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Famous Hoary Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry
...and cheer'd the gloom 
Spread o'er the shaded earth; yet more than half 
In superstition and the dreams of night 
Each hoary sage by long experience wise, 
And high philosopher of learning fam'd 
Lay buried deep shut from the light of day. 
Shut from the light of revelation clear 
In devious path they wandered oft, 
Nor could strong reason with the partial beam 
Of revelation, wholly dissipate 
The midnight horrors of so dark an age. 
Vain were their searches, and their reas...Read more of this...
by Brackenridge, Hugh Henry



...hat pulls thy plough; 
Due food and care, due rest, allow 
 For her that yields thee milk. 

 XLIII 
Rise up before the hoary head, 
And God's benign commandment dread, 
 Which says thou shalt not die: 
"Not as I will, but as Thou wilt," 
Pray'd He Whose conscience knew no guilt; 
 With Whose bless'd pattern vie. 

 XLIV 
Use all thy passions!—love is thine, 
And joy, and jealousy divine; 
 Thine hope's eternal fort, 
And care thy leisure to disturb, 
With fear concupiscence ...Read more of this...
by Smart, Christopher
...ed anchor in a little sandy bay,
And with fresh boughs of olive crowned his head,
And brushed from cheek and throat the hoary spray,
And washed his limbs with oil, and from the hold
Brought out his linen tunic and his sandals brazen-soled,

And a rich robe stained with the fishers' juice
Which of some swarthy trader he had bought
Upon the sunny quay at Syracuse,
And was with Tyrian broideries inwrought,
And by the questioning merchants made his way
Up through the soft and sil...Read more of this...
by Wilde, Oscar
...nd he rides away. 
 
 II. 
 
 EVIRADNUS. 
 
 Eviradnus was growing old apace, 
 The weight of years had left its hoary trace, 
 But still of knights the most renowned was he, 
 Model of bravery and purity. 
 His blood he spared not; ready day or night 
 To punish crime, his dauntless sword shone bright 
 In his unblemished hand; holy and white 
 And loyal all his noble life had been, 
 A Christian Samson coming on the scene. 
 With fist alone the gate he batter...Read more of this...
by Hugo, Victor
..." so runs his moan,
"Doubt Truth herself, but not my love for thee!" 

A sadder vision yet: thine aged sire
Shaming his hoary locks with treacherous wile!
And dost thou now doubt Truth to be a liar?
And wilt thou die, that hast forgot to smile? 

Nay, get thee hence! Leave all thy winsome ways
And the faint fragrance of thy scattered flowers:
In holy silence wait the appointed days,
And weep away the leaden-footed hours. 


III. 

The air is bright with hues of light
And rich...Read more of this...
by Carroll, Lewis



..., for a God;
And ocean too, with all its solemn noise,
Has from thy sceptre pass'd; and all the air
Is emptied of thine hoary majesty.
Thy thunder, conscious of the new command,
Rumbles reluctant o'er our fallen house;
And thy sharp lightning in unpractised hands
Scorches and burns our once serene domain.
O aching time! O moments big as years!
All as ye pass swell out the monstrous truth,
And press it so upon our weary griefs
That unbelief has not a space to breathe.
Saturn, ...Read more of this...
by Keats, John
...d no more spake until 
 The bank we reached, and on the stream beheld 
 A bark ply toward us. 
 Of exceeding eld, 
 And hoary showed the steersman, screaming shrill, 
 With horrid glee the while he neared us, "Woe 
 To ye, depraved! - Is here no Heaven, but ill 
 The place where I shall herd ye. Ice and fire 
 And darkness are the wages of their hire 
 Who serve unceasing here - But thou that there 
 Dost wait though live, depart ye. Yea, forbear! 
 A different passage and a ...Read more of this...
by Alighieri, Dante
...p;I sang an old and moving Story—  An old rude Song that fitted well    The Ruin wild and hoary.   She listen'd with a flitting Blush,  With downcast Eyes and modest Grace;  For well she knew, I could not choose    But gaze upon her Face.   I told her of the Knight, that wore  Upon his Shield a burning Brand;  And that for ten long Years he woo'd &n...Read more of this...
by Wordsworth, William
...played a soft and doleful air,
I sang an old and moving story—
An old rude song, that suited well
That ruin wild and hoary.

She listened with a flitting blush,
With downcast eyes and modest grace;
For well she knew, I could not choose
But gaze upon her face.

I told her of the Knight that wore
Upon his shield a burning brand;
And that for ten long years he wooed
The Lady of the Land.

I told her how he pined: and ah!
The deep, the low, the pleading tone
With...Read more of this...
by Coleridge, Samuel Taylor
...es a mazy glare 
Where the noonday glory sails through gulfs of calm and glittering air; 
Stately mountains, high and hoary, piled with blocks of amber cloud, 
Where the fading twilight lingers, when the winds are wailing loud; 

Grand old mountains, overbeetling brawling brooks and deep ravines, 
Where the moonshine, pale and mournful, flows on rocks and evergreens. 

