Famous Rovers Poems by Famous Poets

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

See also:

A Subalterns Love Song

by John Betjeman
 Miss J.Hunter Dunn, Miss J.Hunter Dunn,
Furnish'd and burnish'd by Aldershot sun,
What strenuous singles we played after tea,
We in the tournament - you against me!

Love-thirty, love-forty, oh! weakness of joy,
The speed of a swallow, the grace of a boy,
With carefullest carelessness, gaily you won,
I am weak from your loveliness, Joan Hunter Dunn

Miss Joan Hunter Dunn, Miss Joan Hunter Dunn,
How mad...Read more of this...

The Glory of Ships

by Henry Van Dyke
 The glory of ships is an old, old song,
since the days when the sea-rovers ran 
In their open boats through the roaring surf,
and the spread of the world began; 
The glory of ships is a light on the sea,
and a star in the story of man. 

When Homer sang of the galleys of Greece
that conquered the Trojan shore,
And Solomon...Read more of this...

The Trail O' Love

by Badger Clark
  My love was swift and slender
    As an antelope at play,
  And her eyes were gray and tender
    As the east at break o' day,
  And I sure was shaky hearted
    And her flower face was pale
  On that silver night we parted,
   ...Read more of this...

Prelude

by Robert William Service
 In youth I gnawed life's bitter rind
And shared the rugged lot
Of fellows rude and unrefined,
Frustrated and forgot;
And now alas! it is too late
My sorry ways to mend,
So sadly I accept my fate,
A Roughneck to the end.

Profanity is in my voice
And slag is in my rhyme,
For I have mucked with men who curse
And grovel in the grime;
My fingers were not...Read more of this...

Sea-adventurers' Song

by Victor Hugo
 ("En partant du Golfe d'Otrante.") 
 
 {Bk. XXVIII.} 


 We told thirty when we started 
 From port so taut and fine, 
 But soon our crew were parted, 
 Till now we number nine. 
 
 Tom Robbins, English, tall and straight, 
 Left us at Aetna light; 
 He left us to investigate 
 What made...Read more of this...

Stowaway

by Robert William Service
 We'd left the sea-gulls long behind,
And we were almost in mid-ocean;
The sky was soft and blue and kind,
The boat had scarcely any motion;
Except that songfully it sped,
And sheared the foam swift as an arrow . . .
There fluttered down a city sparrow.

I stared with something of surprise;
The apparition mocked my seeming;
In fact I gently rubbed my eyes
And wondered if...Read more of this...

Rovers Rest

by Robert William Service
 By parents I would not be pinned,
 Nor in my home abide,
For I was wanton as the wind
 And tameless as the tide;
So scornful of domestic hearth,
 And bordered garden path,
I sought the wilder ways of earth,
 The roads of wrath.

It scares me now to think of how
 Foolhardily I fared;
Though mighty scarred of pelt and pow
 A dozen...Read more of this...

The Rhyme of the Three Captains

by Rudyard Kipling
 This ballad appears to refer to one of the exploits of the notorious
Paul Jones, the American pirate. It is founded on fact.


 . . . At the close of a winter day,
Their anchors down, by London town, the Three Great Captains lay;
And one was Admiral of the North from Solway Firth to Skye,
And one was Lord of the Wessex...Read more of this...

The Rovers

by Lucy Maud Montgomery
 Over the fields we go, through the sweets of the purple clover,
That letters a message for us as for every vagrant rover;
Before us the dells are abloom, and a leaping brook calls after,
Feeling its kinship with us in lore of dreams and laughter. 

Out of the valleys of moonlight elfin voices are calling;
Down from the misty hills faint, far...Read more of this...

The Lost Legion

by Rudyard Kipling
 1895

There's a Legion that never was listed,
 That carries no colours or crest,
But, split in a thousand detachments,
 Is breaking the road for the rest.
Our fathers they left us their blessing --
 They taught us, and groomed us, and crammed;
But we've shaken the Clubs and the Messes
 To go and find out and be damned
 (Dear boys!),
 To go...Read more of this...

Adventure

by Robert William Service
 Out of the wood my White Knight came:
His eyes were bright with a bitter flame,
As I clung to his stirrup leather;
For I was only a dreaming lad,
Yet oh, what a wonderful faith I had!
And the song in my heart was never so glad,
As we took to the trail together.

"Friends and lovers, good-bye," I said;
Never once did I turn my...Read more of this...

The Rovers Adieu

by Sir Walter Scott
 weary lot is thine, fair maid,
A weary lot is thine!
To pull the thorn thy brow to braid,
And press the rue for wine.
A lightsome eye, a soldier's mien,
A feather of the blue,
A doublet of the Lincoln green—
No more of me ye knew,
My Love!
No more of me ye knew.
'This morn is merry June, I trow,
The rose is budding fain;
But she shall...Read more of this...

Inchcape Rock

by Robert Southey
 No stir in the air, no stir in the sea, 
The Ship was still as she could be; 
Her sails from heaven received no motion, 
Her keel was steady in the ocean. 

Without either sign or sound of their shock, 
The waves flow’d over the Inchcape Rock; 
So little they rose, so little they fell, 
They did not move...Read more of this...

The Travelling Post Office

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 The roving breezes come and go, the reed-beds sweep and sway, 
The sleepy river murmers low,and loiters on its way, 
It is the land of lots o'time along the Castlereagh. 
. . .. . . . . 

The old man's son had left the farm, he found it full and slow, 
He drifted to the great North-west, where all...Read more of this...

Dont forget to view our wonderful member Rovers poems.

Get a Premium Membership
Turn off ads, get more exposure for your poetry, and get more features with a Premium Membership.
Book: Diverse Voices: The Poetry of Human Rights and the Pursuit of Peace