Famous Streams Poems by Famous Poets

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

See also:

A poem on divine revelation

...ev'ry grace and ev'ry virtue dwells, 
And where the springs of knowledge and of thought 
In riv'lets clear and gushing streams flow down 
Attempt a strain? How sing in rapture high 
Or touch in vari'd melody the lyre 
The lyre so long neglected and each strain 
Unmeditated, and long since forgot? 
But yet constrain'd on this occasion sweet 
To this fam'd hall and this assembly fair 
With comely presence honouring the day, 
She fain would pay a tributary strain. 
A purer stra...Read more of this...
by Brackenridge, Hugh Henry


An Essay On Criticism

...ards Triumphant! born in happier Days;
Immortal Heirs of Universal Praise!
Whose Honours with Increase of Ages grow,
As streams roll down, enlarging as they flow!
Nations unborn your mighty Names shall sound,
And Worlds applaud that must not yet be found!
Oh may some Spark of your Coelestial Fire
The last, the meanest of your Sons inspire,
(That on weak Wings, from far, pursues your Flights;
Glows while he reads, but trembles as he writes)
To teach vain Wits a Science little ...Read more of this...
by Pope, Alexander

Beowulf (Modern English)

...ea monsters.
Never have I learned under the vault of heaven
of a more difficult contest in the night,
nor in the sea-streams a man harder beset.
Yet I survived the clutch of foes, escaped with my life,
weary with swimming. Then the sea carried me,
the flood according to the tides onto Finnish territory,
the welling waves. I haven’t heard a peep
spoken about you, about such terrible battles,
the terror of blades. Neither Brecca nor you
ever performed much of note in ...Read more of this...
by Anonymous,

Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie

..., rose one of the oarsmen,
And, as a signal sound, if others like them peradventure
Sailed on those gloomy and midnight streams, blew a blast on his bugle.
Wild through the dark colonnades and corridors leafy the blast rang,
Breaking the seal of silence, and giving tongues to the forest.
Soundless above them the banners of moss just stirred to the music.
Multitudinous echoes awoke and died in the distance,
Over the watery floor, and beneath the reverberant branches;
But not a...Read more of this...
by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth

Hyperion

...fierce breath against the sleepy portals,
Clear'd them of heavy vapours, burst them wide
Suddenly on the ocean's chilly streams.
The planet orb of fire, whereon he rode
Each day from east to west the heavens through,
Spun round in sable curtaining of clouds;
Not therefore veiled quite, blindfold, and hid,
But ever and anon the glancing spheres,
Circles, and arcs, and broad-belting colure,
Glow'd through, and wrought upon the muffling dark
Sweet-shaped lightnings from the nadi...Read more of this...
by Keats, John


Inferno (English)

...f that which please thee, if the winds allow, 
 Gladly I tell. Ravenna, on that shore 
 Where Po finds rest for all his streams, we knew; 
 And there love conquered. Love, in gentle heart 
 So quick to take dominion, overthrew 
 Him with my own fair body, and overbore 
 Me with delight to please him. Love, which gives 
 No pardon to the loved, so strongly in me 
 Was empired, that its rule, as here ye see, 
 Endureth, nor the bitter blast contrives 
 To part us. Love to one d...Read more of this...
by Alighieri, Dante

Paradise Lost: Book 02

...r ways their flying march, along the banks 
Of four infernal rivers, that disgorge 
Into the burning lake their baleful streams-- 
Abhorred Styx, the flood of deadly hate; 
Sad Acheron of sorrow, black and deep; 
Cocytus, named of lamentation loud 
Heard on the rueful stream; fierce Phlegeton, 
Whose waves of torrent fire inflame with rage. 
Far off from these, a slow and silent stream, 
Lethe, the river of oblivion, rolls 
Her watery labyrinth, whereof who drinks 
Forthwith ...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Paradise Lost: Book 05

...tspread, 
(Such are the courts of God) the angelick throng, 
Dispersed in bands and files, their camp extend 
By living streams among the trees of life, 
Pavilions numberless, and sudden reared, 
Celestial tabernacles, where they slept 
Fanned with cool winds; save those, who, in their course, 
Melodious hymns about the sovran throne 
Alternate all night long: but not so waked 
Satan; so call him now, his former name 
Is heard no more in Heaven; he of the first, 
If not the f...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Passage to India

...t lit up again. 

