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Famous Roves Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Burns, Robert
...Ayr.


Farewell, old Coila’s hills and dales,
Her healthy moors and winding vales;
The scenes where wretched Fancy roves,
Pursuing past, unhappy loves!
Farewell, my friends! farewell, my foes!
My peace with these, my love with those:
The bursting tears my heart declare—
Farewell, the bonie banks of Ayr!...Read more of this...



by Burns, Robert
...s,
 The plover loves the mountains;
The woodcock haunts the lonely dells,
 The soaring hern the fountains:
Thro’ lofty groves the cushat roves,
 The path of man to shun it;
The hazel bush o’erhangs the thrush,
 The spreading thorn the linnet.


Thus ev’ry kind their pleasure find,
 The savage and the tender;
Some social join, and leagues combine,
 Some solitary wander:
Avaunt, away! the cruel sway,
 Tyrannic man’s dominion;
The sportsman’s joy, the murd’ring cry,
 The flu...Read more of this...

by Brackenridge, Hugh Henry
...e 
A nobler range of sentiment receive; 
Life brought to view and immortality, 
A recent world through which bold fancy roves, 
And gives new magic to the pow'r of song; 
For where the streams of revelation flow 
Unknown to bards of Helicon, or those 
Who on the top of Pindus, or the banks 
Of Arethusa and Eurotas stray'd, 
The poet drinks, and glorying in new strength, 
Soars high in rapture of sublimer strains; 
Such as that prophet sang who tun'd his harp 
On Zion hill and...Read more of this...

by Smart, Christopher
...d chapitre, and niche,
The various histories enrich 
 Of God's record'd works. 

 XXXVI 
Sigma presents the social droves, 
With him that solitary roves, 
 And man of all the chief; 
Fair on whose face, and stately frame, 
Did God impress His hallow'd name, 
 For ocular belief. 

 XXXVII 
OMEGA! GREATEST and the BEST, 
Stands sacred to the day of rest, 
 For gratitude and thought; 
Which bless'd the world upon his pole, 
And gave the universe his goal, 
 And clos'd th...Read more of this...

by de la Mare, Walter
...brier's boughs, 
When March winds wake, 
So old with their beauty are-- 
Oh, no man knows 
Through what wild centuries 
Roves back the rose. 
Very old are the brooks; 
And the rills that rise 
Where snow sleeps cold beneath 
The azure skies 
Sing such a history 
Of come and gone, 
Their every drop is as wise 
As Solomon. 

Very old are we men; 
Our dreams are tales 
Told in dim Eden 
By Eve's nightingales; 
We wake and whisper awhile, 
But, the day gone by, 
Silence a...Read more of this...



by Blunden, Edmund
...dders, the day appals,
    The concourse of a thousand tempests sprawls
    Over the blue-lipped lakes and maddening groves,
    Like agonies of gods the clouds are whirled,
    The stormwind like the demon huntsman roves —
    Still stands my friend, though all's to chaos hurled,
    The unseen friend, the one last friend in all the world.

...Read more of this...

by Masefield, John
...
In thanks to that dear woman dead? 
Men triumph over women still, 
Men trample women's rights at will, 
And man's lust roves the world untamed. 

* * * * 

O grave, keep shut lest I be shamed....Read more of this...

by Robinson, Mary Darby
...rd ! where'er HE bends his way, 
The torch of REASON spreads its godlike ray. 

As o'er SIClLlAN sands the Trav'ler roves, 
Feeds on its fruits, and shelters in its groves, 
Sudden amidst the calm retreat he hears 
The pealing thunders in the distant spheres; 
He sees the curling fumes from ETNA rise, 
Shade the green vale, and blacken all the skies. 
Around his head the forked lightnings glare,
The vivid streams illume the stagnant air: 
The nodding hills hang low'ri...Read more of this...

by Trumbull, John
...ips whistle round our ears!
Tar, yet in embryo in the pine,
Shall run on Tories' backs to shine;
Trees, rooted fair in groves of sallows,
Are growing for our future gallows;
And geese unhatch'd, when pluck'd in fray,
Shall rue the feathering of that day.


"For me, before that fatal time,
I mean to fly th' accursed clime,
And follow omens, which of late
Have warn'd me of impending fate.


"For late in visions of the night
The gallows stood before my sight;
I saw its l...Read more of this...

by von Goethe, Johann Wolfgang
...et

All I lost as soon as dead,
Happy as before am I.

Him she clasps with silent smile,

And his mouth the hour improves,

Sent by kindly Deities;

First from breast to mouth it roves,

Then from mouth to hands it flies,
And I round him sport the while.

And she sees me hov'ring near;

Trembling at her lovers rapture,

Up she springs--I fly away,

"Dearest! let's the insect capture

Come! I long to make my prey
Yonder pretty little dear!"

1767-9....Read more of this...

by Austen, Jane
...ers gaze in wild amaze, 
And listen, one and all.

