Famous Sage Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Sage poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous sage poems. These examples illustrate what a famous sage poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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...s that light which from remotest times
Shone to the just; gave sweet serenity,
And sunshine to the soul, of each wise sage,
Fam'd patriarch, and holy man of God,
Who in the infancy of time did walk
With step unerring, through those dreary shades,
Which veil'd the world e'er yet the golden sun
Of revelation beam'd. Seth, Enos, and
The family of him preserv'd from death
By flood of waters. Abram and that swain
Who erst exil'd in Midian did sing
The world from chaos r...Read more of this...
by
Brackenridge, Hugh Henry
...e know their origin, how tell,
From whence or where the Indian tribes arose?
ACASTO.
And long has this defy'd the sages skill
T' investigate: Tradition seems to hide
The mighty secret from each mortal eye,
How first these various nations South and North
Possest these shores, or from what countries came.
Whether they sprang from some premoeval head
In their own lands, like Adam in the East;
Yet this the sacred oracles deny,
And reason too reclaims against the tho...Read more of this...
by
Brackenridge, Hugh Henry
...His endless fame attend.
XV
Pleasant—various as the year;
Man, soul, and angel, without peer,
Priest, champion, sage, and boy;
In armor, or in ephod clad,
His pomp, his piety was glad;
Majestic was his joy.
XVI
Wise—in recovery from his fall,
Whence rose his eminence o'er all,
Of all the most revil'd;
The light of Israel in his ways,
Wise are his precepts, prayer and praise,
And counsel to his child.
XVII
His muse, bright angel of his verse,
Gives ...Read more of this...
by
Smart, Christopher
...a time, La Mancha's Knight, they say,
A certain Bard encountring on the Way,
Discours'd in Terms as just, with Looks as Sage,
As e'er cou'd Dennis, of the Grecian Stage;
Concluding all were desp'rate Sots and Fools,
Who durst depart from Aristotle's Rules.
Our Author, happy in a Judge so nice,
Produc'd his Play, and beg'd the Knight's Advice,
Made him observe the Subject and the Plot,
The Manners, Passions, Unities, what not?
All which, exact to Rule were brought about,
Were ...Read more of this...
by
Pope, Alexander
...l folk, since his father had gone
away from the world, till awoke an heir,
haughty Healfdene, who held through life,
sage and sturdy, the Scyldings glad.
Then, one after one, there woke to him,
to the chieftain of clansmen, children four:
Heorogar, then Hrothgar, then Halga brave;
and I heard that -- was -- ’s queen,
the Heathoscylfing’s helpmate dear.
To Hrothgar was given such glory of war,
such honor of combat, that all his kin
obeyed him gladly till great grew ...Read more of this...
by
Anonymous,
...ELD. BRO. Unmuffle, ye faint stars; and thou, fair moon,
That wont'st to love the traveller's benison,
Stoop thy pale visage through an amber cloud,
And disinherit Chaos, that reigns here
In double night of darkness and of shades;
Or, if your influence be quite dammed up
With black usurping mists, some gentle taper,
Though a rush-candle from the wicker hole
Of some clay habitation, visit us
With thy long levelled rule of streaming light,
And thou shalt be our star of Arcady,
...Read more of this...
by
Milton, John
...hand against the hounds.
Roses and gladioles make up bright mounds
Of flowers, with juniper and aniseed;
While sage, all newly cut for this great need,
Covers the Persian carpet that is spread
Beneath the table, and so helps to shed
Around a perfume of the balmy spring.
Beyond is desolation withering.
One hears within the hollow dreary space
Across the grove, made fresh by summer's grace,
The wind that ever is with mystic might
A spirit ripple...Read more of this...
by
Hugo, Victor
...a finger stay'd Ixion's wheel.
Her face was large as that of Memphian sphinx,
Pedestal'd haply in a palace court,
When sages look'd to Egypt for their lore.
But oh! how unlike marble was that face:
How beautiful, if sorrow had not made
Sorrow more beautiful than Beauty's self.
There was a listening fear in her regard,
As if calamity had but begun;
As if the vanward clouds of evil days
Had spent their malice, and the sullen rear
Was with its stored thunder labouring up.
One h...Read more of this...
by
Keats, John
...un
No more I seek, ye scarce should ask, who see
The beast that turned me, nor faint hope have I
To force that passage if thine aid deny."
He answered, "Would ye leave this wild and live,
Strange road is ours, for where the she-wolf lies
Shall no man pass, except the path he tries
Her craft entangle. No way fugitive
Avoids the seeking of her greeds, that give
Insatiate hunger, and such vice perverse
As makes her leaner while she feeds, and worse
Her crav...Read more of this...
by
Alighieri, Dante
...nt engraven
Deliberation sat, and public care;
And princely counsel in his face yet shone,
Majestic, though in ruin. Sage he stood
With Atlantean shoulders, fit to bear
The weight of mightiest monarchies; his look
Drew audience and attention still as night
Or summer's noontide air, while thus he spake:--
"Thrones and Imperial Powers, Offspring of Heaven,
Ethereal Virtues! or these titles now
Must we renounce, and, changing style, be called
Princes of Hell? for so ...Read more of this...
by
Milton, John
...form’d, impell’d, passing a certain line, still keeps on,
So the present, utterly form’d, impell’d by the past.)
