Famous Questing Poems by Famous Poets

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

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A Japanese Wood-Carving

...hing waves are two white birds
Which swoop, and soar, and scream for very joy
At the wild sport. Now diving quickly in,
Questing some glistening fish. Now flying up,
Their dripping feathers shining in the sun,
While the wet drops like little glints of light,
Fall pattering backward to the parent sea.
Gliding along the green and foam-flecked hollows,
Or skimming some white crest about to break,
The spirits of the sky deigning to stoop
And play with ocean in a summer mood.
Hang...Read more of this...
by Lowell, Amy


Beowulf (Modern English)

...eign travelers of the Geatish people
over the ocean’s coursing. These champions name
their oldest Beowulf. They are requesting that they,
my prince, be allowed to exchange words with you.
Do not ordain them a refusal, gracious Hrothgar
in your straightforward reply—
they seem worthy in their war-gear,
in the esteem of nobles. Indeed their chief is most competent
he who guided these battle-warriors hither.” (ll. 356-70)

 

VI.

Hrothgar gave reply, the helmet of...Read more of this...
by Anonymous,

Couplets on the Death of His Father

...se are they who gird them, knowing
The guideposts set along that road
Unto tomorrow.

We start with birth upon that questing;
We journey all the while we live,
Our goal attaining
The day alone that brings us resting,
When Death shall last quiétus give
To all complaining.

This were a hallowed world indeed,
Did we but give it the employ
That was intended;
For by the precepts of our Creed
We earn hereby a life of joy
When this is ended.

The Son of God Himself...Read more of this...
by Manrique, Jorge

Hugh Selwyn Mauberly (Part I)

...iyat was still-born
In those days.

The thin, clear gaze, the same
Still darts out faun-like from the half-ruin'd face,
Questing and passive ....
"Ah, poor Jenny's case" ...

Bewildered that a world
Shows no surprise
At her last maquero's 
Adulteries.

"Siena Mi Fe', Disfecemi Maremma" 

Among the pickled fœtuses and bottled bones,
Engaged in perfecting the catalogue,
I found the last scion of the
Senatorial families of Strasbourg, Monsieur Verog.

For two hours he talked of ...Read more of this...
by Pound, Ezra

LEnvoi

...us tied,
 And the sirens hoot their dread!
When foot by foot we creep o'er the hueless viewless deep
 To the sob of the questing lead!
 It's down by the Lower Hope, dear lass,
 With the Gunfleet Sands in view,
 Till the Mouse swings green on the old trail,
 our own trail, the out trail,
 And the Gull Light lifts on the Long Trail --
 the trail that is always new.

O the blazing tropic night, when the wake's a welt of light
 That holds the hot sky tame,
And the steady fore-foo...Read more of this...
by Kipling, Rudyard


Many Are Called

...
Only at unconjectured intervals, 
By will of him on whom no man may gaze,
By word of him whose law no man has read, 
A questing light may rift the sullen walls, 
To cling where mostly its infrequent rays 
Fall golden on the patience of the dead....Read more of this...
by Robinson, Edwin Arlington

Maple

...be too bad to make him sorry for
By bringing it up to him when be was too old.
Your father feels us round him with our questing,
And holds us off unnecessarily,
As if he didn't know what little thing
Might lead us on to a discovery.
It was as personal as be could be
About the way he saw it was with you
To say your mother, bad she lived, would be
As far again as from being born to bearing."

 "Just one look more with what you say in mind,
And I give up"; which last look came ...Read more of this...
by Frost, Robert

November Evening

..., fair places,
The whispering glens in the hills, the open, starry spaces;
Rich with the gifts of the night, sated with questing and dreaming,
We turn to the dearest of paths where the star of the homelight is gleaming....Read more of this...
by Montgomery, Lucy Maud

Out oDoors

...hills;
We are one with crimson bough and ancient sea,
Holding all the joy of autumn hours in fee,
Hope within us like a questing bird upsoars,
And there's room for song and laughter out o' doors....Read more of this...
by Montgomery, Lucy Maud

Outsong in the Jungle

...old Baloo's sake!
Clean or tainted, hot or stale,
Hold it as it were the Trail,
Through the day and through the night,
Questing neither left nor right.
For the sake of him who loves
Thee beyond all else that moves,
When thy Pack would make thee pain,
Say: " Tabaqui sings again."
When thy Pack would work thee ill,
Say: "Shere Khan is yet to kill."
When the knife is drawn to slay,
Keep the Law and go thy way.
(Root and honey, palm and spathe,
Guard a cub from harm and scathe!)...Read more of this...
by Kipling, Rudyard

Sir Galahad a Christmas Mystery

...nfriended: what thing comes of it?