Her judgment sound, thick, black, profound, 
Like transatlantic groves, 
Dispenses aid, and friendly shade 
To all that in it roves.

If thus her mind to be defined 
America exhausts, 
And all that's grand in that great land 
In similes it costs --

Oh how can I her person try 
To image and portray? 
How paint the face, the form how trace, 
In which those virtues lay?

Another world must be unfurled, 
Another language...Read more of this...

by Moore, Thomas
...on's ardent spell, 
Yet, trust me, all the stronger 
I feel the bliss I do not tell. 
The bee through many a garden roves, 
And hums his lay of courtship o'er, 
But when he finds the flower he loves, 
He settles there, and hums no more. 
Then doubt me not -- the season 
Is o'er when Folly kept me free, 
And now the vestal, Reason, 
Shall guard the flame awaked by thee....Read more of this...

by Laurence Dunbar, Paul
...Why was it that the thunder voice of Fate
Should call thee, studious, from the classic groves,
Where calm-eyed Pallas with still footstep roves,
And charge thee seek the turmoil of the state?
What bade thee hear the voice and rise elate,
Leave home and kindred and thy spicy loaves,
To lead th' unlettered and despised droves
To manhood's home and thunder at the gate?
Far better the slow blaze of Learning's light,
The cool and quiet of he...Read more of this...

by Southey, Robert
...e medley crew of travellers among,
Think on thine absent friend: reflect that here
On Life's sad journey comfortless he roves,
Remote from every scene his heart holds dear,
From him he values, and from her he loves.
And when disgusted with the vain and dull
Whom chance companions of thy way may doom,
Thy mind, of each domestic comfort full,
Turns to itself and meditates on home,
Ah think what Cares must ache within his breast
Who loaths the lingering road, yet has no home...Read more of this...

by Gibran, Kahlil
...ot enclosed within your bodies, nor confined to houses or fields. 

That which is you dwells above the mountain and roves with the wind. 

It is not a thing that crawls into the sun for warmth or digs holes into darkness for safety, 

But a thing free, a spirit that envelops the earth and moves in the ether. 

If this be vague words, then seek not to clear them. 

Vague and nebulous is the beginning of all things, but not their end, 

And I fain would have you...Read more of this...

by Robinson, Mary Darby
...s. And straight he hears
That he had many long, long years;
That he a maid inconstant, loves,
Who, to another slyly roves.
That a dark man his bane will be--
"And poison his domestic hours;
"While a fair woman, treach'rously--
"Will dress his brow--with thorns and flow'rs!"
It happen'd, to confirm his care--
STEPHEN was dark ,--and KATE was fair!
Nay more that "home his bride would bring
"A little, alien, prattling thing
"In just six moons!" Poor LUBIN hears
All that ...Read more of this...

by Finch, Anne Kingsmill
...To view his stately Walks and Groves, 
A Man of Pow'r and Place
Was hast'ning on; but as he roves,
His Foe the slighted Bramble proves, 
And stops his eager Pace. 
That Shrub was qualify'd to Bite;
And now there went a Tale, 
That this injurious partial Wight
Had bid his Gard'ner rid it quite, 
And throw it o'er the Pail. 

Often the Bry'r had wish'd to speak, 
That this might not...Read more of this...

by Gray, Thomas
...es, and Ceres' golden reign;
Now rolling down the steep amain,
Headlong, impetuous, see it pour;
The rocks and nodding groves re-bellow to the roar.

Oh! Sov'reign of the willing soul,
Parent of sweet and solemn-breathing airs,
Enchanting shell! the sullen Cares
And frantic Passions hear thy soft control.
On Thracia's hills the Lord of War
Has curbed the fury of his car,
And dropt his thirsty lance at thy command.
Perching on the sceptred hand
Of Jove, thy magic l...Read more of this...

by Seeger, Alan
...iscord from the cathedral-tower, 
Fall the faint chimes and the thrice-sequent bell. 
Over the crowd his eye uneasy roves. 
He sees a plume, a fur; his heart dilates -- 
Soars . . . and then sinks again. It is not hers he loves. 
She will not come, the woman that he waits. 


Braided with streams of silver incense rise 
The antique prayers and ponderous antiphones. 
`Gloria Patri' echoes to the skies; 
`Nunc et in saecula' the choir intones...Read more of this...

by Southey, Robert
...fraught,
Sits he alone in silent thought?
Silent he sits; for far away
His passion'd soul delights to stray;
Recluse he roves and strives to shun
All human-kind because he loves but One!

Yes, King of Persia, thou art blest;
But not because the sparkling bowl
To rapture lifts thy waken'd soul
But not because of Power possest,
Not that the Nations dread thy nod,
And Princes reverence thee their earthly God,
Even on a Monarch's solitude
Care the black Spectre will intrude,
The ...Read more of this...

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Book: Reflection on the Important Things