2
Passage, O soul, to India!
Eclaircise the myths Asiatic—the primitive fables.
Not you alone, proud truths of the world!
Nor you alone, ye facts of modern science!
But myths and fables of eld—Asia’s, Africa’s fables!
The far-darting beams of the spirit!—the unloos’d dreams!
The deep diving bibles and legends;
The daring plots of the poets—the elder religi...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...nd mild reproach of hunger looked;
The hornëd patriarch of the sheep,
Like Egypt's Amun roused from sleep,
Shook his sage head with gesture mute,
And emphasized with stamp of foot.
All day the gusty north-wind bore
The loosening drift its breath before;
Low circling round its southern zone,
The sun through dazzling snow-mist shone.
No church-bell lent its Christian tone
To the savage air, no social smoke
Curled over woods of snow-hung oak.
A solitude made more in...Read more of this...
by
Whittier, John Greenleaf
...y him caught,
The fairer he had fled away!
Thus stood, in wonder rapture-fraught,
Ulysses' noble son that day,
When the sage mentor who his youth beguiled;
Herself transfigured as Jove's glorious child!
Man's honor is confided to your hand,--
There let it well protected be!
It sinks with you! with you it will expand!
Poesy's sacred sorcery
Obeys a world-plan wise and good;
In silence let it swell the flood
Of mighty-rolling harmony.
By her own time viewed with disdain,
Let ...Read more of this...
by
Schiller, Friedrich von
...lliance now can I have hope,
5.18 But what I have done well, that is my prop.
5.19 He that in youth is godly, wise, and sage
5.20 Provides a staff for to support his age.
5.21 Great mutations, some joyful, and some sad,
5.22 In this short Pilgrimage I oft have had.
5.23 Sometimes the Heavens with plenty smil'd on me,
5.24 Sometimes, again, rain'd all adversity;
5.25 Sometimes in honour, sometimes in disgrace,
5.26 Sometime an abject, then again in place:
5.27 Such private cha...Read more of this...
by
Bradstreet, Anne
...zed.
Not his the form, nor his the eye,
That youthful maidens wont to fly.
XXI.
On his bold visage middle age
Had slightly pressed its signet sage,
Yet had not quenched the open truth
And fiery vehemence of youth;
Forward and frolic glee was there,
The will to do, the soul to dare,
The sparkling glance, soon blown to fire,
Of hasty love or headlong ire.
His limbs were cast in manly could
For hardy...Read more of this...
by
Scott, Sir Walter
...l with equatorial snows—
And all for what, the devil only knows—
Will aggregate an inkling to confirm
The credit of a sage or of a worm,
Or tell us why one man in five
Should have a care to stay alive
While in his heart he feels no violence
Laid on his humor and intelligence
When infant Science makes a pleasant face
And waves again that hollow toy, the Race;
No planetary trap where souls are wrought
For nothing but the sake of being caught
And sent again to nothing w...Read more of this...
by
Robinson, Edwin Arlington
...e warrior band I fix'd my view,But now a different troop my notice drew:The sage Palladian tribe, a nobler train,Whose toils deserve a more exalted strain.Plato majestic in the front appear'd,Where wisdom's sacred hand her ensign rear'd.Celestial blazonry! by heaven bestow'd,Which, waving high, before the vaward glow'd:Read more of this...
by
Petrarch, Francesco
...head, a cloud like crape,
Was bent a dun & faint etherial gloom
Tempering the light; upon the chariot's beam
A Janus-visaged Shadow did assume
The guidance of that wonder-winged team.
The Shapes which drew it in thick lightnings
Were lost: I heard alone on the air's soft stream
The music of their ever moving wings.
All the four faces of that charioteer
Had their eyes banded . . . little profit brings
Speed in the van & blindness in the rear,
Nor then avail the beams that que...Read more of this...
by
Shelley, Percy Bysshe
...
Morals and arts ye sent forth, e'en to the ocean's far isles.
'Twas at these friendly gates that the law was spoken by sages;
In their Penates' defence, heroes rushed out to the fray.
On the high walls appeared the mothers, embracing their infants,
Looking after the march, till the distance 'twas lost.
Then in prayer they threw themselves down at the deities' altars,
Praying for triumph and fame, praying for your safe return.
Honor and triumph were yours, but naught returned...Read more of this...
by
Schiller, Friedrich von
...urthe husband was on bier,
I wept algate* and made a sorry cheer,** *always **countenance
As wives must, for it is the usage;
And with my kerchief covered my visage;
But, for I was provided with a make,* *mate
I wept but little, that I undertake* *promise
To churche was mine husband borne a-morrow
With neighebours that for him made sorrow,
And Jenkin, oure clerk, was one of tho:* *those
As help me God, when that I saw him go
After the bier, methought he had a pair
Of legges a...Read more of this...
by
Chaucer, Geoffrey
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