Get Your Premium Membership

Famous Leagues Poems by Famous Poets

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

See also:

by Mayakovsky, Vladimir
...ing but human lips become! 

Out of chintz-covered drawing-rooms, come 
and learn- 
decorous bureaucrats of angelic leagues. 

and you whose lips are calmly thumbed, 
as a cook turns over cookery-book leaves. 

If you like- 
I'll be furiously flesh elemental, 
or - changing to tones that the sunset arouses - 
if you like- 
I'll be extraordinary gentle, 
not a man, but - a cloud in trousers! 

1 


You think malaria makes me delirious? 

It happene...Read more of this...



by Field, Eugene
...ld of those knyghts of old
Ben those facetious narratives ye Western straunger told.
He told them of a country many leagues beyond ye sea
Where evereche forraine nuisance but ye Chinese man ben free,
And whiles he span his monstrous yarns, ye ladies of ye court
Did deem ye listening thereunto to be right plaisaunt sport;
And whiles they listened, often he did squeeze a lily hande,
Ye which proceeding ne'er before ben done in Arthure's lande;
And often wank a sidelong wink...Read more of this...

by Wilcox, Ella Wheeler
...wn the armied answer nears.



XXXV.
To snatch two fragile victims from the foe
Nine hundred men have traversed leagues of snow.
Each woe they suffered in a hostile land
The flame of vengeance in their bosoms fanned.
They thirst for slaughter, and the signal wait
To wrest the captives from their horrid fate.
Each warrior's hand upon his rifle falls, 
Each savage soldier's heart for awful bloodshed calls.



XXXVI.
And one, in years a youth, in woe ...Read more of this...

by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...me
For Annie: and so prosper'd that at last
A luckier or a bolder fisherman,
A carefuller in peril, did not breathe
For leagues along that breaker-beaten coast
Than Enoch. Likewise had he served a year
On board a merchantman, and made himself
Full sailor; and he thrice had pluck'd a life
From the dread sweep of the down-streaming seas:
And all me look'd upon him favorably:
And ere he touch'd his one-and-twentieth May
He purchased his own boat, and made a home
For Annie, n...Read more of this...

by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...to that great battle in the west, 
Where I must strike against the man they call 
My sister's son--no kin of mine, who leagues 
With Lords of the White Horse, heathen, and knights, 
Traitors--and strike him dead, and meet myself 
Death, or I know not what mysterious doom. 
And thou remaining here wilt learn the event; 
But hither shall I never come again, 
Never lie by thy side; see thee no more-- 
Farewell!' 

And while she grovelled at his feet, 
She felt the King's br...Read more of this...



by Keats, John
...estride your steed while cold is in the skies.

XXIV.
"To-day we purpose, ay, this hour we mount
"To spur three leagues towards the Apennine;
"Come down, we pray thee, ere the hot sun count
"His dewy rosary on the eglantine."
Lorenzo, courteously as he was wont,
Bow'd a fair greeting to these serpents' whine;
And went in haste, to get in readiness,
With belt, and spur, and bracing huntsman's dress.

XXV.
And as he to the court-yard pass'd along,
Each third...Read more of this...

by Morris, William
...Hot August noon: already on that day
Since sunrise through the Wiltshire downs, most sad
Of mouth and eye, he had gone leagues of way;
Ay and by night, till whether good or bad

He was, he knew not, though he knew perchance
That he was Launcelot, the bravest knight
Of all who since the world was, have borne lance,
Or swung their swords in wrong cause or in right.

Nay, he knew nothing now, except that where
The Glastonbury gilded towers shine,
A lady dwelt, whose name wa...Read more of this...

by Trumbull, John
...guards that saved him,
Kept off that satan of a Putnam
From breaking in to maul and mutton him;
He'd too much wit, such leagues t' observe,
And shut them in again, to starve.


"So Moses writes, when female Jews
Made oaths and vows unfit for use,
Their parents then might set them free
From that conscientious tyranny:
And shall men feel that spir'tual bondage
For ever, when they grow beyond age?
Shall vows but bind the stout and strong,
And let go women weak and young,
As ...Read more of this...

by Trumbull, John
...obe,
Had brought the stones along the street
To ratify a cov'nant meet,
And every beast, from lice to lions,
To join in leagues of strict alliance:
Has she not cringed, in spite of pride,
For like assistance, far and wide,
Till all this formidable league rose
Of Indians, British troops and *******?
And can you break these triple bands
By all your workmanship of hands?


