Famous Majestic Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Hurrahing In Harvest

by Gerard Manley Hopkins
 Summer ends now; now, barbarous in beauty, the stooks arise
 Around; up above, what wind-walks! what lovely behaviour
 Of silk-sack clouds! has wilder, wilful-wavier
Meal-drift moulded ever and melted across skies? 
I walk, I lift up, I lift up heart, eyes,
 Down all that glory in the heavens to glean our Saviour;
 And, éyes, heárt, what looks, what lips yet...Read more of this...

XII. Written at a Convent

by William Lisle Bowles
 IF chance some pensive stranger, hither led, 
His bosom glowing from majestic views, 
The gorgeous dome, or the proud landscape's hues, 
Should ask who sleeps beneath this lowly bed -- 
'Tis poor Matilda! To the cloister'd scene, 
A mourner, beauteous and unknown, she came, 
To shed her tears unseen; and quench the flame 
Of fruitless love: yet was her...Read more of this...

The Rendezvous

by Alan Seeger
 He faints with hope and fear. It is the hour. 
Distant, across the thundering organ-swell, 
In sweet discord from the cathedral-tower, 
Fall the faint chimes and the thrice-sequent bell. 
Over the crowd his eye uneasy roves. 
He sees a plume, a fur; his heart dilates -- 
Soars . . . and then sinks again. It is not hers he...Read more of this...

101. Song—Composed in Spring

by Robert Burns
 AGAIN rejoicing Nature sees
 Her robe assume its vernal hues:
Her leafy locks wave in the breeze,
 All freshly steep’d in morning dews.


 Chorus.—And maun I still on Menie doat,
 And bear the scorn that’s in her e’e?
 For it’s jet, jet black, an’ it’s like a hawk,
 An’ it winna let a body be.


In vain to me the cowslips...Read more of this...

A Former Life

by Charles Baudelaire
 LONG since, I lived beneath vast porticoes, 
By many ocean-sunsets tinged and fired, 
Where mighty pillars, in majestic rows, 
Seemed like basaltic caves when day expired. 

The rolling surge that mirrored all the skies 
Mingled its music, turbulent and rich, 
Solemn and mystic, with the colours which 
The setting sun reflected in my eyes. 

And there I lived amid...Read more of this...

Netley Abbey

by William Lisle Bowles
 Fallen pile! I ask not what has been thy fate; 
But when the winds, slow wafted from the main, 
Through each rent arch, like spirits that complain, 
Come hollow to my ear, I meditate 
On this world's passing pageant, and the lot 
Of those who once majestic in their prime 
Stood smiling at decay, till bowed by time 
Or...Read more of this...

To Mæcenas

by Phillis Wheatley
 Mæcenas, you, beneath the myrtle shade,
Read o'er what poets sung, and shepherds play'd.
What felt those poets but you feel the same?
Does not your soul possess the sacred flame?
Their noble strains your equal genius shares
In softer language, and diviner airs.

 While Homer paints, lo! circumfus'd in air,
Celestial Gods in mortal forms appear;
Swift as they move hear each recess rebound, 
Heav'n...Read more of this...

Kings Must Die

by Robert William Service
 Alphonso Rex who died in Rome
Was quite a fistful as a kid;
For when I visited his home,
That gorgeous palace in Madrid,
The grinning guide-chap showed me where
He rode his bronco up the stair.

That stairway grand of marbled might,
The most majestic in the land,
In statured splendour, flight on flight,
He urged his steed with whip in hand.
No lackey could restrain him for
He...Read more of this...

Mont Blanc

by Percy Bysshe Shelley
 (Lines written in the Vale of Chamouni)

1

The everlasting universe of things
Flows through the mind, and rolls its rapid waves,
Now dark - now glittering - now reflecting gloom -
Now lending splendor, where from secret springs
The source of human thought its tribute brings
Of waters, - with a sound but half its own,
Such as a feeble brook will oft assume
In the wild...Read more of this...

What think You I take my Pen in Hand?

by Walt Whitman
 WHAT think you I take my pen in hand to record? 
The battle-ship, perfect-model’d, majestic, that I saw pass the offing to-day under full
 sail?

The splendors of the past day? Or the splendor of the night that envelopes me? 
Or the vaunted glory and growth of the great city spread around me?—No; 
But I record of two simple men...Read more of this...

Great Caesar! Condescend

by Emily Dickinson
 Great Caesar! Condescend
The Daisy, to receive,
Gathered by Cato's Daughter,
With your majestic leave!...Read more of this...

The Lord of Burleigh

by Alfred Lord Tennyson
 IN her ear he whispers gaily, 
'If my heart by signs can tell, 
Maiden, I have watch'd thee daily, 
And I think thou lov'st me well.' 
She replies, in accents fainter, 
'There is none I love like thee.' 
He is but a landscape-painter, 
And a village maiden she. 
He to lips, that fondly falter, 
Presses his without reproof: 
Leads...Read more of this...

Presumption

by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
 Whenever I am prone to doubt or wonder -
I check myself, and say, 'That mighty One
Who made the solar system cannot blunder -
And for the best all things are being done.'
Who set the stars on their eternal courses
Has fashioned this strange earth by come sure plan.
Bow low, bow low to those majestic forces, 
Nor dare to doubt their wisdom...Read more of this...

