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Famous Horizon Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Hugo, Victor
...len fold; 
And momently at distance sets, as a cupola of gold, 
The thatched roof of a cot a-glance; 
Or on the blurred horizon joins his battle with the haze; 
Or pools the blooming fields about with inter-isolate blaze, 
Great moveless meres of radiance. 

Then mark you how there hangs athwart the firmament's swept track, 
Yonder a mighty crocodile with vast irradiant back, 
A triple row of pointed teeth? 
Under its burnished belly slips a ray of eventide, 
The flickeri...Read more of this...



by Shelley, Percy Bysshe
...its vital hues
Upon his cheek of death. He wandered on
Till vast Aornos seen from Petra's steep 
Hung o'er the low horizon like a cloud;
Through Balk, and where the desolated tombs
Of Parthian kings scatter to every wind
Their wasting dust, wildly he wandered on,
Day after day, a weary waste of hours,
Bearing within his life the brooding care
That ever fed on its decaying flame.
And now his limbs were lean; his scattered hair,
Sered by the autumn of strange suffering...Read more of this...

by Berry, Wendell
...ady.
When their light has picked you out
and their questions are asked, say to them:
"I am not ashamed." A sure horizon
will come around you. The heron will begin
his evening flight from the hilltop....Read more of this...

by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...
Suddenly rose from the south a light, as in autumn the blood-red
Moon climbs the crystal walls of heaven, and o'er the horizon
Titan-like stretches its hundred hands upon mountain and meadow,
Seizing the rocks and the rivers, and piling huge shadows together.
Broader and ever broader it gleamed on the roofs of the village,
Gleamed on the sky and the sea, and the ships that lay in the roadstead.
Columns of shining smoke uprose, and flashes of flame were
Thrust through...Read more of this...

by Hugo, Victor
...he other hate, 
 Yet lived they side by side, in powerful state 
 And close alliance. All the people near 
 From red horizon dwelt in abject fear, 
 Mastered by them; their figures darkly grand 
 Had ruddy reflex from the wasted land, 
 And fires, and towns they sacked. Besides the one, 
 Like David, poet was, the other shone 
 As fine musician—rumor spread their fame, 
 Declaring them divine, until each name 
 In Italy's fine sonnets met with praise. 
 The ancient...Read more of this...



by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
...inable night
 At the recurrent end of the unending
After the dark dove with the flickering tongue
 Had passed below the horizon of his homing
 While the dead leaves still rattled on like tin
Over the asphalt where no other sound was
 Between three districts whence the smoke arose
 I met one walking, loitering and hurried
As if blown towards me like the metal leaves
 Before the urban dawn wind unresisting.
 And as I fixed upon the down-turned face
That pointed scrutiny wit...Read more of this...

by Angelou, Maya
...new chances
For new beginnings.

Do not be wedded forever
To fear, yoked eternally
To brutishness.

The horizon leans forward,
Offering you space to place new steps of change.
Here, on the pulse of this fine day
You may have the courage
To look up and out upon me, the
Rock, the River, the Tree, your country.

No less to Midas than the mendicant.

No less to you now than the mastodon then.

Here on the pulse of this new day
You may h...Read more of this...

by Bryant, William Cullen
...d— then winds wake loud;
With sudden stir the startled forest sings
Winter's returning song— cloud races cloud,
And the horizon throws away its shroud,
Sweeping a stretching circle from the eye;
Storms upon storms in quick succession crowd,
And o'er the sameness of the purple sky
Heaven paints, with hurried hand, wild hues of every dye.

At length it comes along the forest oaks,
With sobbing ebbs, and uproar gathering high;
The scared, hoarse raven on its cradle croaks,
A...Read more of this...

by Angelou, Maya
...olds new chances
For new beginnings.
Do not be wedded forever
To fear, yoked eternally
To brutishness.
The horizon leans forward,
Offering you space to place new steps of change.
Here, on the pulse of this fine day
You may have the courage
To look up and out upon me,
The rock, the river, the tree, your country.
No less to Midas than the mendicant.
No less to you now than the mastodon then.
Here on the pulse of this new day
You may have th...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...wilight upon the earth, short arbiter 
"twixt day and night, and now from end to end 
Night's hemisphere had veil'd the horizon round: 
When satan, who late fled before the threats 
Of Gabriel out of Eden, now improv'd 
In meditated fraud and malice, bent 
On Man's destruction, maugre what might hap 
Of heavier on himself, fearless returned 
From compassing the earth; cautious of day, 
Since Uriel, regent of the sun, descried 
His entrance, and foreworned the Cherubim 
That k...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...them day 
Had unbenighted shone, while the low sun, 
To recompense his distance, in their sight 
Had rounded still the horizon, and not known 
Or east or west; which had forbid the snow 
From cold Estotiland, and south as far 
Beneath Magellan. At that tasted fruit 
The sun, as from Thyestean banquet, turned 
His course intended; else, how had the world 
Inhabited, though sinless, more than now, 
Avoided pinching cold and scorching heat? 
These changes in the Heavens, th...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...ls in slanting rings—it does not set for months;

Stretch’d in due time within me the midnight sun just rises above the horizon, and sinks
 again;

Within me zones, seas, cataracts, plants, volcanoes, groups,
Malaysia, Polynesia, and the great West Indian islands. 

