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Famous Land Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Whitman, Walt
...ce great persons, the rest follows. 

4
America isolated I sing; 
I say that works made here in the spirit of other lands, are so much poison in The States.


(How dare such insects as we see assume to write poems for America? 
For our victorious armies, and the offspring following the armies?)

Piety and conformity to them that like! 
Peace, obesity, allegiance, to them that like! 
I am he who tauntingly compels men, women, nations, 
Crying, Leap from your seats, and...Read more of this...



by Keats, John
...w that we had parted from all hope.
I stood upon a shore, a pleasant shore,
Where a sweet clime was breathed from a land
Of fragrance, quietness, and trees, and flowers.
Full of calm joy it was, as I of grief;
Too full of joy and soft delicious warmth;
So that I felt a movement in my heart
To chide, and to reproach that solitude
With songs of misery, music of our woes;
And sat me down, and took a mouthed shell
And murmur'd into it, and made melody---
O melody no more!...Read more of this...

by Alighieri, Dante
...ving. And the beasts with which she breed 
 The noisome numerous beasts her lusts require, 
 Bare all the desirable lands in which she feeds; 
 Nor shall lewd feasts and lewder matings tire 
 Until she woos, in evil hour for her, 
 The wolfhound that shall rend her. His desire 
 Is not for rapine, as the promptings 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, ...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...his restlessness had run, 
But long enough to leave him half undone. 

III. 

And Lara left in youth his fatherland; 
But from the hour he waved his parting hand 
Each trace wax'd fainter of his course, till all 
Had nearly ceased his memory to recall. 
His sire was dust, his vassals could declare, 
'Twas all they knew, that Lara was not there; 
Nor sent, nor came he, till conjecture grew 
Cold in the many, anxious in the few. 
His hall scarce echoes with his...Read more of this...

by Wordsworth, William
...ield a burning Brand;  And that for ten long Years he woo'd    The Lady of the Land.   I told her, how he pin'd: and, ah!  The low, the deep, the pleading tone,  With which I sang another's Love,    Interpreted my own.   She listen'd with a flitting Blush,  With downcast Eyes and modest Grace;  And she forgave m...Read more of this...



by Whitman, Walt
...he voyage down the Niagara, (the St. Lawrence,)—the superb scenery—the
 steamers, 
The ships sailing—the Thousand Islands—the occasional timber-raft, and the
 raftsmen
 with long-reaching sweep-oars, 
The little huts on the rafts, and the stream of smoke when they cook their supper at
 evening.

O something pernicious and dread! 
Something far away from a puny and pious life! 
Something unproved! Something in a trance! 
Something escaped from the anchorage, and drivin...Read more of this...

by Wilde, Oscar
...d have no thought of sorrow; - here, indeed,
Are Lethe's waters, and that fatal weed
Which makes a man forget his fatherland.

Ay! amid lotus-meadows dost thou stand,
Like Proserpine, with poppy-laden head,
Guarding the holy ashes of the dead.
For though thy brood of warrior sons hath ceased,
Thy noble dead are with thee! - they at least
Are faithful to thine honour:- guard them well,
O childless city! for a mighty spell,
To wake men's hearts to dreams of things subli...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...d gun by my side. 

The Yankee clipper is under her sky-sails—she cuts the sparkle and scud; 
My eyes settle the land—I bend at her prow, or shout joyously from the
 deck. 

The boatmen and clam-diggers arose early and stopt for me; 
I tuck’d my trowser-ends in my boots, and went and had a good time:
(You should have been with us that day round the chowder-kettle.) 

I saw the marriage of the trapper in the open air in the far west—the bride
 was a red ...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...and religions, 
They may prove well in lecture-rooms, yet not prove at all under the spacious clouds, and
 along
 the
 landscape and flowing currents.

Here is realization; 
Here is a man tallied—he realizes here what he has in him; 
The past, the future, majesty, love—if they are vacant of you, you are vacant of them. 

Only the kernel of every object nourishes; 
Where is he who tears off the husks for you and me?
Where is he that undoes stratagems and envelopes for...Read more of this...

by Chesterton, G K
...Why bend above a shapeless shroud
Seeking in such archaic cloud
Sight of strong lords and light?

Where seven sunken Englands
Lie buried one by one,
Why should one idle spade, I wonder,
Shake up the dust of thanes like thunder
To smoke and choke the sun?

In cloud of clay so cast to heaven
What shape shall man discern?
These lords may light the mystery
Of mastery or victory,
And these ride high in history,
But these shall not return.

