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Famous Pathways Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Burns, Robert
...I’M now arrived—thanks to the gods!—
 Thro’ pathways rough and muddy,
A certain sign that makin roads
 Is no this people’s study:
Altho’ Im not wi’ Scripture cram’d,
 I’m sure the Bible says
That heedless sinners shall be damn’d,
 Unless they mend their ways....Read more of this...



by Riley, James Whitcomb
...ankles grimy, too, as they:
Cross-hatchings of the nettle, in array
 Of feverish stripes, hint vividly to me
 Of woody pathways winding endlessly
Along the creek, where even yesterday
He plunged his shrinking body -- gasped and shook --
 Yet called the water "warm," with never lack
Of joy. And so, half enviously I look
 Upon this graceless barefoot and his track, -- 
 His toe stubbed -- ay, his big toe-nail knocked back
Like unto the clasp of an old pocketbook....Read more of this...

by Sorley, Charles
...from the battered trenches - rough,
Jingling and tedious enough.
And so I sign myself to you:
One, who some crooked pathways knew
Round Bedwyn: who could scarcely leave
The Downs on a December eve:
Was at his happiest in shorts,
And got - not many good reports!
Small skill of rhyming in his hand -
But you'll forgive - you'll understand....Read more of this...

by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...est. Then he drave 
The heathen; after, slew the beast, and felled 
The forest, letting in the sun, and made 
Broad pathways for the hunter and the knight 
And so returned. 

For while he lingered there, 
A doubt that ever smouldered in the hearts 
Of those great Lords and Barons of his realm 
Flashed forth and into war: for most of these, 
Colleaguing with a score of petty kings, 
Made head against him, crying, `Who is he 
That he should rule us? who hath proven him ...Read more of this...

by Lawson, Henry
...uarie. 

Oh, may the showers in torrents fall,
And all the tanks run over;
And may the grass grow green and tall
In pathways of the drover; 

And may good angels send the rain
On desert stretches sandy;
And when the summer comes again
God grant 'twill bring us Andy....Read more of this...



by Hardy, Thomas
...ars O!
How the sick leaves reel down in throngs!

They clear the creeping moss --
Elders and juniors -- aye,
Making the pathways neat
And the garden gay;
And they build a shady seat....
Ah, no; the years, the years;
See, the white storm-birds wing across!

They are blithely breakfasting all --
Men and maidens -- yea,
Under the summer tree,
With a glimpse of the bay,
While pet fowl come to the knee....
Ah, no; the years O!
And the rotten rose is...Read more of this...

by Schiller, Friedrich von
...story
Poets have sung in its praise, simply and touchingly sung--
Of the time when the holy still wandered over life's pathways,--
When with a maidenly shame every sensation was veiled,--
When the mighty law that governs the sun in his orbit,
And that, concealed in the bud, teaches the point how to move,
When necessity's silent law, the steadfast, the changeless,
Stirred up billows more free, e'en in the bosom of man,--
When the sense, unerring, and true as the hand of the d...Read more of this...

by Ingelow, Jean
...: through his course immense
Might love his fellow of the damask hue,
      For like, and difference.
"For different pathways evermore decreed
  To intersect, but not to interfere;
For common goal, two aspects, and one speed,
      One centre and one year;
"For deep affinities, for drawings strong,
  That by their nature each must needs exert;
For loved alliance, and for union long,
      That stands before desert.
"And yet desert makes brighter not the less,
  Fo...Read more of this...

by Seeger, Alan
...ow ever with insatiate arms. 
On summer afternoons, 
When from the blue horizon to the shore, 
Casting faint silver pathways like the moon's 
Across the Ocean's glassy, mottled floor, 
Far clouds uprear their gleaming battlements 
Drawn to the crest of some bleak eminence, 
When autumn twilight fades on the sere hill 
And autumn winds are still; 
To watch the East for some emerging sign, 
Wintry Capella or the Pleiades 
Or that great huntsman with the golden gear; 
Ravish...Read more of this...

by Burnside, John
...ins, of clear skies 
Devoured by untamed evergreens 

And of trees that know 
The welcome of lakes 
Black earth 
Errant pathways 

Echoes of the faces 
Haunting our days....Read more of this...

by Burnside, John
...ountains, of clear skies
Devoured by untamed evergreens

And of trees that know
The welcome of lakes
Black earth
Errant pathways

Echoes of the faces
Haunting our days....Read more of this...

by Neruda, Pablo
...Naked you are simple as one of your hands;
Smooth, earthy, small, transparent, round.
You've moon-lines, apple pathways
Naked you are slender as a naked grain of wheat.

