Get Your Premium Membership

Famous Jordan Poems by Famous Poets

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

See also:

by Dickinson, Emily
...A little East of Jordan,
Evangelists record,
A Gymnast and an Angel
Did wrestle long and hard --

Till morning touching mountain --
And Jacob, waxing strong,
The Angel begged permission
To Breakfast -- to return --

Not so, said cunning Jacob!
"I will not let thee go
Except thou bless me" -- Stranger!
The which acceded to --

Light swung the silver fleeces
"Peniel" Hills bey...Read more of this...



by Brackenridge, Hugh Henry
...o'er the shaded earth 
Breaks forth, and in the radiance of whose beams, 
The humble shepherd, and the river-swain 
By Jordan stream, or Galilea's lake, 
Can see each truth and paradox explain'd, 
Which not each wise philosopher of Greece, 
Could tell, nor sage of India, nor the sons 
Of Zoroaster, in deep secrets skill'd. 


Such light on Canaan shone but not confin'd 
With partial ray to Judah's favour'd land, 
Each vale and region to the utmost bound 
Of habitable ear...Read more of this...

by Thomas, Dylan
...knocked and flesh let enter,
With liquid hands tapped on the womb,
I who was as shapeless as the water
That shaped the Jordan near my home
Was brother to Mnetha's daughter
And sister to the fathering worm.

I who was deaf to spring and summer,
Who knew not sun nor moon by name,
Felt thud beneath my flesh's armour,
As yet was in a molten form
The leaden stars, the rainy hammer
Swung by my father from his dome.

I knew the message of the winter,
The darted hail, the ch...Read more of this...

by Clark, Badger
...night for howlin'
    When we're ridin' up the rocky trail from town.

  Since the days that Lot and Abram split the Jordan range in halves,
    Just to fix it so their punchers wouldn't fight,
  Since old Jacob skinned his dad-in-law for six years' crop of calves
    And then hit the trail for Canaan in the night,
  There has been a taste for battle 'mong the men that follow cattle
    And a love of doin' things that's wild and strange,
  And the warmth of Laban's w...Read more of this...

by Herbert, George
...Who says that fictions only and false hair
Become a verse? Is there in truth no beauty?
Is all good structure in a winding stair?
May no lines pass, except they do their duty
Not to a true, but painted chair?

Is it no verse, except enchanted groves
And sudden arbours shadow coarse-spun lines?
Must purling streams refresh a lover's loves?
Must all be veile...Read more of this...



by John, David St
...rm as he led us through the packed crowd
To a private corner
Where her secluded oak table always waited.
She'd say, Jordan... 
And I'd order her usual,
A champagne cocktail with a tall shot of bourbon
On the side. She'd let her eyes
Trail the length of the sleek neck
Of the old stand-up bass, as
The bass player knocked out the bottom line,
His forehead glowing, glossy
With sweat in the blue lights;
Her own face, smooth and shining, as
The liquor slowly bla...Read more of this...

by Rossetti, Christina
...ve you without stint and all I can
Today, tomorrow, world without an end;
To love you much and yet to love you more,
As Jordan at his flood sweeps either shore;
Since woman is the helpmeet made for man. 


6 

Or puoi la quantitate
Comprender de l'amor che a te mi scalda. - Dante
Non vo' che da tal nodo mi scioglia. - Petrarca

Trust me, I have not earn'd your dear rebuke,
I love, as you would have me, God the most;
Would lose not Him, but you, must one be lost,
N...Read more of this...

by Thomas, Dylan
...iddled lads,
Screwing their bowels from a hill of bones,
Cry Eloi to the guns.

My grave is watered by the crossing Jordan.
The Arctic scut, and basin of the South,
Drip on my dead house garden.
Who seek me landward, marking in my mouth
The straws of Asia, lose me as I turn
Through the Atlantic corn.

