Famous Roman Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Roman poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous roman poems. These examples illustrate what a famous roman poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Rg Gregory
in my reading of the moment i have learned
the figure next to christ in da vinci’s last supper
(a painting i have actually seen in a milan church
fragilely restored) is a woman – an honour earned
by mary magdalene who (according to research)
turns out to be christ’s wife – hang on what a whopper
cry those who can’t contemplate centuries of teaching
down...Read more of this...
by
Algernon Charles Swinburne
It does not hurt. She looked along the knife
Smiling, and watched the thick drops mix and run
Down the sheer blade; not that which had been done
Could hurt the sweet sense of the Roman wife,
But that which was to do yet ere the strife
Could end for each for ever, and the sun:
Nor was the palm yet nor was peace yet...Read more of this...
by
Eugene Field
Lofty and enduring is the monument I've reared,--
Come, tempests, with your bitterness assailing;
And thou, corrosive blasts of time, by all things mortal feared,
Thy buffets and thy rage are unavailing!
I shall not altogether die; by far my greater part
Shall mock man's common fate in realms infernal;
My works shall live as tributes to my genius and my art,--
My works shall be...Read more of this...
by
Rudyard Kipling
(A. D. 406)
"A Centurion of the Thirtieth" -- Puck of Pook's Hill
My father's father saw it not,
And I, belike, shall never come
To look on that so-holly spot--
That very Rome--
Crowned by all Time, all Art, all Might,
The equal work of Gods and Man,
City beneath whose oldest height--
The Race began!
Soon to send forth again a...Read more of this...
by
Oliver Wendell Holmes
I saw him once before,
As he passed by the door,
And again
The pavement stones resound,
As he totters o'er the ground
With his cane.
They say that in his prime,
Ere the pruning-knife of Time
Cut him down,
Not a better man was found
By the Crier on his round
Through the town.
But now he walks the streets,
And looks at all he meets
Sad and wan,
And he shakes his...Read more of this...
by
William Topaz McGonagall
It was on the 21st of March in the year of 1801,
The British were at their posts every man;
And their position was naturally very strong,
And the whole line from sea to lake was about a mile long.
And on the ruins of a Roman Palace, rested the right,
And every man amongst them was eager for the fight,
And the reserve...Read more of this...
by
John Masefield
Night is on the downland, on the lonely moorland,
On the hills where the wind goes over sheep-bitten turf,
Where the bent grass beats upon the unplowed poorland
And the pine-woods roar like the surf.
Here the Roman lived on the wind-barren lonely,
Dark now and haunted by the moorland fowl;
None comes here now but the peewit only,
And moth-like death in the owl.
Beauty was...Read more of this...
by
Katherine Philips
I CANNOT hold, for though to write were rude,
Yet to be silent were Ingratitude,
And Folly too; for if Posterity
Should never hear of such a one as thee,
And onely know this Age's brutish fame,
They would think Vertue nothing but a Name.
And though far abler Pens must her define,
Yet her Adoption hath engaged mine:...Read more of this...
by
Thomas Hardy
The Roman Road runs straight and bare
As the pale parting-line in hair
Across the heath. And thoughtful men
Contrast its days of Now and Then,
And delve, and measure, and compare;
Visioning on the vacant air
Helmeted legionnaires, who proudly rear
The Eagle, as they pace again
The Roman Road.
But no tall brass-helmeted legionnaire
Haunts it for...Read more of this...
by
Rudyard Kipling
We've got the cholerer in camp -- it's worse than forty fights;
We're dyin' in the wilderness the same as Isrulites;
It's before us, an' be'ind us, an' we cannot get away,
An' the doctor's just reported we've ten more to-day!
Oh, strike your camp an' go, the Bugle's callin',
The Rains are fallin' --
The dead are bushed an' stoned to...Read more of this...
by
George (Lord) Byron
I
'Tis done -- but yesterday a King!
And arm'd with Kings to strive --
And now thou art a nameless thing:
So abject -- yet alive!
Is this the man of thousand thrones,
Who strew'd our earth with hostile bones,
And can he thus survive?
Since he, miscall'd the Morning Star,
Nor man nor fiend hath fallen so...Read more of this...
by
Rudyard Kipling
When Julius Fabricius, Sub-Prefect of the Weald,
In the days of Diocletian owned our Lower River-field,
He called to him Hobdenius-a Briton of the Clay,
Saying: "What about that River-piece for layin'' in to hay?"
And the aged Hobden answered: "I remember as a lad
My father told your father that she wanted dreenin' bad.
