Famous Patriarchs Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Liberty Tree

...h one spirit endued, they one friendship pursued,
And their temple was Liberty Tree.
Beneath this fair tree, like the patriarchs of old,
Their bread in contentment they ate,
Unvexed with the troubles of silver and gold,
The cares of the grand and the great.
With timber and tar they Old England supplied,
And supported her power on the sea;
Her battles they fought, without getting a groat,
For the honor of Liberty Tree.
But hear, O ye swains, 'tis a tale most profane,...Read more of this...
by Paine, Thomas


My Child Wafts Peace

...er's womb promised him
What God cannot
Promise us.


* The traditional burial place in Hebron of Abraham
 and the other Patriarchs and Matriarchs of Israel....Read more of this...
by Amichai, Yehuda

Paradise Lost: Book 04

...Perpetual fountain of domestick sweets, 
Whose bed is undefiled and chaste pronounced, 
Present, or past, as saints and patriarchs used. 
Here Love his golden shafts employs, here lights 
His constant lamp, and waves his purple wings, 
Reigns here and revels; not in the bought smile 
Of harlots, loveless, joyless, unendeared, 
Casual fruition; nor in court-amours, 
Mixed dance, or wanton mask, or midnight ball, 
Or serenate, which the starved lover sings 
To his proud fair, b...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Pleasure

...y far, 
Though hundred years should roll between 
On Time's swift-passing car.

To ages when the earth was yound, 
When patriarchs, grey and old, 
The praises of their god oft sung, 
And oft his mercies told.

You see them with their beards of snow, 
Their robes of ample form, 
Their lives whose peaceful, gentle flow, 
Felt seldom passion's storm.

Then a calm, solemn pleasure steals 
Into your inmost mind; 
A quiet aura your spirit feels, 
A softened stillness kind....Read more of this...
by Bronte, Charlotte

Saltbush Bill on the Patriarchs

...l them great Leviathans is mysteries to me; 
But there’s a tale the Bible tells I fully understand, 
About the time the Patriarchs were settling on the land. 

Those Patriarchs of olden time, when all is said and done, 
They lived the same as far-out men on many a Queensland run— 
A lot of roving, droving men who drifted to and fro, 
The same we did out Queensland way a score of years ago. 

Now Isaac was a squatter man, and Jacob was his son, 
And when the boy grew up, you s...Read more of this...
by Paterson, Andrew Barton


Song of Myself

...ennessee, or through those of the Arkansaw; 
Torches shine in the dark that hangs on the Chattahoochee or Altamahaw; 
Patriarchs sit at supper with sons and grandsons and great-grandsons around
 them;
In walls of adobie, in canvas tents, rest hunters and trappers after their
 day’s sport; 
The city sleeps, and the country sleeps; 
The living sleep for their time, the dead sleep for their time; 
The old husband sleeps by his wife, and the young husband sleeps by his wi...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt

Thanatopsis

...rnal resting-place 
Shalt thou retire alone nor couldst thou wish 
Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down 
With patriarchs of the infant world ¡ªwith kings  
The powerful of the earth ¡ªthe wise the good 35 
Fair forms and hoary seers of ages past  
All in one mighty sepulchre. The hills 
Rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun; the vales 
Stretching in pensive quietness between; 
The venerable woods¡ªrivers that move 40 
In majesty and the complaining brooks 
That...Read more of this...
by Bryant, William Cullen

The Bride of Abydos

...of Mussulman and Jew: indeed, the former profess to be much better acquainted with the lives, true and fabulous, of the patriarchs, than is warranted by our own sacred writ; and not content with Adam, they have a biography of Pre-Adamites. Solomon is the monarch of all necromancy, and Moses a prophet inferior only to Christ and Mohammed. Zuleika is the Persian name of Potiphar's wife; and her amour with Joseph constitutes one of the finest poems in their language. It is, ther...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)

The Jewish Cemetery at Newport

...d and beaten were they as the sand,
And yet unshaken as the continent.

For in the background figures vague and vast
Of patriarchs and of prophets rose sublime,
And all the great traditions of the Past
They saw reflected in the coming time.

And thus forever with reverted look
The mystic volume of the world they read,
Spelling it backward, like a Hebrew book,
Till life became a Legend of the Dead.

But ah! what once has been shall be no more!
The groaning earth in travail and...Read more of this...
by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth

The Petition for an Absolute Retreat

...drest
(Though to make an angel's feast)
In the plain unstudied sauce
Nor truffle nor morillia was;
Nor could the mighty patriarchs' board
One far-fetch'd ortolan afford.
Courteous Fate! then give me there
Only plain and wholesome fare;
Fruits indeed (would heaven bestow)
All that did in Eden grow,
All but the forbidden Tree
Would be coveted by me;
Grapes with juice so crowded up
As breaking through the native cup;
Figs yet growing candied o'er
By the sun's attracting power;
C...Read more of this...
by Finch, Anne Kingsmill

The Shepherds

...s lives! (on whose holy leisure
Waits innocence and pleasure),
Whose leaders to those pastures, and clear springs,
Were patriarchs, saints, and kings,
How happened it that in the dead of night
You only saw true light,
While Palestine was fast asleep, and lay
Without one thought of day?
Was it because those first and blessed swains
Were pilgrims on those plains
When they received the promise, for which now
'Twas there first shown to you?
'Tis true, He loves that dust whereon t...Read more of this...
by Vaughan, Henry

Unnamed Lands

...countenances, learn’d and calm, 
Some naked and savage—Some like huge collections of insects, 
Some in tents—herdsmen, patriarchs, tribes, horsemen,
Some prowling through woods—Some living peaceably on farms, laboring, reaping,
 filling
 barns, 
Some traversing paved avenues, amid temples, palaces, factories, libraries, shows, courts,
 theatres, wonderful monuments. 

Are those billions of men really gone? 
Are those women of the old experience of the earth gone? 
Do their l...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt

Verses on Sir Joshua Reynolds Painted Window at New College Oxford

...in a stronger spell.

Ye brawny Prophets, that in robes so rich,
At distance due, possess the crisped niche;
Ye rows of Patriarchs, that sublimely rear'd
Diffuse a proud primeval length of beard:
Ye Saints, who clad in crimson's bright array,
More pride than humble poverty display:
Ye Virgins meek, that wear the palmy crown
Of patient faith, and yet so fiercely frown:
Ye Angels, that from clouds of gold recline,
But boast no semblance to a race divine:
Ye tragic tales of lege...Read more of this...
by Warton, Thomas

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