Famous Mountain Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Mountain poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous mountain poems. These examples illustrate what a famous mountain poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Li Po
As down Mount Emerald at eve I came,
The mountain moon went all the way with me.
Backward I looked, to see the heights aflame
With a pale light that glimmered eerily.
A little lad undid the rustic latch
As hand in hand your cottage we did gain,
Where green limp tendrils at our cloaks did catch,
And dim bamboos o'erhung a shadowy lane.
Gaily I cried,...Read more of this...
by
Lisa Zaran
At one end of the couch
you sit, mute as a pillow
tossed onto the upholstery.
I watch you sometimes
when you don't know I'm watching
and I see you. Who you are.
You are a self made man.
Hard suffering. You are grey
stone and damp earth.
A long scar on a pale sky.
The television is tuned to CNN.
The world's tragedies flicker
across your face like some
foreign film.
You...Read more of this...
by
Andrew Barton Paterson
Here in my mountain home,
On rugged hills and steep,
I sit and watch you come,
O Riverinia Sheep!
You come from the fertile plains
Where saltbush (sometimes) grows,
And flats that (when it rains)
Will blossom like the rose.
But when the summer sun
Gleams down like burnished brass,
You have to leave your run
And hustle off...Read more of this...
by
Li Bai
All the birds have flown up and gone;
A lonely cloud floats leisurely by.
We never tire of looking at each other -
Only the mountain and I.
-----------------------------------------------
The birds have vanished down the sky.
Now the last cloud drains away.
We sit together, the mountain and me,
until only the mountain remains.
...Read more of this...
by
Robert Louis Stevenson
THOU strainest through the mountain fern,
A most exiguously thin Burn.
For all thy foam, for all thy din,
Thee shall the pallid lake inurn,
With well-a-day for Mr. Swin-Burne!
Take then this quarto in thy fin
And, O thou stoker huge and stern,
The whole affair, outside and in,
Burn!
But save the true poetic kin,
The works of Mr. Robert Burn'
And William Wordsworth upon Tin-Tern!...Read more of this...
by
Hafez
When the strong climber his last mountain-crest
Attaineth, & the point for which he strove
Is reached, & his desire made manifest,
& seating him the topmost heights above
He gazeth on each aspect leisurely,
Considering the path by which he clomb
& which so many attempted, & how he
The first of all his race had strength to come
Unto that eminence, & how this throne
Shall men...Read more of this...
by
Li Po
To wash and rinse our souls of their age-old sorrows,
We drained a hundred jugs of wine.
A splendid night it was . . . .
In the clear moonlight we were loath to go to bed,
But at last drunkenness overtook us;
And we laid ourselves down on the empty mountain,
The earth for pillow, and the great heaven for coverlet....Read more of this...
by
Wallace Stevens
There it was, word for word,
The poem that took the place of a mountain.
He breathed its oxygen,
Even when the book lay turned in the dust of his table.
It reminded him how he had needed
A place to go to in his own direction,
How he had recomposed the pines,
Shifted the rocks and picked his way among clouds,
For the outlook that would...Read more of this...
by
William Stafford
I put my foot in cold water
and hold it there: early mornings
they had to wade through broken ice
to find the traps in the deep channel
with their hands, drag up the chains and
the drowned beaver. The slow current
of the life below tugs at me all day.
When I dream at night, they save a place for me,
no matter how small, somewhere...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
The Mountain sat upon the Plain
In his tremendous Chair --
His observation omnifold,
His inquest, everywhere --
The Seasons played around his knees
Like Children round a sire --
Grandfather of the Days is He
Of Dawn, the Ancestor --...Read more of this...
by
Allen Ginsberg
Tail turned to red sunset on a juniper crown a lone magpie cawks.
Mad at Oryoki in the shrine-room -- Thistles blossomed late afternoon.
Put on my shirt and took it off in the sun walking the path to lunch.
A dandelion seed floats above the marsh grass with the mosquitos.
At 4 A.M. the two middleaged men sleeping together holding hands.
In the...Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
Even a mountain would dance for joy if you soaked it
in wine. Poor is the fool who scorns the cup. You dare
order me to renounce the juice of the vine! Know then
that wine is a soul which helps to bring man to perfection....Read more of this...
by
Robert Burns
ON TURNING ONE DOWN WITH THE PLOUGH, IN APRIL, 1786
Wee, modest, crimson-tipped flow'r,
Thou's met me in an evil hour;
For I maun crush amang the stoure
Thy slender stem:
To spare thee now is past my pow'r,
Thou bonie gem.
