Famous Kingdoms Poems by Famous Poets

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

See also:

Psalm 76

by Isaac Watts
 Israel saved, and the Assyrians destroyed.

In Judah God of old was known;
His name in Isr'el great;
In Salem stood his holy throne,
And Zion was his seat.

Among the praises of his saints
His dwelling there he chose;
There he received their just complaints
Against their haughty foes.

From Zion went his dreadful word,
And broke the threat'ning spear,
The bow, the arrows, and the sword,
And crushed th'...Read more of this...

A New Years Giftsent To Sir Simeon Steward

by Robert Herrick
 No news of navies burnt at seas;
No noise of late spawn'd tittyries;
No closet plot or open vent,
That frights men with a Parliament:
No new device or late-found trick,
To read by th' stars the kingdom's sick;
No gin to catch the State, or wring
The free-born nostril of the King,
We send to you; but here a jolly
Verse crown'd with ivy and with holly;
That...Read more of this...

201. Birthday Ode for 31st December 1787

by Robert Burns
 AFAR 1 the illustrious Exile roams,
 Whom kingdoms on this day should hail;
 An inmate in the casual shed,
 On transient pity’s bounty fed,
 Haunted by busy memory’s bitter tale!
 Beasts of the forest have their savage homes,
 But He, who should imperial purple wear,
Owns not the lap of earth where rests his royal head!
 His wretched refuge, dark...Read more of this...

Babys World

by Rabindranath Tagore
 I wish I could take a quiet corner in the heart of my baby's very
own world.
I know it has stars that talk to him, and a sky that stoops
down to his face to amuse him with its silly clouds and rainbows.
Those who make believe to be dumb, and look as if they never
could move, come creeping to his window...Read more of this...

Hymn To Death

by William Cullen Bryant
 Oh! could I hope the wise and pure in heart
Might hear my song without a frown, nor deem
My voice unworthy of the theme it tries,--
I would take up the hymn to Death, and say
To the grim power, The world hath slandered thee
And mocked thee. On thy dim and shadowy brow
They place an iron crown, and call thee king
Of terrors,...Read more of this...

He who was born

by Aleksandr Blok
 He, who was born in stagnant year 
Does not remember own way.
We, kids of Russia's years of fear,
Remember every night and day.

Years that burned everything to ashes!
Do you bring madness or grace?
The war's and freedom's fire flashes
Left bloody light on every face. 

We are struck dumb: the toxsin's pressure
Has made us tightly close lips.
In living hearts, once full of...Read more of this...

Old

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
 I have seen peoples come and go 
Alike the Ocean'd ebb and flow; 
I have seen kingdoms rise and fall 
Like springtime shadows on a wall. 
I have seen houses rendered great 
That grew from life's debased estate, 
And all, all, all is change I see, 
So, dearest God, take me, take me....Read more of this...

The Hollow Men

by T S (Thomas Stearns) Eliot
 Mistah Kurtz -- he dead.




 A penny for the Old Guy




 I


We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats' feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar

Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;

Those who have crossed
With direct eyes,...Read more of this...

Taken from men -- this morning

by Emily Dickinson
 Taken from men -- this morning --
Carried by men today --
Met by the Gods with banners --
Who marshalled her away --

One little maid -- from playmates --
One little mind from school --
There must be guests in Eden --
All the rooms are full --

Far -- as the East from Even --
Dim -- as the border star --
Courtiers quaint, in Kingdoms
Our...Read more of this...

The face I carry with me -- last

by Emily Dickinson
 The face I carry with me -- last --
When I go out of Time --
To take my Rank -- by -- in the West --
That face -- will just be thine --

I'll hand it to the Angel --
That -- Sir -- was my Degree --
In Kingdoms -- you have heard the Raised --
Refer to -- possibly.

He'll take it --...Read more of this...

To Find God

by Robert Herrick
Weigh me the fire; or canst thou find
A way to measure out the wind?
Distinguish all those floods that are
Mixed in that wat'ry theater,
And taste thou them as saltless there,
As in their channel first they were.
Tell me the people that do keep
Within the kingdoms of the deep;
Or fetch me back that cloud again,
Beshivered into seeds of rain.
Tell me the motes, dust,...Read more of this...

Envoy For A Childs Garden Of Verses

by Robert Louis Stevenson
 WHETHER upon the garden seat
You lounge with your uplifted feet
Under the May's whole Heaven of blue;
Or whether on the sofa you,
No grown up person being by,
Do some soft corner occupy;
Take you this volume in your hands
And enter into other lands,
For lo! (as children feign) suppose
You, hunting in the garden rows,
Or in the lumbered attic, or
The cellar - a nail-studded...Read more of this...

The Talking Oak

by Alfred Lord Tennyson
 Once more the gate behind me falls; 
Once more before my face 
I see the moulder'd Abbey-walls, 
That stand within the chace. 

Beyond the lodge the city lies, 
Beneath its drift of smoke; 
And ah! with what delighted eyes 
I turn to yonder oak. 

For when my passion first began, 
Ere that, which in me burn'd, 
The love, that...Read more of this...

