Famous Soar Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Adonais

...ho like thee could scale
Heaven, and could nourish in the sun's domain
Her mighty youth with morning, doth complain,
Soaring and screaming round her empty nest,
As Albion wails for thee: the curse of Cain
Light on his head who pierced thy innocent breast,
And scared the angel soul that was its earthly guest!

Ah, woe is me! Winter is come and gone,
But grief returns with the revolving year;
The airs and streams renew their joyous tone;
The ants, the bees, the swall...Read more of this...
by Shelley, Percy Bysshe


Al Aaraaf

...r station, on the winds apart.
And roll'd, a flame, the fiery Heaven athwart.
Methought, my sweet one, then I ceased to soar
And fell- not swiftly as I rose before,
But with a downward, tremulous motion thro'
Light, brazen rays, this golden star unto!
Nor long the measure of my falling hours,
For nearest of all stars was thine to ours-
Dread star! that came, amid a night of mirth,
A red Daedalion on the timid Earth."

"We came- and to thy Earth- but not to us
Be given our lad...Read more of this...
by Poe, Edgar Allan

As a Strong Bird on Pinions Free

...w! 
I merely thee ejaculate! 

Thee in thy future; 
Thee in thy only permanent life, career—thy own unloosen’d mind—thy soaring
 spirit; 
Thee as another equally needed sun, America—radiant, ablaze, swift-moving,
 fructifying
 all;
Thee! risen in thy potent cheerfulness and joy—thy endless, great hilarity! 
(Scattering for good the cloud that hung so long—that weigh’d so long upon the
 mind
 of man, 
The doubt, suspicion, dread, of gradual, certain decadence of man;) 
Thee in...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt

Comus

...:
I can fly, or I can run,
Quickly to the green earth's end,
Where the bowed welkin slow doth bend,
And from thence can soar as soon
To the corners of the moon.
Mortals, that would follow me,
Love virtue; she alone is free.
She can teach ye how to climb
Higher than the sphery chime;
Or, if Virtue feeble were,
Heaven itself would stoop to her....Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Endymion: Book I

...ng my eye, until the doors
Of heaven appear'd to open for my flight,
I became loth and fearful to alight
From such high soaring by a downward glance:
So kept me stedfast in that airy trance,
Spreading imaginary pinions wide.
When, presently, the stars began to glide,
And faint away, before my eager view:
At which I sigh'd that I could not pursue,
And dropt my vision to the horizon's verge;
And lo! from opening clouds, I saw emerge
The loveliest moon, that ever silver'd o'er
A...Read more of this...
by Keats, John


Endymion: Book II

...t reached a splashing fountain's side
That, near a cavern's mouth, for ever pour'd
Unto the temperate air: then high it soar'd,
And, downward, suddenly began to dip,
As if, athirst with so much toil, 'twould sip
The crystal spout-head: so it did, with touch
Most delicate, as though afraid to smutch
Even with mealy gold the waters clear.
But, at that very touch, to disappear
So fairy-quick, was strange! Bewildered,
Endymion sought around, and shook each bed
Of covert flowers i...Read more of this...
by Keats, John

Essay on Man

...e open, what the covert yield; 
The latent tracts(3), the giddy heights explore 
Of all who blindly creep, or sightless soar; 
Eye Nature's walks, shoot Folly as it flies, 
And catch the Manners living as they rise; 
Laugh where we must, be candid where we can; 
But vindicate(4) the ways of God to Man. 
1. Say first, of God above, or Man below, 
What can we reason, but from what we know? 
Of Man what see we, but his station here, 
From which to reason, or to which refer? 
Thr...Read more of this...
by Pope, Alexander

February

...substance of the less'ning bays. 

Come, February, lend thy darkest sky. 
There teach the winter'd muse with clouds to soar; 
Come, February, lift the number high; 
Let the sharp strain like wind thro' alleys roar. 

Ye channels, wand'ring thro' the spacious street, 
In hollow murmurs roll the dirt along, 
With inundations wet the sabled feet, 
Whilst gouts responsive, join th'elegiac song. 

Ye damsels fair, whose silver voices shrill, 
Sound thro' meand'ring folds of Echo'...Read more of this...
by Chatterton, Thomas

Frederick Douglass

...assed beyond the shore,
But still thy voice is ringing o'er the gale!
Thou 'st taught thy race how high her hopes may soar
And bade her seek the heights, nor faint, nor fail.
She will not fail, she heeds thy stirring cry,
She knows thy guardian spirit will be nigh,
And rising from beneath the chast'ning rod,
She stretches out her bleeding hands to God!...Read more of this...
by Laurence Dunbar, Paul

from On the Equality of the Sexes Part I

...are not alike, full well I know,
This truth each day's experience will show.
To heights surprising some great spirits soar,
With inborn strength mysterious depths explore;
Their eager gaze surveys the path of light,
Confessed it stood to Newton's piercing sight,
     Deep science, like a bashful maid retires,
And but the ardent breast her worth inspires;
By perseverance the coy fair is won,
And Genius, led by Study, wears the crown.
     But some there are who wish ...Read more of this...
by Murray, Judith Sargent