"Sir," quoth Honorius, "we presume
You guess from past feats what's to come,
And from the mighty deeds of G...Read more of this...

by Trumbull, John
...ies, must'ring at their stations,
On faith of royal proclamations.
As Pagan chiefs at every crisis,
Confirm'd their leagues by sacrifices,
And herds of beasts, to all their deities,
Oblations fell, at close of treaties:
Cornwallis thus, in ancient fashion,
Concludes his grand capitulation;
And heedless of their screams or suff'rings,
Gives up the Tories for sin-off'rings.
See where, relieved from sad embargo,
Steer off consign'd a recreant cargo;
Like old scape-goats ...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...ven's ascent they lift their feet, when lo 
A violent cross wind from either coast 
Blows them transverse, ten thousand leagues awry 
Into the devious air: Then might ye see 
Cowls, hoods, and habits, with their wearers, tost 
And fluttered into rags; then reliques, beads, 
Indulgences, dispenses, pardons, bulls, 
The sport of winds: All these, upwhirled aloft, 
Fly o'er the backside of the world far off 
Into a Limbo large and broad, since called 
The Paradise of Fools, to f...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...
Before mine eyes thou hast set, and in my ear 
Vented much policy, and projects deep
Of enemies, of aids, battles, and leagues,
Plausible to the world, to me worth naught.
Means I must use, thou say'st; prediction else
Will unpredict, and fail me of the throne!
My time, I told thee (and that time for thee
Were better farthest off), is not yet come.
When that comes, think not thou to find me slack
On my part aught endeavouring, or to need
Thy politic maxims, or that c...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...r old heat against my approach; 
In vain the mastodon retreats beneath its own powder’d bones; 
In vain objects stand leagues off, and assume manifold shapes;
In vain the ocean settling in hollows, and the great monsters lying low; 
In vain the buzzard houses herself with the sky; 
In vain the snake slides through the creepers and logs; 
In vain the elk takes to the inner passes of the woods; 
In vain the razor-bill’d auk sails far north to Labrador;
I follow quickly,...Read more of this...

by Marvell, Andrew
...est,
Not Christian Captives to redeem from Bands:
Or intercept the Western golden Sands:
No, but all ancient Rights and Leagues must vail,
Rather then to the English strike their sail;
to whom their weather-beaten Province ows
It self, when as some greater Vessal tows
A Cock-boat tost with the same wind and fate;
We buoy'd so often up their Sinking State.
Was this Jus Belli & Pacis; could this be
Cause why their Burgomaster of the Sea
Ram'd with Gun-powder, flaming with B...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...the spirit of my dream.
The Lady of his love was wed with One
Who did not love her better: in her home,
A thousand leagues from his,—her native home,
She dwelt, begirt with growing Infancy,
Daughters and sons of Beauty,—but behold!
Upon her face there was a tint of grief,
The settled shadow of an inward strife,
And an unquiet drooping of the eye,
As if its lid were charged with unshed tears.
What could her grief be?—she had all she loved,
And he who had so loved her ...Read more of this...

by Kipling, Rudyard
...re cities, traced the easy grades between 'em;
 Watched unharnessed rapids wasting fifty thousand head an hour;
Counted leagues of water-frontage through the axe-ripe woods that screen 'em --
 Saw the plant to feed a people -- up and waiting for the power!

Well, I know who'll take the credit -- all the clever chaps that followed --
 Came, a dozen men together -- never knew my desert-fears;
Tracked me by the camps I'd quitted, used the water-holes I hollowed.
 They'll go ...Read more of this...

by Browning, Robert
...was the open sky o'erhead!
And you saw by the flash on his forehead,
By the hope in those eyes wide and steady,
He was leagues in the desert already,
Driving the flocks up the mountain,
Or catlike couched hard by the fountain
To waylay the date-gathering negress:
So guarded he entrance or egress.
``How he stands!'' quoth the King: ``we may well swear,
(``No novice, we've won our spurs elsewhere
``And so can afford the confession,)
``We exercise wholesome discretion
``In ...Read more of this...

by Lanier, Sidney
...and
Against an inward-opening door
That pressure tightens evermore:
They sigh a monstrous foul-air sigh
For the outside leagues of liberty,
Where Art, sweet lark, translates the sky
Into a heavenly melody.
`Each day, all day' (these poor folks say),
`In the same old year-long, drear-long way,
We weave in the mills and heave in the kilns,
We sieve mine-meshes under the hills,
And thieve much gold from the Devil's bank tills,
To relieve, O God, what manner of ills? --
The b...Read more of this...

by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...thee through thy people and their love, 
And London rolled one tide of joy through all 
Her trebled millions, and loud leagues of man 
And welcome! witness, too, the silent cry, 
The prayer of many a race and creed, and clime-- 
Thunderless lightnings striking under sea 
From sunset and sunrise of all thy realm, 
And that true North, whereof we lately heard 
A strain to shame us 'keep you to yourselves; 
So loyal is too costly! friends--your love 
Is but a burthen: loose the...Read more of this...

by Wilmot, John
...ight obscured thy reverend dusky face.
With Form and Matter, Time and Place did join,
Body, thy foe, with these did leagues combine
To spoil thy peaceful realm, and ruin all thy line.
But turncoat Time assists the foe in vain,
And, bribed by thee, assists thy short-lived reign,
And to thy hungry womb drives back thy slaves again.
Though mysteries are barred from laic eyes,
And the Divine alone with warrant pries
Into thy bosom, where thy truth in private lies,
Yet...Read more of this...

Dont forget to view our wonderful member Leagues poems.


Book: Shattered Sighs