Famous On Land Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous On Land poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous on land poems. These examples illustrate what a famous on land poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
See also:
by
Dickinson, Emily
...no Witness in
The mind was built for mighty Freight
For dread occasion planned
How often foundering at Sea
Ostensibly, on Land
A not admitting of the wound
Until it grew so wide
That all my Life had entered it
And there were troughs beside
A closing of the simple lid
That opened to the sun
Until the tender Carpenter
Perpetual nail it down --...Read more of this...
by
Swinburne, Algernon Charles
...oward a new year's birth
Whose promise makes thy death divine,
The crowning joy that comes of thee
Makes glad all grief on land or sea....Read more of this...
by
Byron, George (Lord)
...which man ne'er knew;
I have a love of freedom too.
Ay! let me like the ocean-Patriarch roam, [37]
Or only known on land the Tartar's home! [38]
My tent on shore, my galley on the sea,
Are more than cities and Serais to me:
Borne by my steed, or wafted by my sail,
Across the desert, or before the gale,
Bound where thou wilt, my barb! or glide, my prow!
But be the star that guides the wanderer, Thou!
Thou, my Zuleika! share and bless my bark;
The Dove of peace a...Read more of this...
by
Hugo, Victor
...pon the walls are shown
The painted histories of the olden might,
The King of the Wends Thassilo's stern fight
On land with Nimrod, and on ocean wide
With Neptune. Rivers too personified
Appear—the Rhine as by the Meuse betrayed,
And fading groups of Odin in the shade,
And the wolf Fenrir and the Asgard snake.
One might the place for dragons' stable take.
The only lights that in the shed appear
Spring from the table's giant chandelier
With sev...Read more of this...
by
Marvell, Andrew
...ose navies hold the sluices of the sea.
The ocean is the fountain of command,
But that once took, we captives are on land.
And those that have the waters for their share,
Can quickly leave us neither earth nor air.
Yet if through these our fears could find a pass,
Through double oak, and lined with treble brass,
That one man still, although but named, alarms
More than all men, all navies, and all arms.
Him, in the day, him, in late night I dread,
And...Read more of this...
by
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...back of Megissogwon,
As a trophy of the battle,
As a signal of his conquest.
On the shore he left the body,
Half on land and half in water,
In the sand his feet were buried,
And his face was in the water.
And above him, wheeled and clamored
The Keneu, the great war-eagle,
Sailing round in narrower circles,
Hovering nearer, nearer, nearer.
From the wigwam Hiawatha
Bore the wealth of Megissogwon,
All his wealth of skins and wampum,
Furs of bison and of be...Read more of this...
by
Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...nds of Mark, and felt the goodly hounds
Yelp at his heart, but turning, past and gain'd
Tintagil, half in sea, and high on land,
A crown of towers. Down in a casement sat,
A low sea-sunset glorying round her hair
And glossy-throated grace, Isolt the Queen.
And when she heard the feet of Tristram grind
The spiring stone that scaled about her tower,
Flush'd, started, met him at the doors, and there
Belted his body with her white embrace,
Crying aloud, "Not Mark--not Mar...Read more of this...
by
Marvell, Andrew
...unloads its stormy sides.
Spragge there, though practised in the sea command,
With panting heart lay like a fish on land
And quickly judged the fort was not ten?ble--
Which, if a house, yet were not tenant?ble--
No man can sit there safe: the cannon pours
Thorough the walls untight and bullet showers,
The neighbourhood ill, and an unwholesome seat,
So at the first salute resolves retreat,
And swore that he would never more dwell there
Until the city put it in r...Read more of this...
by
Trumbull, John
...n the moon's at full,
Which by transition passing strange
Wane to defeats before the change.
Still shall you steer, on land or ocean,
By like eccentric lunar motion;
Eclips'd in many a fatal crisis,
And dimm'd when Washington arises.
"And see how Fate, herself turn'd traitor,
Inverts the ancient course of nature;
And changes manners, tempers, climes,
To suit the genius of the times!
See, Bourbon forms a gen'rous plan,
New guardian of the rights of man,
And prompt in...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...hildren,
To speak readily and clearly—to feel at home among common people,
And to hold our own in terrible positions, on land and sea.
Not for an embroiderer;
(There will always be plenty of embroiderers—I welcome them also;)
But for the fibre of things, and for inherent men and women.
Not to chisel ornaments,
But to chisel with free stroke the heads and limbs of plenteous Supreme Gods, that The
States
may realize them, walking and talking.
Let me have...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...g for any one, but what is for him—near and far are for him, the ships in the
offing,
The perpetual shows and marches on land, are for him, if they are for any body.