And what if Palomydes also ride,
And over many a mountain and bare heath
Follow the questing beast with none beside?
Is he not able still to hold his breath

With thoughts of Iseult? doth he not grow pale
With weary striving, to seem best of all
To her, "as she is best," he saith? to fail
Is nothing to him, he can never fall.

For unto such a man love-sorrow is
So dear a thing unto his constant heart,
That even if he never win one kiss,
Or ...Read more of this...
by Morris, William

Song of the Sea-Wind

...fin thing at play;
But anon I ravin with cloud and mist 
And wail 'neath a curdled sky,
When the reef snarls yon like a questing beast, 
And the frightened ships go by. 

I scatter the dawn across the sea
Like wine of amber flung
From a crystal goblet all far and fine 
Where the morning star is hung;
I blow from east and I blow from west 
Wherever my longing be-
The wind of the land is a hindered thing 
But the ocean wind is free!...Read more of this...
by Montgomery, Lucy Maud

The Burden Of Itys

...suited advocate
That pleadest for the moon against the day!
If thou didst make the shepherd seek his mate
On that sweet questing, when Proserpina
Forgot it was not Sicily and leant
Across the mossy Sandford stile in ravished wonderment, -

Light-winged and bright-eyed miracle of the wood!
If ever thou didst soothe with melody
One of that little clan, that brotherhood
Which loved the morning-star of Tuscany
More than the perfect sun of Raphael
And is immortal, sing to me! for ...Read more of this...
by Wilde, Oscar

The Drug-Shop or Endymion in Edmonstoun

...kness and in dread; 
But in the body of woman 
He raises up the dead. 

"Gracile and straight as birches, 
Swift as the questing birds, 
They fill true-lovers' drink-horns up, 
Who speak not, having no words. 

"Love is not delicate toying, 
A slim and shimmering mesh; 
It is two souls wrenched into one, 
Two bodies made one flesh. 

"Lust is a sprightly servant, 
Gallant where wines are poured; 
Love is a bitter master, 
Love is an iron lord. 

"Satin ease of the body, 
Fatt...Read more of this...
by Benet, Stephen Vincent

The Lady of the Lake

...ss
     The trembling bog and false morass;
     Across the brook like roebuck bound,
     And thread the brake like questing hound;
     The crag is high, the scaur is deep,
     Yet shrink not from the desperate leap:
     Parched are thy burning lips and brow,
     Yet by the fountain pause not now;
     Herald of battle, fate, and fear,
     Stretch onward in thy fleet career!
     The wounded hind thou track'st not now,
     Pursuest not maid through greenwood...Read more of this...
by Scott, Sir Walter

The Long Trail

...s tied,
 And the sirens hoot their dread,
When foot by foot we creep o'er the hueless, viewless deep
 To the sob of the questing lead!
 It's down by the Lower Hope, dear lass,
 With the Grinfleet Sands in view,
 Till the Mouse swings green on the old trail, our own trail, the out trail,
 And the Gull Light lifts on the Long Trail -- the trail that is always new.

O the blazing tropic night, when the wake's a welt of light
 That holds the hot sky tame,
And the steady fore-foot...Read more of this...
by Kipling, Rudyard

The Rhyme of the Three Sealers

...ard or groan or word, they fired at the sound.
For one cried out on the Name of God, and one to have him cease,
And the questing volley found them both and bade them hold their peace;
And one called out on a heathen joss and one on the Virgin's Name,
And the schooling bullet leaped across and showed them whence they came.
And in the waiting silences the rudder whined beneath,
And each man drew his watchful breath slow taken 'tween the teeth --
Trigger and ear and eye acock, k...Read more of this...
by Kipling, Rudyard

Thyrsis a Monody

...ill be,
Yet, Thyrsis, let me give my grief its hour
In the old haunt, and find our tree-topp'd hill!
Who, if not I, for questing here hath power?
I know the wood which hides the daffodil,
I know the Fyfield tree,
I know what white, what purple fritillaries
The grassy harvest of the river-fields,
Above by Ensham, down by Sandford, yields,
And what sedged brooks are Thames's tributaries;

I know these slopes; who knows them if not I?--
But many a tingle on the loved hillside,
W...Read more of this...
by Arnold, Matthew

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