To The Genius Of Africa

by Robert Southey
 O thou who from the mountain's height
Roll'st down thy clouds with all their weight
Of waters to old Niles majestic tide;
Or o'er the dark sepulchral plain
Recallest thy Palmyra's ancient pride,
Amid whose desolated domes
Secure the savage chacal roams,
Where from the fragments of the hallow'd fane
The Arabs rear their miserable homes!

Hear Genius hear thy children's cry!
Not always should'st thou love to brood
Stern...Read more of this...

Preparation

by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
 We must not force events, but rather make
The heart soil ready for their coming, as
The earth spreads carpets for the feet of Spring, 
Or, with the strengthening tonic of the frost, 
Prepares for Winter. Should a July noon
Burst suddenly upon a frozen world
Small joy would follow, even tho' that world
Were longing for the Summer. Should the sting
Of sharp December...Read more of this...

To Virgil Written at the Request of the Mantuans for the N

by Alfred Lord Tennyson
 Roman Virgil, thou that singest
Ilion's lofty temples robed in fire,
Ilion falling, Rome arising,
wars, and filial faith, and Dido's pyre;
Landscape-lover, lord of language
more than he that sang the "Works and Days,"
All the chosen coin of fancy
flashing out from many a golden phrase;
Thou that singest wheat and woodland,
tilth and vineyard, hive and horse and herd;
All the charm of all the Muses
often...Read more of this...

Sonnet CLVII

by Francesco Petrarch
SONNET CLVII. Una candida cerva sopra l' erba. THE VISION OF THE FAWN.  Beneath a laurel, two fair streams between,At early sunrise of the opening year,A milk-white fawn upon the meadow green,Of gold its either horn, I saw appear;[Pg 173]So mild, yet so majestic, was its mien,I...Read more of this...

Searching For Pittsburgh

by Jack Gilbert
 The fox pushes softly, blindly through me at night, 
between the liver and the stomach. Comes to the heart 
and hesitates. Considers and then goes around it. 
Trying to escape the mildness of our violent world. 
Goes deeper, searching for what remains of Pittsburgh 
in me. The rusting mills sprawled gigantically 
along three rivers. The authority of them. 
The...Read more of this...

As I Walk These Broad Majestic Days

by Walt Whitman
 AS I walk these broad, majestic days of peace, 
(For the war, the struggle of blood finish’d, wherein, O terrific Ideal! 
Against vast odds, having gloriously won, 
Now thou stridest on—yet perhaps in time toward denser wars, 
Perhaps to engage in time in still more dreadful contests, dangers,
Longer campaigns and crises, labors beyond all others; 
—As I walk solitary,...Read more of this...

The overtakelessness of those

by Emily Dickinson
 The overtakelessness of those
Who have accomplished Death
Majestic is to me beyond
The majesties of Earth.

The soul her "Not at Home"
Inscribes upon the flesh --
And takes her fair aerial gait
Beyond the hope of touch....Read more of this...

Milton

by Henry Van Dyke
 I 

Lover of beauty, walking on the height 
Of pure philosophy and tranquil song; 
Born to behold the visions that belong 
To those who dwell in melody and light; 
Milton, thou spirit delicate and bright!
What drew thee down to join the Roundhead throng
Of iron-sided warriors, rude and strong, 
Fighting for freedom in a world half night? 

Lover of Liberty...Read more of this...

An Hymn to the Evening

by Phillis Wheatley
Soon as the sun forsook the eastern main
The pealing thunder shook the heav'nly plain;
Majestic grandeur!  From the zephyr's wing,
Exhales the incense of the blooming spring.
Soft purl the streams, the birds renew their notes,
And through the air their mingled music floats.
  Through all the heav'ns what beauteous dies are
    spread!
But the west glories in the deepest...Read more of this...

Symphonic Studies (After Schumann)

by Emma Lazarus
 Prelude 

Blue storm-clouds in hot heavens of mid-July 
Hung heavy, brooding over land and sea: 
Our hearts, a-tremble, throbbed in harmony 
With the wild, restless tone of air and sky. 
Shall we not call im Prospero who held 
In his enchanted hands the fateful key 
Of that tempestuous hour's mystery, 
And with controlling wand our spirits spelled, 
With him...Read more of this...

St. Peter and the Angel

by Denise Levertov
 Delivered out of raw continual pain,
smell of darkness, groans of those others
to whom he was chained--

unchained, and led
past the sleepers,
door after door silently opening--
out!
 And along a long street's
majestic emptiness under the moon:

one hand on the angel's shoulder, one
feeling the air before him,
eyes open but fixed...

And not till he saw the angel had left him,
alone and free to resume
the...Read more of this...

Song of the Redwood-Tree

by Walt Whitman
 1
A CALIFORNIA song! 
A prophecy and indirection—a thought impalpable, to breathe, as air; 
A chorus of dryads, fading, departing—or hamadryads departing; 
A murmuring, fateful, giant voice, out of the earth and sky, 
Voice of a mighty dying tree in the Redwood forest dense.

Farewell, my brethren, 
Farewell, O earth and sky—farewell, ye neighboring waters; 
My time has ended, my term...Read more of this...

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