Famous Navigation Poems by Famous Poets

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

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A stagnant pleasure like a Pool

by Emily Dickinson
 A stagnant pleasure like a Pool
That lets its Rushes grow
Until they heedless tumble in
And make the Water slow

Impeding navigation bright
Of Shadows going down
Yet even this shall rouse itself
When freshets come along....Read more of this...

American Feuillage

by Walt Whitman
 AMERICA always! 
Always our own feuillage! 
Always Florida’s green peninsula! Always the priceless delta of Louisiana! Always the
 cotton-fields of Alabama and Texas! 
Always California’s golden hills and hollows—and the silver mountains of New
 Mexico!
 Always soft-breath’d Cuba! 
Always the vast slope drain’d by the Southern Sea—inseparable with the slopes
 drain’d
 by the Eastern and Western Seas;
The area the...Read more of this...

Prayer of Columbus

by Walt Whitman
 A BATTER’D, wreck’d old man, 
Thrown on this savage shore, far, far from home, 
Pent by the sea, and dark rebellious brows, twelve dreary months, 
Sore, stiff with many toils, sicken’d, and nigh to death, 
I take my way along the island’s edge,
Venting a heavy heart. 

I am too full of woe! 
Haply, I may not live another day;...Read more of this...

Fit the First: ( Hunting of the Snark )

by Lewis Carroll
 The Landing 

"Just the place for a Snark!" the Bellman cried,
As he landed his crew with care;
Supporting each man on the top of the tide
By a finger entwined in his hair. 
"Just the place for a Snark! I have said it twice:
That alone should encourage the crew.
Just the place for a Snark! I have said it thrice:
What I tell...Read more of this...

Man

by Richard Brautigan
 My God, I heard this day, 
That none doth build a stately habitation, 
But he that means to dwell therein. 
What house more stately hath there been, 
Or can be, than is Man? to whose creation 
All things are in decay. 

For Man is ev'ry thing, 
And more:
He is a tree, yet bears no fruit; 
A beast, yet is,...Read more of this...

Ive known a Heaven like a Tent

by Emily Dickinson
 I've known a Heaven, like a Tent --
To wrap its shining Yards --
Pluck up its stakes, and disappear --
Without the sound of Boards
Or Rip of Nail -- Or Carpenter --
But just the miles of Stare --
That signalize a Show's Retreat --
In North America --

No Trace -- no Figment of the Thing
That dazzled, Yesterday,
No Ring -- no Marvel --
Men, and...Read more of this...

Man

by George Herbert
          My God, I heard this day
That none doth build a stately habitation,
     But he that means to dwell therein.
     What house more stately hath there been,
Or can be, than is Man? to whose creation
        ...Read more of this...

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