Famous Paeans Poems by Famous Poets

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

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The Last Oracle

by Algernon Charles Swinburne
 eipate toi basilei, xamai pese daidalos aula. 
ouketi PHoibos exei kaluban, ou mantida daphnen, 
ou pagan laleousan . apesbeto kai lalon udor. 

Years have risen and fallen in darkness or in twilight, 
Ages waxed and waned that knew not thee nor thine, 
While the world sought light by night and sought not thy light, 
Since the sad last pilgrim...Read more of this...

My Portion is Defeat -- today --

by Emily Dickinson
 My Portion is Defeat -- today --
A paler luck than Victory --
Less Paeans -- fewer Bells --
The Drums don't follow Me -- with tunes --
Defeat -- a somewhat slower -- means --
More Arduous than Balls --

'Tis populous with Bone and stain --
And Men too straight to stoop again --,
And Piles of solid Moan --
And Chips of Blank -- in...Read more of this...

Ode For Memorial Day

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
Done are the toils and the wearisome marches,
Done is the summons of bugle and drum.
Softly and sweetly the sky over-arches,
Shelt'ring a land where Rebellion is dumb.
Dark were the days of the country's derangement,
Sad were the hours when the conflict was on,
But through the gloom of fraternal estrangement
God sent his light, and we welcome the dawn.
O'er the expanse of our mighty...Read more of this...

Wallace Stevens On His Way To Work

by David Wagoner
 He would leave early and walk slowly
 As if balancing books
 On the way to school, already expecting
To be tardy once again and heavy
 With numbers, the unfashionably rounded
 Toes of his shoes invisible beyond
The slope of his corporation. He would pause
 At his favorite fundamentally sound
 Park bench, which had been the birthplace
Of paeans and ruminations on other...Read more of this...

Ode To Beauty

by Ralph Waldo Emerson
 Who gave thee, O Beauty!
The keys of this breast,
Too credulous lover
Of blest and unblest?
Say when in lapsed ages
Thee knew I of old;
Or what was the service
For which I was sold?
When first my eyes saw thee,
I found me thy thrall,
By magical drawings,
Sweet tyrant of all!
I drank at thy fountain
False waters of thirst;
Thou intimate stranger,
Thou latest and first!
Thy dangerous glances
Make women...Read more of this...

A Farewell to Agassiz

by Oliver Wendell Holmes
 How the mountains talked together,
Looking down upon the weather,
When they heard our friend had planned his
Little trip among the Andes
How they'll bare their snowy scalps
To the climber of the Alps
When the cry goes through their passes,
"Here comes the great Agassiz!"
"Yes, I'm tall," says Chimborazo,
"But I wait for him to say so,--
That's the only thing that lacks,-- he
Must see me,...Read more of this...

Fames Penny-Trumpet

by Lewis Carroll
 Blow, blow your trumpets till they crack,
Ye little men of little souls!
And bid them huddle at your back -
Gold-sucking leeches, shoals on shoals! 

Fill all the air with hungry wails -
"Reward us, ere we think or write!
Without your Gold mere Knowledge fails
To sate the swinish appetite!" 

And, where great Plato paced serene,
Or Newton paused with wistful eye,
Rush to the...Read more of this...

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