Famous Homeward Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Elegy IX: The Autumnal

by John Donne
 No spring nor summer Beauty hath such grace
As I have seen in one autumnall face.
Young beauties force our love, and that's a rape,
This doth but counsel, yet you cannot 'scape.
If 'twere a shame to love, here 'twere no shame,
Affection here takes Reverence's name.
Were her first years the Golden Age; that's true,
But now she's gold oft tried, and ever new.
That...Read more of this...

Hesper

by Henry Van Dyke
 Her eyes are like the evening air,
Her voice is like a rose,
Her lips are like a lovely song,
That ripples as it flows,
And she herself is sweeter than
The sweetest thing she knows. 

A slender, haunting, twilight form
Of wonder and surprise,
She seemed a fairy or a child,
Till, deep within her eyes,
I saw the homeward-leading star
Of womanhood arise....Read more of this...

The Merchantmen

by Rudyard Kipling
 King Solomon drew merchantmen,
 Because of his desire
 For peacocks, apes, and ivory,
 From Tarshish unto Tyre,
 With cedars out of Lebanon
 Which Hiram rafted down;
 But we be only sailormen
 That use in London town.

Coastwise -- cross-seas -- round the world and back again --
 Where the paw shall head us or the full Trade suits --
Plain-sail --...Read more of this...

On the Trek

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 Oh, the weary, weary journey on the trek, day after day, 
With sun above and silent veldt below; 
And our hearts keep turning homeward to the youngsters far away, 
And the homestead where the climbing roses grow. 
Shall we see the flats grow golden with the ripening of the grain? 
Shall we hear the parrots calling on the bough?...Read more of this...

Poor Honest Men

by Rudyard Kipling
 Your jar of Virginny
Will cost you a guinea,
Which you reckon too much by five shillings or ten;
But light your churchwarden
And judge it according,
When I've told you the troubles of poor honest men.

From the Capes of the Delaware,
As you are well aware,
We sail which tobacco for England-but then,
Our own British cruisers,
They watch us come through, sirs,
And they press half a...Read more of this...

The Plaid Dress

by Edna St. Vincent Millay
 Strong sun, that bleach
The curtains of my room, can you not render
Colourless this dress I wear?—
This violent plaid
Of purple angers and red shames; the yellow stripe
Of thin but valid treacheries; the flashy green of kind deeds done
Through indolence high judgments given here in haste; 
The recurring checker of the serious breach of taste?

No more uncoloured than unmade,
I fear, can...Read more of this...

The Apology

by Ralph Waldo Emerson
 Think me not unkind and rude,
That I walk alone in grove and glen;
I go to the god of the wood
To fetch his word to men.

Tax not my sloth that I
Fold my arms beside the brook;
Each cloud that floated in the sky
Writes a letter in my book.

Chide me not, laborious band,
For the idle flowers I brought;
Every aster in my hand
Goes...Read more of this...

Post-Vacation Tristesse

by Charles Webb
 The Jumbo Jet has barely shuddered off
The ground, and I'm depressed. My scuba mask
And fins, my fly rod and beach hat

Crush each other in an overhead locker
Dark as the bedroom closet they're returning to.
Already the week's good times melt

Together like caramels in a hot car.
My vow to "Do this more often!" recedes
With the jade palms and sun-stroked beaches

I can...Read more of this...

Homeward Bound

by Henry Van Dyke
 Home, for my heart still calls me;
Home, through the danger zone;
Home, whatever befalls me,
I will sail again to my own! 

Wolves of the sea are hiding
Closely along the way,
Under the water biding
Their moment to rend and slay. 

Black is the eagle that brands them,
Black are their hearts as the night,
Black is the hate that sends them
To murder but not...Read more of this...

Tragedy

by George William Russell
 A MAN went forth one day at eve:
The long day’s toil for him was done:
The eye that scanned the page could leave
Its task until tomorrow’s sun.


Upon the threshold where he stood
Flared on his tired eyes the sight,
Where host on host the multitude
Burned fiercely in the dusky night.


The starry lights at play—at play—
The giant children of the blue,
Heaped scorn upon...Read more of this...

Regret

by Charlotte Bronte
 Long ago I wished to leave 
" The house where I was born; " 
Long ago I used to grieve, 
My home seemed so forlorn. 
In other years, its silent rooms 
Were filled with haunting fears; 
Now, their very memory comes 
O'ercharged with tender tears. 

Life and marriage I have known, 
Things once deemed so bright; 
Now, how utterly...Read more of this...

Lost

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 "He ought to be home," said the old man, "without there's something amiss. 
He only went to the Two-mile -- he ought to be back by this. 
He would ride the Reckless filly, he would have his wilful way; 
And, here, he's not back at sundown -- and what will his mother say? 
"He was always his mother's idol,...Read more of this...

Sonnet LII

by Edmund Spenser
 SO oft as homeward I from her depart,
I goe lyke one that hauing lost the field:
is prisoner led away with heauy hart,
despoyld of warlike armes and knowen shield.
So doe I now my selfe a prisoner yeeld,
to sorrow and to solitary paine:
from presence of my dearest deare exylde,
longwhile alone in languor to remaine.
There let no thought of ioy or pleasure...Read more of this...

