common-wealth
In his own Bowels sheath'd the conquering health.
By this May to himself and them was come,
He found he was tranflated, and by whom.
Yet then with foot as stumbling as his tongue
Prest for his place among the Learned throng.
But Ben, who knew not neither foe nor friend,
Sworn Enemy to all that do pretend,
Rose more ...Read more of this...
by
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...rse divine.
Not of the howling dervishes of song,
Who craze the brain with their delirious dance,
Art thou, O sweet historian of the heart!
Therefore to thee the laurel-leaves belong,
To thee our love and our allegiance,
For thy allegiance to the poet's art....Read more of this...
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