Paradise Lost: Book 01

...wed 
Fast by the oracle of God, I thence 
Invoke thy aid to my adventurous song, 
That with no middle flight intends to soar 
Above th' Aonian mount, while it pursues 
Things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme. 
And chiefly thou, O Spirit, that dost prefer 
Before all temples th' upright heart and pure, 
Instruct me, for thou know'st; thou from the first 
Wast present, and, with mighty wings outspread, 
Dove-like sat'st brooding on the vast Abyss, 
And mad'st it pregnant: what...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Paradise Lost: Book 04

...then said Satan, filled with scorn, 
Know ye not me? ye knew me once no mate 
For you, there sitting where ye durst not soar: 
Not to know me argues yourselves unknown, 
The lowest of your throng; or, if ye know, 
Why ask ye, and superfluous begin 
Your message, like to end as much in vain? 
To whom thus Zephon, answering scorn with scorn. 
Think not, revolted Spirit, thy shape the same, 
Or undiminished brightness to be known, 
As when thou stoodest in Heaven upright and pur...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Paradise Lost: Book 05

...n worlds and worlds, with steady wing 
Now on the polar winds, then with quick fan 
Winnows the buxom air; till, within soar 
Of towering eagles, to all the fowls he seems 
A phoenix, gazed by all as that sole bird, 
When, to enshrine his reliques in the Sun's 
Bright temple, to Egyptian Thebes he flies. 
At once on the eastern cliff of Paradise 
He lights, and to his proper shape returns 
A Seraph winged: Six wings he wore, to shade 
His lineaments divine; the pair that clad...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

The Deserted Garden

...amid the wavy plumes to lie,
And through the woven branches overhead
Watch the white, ever-wandering clouds go by,
And soaring birds make their dissolving bed
Far in the azure depths of summer sky,
Or nearer that small huntsman of the air,
The fly-catcher, dart nimbly from his leafy lair;

Pillowed at case to hear the merry tune
Of mating warblers in the boughs above
And shrill cicadas whom the hottest noon
Keeps not from drowsy song; the mourning dove
Pours down the murmuri...Read more of this...
by Seeger, Alan

The Giaour

...and despot sway.

What can he tell who tread thy shore?
No legend of thine olden time,
No theme on which the Muse might soar
High as thine own days of yore,
When man was worthy of thy clime.
The hearts within thy valleys bred,
The fiery souls that might have led
Thy sons to deeds sublime,
Now crawl from cradle to the Grave,
Slaves--nay, the bondsmen of a Slave,
And callous, save to crime.
Stained with each evil that pollutes
Mankind, where least above the brutes;
Without even...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)

The Magpie Evening: A Prayer

...em regather into the chairs exactly 
Matched to their numbers, blessing the bountiful or 
The meager with voices that soar toward renewal.
Let them have mercy on themselves.  Let my children,
Grown now, be repairing my faults with forgiveness.

© Gary Fincke...Read more of this...
by Fincke, Gary

The Prologue

...ce in each and all is yours,
Yet grant some small acknowledgement of ours.


8

And oh, ye high flown quills that soar the skies,
And ever with your prey, still catch your praise,
If e'er you deign these lowly lines your eyes,
Give wholesome parsley wreath, I ask no bays:
This mean and unrefinèd stuff of mine,
Will make your glistering gold but more to shine.
...Read more of this...
by Bradstreet, Anne

The Seasons: Winter

...n. Then is the Time,
For those, whom Wisdom, and whom Nature charm,
To steal themselves from the degenerate Croud, 
And soar above this little Scene of Things:
To tread low-thoughted Vice beneath their Feet:
To lay their Passions in a gentle Calm,
And woo lone Quiet, in her silent Walks.

NOW, solitary, and in pensive Guise, 
Oft, let me wander o'er the russet Mead,
Or thro' the pining Grove; where scarce is heard
One dying Strain, to chear the Woodman's Toil:
Sad Philomel, p...Read more of this...
by Thomson, James

The Triumph of Life

...this earth their charnel.--Others more
Humble, like falcons sate upon the fist
Of common men, and round their heads did soar,
"Or like small gnats & flies, as thick as mist
On evening marshes, thronged about the brow
Of lawyer, statesman, priest & theorist,
"And others like discoloured flakes of snow
On fairest bosoms & the sunniest hair
Fell, and were melted by the youthful glow
"Which they extinguished; for like tears, they were
A veil to those from whose faint lids they ra...Read more of this...
by Shelley, Percy Bysshe

To Some Birds Flown Away

...fall; 
 These papers are the sacred nest 
 In which his crooning fancies rest; 
 To-morrow winged to Heaven they'll soar, 
 For new-born verse imprisoned still 
 In manuscript may suffer sore 
 At your small hands and childish will, 
 Without a thought of bad intent, 
 Of cruelty quite innocent. 
 You wound their feet, and bruise their wings, 
 And make them suffer those ill things 
 That children's play to young birds brings. 
 
 But mine! no matter what you do...Read more of this...
by Hugo, Victor

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