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Famous Rocky Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Shakespeare, William
...ather, what a hell of witchcraft lies
In the small orb of one particular tear!
But with the inundation of the eyes
What rocky heart to water will not wear?
What breast so cold that is not warmed here?
O cleft effect! cold modesty, hot wrath,
Both fire from hence and chill extincture hath.

'For, lo, his passion, but an art of craft,
Even there resolved my reason into tears;
There my white stole of chastity I daff'd,
Shook off my sober guards and civil fears;
Appear to him...Read more of this...



by Brackenridge, Hugh Henry
...tween: they saw it beam 
From Judah's royal tribe, they saw it shine 
O'er Judah's happy land, and bade the hills, 
The rocky hills and barren vallies smile, 
The desert blossom and the wilds rejoice. 


This is that light and revelation pure, 
Which Jacob saw and in prophetic view, 
Did hail its author from the skies, and bade 
The sceptre wait with sov'reignty and sway 
On Judah's hand till Shiloh came. That light 
Which Beor's son in clearer vision saw, 
Its beams ...Read more of this...

by Brackenridge, Hugh Henry
...ay yet 
Awake the muse by Schuylkill's silent stream, 
And bid new forests bloom along her tide. 
And Susquehanna's rocky stream unsung, 
In bright meanders winding round the hills, 
Where first the mountain nymph sweet echo heard 
The uncouth musick of my rural lay, 
Shall yet remurmur to the magic sound 
Of song heroic, when in future days 
Some noble Hambden rises into fame. 



LEANDER. 
Or Roanoke's and James's limpid waves 
The sound of musick murmurs in the...Read more of this...

by Shelley, Percy Bysshe
...
Ridge after ridge the straining boat arose,
Till on the verge of the extremest curve, 
Where through an opening of the rocky bank
The waters overflow, and a smooth spot
Of glassy quiet 'mid those battling tides
Is left, the boat paused shuddering.--Shall it sink
Down the abyss? Shall the reverting stress
Of that resistless gulf embosom it?
Now shall it fall?--A wandering stream of wind
Breathed from the west, has caught the expanded sail,
And, lo! with gentle motion betw...Read more of this...

by Wilde, Oscar
...nd the naked wonder of the Queen.

But when the herdsman called his straggling goats
With whistling pipe across the rocky road,
And the shard-beetle with its trumpet-notes
Boomed through the darkening woods, and seemed to bode
Of coming storm, and the belated crane
Passed homeward like a shadow, and the dull big drops of rain

Fell on the pattering fig-leaves, up he rose,
And from the gloomy forest went his way
Past sombre homestead and wet orchard-close,
And came at last...Read more of this...



by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...f eld, with voices sad and prophetic,
Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their bosoms.
Loud from its rocky caverns, the deep-voiced neighboring ocean
Speaks, and in accents disconsolate answers the wail of the forest.

This is the forest primeval; but where are the hearts that beneath it
Leaped like the roe, when he hears in the woodland the voice of the huntsman
Where is the thatch-roofed village, the home of Acadian farmers,--
Men whose lives glided o...Read more of this...

by Hugo, Victor
...nts make triple crown; 
 At eve, its silhouette is finely traced 
 Immense and black—showing the Keep is placed 
 On rocky throne, sublime and high; east, west, 
 And north and south, at corners four, there rest 
 Four mounts; Aptar, where flourishes the pine, 
 And Toxis, where the elms grow green and fine; 
 Crobius and Bleyda, giants in their might, 
 Against the stormy winds to stand and fight, 
 And these above its diadem uphold 
 Night's living canopy of cloud...Read more of this...

by Ginsberg, Allen
...
 charm of reality in their hearts who sang sweet 
 blues to Alcatraz, 
who retired to Mexico to cultivate a habit, or Rocky 
 Mount to tender Buddha or Tangiers to boys 
 or Southern Pacific to the black locomotive or 
 Harvard to Narcissus to Woodlawn to the 
 daisychain or grave, 
who demanded sanity trials accusing the radio of hyp 
 notism & were left with their insanity & their 
 hands & a hung jury, 
who threw potato salad at CCNY lecturers on Dadaism 
 and subsequent...Read more of this...

by Homer,
...For she keeps fearful anger and does not consort with the gods, but sits aloof in her fragrant temple, dwelling in the rocky hold of Eleusis."

So he said. And Aidoneus, ruler over the dead, smiled grimly and obeyed the behest of Zeus the king. For he straightway urged wise Persephone, saying:

[Line 360] "Go now, Persephone, to your dark-robed mother, go, and feel kindly in your heart towards me: be not so exceedingly cast down; for I shall be no unfitting h...Read more of this...

by Emerson, Ralph Waldo
...ho shall as lightly bear
My daily load of woods and streams,
As now the round sky-cleaving boat
Which never strains its rocky beams,
Whose timbers, as they silent float,
Alps and Caucasus uprear,
And the long Alleghanies here,
And all town-sprinkled lands that be,
Sailing through stars with all their history.

