Famous Rider Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Rider poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous rider poems. These examples illustrate what a famous rider poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Andrew Barton Paterson
The Honorable Ardleigh Wyse
Was every fisherman's despair;
He caught his fish on floating flies,
In fact he caught them in the air,
And wet-fly men -- good sports, perhaps --
He called "those chuck-and-chance-it chaps".
And then the Fates that sometimes play
A joke on such as me and you
Deported him up Queensland way
To act as...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
In the little Crimson Manual it's written plain and clear
That who would wear the scarlet coat shall say good-bye to fear;
Shall be a guardian of the right, a sleuth-hound of the trail--
In the little Crimson Manual there's no such word as "fail"--
Shall follow on though heavens fall, or hell's top-turrets freeze,
Half round the world, if need there be, on...Read more of this...
by
William Shakespeare
How heavy do I journey on the way,
When what I seek, my weary travel's end,
Doth teach that case and that repose to say,
"Thus far the miles are measured from thy friend!"
The beast that bears me, tired with my woe,
Plods dully on, to bear that weight in me,
As if by some instinct the wretch did know
His rider loved not speed...Read more of this...
by
Amy Lowell
I walk down the garden paths,
And all the daffodils
Are blowing, and the bright blue squills.
I walk down the patterned garden-paths
In my stiff, brocaded gown.
With my powdered hair and jewelled fan,
I too am a rare
Pattern. As I wander down
The garden paths.
My dress is richly figured,
And the train
Makes a pink and silver stain
On the gravel, and the thrift
Of the borders.
Just a...Read more of this...
by
J R R Tolkien
Where now is the horse and the rider? Where is the horn that was blowing?
Where is the helm and the hauberk, and the bright hair flowing?
Where is the hand on the harpstring, and the red fire glowing?
They have passed like rain on the mountain, like a wind in the meadow;
The days have gone down in the West behind the...Read more of this...
by
Andrew Barton Paterson
Him goin' to ride for us! Him -- with the pants and the eyeglass and all.
Amateur! don't he just look it -- it's twenty to one on a fall.
Boss must be gone off his head to be sending out steeplechase crack
Out over fences like these with an object like that on his back.
Ride! Don't tell...Read more of this...
by
Dylan Thomas
Hold hard, these ancient minutes in the cuckoo's month,
Under the lank, fourth folly on Glamorgan's hill,
As the green blooms ride upward, to the drive of time;
Time, in a folly's rider, like a county man
Over the vault of ridings with his hound at heel,
Drives forth my men, my children, from the hanging south.
Country, your sport is summer, and December's pools
By...Read more of this...
by
Eugene Field
Come, Phyllis, I've a cask of wine
That fairly reeks with precious juices,
And in your tresses you shall twine
The loveliest flowers this vale produces.
My cottage wears a gracious smile,--
The altar, decked in floral glory,
Yearns for the lamb which bleats the while
As though it pined for honors gory.
Hither our neighbors nimbly fare,--
The boys agog, the maidens snickering;
And savory smells possess the...Read more of this...
by
Andrew Barton Paterson
There was movement at the station, for the word has passed around
That the colt from old Regret had got away,
And had joined the wild bush horses—he was worth a thousand pound,
So all the cracks had gathered to the fray.
All the tried and noted riders from the stations near and far
Had mustered at the homestead overnight,
For the bushmen love hard...Read more of this...
by
Andrew Barton Paterson
'Twas the horse thief, Andy Regan, that was hunted like a dog
By the troopers of the upper Murray side,
They had searched in every gully -- they had looked in every log,
But never sight or track of him they spied,
Till the priest at Kiley's Crossing heard a knocking very late
And a whisper "Father Riley --...Read more of this...
by
Andrew Barton Paterson
You see, the thing was this way -- there was me,
That rode Panopply, the Splendor mare,
And Ikey Chambers on the Iron Dook,
And Smith, the half-caste rider on Regret,
And that long bloke from Wagga -- him that rode
Veronikew, the Snowy River horse.
Well, none of them had chances -- not a chance
Among the lot,...Read more of this...
by
Adam Lindsay Gordon
Hold hard, Ned! Lift me down once more, and lay me in the shade.
Old man, you've had your work cut out to guide
Both horses, and to hold me in the saddle when I swayed,
All through the hot, slow, sleepy, silent ride.
The dawn at "Moorabinda" was a mist rack dull and dense,
The sun-rise was a...Read more of this...
by
Seamus Heaney
The pockets of our greatcoats full of barley...
No kitchens on the run, no striking camp...
We moved quick and sudden in our own country.
The priest lay behind ditches with the tramp.
A people hardly marching... on the hike...