3
What do you hear, Walt Whitman? 

I hear the workman singing, and the farmer’s wife singing; 
I hear in the distance the sounds of children, and of animals early in the day; 
I hear quick rifle-cracks from t...Read more of this...

by Ashbery, John
...t this will not have anything
To do with what is promised today, our
Landscape sweeping out from us to disappear
On the horizon. Today enough of a cover burnishes
To keep the supposition of promises together
In one piece of surface, letting one ramble
Back home from them so that these
Even stronger possibilities can remain
Whole without being tested. Actually
The skin of the bubble-chamber's as tough as
Reptile eggs; everything gets "programmed" there
In due course: m...Read more of this...

by Whittier, John Greenleaf
...flourndering carrier bore 
The village paper to our door. 
Lo! broadening outward as we read, 
To warmer zones the horizon spread; 
In panoramic length unrolled 
We saw the marvels that it told. 
Before us passed the painted Creeks, 
And daft McGregor on his raids 
In Costa Rica's everglades. 
And up Taygetos winding slow 
Rode Ypsilanti's Mainote Greeks, 
A Turk's head at each saddle-bow! 
Welcome to us its week-old news, 
Its corner for the rustic Muse 
Its mon...Read more of this...

by Browning, Robert
...new followers tenfold
Before be arrived at the penfold;
Lords, ladies, like clouds which bedizen
At sunset the western horizon.
And Sir De Lorge pressed 'mid the foremost
With the dame he professed to adore most.
Oh, what a face! One by fits eyed
Her, and the horrible pitside;
For the penfold surrounded a hollow
Which led where the eye scarce dared follow,
And shelved to the chamber secluded
Where Bluebeard, the great lion, brooded.
The King bailed his keeper, an...Read more of this...

by Eluard, Paul
...azur On all my blue rags 
On the sun-molded pond 
On the moon-enlivened lake 
I write your name 

On the fields, on the horizon 
On the wings of birds 
And on the mill of shadows 
I write your name 

On every burst of dawn 
On the sea, on the boats 
On the insane mountain 
I write your name 

On the foam of clouds 
On the sweat of the storm 
On the rain, thick and insipid 
I write your name 

On the shimmering shapes 
On the colorful bells 
On the physical truth 
I write your...Read more of this...

by Angelou, Maya
...our holds new chances
For new beginnings.
Do not be wedded forever
To fear, yoked eternally
To brutishness.
The horizon leans forward,
Offering you space to place new steps of change.
Here, on the pulse of this fine day
You may have the courage
To look up and out upon me,
The rock, the river, the tree, your country.
No less to Midas than the mendicant.
No less to you now than the mastodon then.
Here on the pulse of this new day
You may have the grace t...Read more of this...

by Walcott, Derek
...il from the sea
like the kettle steaming when I put it down
slow, slow, 'cause I couldn't believe what I see:
where the horizon was one silver haze,
the fog swirl and swell into sails, so close
that I saw it was sails, my hair grip my skull,
it was horrors, but it was beautiful.
We float through a rustling forest of ships
with sails dry like paper, behind the glass
I saw men with rusty eyeholes like cannons,
and whenever their half-naked crews cross the sun,
right through...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
..., 
Or sunset streaming through a Gothic skylight 
In some old abbey, or a trout not stale, 
Or distant lightning on the horizon by night, 
Or a fresh rainbow, or a grand review 
Of thirty regiments in red, green, and blue. 

LXII 

Then he address'd himself to Satan: 'Why — 
My good old friend, for such I deem you, though 
Our different parties make us fight so shy, 
I ne'er mistake you for a personal foe; 
Our difference is political, and I 
Trust that, whatever may occu...Read more of this...

by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
...al lamentation
Who are those hooded hordes swarming
Over endless plains, stumbling in cracked earth 
Ringed by the flat horizon only
What is the city over the mountains
Cracks and reforms and bursts in the violet air
Falling towers
Jerusalem Athens Alexandria
Vienna London
Unreal
 A woman drew her long black hair out tight
And fiddled whisper music on those strings
And bats with baby faces in the violet light 
Whistled, and beat their wings
And crawled head downward down a bl...Read more of this...

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