Famous Lineage Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Cuchulans Fight With The Sea

by William Butler Yeats
 A man came slowly from the setting sun,
To Emer, raddling raiment in her dun,
And said, 'I am that swineherd whom you bid
Go watch the road between the wood and tide,
But now I have no need to watch it more.'

Then Emer cast the web upon the floor,
And raising arms all raddled with the dye,
Parted her lips with a loud sudden...Read more of this...

Pilates Wifes Dream

by Charlotte Bronte
 I've quenched my lamp, I struck it in that start
Which every limb convulsed, I heard it fall­
The crash blent with my sleep, I saw depart
Its light, even as I woke, on yonder wall;
Over against my bed, there shone a gleam
Strange, faint, and mingling also with my dream. 

It sunk, and I am wrapt in utter gloom; 
How far is...Read more of this...

Lineage

by Ted Hughes
 In the beginning was Scream
Who begat Blood
Who begat Eye
Who begat Fear
Who begat Wing
Who begat Bone
Who begat Granite
Who begat Violet
Who begat Guitar
Who begat Sweat
Who begat Adam
Who begat Mary
Who begat God
Who begat Nothing
Who begat Never
Never Never Never

Who begat Crow

Screaming for Blood
Grubs, crusts

Anything

Trembling featherless elbows in the nest's filth...Read more of this...

The Three Glorious Days

by Victor Hugo
 ("Frères, vous avez vos journées.") 
 
 {I., July, 1830.} 


 Youth of France, sons of the bold, 
 Your oak-leaf victor-wreaths behold! 
 Our civic-laurels—honored dead! 
 So bright your triumphs in life's morn, 
 Your maiden-standards hacked and torn, 
 On Austerlitz might lustre shed. 
 
 All that your fathers did re-done— 
 A people's rights...Read more of this...

Jinny the Just

by Matthew Prior
 Releas'd from the noise of the butcher and baker 
Who, my old friends be thanked, did seldom forsake her, 
And from the soft duns of my landlord the Quaker, 

From chiding the footmen and watching the lasses, 
From Nell that burn'd milk, and Tom that broke glasses 
(Sad mischiefs thro' which a good housekeeper passes!) 

From some real care...Read more of this...

The Gods Of Greece

by Friedrich von Schiller
 Ye in the age gone by,
Who ruled the world--a world how lovely then!--
And guided still the steps of happy men
In the light leading-strings of careless joy!
Ah, flourished then your service of delight!
How different, oh, how different, in the day
When thy sweet fanes with many a wreath were bright,
O Venus Amathusia!

Then, through a veil of dreams
Woven by song, truth's youthful...Read more of this...

Indignation Jones

by Edgar Lee Masters
 You would not believe, would you
That I came from good Welsh stock?
That I was purer blooded than the white trash here?
And of more direct lineage than the New Englanders
And Virginians of Spoon River?
You would not believe that I had been to school
And read some books.
You saw me only as a run-down man,
With matted hair and beard
And ragged clothes.
Sometimes a...Read more of this...

The Well-Beloved

by Thomas Hardy
 I wayed by star and planet shine 
 Towards the dear one's home 
At Kingsbere, there to make her mine 
 When the next sun upclomb. 

I edged the ancient hill and wood 
 Beside the Ikling Way, 
Nigh where the Pagan temple stood 
 In the world's earlier day. 

And as I quick and quicker walked 
 On...Read more of this...

The Marmoreal Slumbers

by Jean Delville
Thus, the souls of dismal feudal lineage,
Perpetuating their pride in illustrious sepulchres,
Stretch out their long, marble sleep upon the flagstones,
Weighted with dead centuries and funereal pasts,

The heraldic and grandiose white cadavers,
With righteous hands joined in ardent rigidity,
Pallid with faith, that rise from their bosoms
With sacerdotal gestures of prayer in eternity.

Beneath a heavy mourning of shadows in the tumulous crypts,
Within the...Read more of this...

