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:

Roast Leviathan

by Louis Untermeyer
"Old Jews!" Well, David, aren't we?
What news is that to make you see so red,
To swear and almost tear your beard in half?
Jeered at? Well, let them laugh.
You can laugh longer when you're dead.
What? Are you still too blind to see?
Have you forgot your Midrash!... They were right,
The little goyim, with their angry stones.
You should be buried in the desert...Read more of this...

Jordan

by George Herbert
 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 veiled, while he...Read more of this...

Twelve Months After

by Siegfried Sassoon
 Hullo! here’s my platoon, the lot I had last year. 
‘The war’ll be over soon.’ 
‘What ’opes?’ 
‘No bloody fear!’ 
Then, ‘Number Seven, ’shun! All present and correct.’
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...Read more of this...

My World Is Pyramid

by Dylan Thomas
 I

Half of the fellow father as he doubles
His sea-sucked Adam in the hollow hulk,
Half of the fellow mother as she dabbles
To-morrow's diver in her horny milk,
Bisected shadows on the thunder's bone
Bolt for the salt unborn.

The fellow half was frozen as it bubbled
Corrosive spring out of the iceberg's crop,
The fellow seed and shadow as it babbled
The swing of milk was...Read more of this...

A little East of Jordan

by Emily Dickinson
 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 beyond,
And the bewildered Gymnast
Found he had...Read more of this...

Los Angeles 1954

by David St John
 It was in the old days,
When she used to hang out at a place
Called Club Zombie,
A black cabaret that the police liked
To raid now and then. As she
Stepped through the door, the light
Would hit her platinum hair,
And believe me, heads would turn. Maestro
Loved it; he'd have her by
The arm as he led us through the packed crowd
To a private...Read more of this...

From Town

by Badger Clark
  We're the children of the open and we hate the haunts o' men,
    But we had to come to town to get the mail.
  And we're ridin' home at daybreak--'cause the air is cooler then--
    All 'cept one of us that stopped behind in jail.
  Shorty's nose won't bear paradin',...Read more of this...

Poem For South African Women

by June Jordan
Our own shadows disappear as the feet of thousands
by the tens of thousands pound the fallow land
into new dust that
rising like a marvelous pollen will be
fertile
even as the first woman whispering
imagination to the trees around her made
for righteous fruit
from such deliberate defense of life
as no other still
will claim inferior to any other safety
in the world

The whispers too they
intimate to the...Read more of this...

The Scapegoat

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 We have all of us read how the Israelites fled 
From Egypt with Pharaoh in eager pursuit of 'em, 
And Pharaoh's fierce troop were all put "in the soup" 
When the waters rolled softly o'er every galoot of 'em. 
The Jews were so glad when old Pharaoh was "had" 
That they sounded their timbrels and capered like mad. 
You...Read more of this...

Psalm 114

by Isaac Watts
 Miracles attending Israel's journey.

When Isr'el, freed from Pharaoh's hand,
Left the proud tyrant and his land,
The tribes with cheerful homage 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...Read more of this...

Song of Man XXV

by Kahlil Gibran
 I was here from the moment of the 
Beginning, and here I am still. And 
I shall remain here until the end 
Of the world, for there is no 
Ending to my grief-stricken being. 


I roamed the infinite sky, and 
Soared in the ideal world, and 
Floated through the firmament. But 
Here I am, prisoner of measurement. 


I heard...Read more of this...

Before I Knocked

by Dylan Thomas
 Before I 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...Read more of this...

Dont forget to view our wonderful member Jordan poems.

Get a Premium Membership
Turn off ads, get more exposure for your poetry, and get more features with a Premium Membership.
Book: Diverse Voices: The Poetry of Human Rights and the Pursuit of Peace