Famous Libation Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Libation poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous libation poems. These examples illustrate what a famous libation poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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...s charr'd, and piled the sods.
And offering to the dead made, and their gods,
The old mourners had, standing to make libation,
I stand, and to the Gods and to the dead
Do reverence without prayer or praise, and shed
Offering to these unknown, the gods of gloom,
And what of honey and spice my seed-lands bear,
And what I may of fruits in this chill'd air,
And lay, Orestes-like, across the tomb
A curl of sever'd hair.
But by no hand nor any treason stricken,
N...Read more of this...
by
Swinburne, Algernon Charles
...'st look out to the East:
The vulgar saw thy tower, thou sawest the sun.
For this, I promise on thy festival
To pour libation, looking o'er the sea,
Making this slave narrate thy fortunes, speak
Thy great words, and describe thy royal face--
Wishing thee wholly where Zeus lives the most,
Within the eventual element of calm.
Thy letter's first requirement meets me here.
It is as thou hast heard: in one short life
I, Cleon, have effected all those things
Thou wonder...Read more of this...
by
Browning, Robert
...d is going back to Paganism'.
Oh bright Vision! I saw our dynasty in the bar of the House
Spill from their tumblers a libation to the Erinyes,
And Leavis with Lord Russell wreathed in flowers, heralded with flutes,
Leading white bulls to the cathedral of the solemn Muses
To pay where due the glory of their latest theorem.
Hestia's fire in every flat, rekindled, burned before
The Lardergods. Unmarried daughters with obedient hands
Tended it By the hearth the white-armd...Read more of this...
by
Lewis, C S
...t.
In fresh myrtle my blade I'll entwine,
Like Harmodious, the gallant and good,
When he made at the tutelar shrine
A libation of Tyranny's blood.
Ye deliverers of Athens from shame!
Ye avengers of Liberty's wrongs!
Endless ages shall cherish your fame
Embalmed in their echoing songs!...Read more of this...
by
Poe, Edgar Allan
...the holiest truth!
Crown'd with gay garlands were your statues seen,
To you the fragrant censer smok'd, to you
The rich libation flow'd: vain sacrifice!
For nor the poppy wreath nor fruits nor wine.
Ye ask, PENATES! nor the altar cleans'd
With many a mystic form; ye ask the heart
Made pure, and by domestic Peace and Love
Hallowed to you.
Hearken your hymn of praise,
PENATES! to your shrines I come for rest,
There only to be found. Often at eve,
Amid my wanderings I have seen...Read more of this...
by
Southey, Robert
...pes.
Beneath, the crowd without delay
The dedication-rites essay,
And gladly pay, in antient fashion,
The ceremonies of libation;
While briskly to each patriot lip
Walks eager round the inspiring flip:
Delicious draught! whose powers inherit
The quintessence of public spirit;
Which whoso tastes, perceives his mind
To nobler politics refined;
Or roused to martial controversy,
As from transforming cups of Circe;
Or warm'd with Homer's nectar'd liquor,
That fill'd the veins of g...Read more of this...
by
Trumbull, John
...;
Lesbia with her sparrow
Shares the darkness,—presently
Every bed is narrow.
Unremembered as old rain
Dries the sheer libation,
And the little petulant hand
Is an annotation.
After all, my erstwhile dear,
My no longer cherished,
Need we say it was not love,
Now that love is perished?...Read more of this...
by
St. Vincent Millay, Edna
...dered --
To devise once more
If the Life be too surrendered --
Life of Mine -- restore --
Poured like this -- My Whole Libation --
Just that You should see
Bliss of Death -- Life's Bliss extol thro'
Imitating You --
Mine -- to guard Your Narrow Precinct --
To seduce the Sun
Longest on Your South, to linger,
Largest Dews of Morn
To demand, in Your low favor
Lest the Jealous Grass
Greener lean -- Or fonder cluster
Round some other face --
Mine to supplicate Madonna --
If Ma...Read more of this...
by
Dickinson, Emily
...dough who has passed the Ice-worm Cocktail Test."
And at these words, with all eyes fixed on gaping Major Brown,
Like a libation to the gods, each dashed his cocktail down.
The Major gasped with horror as the trio smacked their lips.
He twiddled at his eye-glass with unsteady finger-tips.
Into his starry cocktail with a look of woe he peered,
And its ice-worm, to his thinking, mosy incontinently leered.
Yet on him were a hundred eyes, though no one spoke aloud,
For hushed wit...Read more of this...
by
Service, Robert William
...ic brought them, somewhere else, to grief.She looked over his shoulderFor ritual pieties,White flower-garlanded heifers,Libation and sacrifice,But there on the shining metalWhere the altar should have been,She saw by his flickering forge-lightQuite another scene. Barbed wire enclosed an arbitrary spotWhere bored officials lounged (one cracked a joke)And sentries sweated for the day was hot:A crowd of ordinary decent folkWatched from without and neither moved nor spokeAs three...Read more of this...
by
Auden, Wystan Hugh (W H)
...asp'd upon the brink,
Ere my fainting spirit fell,
'Tis to thee that I would drink.
With that water, as this wine,
The libation I would pour
Should be—peace with thine and mine,
And a health to thee, Tom Moore!...Read more of this...
by
Byron, George (Lord)
...
My conceited lips' empty prayer.
x x x
This way I prayed: "Slake the dumb thirst
Of singing with a sweet libation!"
But to the earthling of the earth
There can be no liberation.
Like smoke from sacrifice, that it could not
Fly Strength- and Glory-ward -- alas -
But only clouded at the feet
And, as if praying, kissed the grass.
Thus I, O Lord, before thee bow:
Will reach the fire of the sky
My lashes that are closed for now
And muteness utter and divin...Read more of this...
by
Akhmatova, Anna
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