Letters To Friends

by Barry Tebb
 I


Eddie Linden

Dear Eddie we’ve not met

Except upon the written page 

And at your age the wonder 

Is that you write at all

When so many have gone under 

Or been split asunder by narcissistic humours

Blunder following blunder

Barker and Graham, godfathering my verse

Bearing me cloud-handed to Haworth moor

From my chained metropolitan moorings,

O hyaline March morning with Leeds

At its thrusting best, the...Read more of this...

Count Eberhard The Groaner Of Wurtembert. A War Song

by Friedrich von Schiller
 Now hearken, ye who take delight
In boasting of your worth!
To many a man, to many a knight,
Beloved in peace and brave in fight,
The Swabian land gives birth.

Of Charles and Edward, Louis, Guy,
And Frederick, ye may boast;
Charles, Edward, Louis, Frederick, Guy--
None with Sir Eberhard can vie--
Himself a mighty host!

And then young Ulerick, his son,
Ha! how he loved the fray!
Young Ulerick,...Read more of this...

Air Of Diabellis

by Robert Louis Stevenson
 CALL it to mind, O my love.
Dear were your eyes as the day,
Bright as the day and the sky;
Like the stream of gold and the sky above,
Dear were your eyes in the grey.
We have lived, my love, O, we have lived, my love!
Now along the silent river, azure
Through the sky's inverted image,
Softly swam the boat that bore our love,
Swiftly...Read more of this...

Ojira, to Her Lover

by Adela Florence Cory Nicolson
   I am waiting in the desert, looking out towards the sunset,
   And counting every moment till we meet.
   I am waiting by the marshes and I tremble and I listen
   Till the soft sands thrill beneath your coming feet.

   Till I see you, tall and slender, standing clear against...Read more of this...

Retired Shopman

by Robert William Service
 He had the grocer's counter-stoop,
That little man so grey and neat;
His moustache had a doleful droop,
He hailed me in the slushy street.
"I've sold my shop," he said to me,
Cupping his hand behind his ear.
"My deafness got so bad, you see,
Folks had to shout to make me hear."

He sighed and sadly shook his head;
The hand he gave was chill as...Read more of this...

The White Mans Foot

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
 In his lodge beside a river,
Close beside a frozen river,
Sat an old man, sad and lonely.
White his hair was as a snow-drift;
Dull and low his fire was burning,
And the old man shook and trembled,
Folded in his Waubewyon,
In his tattered white-skin-wrapper,
Hearing nothing but the tempest
As it roared along the forest,
Seeing nothing but the snow-storm,
As it whirled and hissed and drifted.
All...Read more of this...

The Division Of Parts

by Anne Sexton
 1.
Mother, my Mary Gray,
once resident of Gloucester
and Essex County,
a photostat of your will
arrived in the mail today.
This is the division of money.
I am one third
of your daughters counting my bounty
or I am a queen alone
in the parlor still,
eating the bread and honey.
It is Good Friday.
Black birds pick at my window sill.
Your coat in my closet,
your bright stones on my...Read more of this...

Hiawathas Fasting

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
 You shall hear how Hiawatha 
Prayed and fasted in the forest, 
Not for greater skill in hunting, 
Not for greater craft in fishing, 
Not for triumphs in the battle, 
And renown among the warriors, 
But for profit of the people, 
For advantage of the nations.
First he built a lodge for fasting, 
Built a wigwam in the forest, 
By the...Read more of this...

Earendil

by J R R Tolkien
 Earendil was a mariner
that tarried in Arvernien;
he built a boat of timber felled
in Nimbrethil to journey in;
her sails he wove of silver fair,
of silver were her lanterns made,
her prow was fashioned like a swan
and light upon her banners laid.

In panolpy of ancient kings,
in chained rings he armoured him;
his shining shield was scored with runes
to ward all wounds and harm...Read more of this...

The Peace-Pipe

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
 On the Mountains of the Prairie,
On the great Red Pipe-stone Quarry,
Gitche Manito, the mighty,
He the Master of Life, descending,
On the red crags of the quarry
Stood erect, and called the nations,
Called the tribes of men together.
From his footprints flowed a river,
Leaped into the light of morning,
O'er the precipice plunging downward
Gleamed like Ishkoodah, the comet.
And the Spirit, stooping earthward,
With his finger...Read more of this...

The Pannikin Poet

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 There's nothing here sublime, 
But just a roving rhyme, 
Run off to pass the time, 
With nought titanic in. 
The theme that it supports, 
And, though it treats of quarts, 
It's bare of golden thoughts -- 
It's just a pannikin. 

I think it's rather hard 
That each Australian bard -- 
Each wan, poetic card -- 
With thoughts galvanic in...Read more of this...

The Marble Faun

by Victor Hugo
 ("Il semblait grelotter.") 
 
 {XXXVI., December, 1837.} 


 He seemed to shiver, for the wind was keen. 
 'Twas a poor statue underneath a mass 
 Of leafless branches, with a blackened back 
 And a green foot—an isolated Faun 
 In old deserted park, who, bending forward, 
 Half-merged himself in the entangled boughs, 
 Half in...Read more of this...

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