Famous Medieval Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Acid

by Roddy Lumsden
 "She was right. I had to find something new. 
There was only one thing for it."

My mother told it straight, London will finish you off,
and I'd heard what Doctor Johnson said, When a man is tired 
of London, he is tired of life, but I'd been tired of life

for fourteen years; Scotland, never thoroughly enlightened, 
was gathering back its...Read more of this...

Goldwing Moth

by Carl Sandburg
 A GOLDWING moth is between the scissors and the ink bottle on the desk.
Last night it flew hundreds of circles around a glass bulb and a flame wire.
The wings are a soft gold; it is the gold of illuminated initials in manuscripts of the medieval monks....Read more of this...

In Memoriam Paul Celan

by Edward Hirsch
 Lay these words into the dead man's grave
next to the almonds and black cherries---
tiny skulls and flowering blood-drops, eyes,
and Thou, O bitterness that pillows his head.

Lay these words on the dead man's eyelids
like eyebrights, like medieval trumpet flowers
that will flourish, this time, in the shade.
Let the beheaded tulips glisten with rain.

Lay these words on his drowned eyelids
like coins or...Read more of this...

A youth in apparel that glittered

by Stephen Crane
 A youth in apparel that glittered
Went to walk in a grim forest.
There he met an assassin
Attired all in garb of old days;
He, scowling through the thickets,
And dagger poised quivering,
Rushed upon the youth.
"Sir," said this latter,
"I am enchanted, believe me,
To die, thus,
In this medieval fashion,
According to the best legends;
Ah, what joy!"
Then took he the wound, smiling,
And died, content....Read more of this...

Roosters

by Elizabeth Bishop
 At four o'clock
in the gun-metal blue dark
we hear the first crow of the first cock

just below
the gun-metal blue window
and immediately there is an echo

off in the distance,
then one from the backyard fence,
then one, with horrible insistence,

grates like a wet match 
from the broccoli patch,
flares,and all over town begins to catch.

Cries galore
come from the water-closet door,
from the dropping-plastered henhouse floor,

where...Read more of this...

Proud Music of The Storm

by Walt Whitman
 1
PROUD music of the storm! 
Blast that careers so free, whistling across the prairies! 
Strong hum of forest tree-tops! Wind of the mountains! 
Personified dim shapes! you hidden orchestras! 
You serenades of phantoms, with instruments alert,
Blending, with Nature’s rhythmus, all the tongues of nations; 
You chords left us by vast composers! you choruses! 
You formless, free, religious dances! you...Read more of this...

The Journey

by Rabindranath Tagore
 Anghiari is medieval, a sleeve sloping down
A steep hill, suddenly sweeping out
To the edge of a cliff, and dwindling.
But far up the mountain, behind the town,
We too were swept out, out by the wind,
Alone with the Tuscan grass.

Wind had been blowing across the hills
For days, and everything now was graying gold
With dust, everything we saw, even
Some small children scampering...Read more of this...

On the Building of Springfield

by Vachel Lindsay
 Let not our town be large, remembering 
That little Athens was the Muses' home, 
That Oxford rules the heart of London still, 
That Florence gave the Renaissance to Rome. 

Record it for the grandson of your son — 
A city is not builded in a day: 
Our little town cannot complete her soul 
Till countless generations pass away. 

Now...Read more of this...

To A Friend Going Blind

by Jorie Graham
 Today, because I couldn't find the shortcut through,
I had to walk this town's entire inner
perimeter to find
where the medieval walls break open
in an eighteenth century
arch. The yellow valley flickered on and off
through cracks and the gaps
for guns. Bruna is teaching me
to cut a pattern.
Saturdays we buy the cloth.
She takes it in her hands
like a good idea, feeling
for texture, grain,...Read more of this...

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