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Famous Moorish Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Seeger, Alan
...ose depths to hide that which her hand might not. 


Pity and wonder and awakening love 
Strove in the bosom of the Moorish Knight. 
Down from his soaring in the skies above 
He urged the tenor of his courser's flight. 
Fairer with every foot of lessening height 
Shone the sweet prisoner. With tightening reins 
He drew more nigh, and gently as he might: 
"O lady, worthy only of the chains 
With which his bounden slaves the God of Love constrains, 


"And least...Read more of this...



by Milton, John
...
Be it not done in pride, or in presumption.
Some say no evil thing that walks by night,
In fog or fire, by lake or moorish fen,
Blue meagre hag, or stubborn unlaid ghost,
That breaks his magic chains at curfew time,
No goblin or swart faery of the mine,
Hath hurtful power o'er true virginity.
Do ye believe me yet, or shall I call
Antiquity from the old schools of Greece
To testify the arms of chastity?
Hence had the huntress Dian her dread bow
Fair silver-shafted que...Read more of this...

by Hugo, Victor
...
 A MOORISH BALLAD. 
 
 ("Don Roderique est à la chasse.") 
 
 {***., May, 1828.} 


 Unto the chase Rodrigo's gone, 
 With neither lance nor buckler; 
 A baleful light his eyes outshone— 
 To pity he's no truckler. 
 
 He follows not the royal stag, 
 But, full of fiery hating, 
 Beside the way one sees him lag, 
 Impatient at the waiting....Read more of this...

by Horace,
...A parent's eye,
     O weary—with thy long, long game,
       Who lov'st fierce shouts and helmets bright,
     And Moorish warrior's glance of flame
               Or e'er he smite!
     Or Maia's son, if now awhile
       In youthful guise we see thee here,
     Caesar's avenger—such the style
               Thou deign'st to bear;
     Late be thy journey home, and long
       Thy sojourn with Rome's family;
     Nor let thy wrath at our great wrong
           ...Read more of this...

by Doty, Mark
...fany's term

for his coppery-rose
flushed with gold
like the alchemized

atmosphere of sunbeams
in a Flemish room?
Faux Moorish,

fake Japanese,
his lamps illumine
chiefly themselves,

copying waterlilies'
bronzy stems,
wisteria or trout scales;

surfaces burnished
like a tidal stream
on which an excitation

of minnows boils
and blooms, artifice
made to show us

the lavish wardrobe
of things, the world's
glaze of appearances

worked into the thin
and gleaming stuff
of craft.<...Read more of this...



by Martí, José
...Opening the moorish grate
To lean upon the wet sill,
Pale as the moon, and so still, 
A lover ponders his fate.

Pale, beneath her canopy
Of red silk and turtledove, 
Eve, who says nothing of love, 
A violet plucks in her tea.

...Read more of this...

by Wordsworth, William
...ale face, 
Upon a long grey staff of shaven wood: 
And, still as I drew near with gentle pace, 
Upon the margin of that moorish flood 
Motionless as a cloud the old Man stood, 
That heareth not the loud winds when they call 
And moveth all together, if it move at all. 

XII 

At length, himself unsettling, he the pond 
Stirred with his staff, and fixedly did look 
Upon the muddy water, which he conned, 
As if he had been reading in a book: 
And now a stranger's privilege ...Read more of this...

by Wordsworth, William
...ale face, 
Upon a long grey staff of shaven wood: 
And, still as I drew near with gentle pace, 
Upon the margin of that moorish flood 
Motionless as a cloud the old Man stood, 
That heareth not the loud winds when they call 
And moveth all together, if it move at all. 

XII 

At length, himself unsettling, he the pond 
Stirred with his staff, and fixedly did look 
Upon the muddy water, which he conned, 
As if he had been reading in a book: 
And now a stranger's privilege ...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...The Moorish King rides up and down,
Through Granada's royal town;
From Elvira's gate to those
Of Bivarambla on he goes.
Woe is me, Alhama!

Letters to the monarch tell 
How Alhama's city fell: 
In the fire the scroll he threw, 
And the messenger he slew.
Woe is me, Albamal

He quits his mule, and mounts his horse, 
And through the street directs his cour...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...h contains the leaf, is adorned with precious stones, if in possession of the wealthier orders. 

(11) "Maugrabee," Moorish mercenaries. 

(12) "Delis," bravoes who form the forlorn-hope of the cavalry, and always begin the action. 

(13) A twisted fold of felt is used for scimitar practice by the Turks, and few but Mussulman arms can cut through it at a single stroke: sometimes a tough turban is used for the same purpose. The jerreed is a game of blunt javeli...Read more of this...

by Chaucer, Geoffrey
...en neighbours in "Lettowe"
or Lithuania (German. "Litthauen"), Russia, &c.

8. Algesiras was taken from the Moorish king of Grenada, in
1344: the Earls of Derby and Salisbury took part in the siege.
Belmarie is supposed to have been a Moorish state in Africa;
but "Palmyrie" has been suggested as the correct reading. The
Great Sea, or the Greek sea, is the Eastern Mediterranean.
Tramissene, or Tremessen, is enumerated by Froissart among
the Moorish king...Read more of this...

by Hugo, Victor
...ined 
 Thirty pitched battles, and took, as legends tell, 
 Three hundred standards from the Infidel; 
 And from the Moorish King Motril, in war, 
 Won Antiquera, Suez, and Nijar; 
 And then died poor. Next to him Juan stands, 
 His son; his plighted hand was worth the hands 
 Of kings. Next Gaspar, of Mendoza's line— 
 Few noble stems but chose to join with mine: 
 Sandoval sometimes fears, and sometimes woos 
 Our smiles; Manriquez envies; Lara sues; 
 And Alanca...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...The Moorish King rides up and down,
Through Granada's royal town;
From Elvira's gate to those
Of Bivarambla on he goes.
Woe is me, Alhama!

Letters to the monarch tell 
How Alhama's city fell: 
In the fire the scroll he threw, 
And the messenger he slew.
Woe is me, Albamal

He quits his mule, and mounts his horse, 
And through the street directs his cour...Read more of this...

by Gregory, Rg
...ld men occupy the squares
nattering to each other in such tongues
that take the clock away from what is time
i could be moorish strolling in this heat
past tiled seats paved stones and dusty plants
a town that knows the desert's not far off

only the traffic fusses about like now
fuming and farting worse than any horse
desperate to catch up centuries of drift
and get the people moving like machines
a modern bustle seeps up through the drains
where buildings fall to caterpilla...Read more of this...

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