Famous Host Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Host poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous host poems. These examples illustrate what a famous host poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Claude McKay
Bow down my soul in worship very low
And in the holy silences be lost.
Bow down before the marble man of woe,
Bow down before the singing angel host.
What jewelled glory fills my spirit's eye,
What golden grandeur moves the depths of me!
The soaring arches lift me up on high
Taking my breath with their rare symmetry.
Bow down my soul and...Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
One host of men is pondering upon belief, or on the
faith; others are hovering between doubt and certainty.
But suddenly behind the veil there's one will cry: O
ignorant ones! the way that you seek is neither here
nor there!...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
He was my host -- he was my guest,
I never to this day
If I invited him could tell,
Or he invited me.
So infinite our intercourse
So intimate, indeed,
Analysis as capsule seemed
To keeper of the seed....Read more of this...
by
Paul Laurence Dunbar
It's hot to-day. The bees is buzzin'
Kinder don't-keer-like aroun'
An' fur off the warm air dances
O'er the parchin' roofs in town.
In the brook the cows is standin';
Childern hidin' in the hay;
Can't keep none of 'em a workin',
'Cause it's hot to-day.
It's hot to-day. The sun is blazin'
Like a great big ball o' fire;
Seems as ef instead o' settin'
It keeps mountin' higher an'...Read more of this...
by
Edmund Blunden
From what sad star I know not, but I found
Myself new-born below the coppice rail,
No bigger than the dewdrops and as round,
In a soft sward, no cattle might assail.
And so I gathered mightiness and grew
With this...Read more of this...
by
William Cowper
(Exodus, xvii.15)
By whom was David taught
To aim the deadly blow,
When he Goliath fought,
And laid the Gittite low?
Nor sword nor spear the stripling took,
But chose a pebble from the brook.
'Twas Israel's God and King
Who sent him to the fight;
Who gave him strength to sling,
And skill to aim aright.
Ye feeble saints, your strength endures,
Because young David's God is yours.
Who order'd Gideon...Read more of this...
by
Friedrich von Schiller
Ye in the age gone by,
Who ruled the world--a world how lovely then!--
And guided still the steps of happy men
In the light leading-strings of careless joy!
Ah, flourished then your service of delight!
How different, oh, how different, in the day
When thy sweet fanes with many a wreath were bright,
O Venus Amathusia!
Then, through a veil of dreams
Woven by song, truth's youthful...Read more of this...
by
George (Lord) Byron
Warriors and chiefs! should the shaft or the sword
Pierce me in leading the host of the Lord,
Heed not the corse, though a king’s in your path:
Bury your steel in the bosoms of Gath!
Thou who art bearing my buckler and bow,
Should the soldiers of Saul look away from the foe,
Stretch me that moment in...Read more of this...
by
John McCrae
There stands a hostel by a travelled way;
Life is the road and Death the worthy host;
Each guest he greets, nor ever lacks to say,
"How have ye fared?" They answer him, the most,
"This lodging place is other than we sought;
We had intended farther, but the gloom
Came on apace, and found us ere we thought:
Yet will we lodge. Thou hast abundant...Read more of this...
by
Robert Burns
WHEN Death’s dark stream I ferry o’er,
(A time that surely shall come,)
In Heav’n itself I’ll ask no more,
Than just a Highland welcome....Read more of this...
by
Matthew Arnold
Coldly, sadly descends
The autumn-evening. The field
Strewn with its dank yellow drifts
Of wither'd leaves, and the elms,
Fade into dimness apace,
Silent;--hardly a shout
From a few boys late at their play!
The lights come out in the street,
In the school-room windows;--but cold,
Solemn, unlighted, austere,
Through the gathering darkness, arise
The chapel-walls, in whose bound
Thou, my father! art laid.
There thou dost lie, in the gloom
Of the...Read more of this...
by
Anne Kingsmill Finch
WITH such a Pulse, with such disorder'd Veins,
Such lab'ring Breath, as thy Disease constrains;
With failing Eyes, that scarce the Light endure,
(So long unclos'd, they've watch'd thy doubtful Cure)
To his Hephaestion Alexander writes,
To soothe thy Days, and wing thy sleepless Nights,
I send thee Love: Oh! that I could impart,
As well my vital Spirits...Read more of this...
by
John Clare
When midnight comes a host of dogs and men
Go out and track the badger to his den,
And put a sack within the hole, and lie
Till the old grunting badger passes by.