Abraham

by Edwin Muir
 The rivulet-loving wanderer Abraham
Through waterless wastes tracing his fields of pasture
Led his Chaldean herds and fattening flocks
With the meandering art of wavering water
That seeks and finds, yet does not know its way.
He came, rested and prospered, and went on,
Scattering behind him little pastoral kingdoms,
And over each one its own particular sky,
Not the great rounded sky through which he journeyed,
That...Read more of this...

The Three Songs

by Lucy Maud Montgomery
 The poet sang of a battle-field
Where doughty deeds were done,
Where stout blows rang on helm and shield
And a kingdom's fate was spun
With the scarlet thread of victory,
And honor from death's grim revelry
Like a flame-red flower was won!
So bravely he sang that all who heard
With the sting of the fight and the triumph were stirred,
And they cried, "Let us blazon...Read more of this...

Ode On The Insurrection In Candia

by Algernon Charles Swinburne
 STR. 1

I laid my laurel-leaf
At the white feet of grief,
Seeing how with covered face and plumeless wings,
With unreverted head
Veiled, as who mourns his dead,
Lay Freedom couched between the thrones of kings,
A wearied lion without lair,
And bleeding from base wounds, and vexed with alien air.

STR. 2

Who was it, who, put poison to thy mouth,
Who lulled with craft or chant thy...Read more of this...

Journey Of The Magi

by T S (Thomas Stearns) Eliot
 'A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.'
And the camels galled, sore-footed, 
 refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow.
There were times we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the 
 terraces,
And the silken girls bringing sherbet.

Then the camel men...Read more of this...

Full Fathom Five

by Sylvia Plath
 Old man, you surface seldom.
Then you come in with the tide's coming
When seas wash cold, foam-

Capped: white hair, white beard, far-flung,
A dragnet, rising, falling, as waves
Crest and trough. Miles long

Extend the radial sheaves
Of your spread hair, in which wrinkling skeins
Knotted, caught, survives

The old myth of orgins
Unimaginable. You float near
As kneeled ice-mountains

Of the north, to be steered clear
Of, not fathomed....Read more of this...

Days

by Ralph Waldo Emerson
DAUGHTERS of Time the hypocritic Days  
Muffled and dumb like barefoot dervishes  
And marching single in an endless file  
Bring diadems and fagots in their hands. 
To each they offer gifts after his will 5 
Bread kingdoms stars and sky that holds them all. 
I in my pleach¨¨d garden watched the pomp  
Forgot my morning wishes...Read more of this...

The Morrow Of Grandeur

by Victor Hugo
 ("Non, l'avenir n'est à personne!") 
 
 {V. ii., August, 1832.} 


 Sire, beware, the future's range 
 Is of God alone the power, 
 Naught below but augurs change, 
 E'en with ev'ry passing hour. 
 Future! mighty mystery! 
 All the earthly goods that be, 
 Fortune, glory, war's renown, 
 King or kaiser's sparkling crown, 
...Read more of this...

254. Caledonia: A Ballad

by Robert Burns
 THERE was once a day, but old Time wasythen young,
 That brave Caledonia, the chief of her line,
From some of your northern deities sprung,
 (Who knows not that brave Caledonia’s divine?)
From Tweed to the Orcades was her domain,
 To hunt, or to pasture, or do what she would:
Her heav’nly relations there fixed her reign,
 And pledg’d her their godheads...Read more of this...

An Appeal

by Algernon Charles Swinburne
 Art thou indeed among these,
Thou of the tyrannous crew,
The kingdoms fed upon blood,
O queen from of old of the seas,
England, art thou of them too
That drink of the poisonous flood,
That hide under poisonous trees?



Nay, thy name from of old,
Mother, was pure, or we dreamed
Purer we held thee than this,
Purer fain would we hold;
So goodly a glory it seemed,
A fame...Read more of this...

There Are Not Many Kingdoms Left

by Kenneth Patchen
 I write the lips of the moon upon her shoulders. In a
temple of silvery farawayness I guard her to rest.

For her bed I write a stillness over all the swans of the
world. With the morning breath of the snow leopard I
cover her against any hurt.

Using the pen of rivers and mountaintops I store her
pillow with singing.

Upon her hair I...Read more of this...

A New Years Giftsent To Sir Simeon Steward

by Robert Herrick
 No news of navies burnt at seas;
No noise of late spawn'd tittyries;
No closet plot or open vent,
That frights men with a Parliament:
No new device or late-found trick,
To read by th' stars the kingdom's sick;
No gin to catch the State, or wring
The free-born nostril of the King,
We send to you; but here a jolly
Verse crown'd with ivy and with holly;
That...Read more of this...

Blakes Victory

by Andrew Marvell
 On the Victory Obtained by Blake over the Spaniards in the Bay of Santa Cruz, in the Island of Tenerife, 1657

Now does Spain's fleet her spacious wings unfold, 
Leaves the New World and hastens for the old: 
But though the wind was fair, they slowly swum 
Freighted with acted guilt, and guilt to come: 
For this rich load, of...Read more of this...

Dont forget to view our wonderful member Kingdoms 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