Underneath these regal ridges - underneath the gnarly trees, 
I am sitting, lonely-hearted, listeni...Read more of this...
by Kendall, Henry
...urnace-mouth 
Cast forth redounding smoke and ruddy flame. 
Before their eyes in sudden view appear 
The secrets of the hoary Deep--a dark 
Illimitable ocean, without bound, 
Without dimension; where length, breadth, and height, 
And time, and place, are lost; where eldest Night 
And Chaos, ancestors of Nature, hold 
Eternal anarchy, amidst the noise 
Of endless wars, and by confusion stand. 
For Hot, Cold, Moist, and Dry, four champions fierce, 
Strive here for mastery, and ...Read more of this...
by Milton, John
...he grass.

Before the gods that made the gods
Had drunk at dawn their fill,
The White Horse of the White Horse Vale
Was hoary on the hill.

Age beyond age on British land,
Aeons on aeons gone,
Was peace and war in western hills,
And the White Horse looked on.

For the White Horse knew England
When there was none to know;
He saw the first oar break or bend,
He saw heaven fall and the world end,
O God, how long ago.

For the end of the world was long ago,
And all we dwell to-da...Read more of this...
by Chesterton, G K
...he veritable ding an sich, at last, 
70 Crispin confronting it, a vocable thing, 
71 But with a speech belched out of hoary darks 
72 Noway resembling his, a visible thing, 
73 And excepting negligible Triton, free 
74 From the unavoidable shadow of himself 
75 That lay elsewhere around him. Severance 
76 Was clear. The last distortion of romance 
77 Forsook the insatiable egotist. The sea 
78 Severs not only lands but also selves. 
79 Here was no help before realit...Read more of this...
by Stevens, Wallace
...he passed
From out the massy gate of that old Hall,
And mounting on his steed he went his way;
And ne'er repassed that hoary threshold more.

IV

A change came o'er the spirit of my dream.
The Boy was sprung to manhood: in the wilds
Of fiery climes he made himself a home,
And his Soul drank their sunbeams; he was girt
With strange and dusky aspects; he was not
Himself like what he had been; on the sea
And on the shore he was a wanderer;
There was a mass of many images
Crowde...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)
...needs he more?
1.45 In's other hand a glass, ev'n almost run,
1.46 This writ about: This out, then I am done.
1.47 His hoary hairs and grave aspect made way,
1.48 And all gave ear to what he had to say.
1.49 These being met, each in his equipage
1.50 Intend to speak, according to their age,
1.51 But wise Old-age did with all gravity
1.52 To childish childhood give precedency,
1.53 And to the rest, his reason mildly told:
1.54 That he was young, before he grew so old.
1.55 To...Read more of this...
by Bradstreet, Anne
...o wait
     Till judgment speak the doom of fate;
     So still, as if no breeze might dare
     To lift one lock of hoary hair;
     So still, as life itself were fled
     In the last sound his harp had sped.
     V.

     Upon a rock with lichens wild,
     Beside him Ellen sat and smiled.—
     Smiled she to see the stately drake
     Lead forth his fleet upon the lake,
     While her vexed spaniel from the beach
     Bayed at the prize beyond his reach?
   ...Read more of this...
by Scott, Sir Walter
...) 
The fiery limbs, the flaming hair, shot like the sinking sun
into the western sea.
Wak'd from his eternal sleep, the hoary, element roaring
fled away:
Down rushd beating his wings in vain the jealous king: his
grey brow'd councellors, thunderous warriors, curl'd veterans,
among helms, and shields, and chariots horses, elephants:
banners, castles, slings and rocks,
Falling, rushing, ruining! buried in the ruins, on Urthona's
dens.
All night beneath the ruins, then their sul...Read more of this...
by Blake, William
...rt!

OH! bear me then to high, embowering, Shades;
To twilight Groves, and visionary Vales; 
To weeping Grottos, and to hoary Caves;
Where Angel-Forms are seen, and Voices heard,
Sigh'd in low Whispers, that abstract the Soul,
From outward Sense, far into Worlds remote.

NOW, when the Western Sun withdraws the Day, 
And humid Evening, gliding o'er the Sky,
In her chill Progress, checks the straggling Beams,
And robs them of their gather'd, vapoury, Prey,
Where Marshes stagnat...Read more of this...
by Thomson, James
...ept as wakeful as the stars that gem
The cone of night, now they were laid asleep,
Stretched my faint limbs beneath the hoary stem
Which an old chestnut flung athwart the steep
Of a green Apennine: before me fled
The night; behind me rose the day; the Deep
Was at my feet, & Heaven above my head
When a strange trance over my fancy grew
Which was not slumber, for the shade it spread
Was so transparent that the scene came through
As clear as when a veil of light is drawn
O'er ev...Read more of this...
by Shelley, Percy Bysshe
...y work of him from whom all glory 
And good arise; the portal past — he stood; 
Before him the young cherubs and saints hoary — 
(I say young, begging to be understood 
By looks, not years; and should be very sorry 
To state, they were not older than St. Peter, 
But merely that they seem'd a little sweeter. 

XXXI 

The cherubs and the saints bow'd down before 
That arch-angelic Hierarch, the first 
Of essences angelical, who wore 
The aspect of a god; but this ne'er nursed 
...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry