Famous Italian Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Italian poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous italian poems. These examples illustrate what a famous italian poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Brackenridge, Hugh Henry
...Alpheus' waters stray
Where he with Arethusas' stream doth mix,
Or where swift Tiber disembogues his waves
Into th' Italian sea so long unsung.
Hither they've wing'd their way, the last, the best
Of countries where the arts shall rise and grow
Luxuriant, graceful; and ev'n now we boast
A Franklin skill'd in deep philosophy,
A genius piercing as th' electric fire,
Bright as the light'nings flash explain'd so well
By him the rival of Britannia's sage.
This i...Read more of this...
by
Shelley, Percy Bysshe
...e; and bought, with price of purest breath,
A grave among the eternal. -Come away!
Haste, while the vault of blue Italian day
Is yet his fitting charnel-roof! while still
He lies, as if in dewy sleep he lay;
Awake him not! surely he takes his fill
Of deep and liquid rest, forgetful of all ill.
He will awake no more, oh, never more! -
Within the twilight chamber spreads apace
The shadow of white Death, and at the door
Invisible Corruption waits to trace
H...Read more of this...
by
Ginsberg, Allen
...geniuses, folksinger
fiddlers with dobro tamborine harmonica mandolin auto-
harp pennywhistles & kazoos
Next, artist Italian romantic realists schooled in mystic 60's India,
Late fauve Tuscan painter-poets, Classic draftsman Massa-
chusets surreal jackanapes with continental wives, poverty
sketchbook gesso oil watercolor masters from American
provinces
Then highschool teachers, lonely Irish librarians, delicate biblio-
philes, sex liberation troops nay armies, ladi...Read more of this...
by
Alighieri, Dante
...ptings stir
Of her base heart; but wisdoms, and devoirs
Of manhood, and love's rule, his thoughts prefer.
The Italian lowlands he shall reach and save,
For which Camilla of old, the virgin brave,
Turnus and Nisus died in strife. His chase
He shall not cease, nor any cowering-place
Her fear shall find her, till he drive her back,
From city to city exiled, from wrack to wrack
Slain out of life, to find the native hell
Whence envy loosed her.
Fo...Read more of this...
by
Alighieri, Dante
...LA DIVINA COMMEDIA di Dante Alighieri INFERNO
Inferno: Canto I
Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita
mi ritrovai per una selva oscura
ch? la diritta via era smarrita.
Ahi quanto a dir qual era ? cosa dura
esta selva selvaggia e aspra e forte
che nel pensier rinova la paura!
Tant'? amara che poco ? pi? morte;
ma per trattar del ben ch'i' vi...Read more of this...
by
Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...wn doves,
Not even a rose, were offered to thee? thine,
Forgetful how my rich proemion makes
Thy glory fly along the Italian field,
In lays that will outlast thy deity?
"Deity? nay, thy worshippers. My tongue
Trips, or I speak profanely. Which of these
Angers thee most, or angers thee at all?
Not if thou be'st of those who, far aloof
From envy, hate and pity, and spite and scorn,
Live the great life which all our greatest fain
Would follow, centred in eternal...Read more of this...
by
Browning, Robert
...heir chance;
``Works never conceded to England's thick clime!''
(I hope they prefer their inheritance
Of a bucketful of Italian quick-lime.)
XXV.
When they go at length, with such a shaking
Of heads o'er the old delusion, sadly
Each master his way through the black streets taking,
Where many a lost work breathes though badly---
Why don't they bethink them of who has merited?
Why not reveal, while their pictures dree
Such doom, how a captive might be out-ferreted?
Wh...Read more of this...
by
Alighieri, Dante
...LA DIVINA COMMEDIA
di Dante Alighieri
PARADISO
Paradiso: Canto I
La gloria di colui che tutto move
per l'universo penetra, e risplende
in una parte pi? e meno altrove.
Nel ciel che pi? de la sua luce prende
fu' io, e vidi cose che ridire
n? sa n? pu? chi di l? s? discende;
perch? appressando s? al suo disire,
nostro intelletto si profonda tanto,...Read more of this...
by
Brautigan, Richard
...
only furniture I have ever seen in my life that looks like baby
food.
And the Lysol sits asleep next to an old Italian pensioner
who listens to the heavy ticking of the clock and dreams of
eternity's golden pasta, sweet basil and Jesus Christ.
The Chinese are always doing something to the hotel. One
week they paint a lower banister and the next week they put
some new wallpaper on part of the third floor.
No matter how many times you pass that part...Read more of this...
by
Alighieri, Dante
...LA DIVINA COMMEDIA
di Dante Alighieri
PURGATORIO
Purgatorio: Canto I
Per correr miglior acque alza le vele
omai la navicella del mio ingegno,
che lascia dietro a sé mar sì crudele;
e canterò di quel secondo regno
dove l'umano spirito si purga
e di salire al ciel diventa degno.