Gored on the Norman gonfalon
The Gold...Read more of this...

by Wordsworth, William
...bsp; Beside their moss-grown hut of clay,  Not twenty paces from the door,  A scrap of land they have, but they  Are poorest of the poor.  This scrap of land he from the heath  Enclosed when he was stronger;  But what avails the land to them,  Which they can till no longer?   Few months of life has he in store,  As he to you will-tell,&...Read more of this...

by Bridges, Robert Seymour
...the city of Dante come to-day,
Haughtily visiting her holy places?
O these be noble men that hide their graces,
True England's blood, her ancient glory's stay,
By tales of fame diverted on their way
Home from the rule of oriental races. 
Life-trifling lions these, of gentle eyes
And motion delicate, but swift to fire
For honour, passionate where duty lies,
Most loved and loving: and they quickly tire
Of Florence, that she one day more denies
The embrace of wife and son, o...Read more of this...

by Carroll, Lewis
...other, can it be doubted that, rather than die, he would have gasped out "Rilchiam!"


CONTENTS

Fit the First. The Landing
Fit the Second. The Bellman's Speech
Fit the Third. The Baker's Tale
Fit the Fourth. The Hunting
Fit the Fifth. The Beaver's Lesson
Fit the Sixth. The Barrister's Dream
Fit the Seventh. The Banker's Fate
Fit the Eighth. The Vanishing


Fit the First.

THE LANDING


"Just the place for a Snark!" the Bellman cried,
 As h...Read more of this...

by Chaucer, Geoffrey
...he walketh up and down where as her list.
She gathereth flowers, party* white and red, *mingled
To make a sotel* garland for her head, *subtle, well-arranged
And as an angel heavenly she sung.
The greate tower, that was so thick and strong,
Which of the castle was the chief dungeon
(Where as these knightes weren in prison,
Of which I tolde you, and telle shall),
Was even joinant* to the garden wall, *adjoining
There as this Emily had her playing.

Bright was t...Read more of this...

by Scott, Sir Walter
...he expiring horse.
     'I little thought, when first thy rein
     I slacked upon the banks of Seine,
     That Highland eagle e'er should feed
     On thy fleet limbs, my matchless steed!
     Woe worth the chase, woe worth the day,
     That costs thy life, my gallant gray!'
     X.

     Then through the dell his horn resounds,
     From vain pursuit to call the hounds.
     Back limped, with slow and crippled pace,
     The sulky leaders of the chase;
     C...Read more of this...

by Poe, Edgar Allan
...il! 85 
Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore, 
Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted¡ª 
On this home by Horror haunted¡ªtell me truly, I implore: 
Is there¡ªis there balm in Gilead?¡ªtell me¡ªtell me, I implore!" 
Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore." 90 

"Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil¡ªprophet still, if bird or devil! 
By that Heaven that bends above us, by that God we both adore, 
Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, ...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...> Southey the author of 'Wat Tyler'? 

2ndly, Was he not refused a remedy at law by the highest judge of his beloved England, because it was a blasphemous and seditious publication? 

3rdly, Was he not entitled by William Smith, in full Parliament, 'a rancorous renegado'? 

4thly, Is he not poet laureate, with his own lines on Martin the regicide staring him in the face? 

And 5thly, Putting the four preceding items together, with what conscience dare he call the attention of...Read more of this...

by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
...The Waste Land
by T. S. Eliot

"Nam Sibyllam quidem Cumis ego ipse oculis meis
vidi in ampulla pendere, et cum illi pueri dicerent:
Sibylla ti theleis; respondebat illa: apothanein thelo."

I. THE BURIAL OF THE DEAD
 April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
W...Read more of this...

by Miller, Alice Duer
...I 
I have loved England, dearly and deeply, 
Since that first morning, shining and pure, 
The white cliffs of Dover I saw rising steeply 
Out of the sea that once made her secure. 
I had no thought then of husband or lover, 
I was a traveller, the guest of a week; 
Yet when they pointed 'the white cliffs of Dover', 
Startled I found there were tears on my cheek. 
I hav...Read more of this...

by Akhmatova, Anna
...not recognize sweet Muse's loving taste:
She looks ahead and does not let a word pass,
And bows a head in the dark garland dressed
Onto my chest, exhausted from the haste.

And only conscience, scarier with each day,
Wants a great ransom and for this abuses.
Closing the face, I answer her this way..
But there remain no tears and no excuses.



x x x

To lose the freshness of the words and sense, for us,
Is it same as for an artist to lose ...Read more of this...

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Book: Shattered Sighs