Every morn I lift my head,
Gaze o'er New England underspread
South from Saint Lawrence to the Sound,
From Katshill east to the sea-bound.
Anchored fast for many...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...one entrance high; 
The rest was craggy cliff, that overhung 
Still as it rose, impossible to climb. 
Betwixt these rocky pillars Gabriel sat, 
Chief of the angelick guards, awaiting night; 
About him exercised heroick games 
The unarmed youth of Heaven, but nigh at hand 
Celestial armoury, shields, helms, and spears, 
Hung high with diamond flaming, and with gold. 
Thither came Uriel, gliding through the even 
On a sun-beam, swift as a shooting star 
In autumn thwart...Read more of this...

by Ginsberg, Allen
...mortalities,
I begin your chant, openmouthed exhaling into spacious
 sky over silent mills at Hanford, Savannah River,
 Rocky Flats, Pantex, Burlington, Albuquerque
I yell thru Washington, South Carolina, Colorado, 
 Texas, Iowa, New Mexico,
Where nuclear reactors creat a new Thing under the 
 Sun, where Rockwell war-plants fabricate this death
 stuff trigger in nitrogen baths,
Hanger-Silas Mason assembles the terrified weapon
 secret by ten thousands, & where Manzano Moun-
 ...Read more of this...

by Sandburg, Carl
...the gaps and the valleys hissed, and the black loam came, and the yellow sandy loam.
Here between the sheds of the Rocky Mountains and the Appalachians, here now a morning star fixes a fire sign over the timber claims and cow pastures, the corn belt, the cotton belt, the cattle ranches.
Here the gray geese go five hundred miles and back with a wind under their wings honking the cry for a new home.
Here I know I will hanker after nothing so much as one more sunris...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...lainly the Himalayas, Chian Shahs, Altays, Ghauts; 
I see the giant pinnacles of Elbruz, Kazbek, Bazardjusi, 
I see the Rocky Mountains, and the Peak of Winds;
I see the Styrian Alps, and the Karnac Alps; 
I see the Pyrenees, Balks, Carpathians—and to the north the Dofrafields, and off at sea
 Mount
 Hecla; 
I see Vesuvius and Etna—I see the Anahuacs; 
I see the Mountains of the Moon, and the Snow Mountains, and the Red Mountains of
 Madagascar; 
I see the Vermont hills, and ...Read more of this...

by Whittier, John Greenleaf
...ythe, their swaths along 
The low green prairies of the sea. 
We shared the fishing off Boar's Head, 
And round the rocky Isles of Shoals 
The hake-broil on the drift-wood coals; 
The chowder on the sand-beach made, 
Dipped by the hungry, steaming hot, 
With spoons of clam-shell from the pot. 
We heard the tales of witchcraft old, 
And dream and sign and marvel told 
To sleepy listeners as they lay 
Stretched idly on the salted hay, 
Adrift along the winding shores, 
...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...ride; 
The tombs, sole relics of his reign, 
All — save immortal dreams that could beguile 
The blind old man of Scio's rocky isle! 

III. 

Oh! yet — for there my steps have been! 
These feet have press'd the sacred shore, 
These limbs that buoyant wave hath borne — 
Minstrel! with thee to muse, to mourn, 
To trace again those fields of yore, 
Believing every hillock green 
Contains no fabled hero's ashes, 
And that around the undoubted scene 
Thine own "broad Hellespont...Read more of this...

by Scott, Sir Walter
...eacon red
     Had kindled on Benvoirlich's head,
     The deep-mouthed bloodhound's heavy bay
     Resounded up the rocky way,
     And faint, from farther distance borne,
     Were heard the clanging hoof and horn.
     II.

     As Chief, who hears his warder call,
     'To arms! the foemen storm the wall,'
     The antlered monarch of the waste
     Sprung from his heathery couch in haste.
     But ere his fleet career he took,
     The dew-drops from his fla...Read more of this...

by Petrarch, Francesco
...And Brennus, famed for sacrilegious spoil,That, overwhelm'd beneath the rocky pile,Atoned the carnage of his cruel hand,Join'd the long pageant of the martial band;Who march'd in foreign or barbarian guiseFrom every realm and clime beneath the skies[Pg 388]...Read more of this...

by Schiller, Friedrich von
...sighs sadly;
Down from the crest of the mount plunges the thundering load.
Winged by the lever, the stone from the rocky crevice is loosened;
Into the mountain's abyss boldly the miner descends.
Mulciber's anvil resounds with the measured stroke of the hammer;
Under the fist's nervous blow, spurt out the sparks of the steel.
Brilliantly twines the golden flax round the swift-whirling spindles,
Through the strings of the yarn whizzes the shuttle away.

Far in ...Read more of this...

by Miller, Alice Duer
...mmon men, 
She herself, as she used to say, 
Being' mere English' as much as they— 
Seafaring men who sailed away 
From rocky inlet and wooded bay, 
Free men, undisciplined, uncontrolled, 
Some of them pirates and all of them bold, 
Feeling their fate was England's fate, 
Coming to save it a little late, 
Much too late for the easy way,
Much too late, and yet never quite
Too late to win in that last worst fight.

And I thought of Hampden and men like him,
St John and Elio...Read more of this...

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Book: Shattered Sighs