Famous Pilgrimage Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Pilgrimage poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous pilgrimage poems. These examples illustrate what a famous pilgrimage poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
See also:
by
John Donne
GO and catch a falling star,
Get with child a mandrake root,
Tell me where all past years are,
Or who cleft the Devil's foot;
Teach me to hear mermaids singing, 5
Or to keep off envy's stinging,
And find
What wind
Serves to advance an honest mind.
If thou be'st born to strange sights, 10
Things invisible to see,...Read more of this...
by
Percy Bysshe Shelley
I rode one evening with Count Maddalo
Upon the bank of land which breaks the flow
Of Adria towards Venice: a bare strand
Of hillocks, heap'd from ever-shifting sand,
Matted with thistles and amphibious weeds,
Such as from earth's embrace the salt ooze breeds,
Is this; an uninhabited sea-side,
Which the lone fisher, when his nets are dried,
Abandons; and no other object breaks
The waste, but...Read more of this...
by
Sir Walter Raleigh
GIVE me my scallop-shell of quiet,
My staff of faith to walk upon,
My scrip of joy, immortal diet,
My bottle of salvation,
My gown of glory, hope's true gage;
And thus I'll take my pilgrimage.
Blood must be my body's balmer;
No other balm will there be given:
Whilst my soul, like quiet palmer,
...Read more of this...
by
Richard Brautigan
Sometimes life is merely a matter of coffee and whatever intimacy a cup of coffee
affords. I once read something about coffee. The thing said that coffee is good for you;
it stimulates all the organs.
I thought at first this was a strange way to put it, and not altogether pleasant, but
as time goes by I have found out that it...Read more of this...
by
Edward Lear
How pleasant to know Mr. Lear,
Who has written such volumes of stuff.
Some think him ill-tempered and *****,
But a few find him pleasant enough.
His mind is concrete and fastidious,
His nose is remarkably big;
His visage is more or less hideous,
His beard it resembles a wig.
He has ears, and two eyes, and ten fingers,...Read more of this...
by
Denise Levertov
Rose Red's hair is brown as fur
and shines in firelight as she prepares
supper of honey and apples, curds and whey,
for the bear, and leaves it ready
on the hearth-stone.
Rose White's grey eyes
look into the dark forest.
Rose Red's cheeks are burning,
sign of her ardent, joyful
compassionate heart.
Rose White is pale,
turning away when she hears
the bear's paw on the latch.
When he enters, there...Read more of this...
by
Thomas Hardy
If but some vengeful god would call to me
From up the sky, and laugh: "Thou suffering thing,
Know that thy sorrow is my ecstasy,
That thy love's loss is my hate's profiting!"
Then would I bear it, clench myself, and die,
Steeled by the sense of ire unmerited;
Half-eased in that a Powerfuller than I
Had willed and meted me the tears I shed.
But not...Read more of this...
by
Thomas Hardy
I
"Poor wanderer," said the leaden sky,
"I fain would lighten thee,
But there are laws in force on high
Which say it must not be."
II
--"I would not freeze thee, shorn one," cried
The North, "knew I but how
To warm my breath, to slack my stride;
But I am ruled as thou."
III
--"To-morrow I attack thee, wight,"
Said Sickness. "Yet...Read more of this...
by
Francesco Petrarch
SONNET XLIV. Nè per sereno cielo ir vaghe stelle. NOTHING THAT NATURE OFFERS CAN AFFORD HIM CONSOLATION. Not skies serene, with glittering stars inlaid,Nor gallant ships o'er tranquil ocean dancing,Nor gay careering knights in arms advancing,Nor wild herds bounding through the forest glade,Nor tidings new of happiness delay'd,Nor poesie, Love's...Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
Since we must die, why do we live? Why agonize to
reach a problematic bliss? Since, for some unknown
cause, we may not here remain, why not concern ourselves
about the future pilgrimage? Why disregard our
fate?...Read more of this...
by
William Shakespeare
Lo, in the orient when the gracious light
Lifts up his burning head, each under eye
Doth homage to his new-appearing sight,
Serving with looks his sacred majesty;
And having climbed the steep-up heavenly hill,
Resembling strong youth in his middle age,
Yet mortal looks adore his beauty still,
Attending on his golden pilgrimage;
But when from highmost pitch, with weary car,
Like feeble age, he reeleth from...Read more of this...
by
Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
O you who’ve gone on pilgrimage -
where are you, where, oh where?
Here, here is the Beloved!
Oh come now, come, oh come!
Your friend, he is your neighbor,
he is next to your wall -
You, erring in the desert -
what air of love is this?
If you’d see the Beloved’s
form without any form -
You are the house, the master,
You are the Kaaba, you! ....Read more of this...
by
Thomas Hardy
O epic-famed, god-haunted Central Sea,
Heave careless of the deep wrong done to thee
When from Torino's track I saw thy face first flash on me.
