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:

A little East of Jordan

...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 Dickinson, Emily


A poem on divine revelation

...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 earth, ...Read more of this...
by Brackenridge, Hugh Henry

Before I Knocked

...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 childish s...Read more of this...
by Thomas, Dylan

From Town

...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 Clark, Badger

Jordan

...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 Herbert, George


Los Angeles 1954

...he arm 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 blanketed the pills...Read more of this...
by John, David St

Monna Innominata: A Sonnet of Sonnets

...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,
Nor with Lot'...Read more of this...
by Rossetti, Christina

My World Is Pyramid

...he riddled 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 heels.
The tong...Read more of this...
by Thomas, Dylan

Paradise Lost: Book 12

...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 shall c...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Paradise Regained: The First Book

...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 pronounced him h...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Paradise Regained: The Fourth Book

...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 also am,...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Paradise Regained: The Second Book

...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

Paradise Regained: The Third Book

...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 Milton, John

Poem For South African Women

...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 s...Read more of this...
by Jordan, June

Psalm 114

...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 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 fright that ...Read more of this...
by Watts, Isaac

Roast Leviathan

...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 Untermeyer, Louis

Song of Man XXV

...ting 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 debated with the pri...Read more of this...
by Gibran, Kahlil

The Scapegoat

...e so 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 you are: ...Read more of this...
by Paterson, Andrew Barton

Twelve Months After

...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 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; 
That’s where they are to-day, knock...Read more of this...
by Sassoon, Siegfried

Dont forget to view our wonderful member Jordan poems.

Get a Premium Membership
Get more exposure for your poetry and more features with a Premium Membership.
Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry

Member Area

My Admin
Profile and Settings
Edit My Poems
Edit My Quotes
Edit My Short Stories
Edit My Articles
My Comments Inboxes
My Comments Outboxes
Soup Mail
Poetry Contests
Contest Results/Status
Followers
Poems of Poets I Follow
Friend Builder

Soup Social

Poetry Forum
New/Upcoming Features
The Wall
Soup Facebook Page
Who is Online
Link to Us

Member Poems

Poems - Top 100 New
Poems - Top 100 All-Time
Poems - Best
Poems - by Topic
Poems - New (All)
Poems - New (PM)
Poems - New by Poet
Poems - Read
Poems - Unread

Member Poets

Poets - Best New
Poets - New
Poets - Top 100 Most Poems
Poets - Top 100 Most Poems Recent
Poets - Top 100 Community
Poets - Top 100 Contest

Famous Poems

Famous Poems - African American
Famous Poems - Best
Famous Poems - Classical
Famous Poems - English
Famous Poems - Haiku
Famous Poems - Love
Famous Poems - Short
Famous Poems - Top 100

Famous Poets

Famous Poets - Living
Famous Poets - Most Popular
Famous Poets - Top 100
Famous Poets - Best
Famous Poets - Women
Famous Poets - African American
Famous Poets - Beat
Famous Poets - Cinquain
Famous Poets - Classical
Famous Poets - English
Famous Poets - Haiku
Famous Poets - Hindi
Famous Poets - Jewish
Famous Poets - Love
Famous Poets - Metaphysical
Famous Poets - Modern
Famous Poets - Punjabi
Famous Poets - Romantic
Famous Poets - Spanish
Famous Poets - Suicidal
Famous Poets - Urdu
Famous Poets - War

Poetry Resources

Anagrams
Bible
Book Store
Character Counter
Cliché Finder
Poetry Clichés
Common Words
Copyright Information
Grammar
Grammar Checker
Homonym
Homophones
How to Write a Poem
Lyrics
Love Poem Generator
New Poetic Forms
Plagiarism Checker
Poetry Art
Publishing
Random Word Generator
Spell Checker
What is Good Poetry?
Word Counter