Famous Monastic Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Go Valentine

...ly maid 
Whom fancy still will portray to my sight, 
How here I linger in this sullen shade, 
This dreary gloom of dull monastic night; 
Say, that every joy of life remote 
At evening's closing hour I quit the throng, 
Listening in solitude the ring-dome's note, 
Who pours like me her solitary song; 
Say, that of her absence calls the sorrowing sigh; 
Say, that of all her charms I love to speak, 
In fancy feel the magic of her eye, 
In fancy view the smile illume her cheek, 
...Read more of this...
by Southey, Robert


Sonnet 01

...y maid
Whom Fancy still will pourtray to my sight,
How her Bard lingers in this sullen shade,
This dreary gloom of dull monastic night.
Say that from every joy of life remote
At evening's closing hour he quits the throng,
Listening alone the ring-dove's plaintive note
Who pours like him her solitary song.
Say that her absence calls the sorrowing sigh,
Say that of all her charms he loves to speak,
In fancy feels the magic of her eye,
In fancy views the smile illume her cheek,
...Read more of this...
by Southey, Robert

The Hermit of Mont-Blanc

...tion, from his parent home
He, solitary, wander'd; while the Maid
Whose peerless beauty won his yielding heart
Pined in monastic horrors ! Near his sill
A little cross he rear'd, where, prostrate low
At day's pale glimpse, or when the setting Sun
Tissued the western sky with streamy gold,
His Orisons he pour'd, for her, whose hours
Were wasted in oblivion. Winters pass'd,
And Summers faded, slow, unchearly all
To the lone HERMIT'S sorrows: For, still, Love
A dark, though unpo...Read more of this...
by Robinson, Mary Darby

The Problem

...I LIKE a church; I like a cowl; 
I love a prophet of the soul; 
And on my heart monastic aisles 
Fall like sweet strains or pensive smiles; 
Yet not for all his faith can see 5 
Would I that cowl¨¨d churchman be. 
Why should the vest on him allure  
Which I could not on me endure? 

Not from a vain or shallow thought 
His awful Jove young Phidias brought; 10 
Never from lips of cunning fell 
The thrilling Delphic oracle: 
Out...Read more of this...
by Emerson, Ralph Waldo

Thoreau in Italy

...
Conspiracy of fauns and clerics smiling back
and forth at each other acquiescently through leaves.

Caught between wan monastic mountains wearing the tonsure
and the all-siren, ever-dimpling sea, he saw
(how could he fail?) at heart geography to blame.

So home to Concord where (as he might have known he would)
he found the Italy he wanted to remember.
Why had he sailed if not for the savour of returning?

An Italy distilled of all extreme, conflict,
Collusion-an Italy witho...Read more of this...
by Francis, Robert


To The Chapel Bell

...iced, I do loathe Life's upland steep
And with strange envy muse the dead man's dreamless sleep.

But thou, memorial of monastic gall!
What Fancy sad or lightsome hast thou given?
Thy vision-scaring sounds alone recall
The prayer that trembles on a yawn to heaven;
And this Dean's gape, and that Dean's nosal tone,
And Roman rites retain'd, tho' Roman faith be flown....Read more of this...
by Southey, Robert

Tranquilism

...it,
 Ere you depart.

So let us who are old and sere
To din of battle shut the ear,
 And trumpet vain;
And though in no monastic mood
Accept the balm of solitude
 And grace regain.
Let us be Tranquilists and try
In placid places to apply
 Life's wisdom won;
In Nature's bounty we may bless
The Gods and wait with thankfulness
 Our setting sun....Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William

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