Mi Musa Triste (My Sad Muse)

by Delmira Agustini
SpanishVagos preludios. En la noche espléndidaSu voz de perlas una fuente calla,Cuelgan las brisas sus celestes pifanosEn el follaje. Las cabezas pardasDe los búhos acechan.Las flores se abren más, como asombradas.Los cisnes de marfil tienden los cuellosEn las lagunas pálidas.Selene mira del azul. Las frondasTiemblan… y todo! hasta el silencio, calla…Es que ella pasa con su boca tristeY el gran...Read more of this...

from the Ansty Experience

by Rg Gregory
 (a)
they seek to celebrate the word
not to bring their knives out on a poem
dissecting it to find a heart
whose beat lies naked on a table
not to score in triumph on a line
no sensitive would put a nostril to
but simply to receive it as an
offering glimpsing the sacred there

poem probes the poet's once-intention
but each time said budges its truth
afresh (leaving...Read more of this...

Diffugere Nives (Horace Odes 4.7)

by A E Housman
 The snows are fled away, leaves on the shaws
 And grasses in the mead renew their birth,
The river to the river-bed withdraws,
 And altered is the fashion of the earth.

The Nymphs and Graces three put off their fear
 And unapparelled in the woodland play.
The swift hour and the brief prime of the year
 Say to the soul, Thou wast...Read more of this...

On the Death of the Honourable Mr. James Thynne

by Anne Kingsmill Finch
 Farewell, lov'd Youth! since 'twas the Will of Heaven 
So soon to take, what had so late been giv'n; 
And thus our Expectations to destroy, 
Raising a Grief, where we had form'd a Joy; 
Who once believ'd, it was the Fates Design 
In Him to double an Illustrious Line, 
And in a second Channel spread that Race 
Where ev'ry...Read more of this...

The Pity Of It

by Thomas Hardy
 I walked in loamy Wessex lanes, afar
From rail-track and from highway, and I heard
In field and farmstead many an ancient word
Of local lineage like "Thu bist," "Er war,"
"Ich woll," "Er sholl," and by-talk similar,
Nigh as they speak who in this month's moon gird
At England's very loins, thereunto spurred
By gangs whose glory threats and slaughters are. 

Then seemed a Heart...Read more of this...

Two Songs From A Play

by William Butler Yeats
 I

I saw a staring virgin stand
Where holy Dionysus died,
And tear the heart out of his side.
And lay the heart upon her hand
And bear that beating heart away;
Of Magnus Annus at the spring,
As though God's death were but a play.

Another Troy must rise and set,
Another lineage feed the crow,
Another Argo's painted prow
Drive to a flashier bauble yet.
The Roman Empire stood...Read more of this...

Robert Browning

by Henry Van Dyke
 How blind the toil that burrows like the mole, 
In winding graveyard pathways underground,
For Browning's lineage! What if men have found
Poor footmen or rich merchants on the roll
Of his forbears? Did they beget his soul? 
Nay, for he came of ancestry renowned 
Through all the world, -- the poets laurel-crowned
With wreaths from which the autumn takes no toll. 

The...Read more of this...

The pedigree of Honey

by Emily Dickinson
 The pedigree of Honey
Does not concern the Bee,
Nor lineage of Ecstasy
Delay the Butterfly
On spangle journeys to the peak
Of some perceiveless thing --
The right of way to Tripoli
A more essential thing.

--

The Pedigree of Honey
Does not concern the Bee --
A Clover, any time, to him,
Is Aristocracy --...Read more of this...

The Legend of St. Austin and the Child

by Katharine Tynan
 St. Austin, going in thought 
Along the sea-sands gray, 
Into another world was caught,
And Carthage far away. 

He saw the City of God 
Hang in the saffron sky; 
And this was holy ground he trod, 
Where mortals come not nigh. 

He saw pale spires aglow, 
Houses of heavenly sheen; 
All in a world of rose and snow, 
A sea...Read more of this...

O LUCKLESS bark! (O NAVIS, REFERENT)

by Horace

     O LUCKLESS bark! new waves will force you back
     To sea. O, haste to make the haven yours!
          E'en now, a helpless wrack,
            You drift, despoil'd of oars;
   ...Read more of this...

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