The fellow halves that, cloven as they swivel
On casting tides, are tangled in the shells,
Bearding the unborn devil,
Bleed from my burning fork and smell my hee...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...der sea; each place behold 
In prospect, as I point them; on the shore 
Mount Carmel; here, the double-founted stream, 
Jordan, true limit eastward; but his sons 
Shall dwell to Senir, that long ridge of hills. 
This ponder, that all nations of the earth 
Shall in his seed be blessed: By that seed 
Is meant thy great Deliverer, who shall bruise 
The Serpent's head; whereof to thee anon 
Plainlier shall be revealed. This patriarch blest, 
Whom faithful Abraham due time...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...reat baptism flocked
With awe the regions round, and with them came
From Nazareth the son of Joseph deemed
To the flood Jordan—came as then obscure,
Unmarked, unknown. But him the Baptist soon
Descried, divinely warned, and witness bore
As to his worthier, and would have resigned
To him his heavenly office. Nor was long
His witness unconfirmed: on him baptized
Heaven opened, and in likeness of a Dove 
The Spirit descended, while the Father's voice
From Heaven pronounc...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...ed to eye
Thy infancy, thy childhood, and thy youth,
Thy manhood last, though yet in private bred;
Till, at the ford of Jordan, whither all 
Flocked to the Baptist, I among the rest
(Though not to be baptized), by voice from Heaven
Heard thee pronounced the Son of God beloved.
Thenceforth I thought thee worth my nearer view
And narrower scrutiny, that I might learn
In what degree or meaning thou art called
The Son of God, which bears no single sense.
The Son of God I ...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...Meanwhile the new-baptized, who yet remained
At Jordan with the Baptist, and had seen
Him whom they heard so late expressly called
Jesus Messiah, Son of God, declared,
And on that high authority had believed,
And with him talked, and with him lodged—I mean
Andrew and Simon, famous after known,
With others, though in Holy Writ not named—
Now missing him, their joy so lately found,
So lately found and so ab...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...ere,
And at their passing cleave the Assyrian flood,
While to their native land with joy they haste,
As the Red Sea and Jordan once he cleft,
When to the Promised Land their fathers passed.
To his due time and providence I leave them." 
 So spake Israel's true King, and to the Fiend
Made answer meet, that made void all his wiles.
So fares it when with truth falsehood contends....Read more of this...

by Watts, Isaac
...ge own
Their King, and Judah was his throne.

Across the deep their journey lay;
The deep divides to make them way;
Jordan beheld their march, and fled
With backward current to his head.

The mountains shook like frighted sheep,
Like lambs the little hillocks leap;
Not Sinai on her base could stand,
Conscious of sovereign power at hand.

What power could make the deep divide?
Make Jordan backward roll his tide?
Why did ye leap, ye little hills?
And whence the frig...Read more of this...

by Untermeyer, Louis
...ot, sweating blood,
Uses for his daily food
All the fodder, flesh and juice
That twelve tall mountains can produce.
Jordan, flooded to the brim,
Is a single gulp to him;
Two great streams from Paradise
Cool his lips and scarce suffice.
When he shifts from side to side

Earthquakes gape and open wide;
When a nightmare makes him snore,
All the dead volcanoes roar.
In the space between each toe,
Kingdoms rise and saviours go;
Epochs fall and causes die
In the lif...Read more of this...

by Gibran, Kahlil
...with ignorance 
And heresy. 


I was on Sinai when Jehovah approached Moses; 
I saw the Nazarene's miracles at the Jordan; 
I was in Medina when Mohammed visited. 
Yet I here I am, prisoner of bewilderment. 


Then I witnessed the might of Babylon; 
I learned of the glory of Egypt; 
I viewed the warring greatness of Rome. 
Yet my earlier teachings showed the 
Weakness and sorrow of those achievements. 


I conversed with the magicians of Ain Dour; 
I deba...Read more of this...

by Paterson, Andrew Barton
...glad when old Pharaoh was "had" 
That they sounded their timbrels and capered like mad. 
You see he was hated from Jordan to Cairo -- 
Whence comes the expression "to buck against faro". 
For forty long years, 'midst perils and fears 
In deserts with never a famine to follow by, 
The Israelite horde went roaming abroad 
Like so many sundowners "out on the wallaby". 
When Moses, who led 'em, and taught 'em, and fed 'em, 
Was dying, he murmured, "A rorty old hoss y...Read more of this...

by Sassoon, Siegfried
....’
They’re standing in the sun, impassive and erect. 
Young Gibson with his grin; and Morgan, tired and white; 
Jordan, who’s out to win a D.C.M. some night; 
And Hughes that’s keen on wiring; and Davies (’79), 
Who always must be firing at the Boche front line.

. . . . 
‘Old soldiers never die; they simply fide a-why!’ 
That’s what they used to sing along the roads last spring; 
That’s what they used to say before the push began; 
Tha...Read more of this...

Dont forget to view our wonderful member Jordan poems.


Book: Reflection on the Important Things