Famous Over The Hill Poems by Famous Poets

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

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The Inauguration of the Hill o Balgay

by William Topaz McGonagall
 Beautiful Hill o' Balgay,
With your green frees and flowers fair,
'Tis health for the old and young
For to be walking there,
To breathe the fragrant air
Emanating from the green bushes
And beautiful flowers there,
Then they can through the burying-ground roam,
And read the epitaphs on the tombstones
Before they go home.
There the lovers can wander safe arm in arm,
For policemen are there to protect...Read more of this...

Opening the Geode

by Julie Hill Alger
 When the molten earth seethed 
in its whirling cauldron 
nobody watched the pot 
from a tall wooden stool 
set out in windy space 
beyond flame's reach;

and when the spattering mush 
steamed, gurgled, boiled over, 
mounded up in smoking hills
no giant mixing spoon 
smoothed out the lumps and bubbles 
as the pottage cooled to rock. 

No kitchen timer ticked 
precisely...Read more of this...

Rain on the Hill

by Lucy Maud Montgomery
 Now on the hill 
The fitful wind is so still 
That never a wimpling mist uplifts,
Nor a trembling leaf drop-laden stirs; 
From the ancient firs 
Aroma of balsam drifts, 
And the silent places are filled 
With elusive odors distilled 
By the rain from asters empearled and frilled, 
And a wild wet savor that dwells 
Far adown in tawny fallows...Read more of this...

Fern Hill

by Dylan Thomas
 Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs
About the lilting house and happy as the grass was green,
 The night above the dingle starry,
 Time let me hail and climb
 Golden in the heydays of his eyes,
And honoured among wagons I was prince of the apple towns
And once below a time I lordly had the trees...Read more of this...

A Lady red -- amid the Hill

by Emily Dickinson
 A Lady red -- amid the Hill
Her annual secret keeps!
A Lady white, within the Field
In placid Lily sleeps!

The tidy Breezes, with their Brooms --
Sweep vale -- and hill -- and tree!
Prithee, My pretty Housewives!
Who may expected be?

The Neighbors do not yet suspect!
The Woods exchange a smile!
Orchard, and Buttercup, and Bird --
In such a little while!

And yet, how still the...Read more of this...

Mild the mist upon the hill

by Emily Brontë
 Mild the mist upon the hill 
Telling not of storms tomorrow; 
No, the day has wept its fill, 
Spent its store of silent sorrow.

O, I'm gone back to the days of youth, 
I am a child once more, 
And 'neath my father's sheltering roof 
And near the old hall door

I watch this cloudy evening fall 
After a day of...Read more of this...

Heroic Couplet Passage from Cooper's Hill

by John Denham
O could I flow like thee, and make thy stream
My great example, as it is my theme!
Though deep yet clear, though gentle yet not dull;
Strong without rage, without o'erflowing full....Read more of this...

Spring Comes To Murray Hill

by Ogden Nash
 I sit in an office at 244 Madison Avenue
And say to myself You have a responsible job havenue?
Why then do you fritter away your time on this doggerel?
If you have a sore throat you can cure it by using a good goggeral,
If you have a sore foot you can get it fixed by a chiropodist,
And you can get your...Read more of this...

Requiem for the Plantagenet Kings

by Geoffrey Hill
 For whom the possessed sea littered, on both shores,
Ruinous arms; being fired, and for good,
To sound the constitution of just wards,
Men, in their eloquent fashion, understood.

Relieved of soul, the dropping-back of dust,
Their usage, pride, admitted within doors;
At home, under caved chantries, set in trust,
With well-dressed alabaster and proved spurs
They lie; they lie; secure in the decay
Of blood, blood-marks, crowns...Read more of this...

Inscription 05 - For A Monument At Silbury-Hill

by Robert Southey
 This mound in some remote and dateless day
Rear'd o'er a Chieftain of the Age of Hills,
May here detain thee Traveller! from thy road
Not idly lingering. In his narrow house
Some Warrior sleeps below: his gallant deeds
Haply at many a solemn festival
The Bard has harp'd, but perish'd is the song
Of praise, as o'er these bleak and barren downs
The wind that passes...Read more of this...

Woak Hill

by William Barnes
 When sycamore leaves wer a-spreaden
Green-ruddy in hedges,
Bezide the red doust o' the ridges,
A-dried at Woak Hill;

I packed up my goods, all a-sheenen
Wi' long years o' handlen,
On dousty red wheels ov a waggon,
To ride at Woak Hill.

The brown thatchen ruf o' the dwellen
I then wer a-leaven,
Had sheltered the sleek head o' Meary,
My bride at Woak Hill.

But now vor zome years,...Read more of this...

Full many a hill and vale I journeyed o'er;

by Omar Khayyam
Full many a hill and vale I journeyed o'er;
Yea, journeyed through the world's wide quarters four,
But never heard of pilgrim who returned;
When once they go, they go to come no more....Read more of this...