Naked you are blue as a night in Cuba;
You've vines and stars in your hair.
Naked you are spacious and yellow
As summer in a golden church.

Naked you are tiny as one of your nails;
Curved, subtle, rosy, till the day is born
And you withdraw to the underground world.

As if down a lon...Read more of this...

by Kendall, Henry
...an ancient casement, casting many a longing look 
Out across the hazy gloaming - out beyond the brawling brook! 
Over pathways leading skyward - over crag and swelling cone, 

Past long hillocks looking like to waves of ocean turned to stone; 
Yearning for a bliss unworldly, yearning for a brighter change, 
Yearning for the mystic Aidenn, built beyond this mountain range. 


Happy years, amongst these valleys, happy years have come and gone, 
And my youthful hopes a...Read more of this...

by von Goethe, Johann Wolfgang
...a fond couple

'Midst the dance veering,

First disappearing,
Then reappear,
So let affection

Guide thro' life's mazy

Pathways so hazy
Into the year!

1802....Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...(not for thyself,) Thou hast arrived. 

Thou too surroundest all;
Embracing, carrying, welcoming all, Thou too, by pathways broad and new, 
To the Ideal tendest. 

The measur’d faiths of other lands—the grandeurs of the past, 
Are not for Thee—but grandeurs of Thine own; 
Deific faiths and amplitudes, absorbing, comprehending all,
All eligible to all. 

All, all for Immortality! 
Love, like the light, silently wrapping all! 
Nature’s amelioration blessing all! 
T...Read more of this...

by Service, Robert William
...our own in God's vast awesome land;
Come woe or weal, 'tis fine to feel a hundred miles between
The trails you dare and pathways where the feet of men have been.

"And so it fell on me a spell of wander-lust was cast.
The land was still and strange and chill, and cavernous and vast;
And sad and dead, and dull as lead, the valleys sought the snows;
And far and wide on every side the ashen peaks arose.

"The moon was like a silent spike that pierced the sky right th...Read more of this...

by Wordsworth, William
...ke a Lady vow'd and dedicate  To something more than nature in the grove)  Glides thro' the pathways; she knows all their notes,  That gentle Maid! and oft, a moment's space,  What time the moon was lost behind a cloud,  Hath heard a pause of silence: till the Moon  Emerging, hath awaken'd earth and sky  With one sensation, and those wakeful Birds  Have all burst fo...Read more of this...

by Schiller, Friedrich von
...squires instructing to proceed,
I sprang upon my well-trained steed,
And, followed by my noble pair
Of dogs, by secret pathways rode,
Where not an eye could witness bear,
To find the monster's fell abode."

"Thou, lord, must know the chapel well,
Pitched on a rocky pinnacle,
That overlooks the distant isle;
A daring mind 'twas raised the pile.
Though humble, mean, and small it shows
Its walls a miracle enclose,--
The Virgin and her infant Son,
Vowed by the three king...Read more of this...

by Russell, George William
...ign,
Fell as o’er sunlit ruby glowing:
His light flew o’er the waves afar
In ruddy ripples on each bar
Along the spiral pathways flowing.


It was a crystal boat that chased
The light along the watery waste,
Till caught amid the surges hoary
The Pilot stayed its jewelled glory.


Oh, never such a glory was:
The pale moon shot it through and through
With light of lilac, white and blue:
And there mid many a fairy hue,
Of pearl and pink and amethyst,
Like lightning ran t...Read more of this...

by Eluard, Paul
...ite your name 

On the shimmering shapes 
On the colorful bells 
On the physical truth 
I write your name

On the alert pathways 
On the wide-spread roads 
On the overflowing places 
I write your name 

On the lamp that is ignited 
On the lamp that is dimmed 
On my reunited houses 
I write your name 

On the fruit cut in two 
Of the mirror and of my room 
On my bed, an empty shell 
I write your name 

On my dog, young and greedy 
On his pricked-up ears 
On his clumsy paw 
I w...Read more of this...

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