Alas! it's no thy neebor sweet,
The bonie lark, companion meet,
Bending thee 'mang the dewy weet,
Wi' spreckled breast!
When upward-springing, blithe, to greet
The purpling east.
Cauld blew...Read more of this...
by
Henrik Ibsen
IN summer dusk the valley lies
With far-flung shadow veil;
A cloud-sea laps the precipice
Before the evening gale:
The welter of the cloud-waves grey
Cuts off from keenest sight
The glacier, looking out by day
O'er all the district, far away,
And crowned with golden light.
But o'er the smouldering cloud-wrack's flow,
Where gold and amber kiss,
Stands...Read more of this...
by
Li Po
Amongst bubbling streams
a dog barks; peach blossom
is heavy with dew; here
and there a deer can
be seen in forest glades!
No sound of the mid-day
bell enters this fastness
where blue mist rises
from bamboo groves;
down from a high peak
hangs a waterfall;
non knows where he has gone, so sadly I rest,
with my back leaning
against a pine....Read more of this...
by
Li Po
To drown the ancient sorrows,
we drank a hundred jugs of wine
there in the beautiful night.
We couldn't go to bed with the moon so bright.
The finally the wine overcame us
and we lay down on the empty mountain--
the earth for a pillow,
and a blanket made of heaven...Read more of this...
by
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
THERE stands on yonder high mountain
A castle built of yore,
Where once lurked horse and horseman
In rear of gate and of door.
Now door and gate are in ashes,
And all around is so still;
And over the fallen ruins
I clamber just as I will.
Below once lay a cellar,
With costly wines well stor'd;
No more the glad maid with her pitcher
Descends there to draw...Read more of this...
by
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
"THE mountain village was destroy'd;
But see how soon is fill'd the void!
Shingles and boards, as by magic arise,
The babe in his cradle and swaddling-clothes lies;
How blest to trust to God's protection!"
Behold a wooden new ********,
So that, if sparks and wind but choose,
God's self at such a game must lose!
1821.*...Read more of this...
by
Li Po
A bright moon rising above Tian Shan Mountain,
Lost in a vast ocean of clouds.
The long wind, across thousands upon thousands of miles,
Blows past the Jade-gate Pass.
The army of Han has gone down the Baiteng Road,
As the barbarian hordes probe at Qinghai Bay.
It is known that from the battlefield
Few ever live to return.
Men at Garrison look on the border scene,
Home...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
Nor Mountain hinder Me
Nor Sea --
Who's Baltic --
Who's Cordillera?...Read more of this...
by
Robert Burns
WEE, modest crimson-tippèd flow’r,
Thou’s met me in an evil hour;
For I maun crush amang the stoure
Thy slender stem:
To spare thee now is past my pow’r,
Thou bonie gem.
Alas! it’s no thy neibor sweet,
The bonie lark, companion meet,
Bending thee ’mang the dewy weet,
Wi’ spreckl’d breast!
When upward-springing, blythe, to greet
The purpling east.
Cauld blew the bitter-biting north
Upon thy early,...Read more of this...
by
Li Po
You ask me why I dwell in the green mountain;
I smile and make no reply for my heart is free of care.
As the peach-blossom flows down stream and is gone into the unknown,
I have a world apart that is not among men....Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
Bloom upon the Mountain -- stated --
Blameless of a Name --
Efflorescence of a Sunset --
Reproduced -- the same --
Seed, had I, my Purple Sowing
Should endow the Day --
Not a Topic of a Twilight --
Show itself away --
Who for tilling -- to the Mountain
Come, and disappear --
Whose be Her Renown, or fading,
Witness, is not here --
While I state -- the...Read more of this...
by
Thomas Moore
In yonder valley there dwelt, alone,
A youth, whose moments had calmly flown,
'Till spells came o'er him, and, day and night,
He was haunted and watch'd by a Mountain Sprite.
As once, by moonlight, he wander'd o'er
The golden sands of that Island shore,
A foot-print sparkled before his sight --
'Twas the fairy foot of the Mountain...Read more of this...
by
Edwin Arlington Robinson
Blue in the west the mountain stands,
And through the long twilight
Vickery sits with folded hands,
And Vickery’s eyes are bright.
Bright, for he knows what no man else
On earth as yet may know:
There’s a golden word that he never tells,
And a gift that he will not show.
He dreams of honor and wealth and fame,...Read more of this...
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