On the Idle Hill of Summer

by A E Housman
On the idle hill of summer,
Sleepy with the flow of streams, 
Far I hear the steady drummer
Drumming like a noise in dreams. 

Far and near and low and louder
On the roads of earth go by, 
Dear to friends and food for powder, 
Soldiers marching, all to die. 

East and west on fields forgotten
Bleach the bones of comrades slain, 
Lovely lads...Read more of this...

On a Hill-top

by George William Russell
 BEARDED with dewy grass the mountains thrust
Their blackness high into the still grey light,
Deepening to blue: far up the glimmering height
In silver transience shines the starry dust.


Silent the sheep about me; fleece by fleece
They sleep and stir not: I with awe around
Wander uncertain o’er the giant mound,
A fire that moves between their peace and peace.


The city myriads dream or...Read more of this...

The Hill

by Rupert Brooke
 Breathless, we flung us on the windy hill,
Laughed in the sun, and kissed the lovely grass.
You said "Through glory and ecstasy we pass;
Wind, sun, and earth remain, and birds sing still,
When we are old, are old...." "And when we die
All's over that is ours; and life burns on
Through other lovers, other lips" said I,
"Heart of my heart, our heaven...Read more of this...

There was set before me a mighty hill

by Stephen Crane
 There was set before me a mighty hill,
And long days I climbed
Through regions of snow.
When I had before me the summit-view,
It seemed that my labour
Had been to see gardens
Lying at impossible distances....Read more of this...

Pippen Hill

by Mother Goose
As I was going up Pippen Hill,
    Pippen Hill was dirty;
There I met a pretty Miss,
    And she dropped me a curtsy.

Little Miss, pretty Miss,
    Blessings light upon you;
If I had half-a-crown a day,
    I'd spend it all upon you....Read more of this...

Tuesday's Child

by Julie Hill Alger
All the babies born that Tuesday,
full of grace, went home by Thursday
except for one, my tiny girl
who rushed toward light too soon.

All the Tuesday mothers wheeled
down the corridor in glory,
their arms replete with warm baby;
I carried a potted plant.

I came back the next day and the next,
a visitor with heavy breasts,
to sit and rock the little pilgrim,
nourish her, nourish me....Read more of this...

233. Song—O were I on Parnassus Hill

by Robert Burns
 O, WERE I on Parnassus hill,
Or had o’ Helicon my fill,
That I might catch poetic skill,
 To sing how dear I love thee!
But Nith maun be my Muse’s well,
My Muse maun be thy bonie sel’,
On Corsincon I’ll glowr and spell,
 And write how dear I love thee.


Then come, sweet Muse, inspire my lay!
For a’ the lee-lang simmer’s day
I couldna...Read more of this...

The Hill Wife

by Robert Frost
 I. LONELINESS

 Her Word

One ought not to have to care
 So much as you and I
Care when the birds come round the house
 To seem to say good-bye;

Or care so much when they come back
 With whatever it is they sing;
The truth being we are as much
 Too glad for the one thing

As we are too sad for the...Read more of this...

Ant Hill

by Robert William Service
 Black ants have made a musty mound
My purple pine tree under,
And I am often to be found,
Regarding it with wonder.
Yet as I watch, somehow it;s odd,
Above their busy striving
I feel like an ironic god
Surveying human striving.
Then one day came my serving maid,
And just in time I caught her,
For on each lusty arm she weighed
A pail of boiling water.
She said...Read more of this...

Walking on the Estuary Hill

by Adrian Green
 The curlew and the heron call,
the hissing mud and whispering wings
beat eery through the idle air
until the moonlit midnight silence falls
and then the tide flows softly
through the gut and sluice of estuary sands
and dark against the dreamlit sky
the trees arise from hedgerows,
and the hills
alive with monstrous shapes
are menacing with soundless fear,
and still below the blundering man,
the beery and uncertain...Read more of this...

417. Song—Blythe hae I been on yon hill

by Robert Burns
 BLYTHE hae I been on yon hill,
 As the lambs before me;
Careless ilka thought and free,
 As the breeze flew o’er me;
Now nae langer sport and play,
 Mirth or sang can please me;
LESLEY is sae fair and coy,
 Care and anguish seize me.


Heavy, heavy is the task,
 Hopeless love declaring;
Trembling, I dow nocht but glow’r,
 Sighing, dumb despairing!
If she...Read more of this...

Up Lifes Hill with my my little Bundle

by Emily Dickinson
 Up Life's Hill with my my little Bundle
If I prove it steep --
If a Discouragement withhold me --
If my newest step

Older feel than the Hope that prompted --
Spotless be from blame
Heart that proposed as Heart that accepted
Homelessness, for Home --...Read more of this...

Doc Hill

by Edgar Lee Masters
I went up and down the streets
Here and there by day and night,
Through all hours of the night caring for the poor who were sick.
Do you know why?
My wife hated me, my son went to the dogs.
And I turned to the people and poured out my love to them.
Sweet it was to see the crowds about the lawns on the...Read more of this...

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