We found new tactics happening each day:
We'd cut through reins and rider with the pike
And stampede cattle into infantry,
Then retreat through hedges...Read more of this...
by
Andrew Barton Paterson
The strongest creature for his size
But least equipped for combat
That dwells beneath Australian skies
Is Weary Will the Wombat.
He digs his homestead underground,
He's neither shrewd nor clever;
For kangaroos can leap and bound
But wombats dig forever.
The boundary rider's netting fence
Excites his irritation;
It is to his untutored sense
His pet abomination.
And...Read more of this...
by
William Butler Yeats
I
I sought a theme and sought for it in vain,
I sought it daily for six weeks or so.
Maybe at last, being but a broken man,
I must be satisfied with my heart, although
Winter and summer till old age began
My circus animals were all on show,
Those stilted boys, that burnished chariot,
Lion and woman and the Lord knows what.
II
What can I...Read more of this...
by
Rudyard Kipling
To the legion of the lost ones, to the cohort of the damned,
To my brethren in their sorrow overseas,
Sings a gentleman of England cleanly bred, machinely crammed,
And a trooper of the Empress, if you please.
Yea, a trooper of the forces who has run his own six horses,
And faith he went the pace and went it blind,
And...Read more of this...
by
Isaac Watts
Rejoice, ye righteous, in the Lord,
This work belongs to you;
Sing of his name, his ways, his word,
How holy, just, and true.
His mercy and his righteousness
Let heav'n and earth proclaim;
His works of nature and of grace
Reveal his wondrous name.
His wisdom and almighty word
The heav'nly arches spread,
And by the Spirit of the Lord
Their shining hosts were made.
He bid the liquid waters...Read more of this...
by
George (Lord) Byron
The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold,
And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold;
And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea,
When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.
Like the leaves of the forest when summer is green,
That host with their banners at sunset were seen:
Like the leaves of the forest...Read more of this...
by
William Butler Yeats
I have met them at close of day
Coming with vivid faces
From counter or desk among grey
Eighteenth-century houses.
I have passed with a nod of the head
Or polite meaningless words,
Or have lingered awhile and said
Polite meaningless words,
And thought before I had done
Of a mocking tale or a gibe
To please a companion
Around the fire at the club,
Being certain that they and I
But...Read more of this...
by
John Greenleaf Whittier
It is done!
Clang of bell and roar of gun
Send the tidings up and down.
How the belfries rock and reel!
How the great guns, peal on peal,
Fling the joy from town to town!
Ring, O bells!
Every stroke exulting tells
Of the burial hour of crime.
Loud and long, that all may hear,
Ring for every listening ear
Of Eternity and Time!
Let us kneel:
God's own voice is...Read more of this...
by
William Shakespeare
But, lo! from forth a copse that neighbours by,
A breeding jennet, lusty, young, and proud,
Adonis' trampling courser doth espy,
And forth she rushes, snorts and neighs aloud;
The strong-neck'd steed, being tied unto a tree,
Breaketh his rein, and to her straight goes he.
Imperiously he leaps, he neighs, he bounds,
And now his woven girths he breaks asunder;
The bearing earth with his hard...Read more of this...
by
Obi Nwakanma
for Christopher Okigbo
Emrnanuel Ifeajuna &
Chukwuma Nzeogwu
I
It was a room above the alcove
in a city renewed by junipers
And by desires...
Stripped of words,
the moments recalled;
where the tower,
lo, was in sight:
memories undaunted by sound
or flames of the amethyst,
spoke to me;
spoke to me like the preacher from…
I recall this moment staggering through the wind,...Read more of this...
by
Mother Goose
For want of a nail, the shoe was lost;
For want of the shoe, the horse was lost;
For want of the horse, the rider was lost;
For want of the rider, the battle was lost;
For want of the battle, the kingdom was lost,
And all for the want of a horseshoe nail....Read more of this...
by
Robert Browning
I.
You know, we French stormed Ratisbon:
A mile or so away,
On a little mound, Napoleon
Stood on our storming-day;
With neck out-thrust, you fancy how,
Legs wide, arms locked behind,
As if to balance the prone brow
Oppressive with its mind.
II.
Just as perhaps he mused ``My plans
``That soar, to earth may fall,
``Let once my army-leader Lannes
``Waver at yonder wall,''---
Out 'twixt the battery-smokes there flew
A rider,...Read more of this...
by
Alfred Lord Tennyson
MY good blade carves the casques of men,
My tough lance thrusteth sure,
My strength is as the strength of ten,
Because my heart is pure.
The shattering trumpet shrilleth high,
The hard brands shiver on the steel,
The splinter'd spear-shafts crack and fly,
The horse and rider reel:
They reel, they roll in clanging lists,
And when the...Read more of this...
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