He comes an hears - they let the strongest loose.
The old fox gears the noise and drops the goose.
The poacher shoots and hurries from the cry,
And the old hare...Read more of this...
by
Francis Scott Key
Tune -- ANACREON IN HEAVEN
O! say can you see, by the dawn's early light,
What so proudly we hail'd at the twilight's last gleaming,
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watch'd, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
A barefoot boy I went to school
To save a cobbler's fee,
For though the porridge pot was full
A frugal folk were we;
We baked our bannocks, spun our wool,
And counted each bawbee.
We reft our living from the soil,
And I was shieling bred;
My father's hands were warped with toil,
And crooked with grace he said.
My mother made the...Read more of this...
by
Rudyard Kipling
I will let loose against you the fleet-footed vines--
I will call in the Jungle to stamp out your lines!
The roofs shall fade before it,
The house-beams shall fall;
And the Karela,. the bitter Karela,
Shall cover it all!
In the gates of these your councils my people shall sing.
In the doors of these your garners the Bat-folk shall cling;
...Read more of this...
by
William Butler Yeats
The Danaan children laugh, in cradles of wrought gold,
And clap their hands together, and half close their eyes,
For they will ride the North when the ger-eagle flies,
With heavy whitening wings, and a heart fallen cold:
I kiss my wailing child and press it to my breast,
And hear the narrow graves calling my child and me.
Desolate winds that cry over the...Read more of this...
by
Vachel Lindsay
She was taught desire in the street,
Not at the angels' feet.
By the good no word was said
Of the worth of the bridal bed.
The secret was learned from the vile,
Not from her mother's smile.
Home spoke not. And the girl
Was caught in the public whirl.
Do you say "She gave consent:
Life drunk, she...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
Some carol of the banjo, to its measure keeping time;
Of viol or of lute some make a song.
My battered old accordion, you're worthy of a rhyme,
You've been my friend and comforter so long.
Round half the world I've trotted you, a dozen years or more;
You've given heaps of people lots of fun;
You've set a host of happy feet a-tapping on...Read more of this...
by
Robert Southey
O thou who from the mountain's height
Roll'st down thy clouds with all their weight
Of waters to old Niles majestic tide;
Or o'er the dark sepulchral plain
Recallest thy Palmyra's ancient pride,
Amid whose desolated domes
Secure the savage chacal roams,
Where from the fragments of the hallow'd fane
The Arabs rear their miserable homes!
Hear Genius hear thy children's cry!
Not always should'st thou love to brood
Stern...Read more of this...
by
William Butler Yeats
O'Driscoll drove with a song
The wild duck and the drake
From the tall and the tufted reeds
Of the drear Hart Lake.
And he saw how the reeds grew dark
At the coming of night-tide,
And dreamed of the long dim hair
Of Bridget his bride.
He heard while he sang and dreamed
A piper piping away,
And never was piping so sad,
And never was piping so gay.
And...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
I never could imagine God:
I don't suppose I ever will.
Beside His altar fire I nod
With senile drowsiness but still
In old of age as sight grows dim
I have a sense of Him.
For when I count my sum of days
I find so many sweet and good,
My mind is full of peace and praise,
My heart aglow with gratitude.
For my long living...Read more of this...
by
Isaac Watts
The deity and humanity of Christ.
John 1:1,3,14; Col. 1:16.
Ere the blue heav'ns were stretched abroad,
From everlasting was the Word:
With God he was; the Word was God,
And must divinely be adored.
By his own power were all things made;
By him supported all things stand;
He is the whole creation's head,
And angels fly at his command.
Ere sin was born, or Satan fell,
He led...Read more of this...
by
William Cullen Bryant
OUR band is few but true and tried
Our leader frank and bold;
The British soldier trembles
When Marion's name is told.
Our fortress is the good greenwood 5
Our tent the cypress-tree;
We know the forest round us
As seamen know the sea.
We know its walls of thorny vines
Its glades of reedy grass 10...Read more of this...
by
Rg Gregory
as the landscape falls away
the hawthorn in its gnarly fashion
is content to stand alone
berries (the very tint of passion)
that birds are wont to feed upon
bloodstain the shortened day
a stubborn tree that speaks
of crusty age - its thorns alert
to any too-spirited invasion
who comes (it seems to say) gets hurt
not those birds with juicy beaks
insects swarm – by invitation
come may...Read more of this...
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