And multimarbled Genova the Proud,
Gleam all unconscious how, wide-lipped, up-browed,
I first beheld thee clad--not as the Beauty but the Dowd.
Out from a deep-delved way my vision lit
On housebacks pink,...Read more of this...
by
Barry Tebb
THE KINGDOM OF MY HEART
1
The halcyon settled on the Aire of our days
Kingfisher-blue it broke my heart in two
Shall I forget you? Shall I forget you?
I am the mad poet first love
You never got over
You are my blue-eyed
Madonna virgin bride
I shall carve ‘MG loves BT’
On the bark of every
Wind-bent tree in
East End Park
2
The park itself will blossom
And...Read more of this...
by
Kahlil Gibran
Spring
Come, my beloved; let us walk amidst the knolls,
For the snow is water, and Life is alive from its
Slumber and is roaming the hills and valleys.
Let us follow the footprints of Spring into the
Distant fields, and mount the hilltops to draw
Inspiration high above the cool green plains.
Dawn of Spring has unfolded her winter-kept...Read more of this...
by
Robinson Jeffers
The world has many seas, Mediterranean, Atlantic, but
here is the shore of the one ocean.
And here the heavy future hangs like a cloud; the
enormous scene; the enormous games preparing
Weigh on the water and strain the rock; the stage is
here, the play is conceived; the players are
not found.
I saw on the Sierras,...Read more of this...
by
John Berryman
How this woman came by the courage, how she got
the courage, Henry bemused himself in a frantic hot
night of the eight of July,
where it came from, did once the Lord frown down
upon her ancient cradle thinking 'This one
will do before she die
for two and seventy years of chipped indignities
at least,' and with his thunder clapped a promise?
In that far...Read more of this...
by
Edmund Spenser
An Elegy
SHE fell away in her first ages spring,
Whil'st yet her leafe was greene, and fresh her rinde,
And whil'st her braunch faire blossomes foorth did bring,
She fell away against all course of kinde.
For age to dye is right, but youth is wrong; 5
She fel away like fruit blowne downe with winde.
Weepe, Shepheard! weepe, to...Read more of this...
by
Victor Hugo
MOSES ON THE NILE.
("Mes soeurs, l'onde est plus fraiche.")
{TO THE FLORAL GAMES, Toulouse, Feb. 10, 1820.}
"Sisters! the wave is freshest in the ray
Of the young morning; the reapers are asleep;
The river bank is lonely: come away!
The early murmurs of old Memphis creep
Faint on...Read more of this...
by
Edgar Allan Poe
Type of the antique Rome! Rich reliquary
Of lofty contemplation left to Time
By buried centuries of pomp and power!
At length- at length- after so many days
Of weary pilgrimage and burning thirst,
(Thirst for the springs of lore that in thee lie,)
I kneel, an altered and an humble man,
Amid thy shadows, and so drink within...Read more of this...
by
Henry Lawson
The old Jimmy Woodser comes into the bar
Unwelcomed, unnoticed, unknown,
Too old and too odd to be drunk with, by far;
So he glides to the end where the lunch baskets are
And they say that he tipples alone.
His frockcoat is green and the nap is no more,
And his hat is not quite at its best;...Read more of this...
by
Rabindranath Tagore
Early in the day it was whispered that we should sail in a boat,
only thou and I, and never a soul in the world would know of this our
pilgrimage to no country and to no end.
In that shoreless ocean,
at thy silently listening smile my songs would swell in melodies,
free as waves, free from all...Read more of this...
by
Matthew Arnold
Goethe in Weimar sleeps, and Greece,
Long since, saw Byron's struggle cease.
But one such death remain'd to come;
The last poetic voice is dumb--
We stand to-day by Wordsworth's tomb.
When Byron's eyes were shut in death,
We bow'd our head and held our breath.
He taught us little; but our soul
Had felt him like the thunder's roll.
With shivering heart the strife we saw
Of...Read more of this...
by
Thomas Moore
Oh! think not my spirits are always as light,
And as free from a pang as they seem to you now,
Nor expect that the heart-beaming smile of to-night
Will return with to-morrow to brighten my brow.
No: -- life is a waste of wearisome hours,
Which seldom the rose of enjoyment adorns;
And the heart that is soonest...Read more of this...
by
William Wordsworth
I
There was a roaring in the wind all night;
The rain came heavily and fell in floods;
But now the sun is rising calm and bright;
The birds are singing in the distant woods;
Over his own sweet voice the Stock-dove broods;
The Jay makes answer as the Magpie chatters;
And all the air is filled with pleasant...Read more of this...
Dont forget to view our wonderful member Pilgrimage poems.