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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Nor Mountain hinder Me

by Emily Dickinson
 Nor Mountain hinder Me
Nor Sea --
Who's Baltic --
Who's Cordillera?...Read more of this...

Mountain Life

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...

You Are The Mountain

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...

Visiting A Taoist On Tiatien Mountain

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...

102. To a Mountain Daisy

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...

Green Mountain

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...

A Mountain Station

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 I bought a run a while ago, 
On country rough and ridgy, 
Where wallaroos and wombats grow -- 
The Upper Murrumbidgee. 
The grass is rather scant, it's true, 
But this a fair exchange is, 
The sheep can see a lovely view 
By climbing up the ranges. 

And She-oak Flat's the station's name, 
I'm not surprised at that, sirs: 
The...Read more of this...

Bloom upon the Mountain -- stated --

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...

A Mountain Revelry

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...

The Mountain Village

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...

To-morrow I shall have surmounted the mountain

by Omar Khayyam
To-morrow I shall have surmounted the mountain
which separates us, and with indescribable happiness
take the cup in my hand. My mistress longs for me,
the day is bright; if I do not hasten to enjoy myself
in such a moment, when shall I find enjoyment?...Read more of this...

The Mountain

by Robert Frost
 The mountain held the town as in a shadow 
I saw so much before I slept there once: 
I noticed that I missed stars in the west, 
Where its black body cut into the sky. 
Near me it seemed: I felt it like a wall 
Behind which I was sheltered from a wind. 
And yet between the town and...Read more of this...

Moon over Mountain Pass

by Li Bai
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 thoughts...Read more of this...

When the strong climber his last mountain-crest

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...

The Lay Of The Mountain

by Friedrich von Schiller
 To the solemn abyss leads the terrible path,
The life and death winding dizzy between;
In thy desolate way, grim with menace and wrath,
To daunt thee the spectres of giants are seen;
That thou wake not the wild one, all silently tread--
Let thy lip breathe no breath in the pathway of dread!

High over the marge of the horrible deep
Hangs and hovers a...Read more of this...

The Poem That Took The Place Of A Mountain

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...

Vickerys Mountain

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...

The Mountain Castle

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...

Alone Looking at the Mountain

by Li Po
 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....Read more of this...

Green Mountain

by Li Bai
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. 

- English Translation -...Read more of this...

A draught of wine would make a mountain dance,

by Omar Khayyam
A draught of wine would make a mountain dance,
Base is the churl who looks at wine askance;
Wine is a soul our bodies to inspire,
A truce to this vain talk of temperance!...Read more of this...

The Mountain Sprite

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...

The Mountain sat upon the Plain

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...

Remembering Mountain Men

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...

Even a mountain would dance for joy if you soaked it

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...

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