Ma qui la morta poesì resurga,
o sante Muse, poi che vostro sono;
e q...Read more of this...
by
Wilde, Oscar
...h, 1878.
To my friend George Fleming author of 'The Nile Novel' and
'Mirage')
I.
A year ago I breathed the Italian air, -
And yet, methinks this northern Spring is fair,-
These fields made golden with the flower of March,
The throstle singing on the feathered larch,
The cawing rooks, the wood-doves fluttering by,
The little clouds that race across the sky;
And fair the violet's gentle drooping head,
The primrose, pale for love uncomforted,
The rose that burgeons ...Read more of this...
by
Shelley, Percy Bysshe
...t delusive morn
Which sinks again in darkness, like the light
Of early love, soon lost in total night.
HELEN
Alas! Italian winds are mild,
But my bosom is cold--wintry cold;
When the warm air weaves, among the fresh leaves,
Soft music, my poor brain is wild,
And I am weak like a nursling child,
Though my soul with grief is gray and old.
ROSALIND
Weep not at thine own words, though they must make
Me weep. What is thy tale?
HELEN
I fear 't will shake
Thy gentle ...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...to the rebeck and guitar;
I hear continual echoes from the Thames;
I hear fierce French liberty songs;
I hear of the Italian boat-sculler the musical recitative of old poems;
I hear the Virginia plantation-chorus of *******, of a harvest night, in the glare of
pine-knots;
I hear the strong baritone of the ’long-shore-men of Mannahatta;
I hear the stevedores unlading the cargoes, and singing;
I hear the screams of the water-fowl of solitary north-west lakes;
I hear the...Read more of this...
by
Chesterton, G K
...ke steel,
And his soul remembered Rome.
Then Alfred of the lonely spear
Lifted his lion head;
And fronted with the Italian's eye,
Asking him of his whence and why,
King Alfred stood and said:
"I am that oft-defeated King
Whose failure fills the land,
Who fled before the Danes of old,
Who chaffered with the Danes with gold,
Who now upon the Wessex wold
Hardly has feet to stand.
"But out of the mouth of the Mother of God
I have seen the truth like fire,
This--that th...Read more of this...
by
Byron, George (Lord)
..., or the wavering of flame. I asked the Armenian who sold it what possible use such a figure could add: he said, in Italian, that he did not know; but the Mussulmans had an idea that those of this form gave a severer wound; and liked it because it was "piu feroce." I did not much admire the reason, but bought it for its peculiarity.
(30) It is to be observed, that every allusion to anything or personage in the Old Testament, such as the Ark, or Cain, is equally ...Read more of this...
by
Chaucer, Geoffrey
...d;
Orwell, a seaport in Essex.
24. Shields: Crowns, so called from the shields stamped on
them; French, "ecu;" Italian, "scudo."
25. Poor scholars at the universities used then to go about
begging for money to maintain them and their studies.
26. Parvis: The portico of St. Paul's, which lawyers frequented
to meet their clients.
27. St Julian: The patron saint of hospitality, celebrated for
supplying his votaries with good lodging and g...Read more of this...
by
Tagore, Rabindranath
...rything now was graying gold
With dust, everything we saw, even
Some small children scampering along a road,
Twittering Italian to a small caged bird.
We sat beside them to rest in some brushwood,
And I leaned down to rinse the dust from my face.
I found the spider web there, whose hinges
Reeled heavily and crazily with the dust,
Whole mounds and cemeteries of it, sagging
And scattering shadows among shells and wings.
And then she stepped into the center of air
...Read more of this...
by
Benet, Stephen Vincent
...e is for no man set,
And in Hell may no man forget.)
And there were flowers, and jugs, bright-glancing,
And old Italian swords -- and looks,
A moment's glance of fire, of fire,
Spiring, leaping, flaming higher,
Into the intense, the cloudless blue,
Until two souls were one, and flame,
And very flesh, and yet the same!
As if all springs were crushed anew
Into one globed drop of dew!
But for the most I thought of heat,
Desiring greatly. . . . Ho...Read more of this...
by
Ondaatje, Michael
...an old scar.
On her wrist it sleeps, smooth and white,
the size of a leech.
I gave it to her
brandishing a new Italian penknife.
Look, I said turning,
and blood spat onto her shirt.
My wife has scars like spread raindrops
on knees and ankles,
she talks of broken greenhouse panes
and yet, apart from imagining red feet,
(a nymph out of Chagall)
I bring little to that scene.
We remember the time around scars,
they freeze irrelevant emotions
and divide us f...Read more of this...
by
Byron, George (Lord)
...mayn't be damn'd like me or you.
LXI
When Michael saw this host, he first grew pale,
As angels can; next, like Italian twilight,
He turn'd all colours — as a peacock's tail,
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...Read more of this...
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