He puts things in their attitudes;
He puts to-day out of himself, with plasticity and love;
He places his own city, times, reminiscences, parents, brothers and sisters, associations,
employment, politics, so that the rest never shame them afterward, nor assume to command
them.
He is the answerer:...Read more of this...
by
Lowell, Amy
...smiled, for she
had spoke aloud. "The charm
Of trout fishing is in my eyes enhanced When you must play
your fish on land as well."
"How will you take him?" Eunice asked. "In
truth I really cannot tell.
'Twas stupid of me, but it simply chanced
I never thought of that until he glanced
Into the branches. 'Tis a bit uncouth."
XI
He watched the fish against the blowing sky, Writhing
and glittering, pulling at the line.
"The hook is fast, I might ...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...opia;
Served the making of helms for the galleys of pleasure, and the making of those for war;
Served all great works on land, and all great works on the sea;
For the mediæval ages, and before the mediæval ages;
Served not the living only, then as now, but served the dead.
8
I see the European headsman;
He stands mask’d, clothed in red, with huge legs, and strong naked arms,
And leans on a ponderous axe.
(Whom have you slaughter’d lately, European headsman?...Read more of this...
by
Byron, George (Lord)
...which man ne'er knew;
I have a love of freedom too.
Ay! let me like the ocean-Patriarch roam, [37]
Or only known on land the Tartar's home! [38]
My tent on shore, my galley on the sea,
Are more than cities and Serais to me:
Borne by my steed, or wafted by my sail,
Across the desert, or before the gale,
Bound where thou wilt, my barb! or glide, my prow!
But be the star that guides the wanderer, Thou!
Thou, my Zuleika! share and bless my bark;
The Dove of peace a...Read more of this...
by
Marvell, Andrew
...Sky.
Yet still his claim the Injur'd Ocean laid,
And oft at Leap-frog ore their Steeples plaid:
As if on purpose it on Land had come
To shew them what's their Mare Liberum.
A daily deluge over them does boyl;
The Earth and Water play at Level-coyl;
The Fish oft-times the Burger dispossest,
And sat not as a Meat but as a Guest;
And oft the Tritons and the Sea-Nymphs saw
Whole sholes of Dutch serv'd up for Cabillan;
Or as they over the new Level rang'd
For pickled Herri...Read more of this...
by
Davies, William Henry
...no birds but those that followed ships.
Full well he knew the water-world; he heard
A grander music there than we on land,
When organ shakes a church; swore he would make
The sea his home, though it was always roused
By such wild storms as never leave Cape Horn;
Happy to hear the tempest grunt and squeal
Like pigs heard dying in a slaughterhouse.
A true-born mariner, and this his hope --
His coffin would be what his cradle was,
A boat to drown in and be sunk...Read more of this...
by
Lowell, Amy
...d
Am I, and count myself much privileged.
I am Cornelius Kurler, and my fame
Is better known on distant oceans than on land.
10
My ship has tasted water in strange seas,
And bartered goods at still uncharted isles.
She's oft coquetted with a tropic breeze,
And sheered off hurricanes with jaunty smiles."
"Tush, Kurler," here broke in the other man,
"Enough of poetry, draw the deed and sign."
The old man seemed to wizen at the voice,
"My good friend, Grootv...Read more of this...
by
Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...s of Mark, and felt the goodly hounds
Yelp at his heart, but turning, past and gained
Tintagil, half in sea, and high on land,
A crown of towers.
Down in a casement sat,
A low sea-sunset glorying round her hair
And glossy-throated grace, Isolt the Queen.
And when she heard the feet of Tristram grind
The spiring stone that scaled about her tower,
Flushed, started, met him at the doors, and there
Belted his body with her white embrace,
Crying aloud, `Not Mar...Read more of this...
by
Schwartz, Delmore
...is that laziness which is a form of impatience
And this he may be destroyed by the gold of the light
which never was
On land or sea.
He may be drunken to death, draining the casks of excess
That extreme form of success.
He may suffer Narcissus' destiny
Unable to live except with the image which is infatuation
Love, blind, adoring, overflowing
Unable to respond to anything which does not bring love
quickly or immediately.
...The poet must be innoce...Read more of this...
by
Pound, Ezra
...le-path the heart irresistibly,
O'er tracks of ocean; seeing that anyhow
My lord deems to me this dead life
On loan and on land, I believe not
That any earth-weal eternal standeth
Save there be somewhat calamitous
That, ere a man's tide go, turn it to twain.
Disease or oldness or sword-hate
Beats out the breath from doom-gripped body.
And for this, every earl whatever, for those speaking after --
Laud of the living, boasteth some last word,
That he will work ere he pa...Read more of this...
Dont forget to view our wonderful member On Land poems.