An' the more that you neeglect her the less you'll...Read more of this...
by
Alfred Lord Tennyson
Roman Virgil, thou that singest
Ilion's lofty temples robed in fire,
Ilion falling, Rome arising,
wars, and filial faith, and Dido's pyre;
Landscape-lover, lord of language
more than he that sang the "Works and Days,"
All the chosen coin of fancy
flashing out from many a golden phrase;
Thou that singest wheat and woodland,
tilth and vineyard, hive and horse and herd;
All the charm of all the Muses
often...Read more of this...
by
Guillaume Apollinaire
ZONE
In the end you are tired of this ancient world
Shepherd oh Eiffel Tower the herd of bridges is bleating this morning
You've had enough of living in Greek and Roman antiquity
Here even the cars look antique
Only religion has stayed new religion
Has stayed simple like the hangars at Port-Aviation
You alone in Europe are not ancient...Read more of this...
by
Amy Lowell
The tall yellow hollyhocks stand,
Still and straight,
With their round blossoms spread open,
In the quiet sunshine.
And still is the old Roman wall,
Rough with jagged bits of flint,
And jutting stones,
Old and cragged,
Quite still in its antiquity.
The pear-trees press their branches against it,
And feeling it warm and kindly,
The little pears ripen to yellow and red.
They hang heavy, bursting with juice,
Against the wall.
So...Read more of this...
by
Robert Graves
I never dreamed we’d meet that day
In our old haunts down Fricourt way,
Plotting such marvellous journeys there
For jolly old “Apr?s-la-guerre.”
Well, when it’s over, first we’ll meet
At Gweithdy Bach, my country seat
In Wales, a curious little shop
With two rooms and a roof on top,
A sort of Morlancourt-ish billet
That never needs a...Read more of this...
by
Rupert Brooke
Swings the way still by hollow and hill,
And all the world's a song;
"She's far," it sings me, "but fair," it rings me,
"Quiet," it laughs, "and strong!"
Oh! spite of the miles and years between us,
Spite of your chosen part,
I do remember; and I go
With laughter in my heart.
So above the little folk that know not,
Out of the white hill-town,
High up...Read more of this...
by
Alfred Lord Tennyson
Written at the Request of the Mantuans for the Nineteenth Centenary of
Virgil's Death
Roman Virgil, thou that singest
Ilion's lofty temples robed in fire,
Ilion falling, Rome arising,
wars, and filial faith, and Dido's pyre;
Landscape-lover, lord of language
more than he that sang the Works and Days,
All the chosen coin of fancy
flashing out from many a golden phrase;
Thou that singest wheat and woodland,
tilth...Read more of this...
by
Lewis Carroll
"OH, when I was a little Ghost,
A merry time had we!
Each seated on his favourite post,
We chumped and chawed the buttered toast
They gave us for our tea."
"That story is in print!" I cried.
"Don't say it's not, because
It's known as well as Bradshaw's Guide!"
(The Ghost uneasily replied
He hardly thought it was)....Read more of this...
by
Victor Hugo
("Gastibelza, l'homme à la carabine.")
{XXII., March, 1837.}
Gastibelza, with gun the measure beating,
Would often sing:
"Has one o' ye with sweet Sabine been meeting,
As, gay, ye bring
Your songs and steps which, by the music,
Are reconciled—
Oh! this chill wind across the mountain rushing
Will...Read more of this...
by
Friedrich von Schiller
Oh thou degenerate child of the great and glorious mother,
Who with the Romans' strong might couplest the Tyrians' deceit!
But those ever governed with vigor the earth they had conquered,--
These instructed the world that they with cunning had won.
Say! what renown does history grant thee? Thou, Roman-like, gained'st
That with the steel, which with gold, Tyrian-like, then thou didst rule!...Read more of this...
by
Louise Bogan
Up from the bronze, I saw
Water without a flaw
Rush to its rest in air,
Reach to its rest, and fall.
Bronze of the blackest shade,
An element man-made,
Shaping upright the bare
Clear gouts of water in air.
O, as with arm and hammer,
Still it is good to strive
To beat out the image whole,
To echo the shout and stammer
When full-gushed waters, alive,
Strike on the...Read more of this...
by
Dejan Stojanovic
Here lies once splendid ancient Roman Villa in ruins. Remnants of a gorgeous mosaic—Venus and a flying dove on the floor—of big gardens, fountains and pools talk about her rich and lively history.
The Roman wealthy patrician did not think of us looking at the mosaic of his Villa. He built it for posterity, yet desired to live longer than...Read more of this...
by
Robert Hayden
I
Jesús, Estrella, Esperanza, Mercy:
Sails flashing to the wind like weapons,
sharks following the moans the fever and the dying;
horror the corposant and compass rose.
Middle Passage:
voyage through death
to life upon these shores.
"10 April 1800--
Blacks rebellious. Crew uneasy. Our linguist says
their moaning is a prayer for death,
our and their own. Some...Read more of this...
by
Laurence Binyon
O race that Cæsar knew,
That won stern Roman praise,
What land not envies you
The laurel of these days?
You build your cities rich
Around each towered hall, —
Without, the statued niche,
Within, the pictured wall.
Your ship-thronged wharves, your marts
With gorgeious Venice vied,
Peace and her famous arts
Were yours: though tide on tide
Of Europe's...Read more of this...
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