Lo, soul, the retrospect, brought forward; 
The old, most populous, wealthiest of Earth’s lands, 
The streams of the Indus and the Ganges, and their many affluents;
(I, my shores of America walking to-day, behold, resuming all,) 
The tale of Alexander, on his warlike marches, suddenly dying, 
On one side China, and on the other side Persia and Arabia, 
To the south the great seas, and the Bay of Bengal; 
The flowing literatures, tremendous epics, religions, ...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt

Song of Myself

...he saw them and loved them. 

The beards of the young men glisten’d with wet, it ran from their long
 hair: 
Little streams pass’d all over their bodies. 

An unseen hand also pass’d over their bodies; 
It descended tremblingly from their temples and ribs.

The young men float on their backs—their white bellies bulge to the
 sun—they do not ask who seizes fast to them; 
They do not know who puffs and declines with pendant and bending arch; 
They do not think whom ...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt

The Ballad of the White Horse

...spring,
Till shook aloud the lintel-beams,
And the squirrels stirred in dusty dreams,
And the startled birds went up in streams,
For the laughter of the King.

And the beasts of the earth and the birds looked down,
In a wild solemnity,
On a stranger sight than a sylph or elf,
On one man laughing at himself
Under the greenwood tree--

The giant laughter of Christian men
That roars through a thousand tales,
Where greed is an ape and pride is an ass,
And Jack's away with his mas...Read more of this...
by Chesterton, G K

The Bride of Abydos

...— his keen eye shone 
With thoughts that long in darkness dwelt; 
With thoughts that burn — in rays that melt. 
As the streams late conceal'd 
By the fringe of its willows, 
When it rushes reveal'd 
In the light of its billows; 
As the bolt bursts on high 
From the black cloud that bound it, 
Flash'd the soul of that eye 
Through the long lashes round it. 
A war-horse at the trumpet's sound, 
A lion roused by heedless hound, 
A tyrant waked to sudden strife 
By graze of ill-...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)

The City In the Sea

...lie.

No rays from the holy heaven come down
On the long night-time of that town;
But light from out the lurid sea
Streams up the turrets silently-
Gleams up the pinnacles far and free-
Up domes- up spires- up kingly halls-
Up fanes- up Babylon-like walls-
Up shadowy long-forgotten bowers
Of sculptured ivy and stone flowers-
Up many and many a marvellous shrine
Whose wreathed friezes intertwine
The viol the violet and the vine.
Resignedly beneath the sky
The me...Read more of this...
by Poe, Edgar Allan

The Dance Of Death

...shod 
With a bright flower-like shoe that gems the sod. 

The swarms that hum about her collar-bones 
As the lascivious streams caress the stones, 
Conceal from every scornful jest that flies, 
Her gloomy beauty; and her fathomless eyes 

Are made of shade and void; with flowery sprays 
Her skull is wreathed artistically, and sways, 
Feeble and weak, on her frail vertebrae. 
O charm of nothing decked in folly! they 

Who laugh and name you a Caricature, 
They see not, they wh...Read more of this...
by Baudelaire, Charles

The Growth of Love

...ile of beauty and the pearl of price?
No charm is left now that could once entice
Wind-wavering fortune from her golden streams,
And full in flight decrepit purpose seems,
Trailing the banner of his old device. 
Within the house a frore and numbing air
Has chill'd endeavour: sickly memories reign
In every room, and ghosts are on the stair:
And hope behind the dusty window-pane
Watches the days go by, and bow'd with care
Forecasts her last reproach and mortal stain. 

46
Once ...Read more of this...
by Bridges, Robert Seymour

The Holy Grail

...n any in all the lands! 
Where twelve great windows blazon Arthur's wars, 
And all the light that falls upon the board 
Streams through the twelve great battles of our King. 
Nay, one there is, and at the eastern end, 
Wealthy with wandering lines of mount and mere, 
Where Arthur finds the brand Excalibur. 
And also one to the west, and counter to it, 
And blank: and who shall blazon it? when and how?-- 
O there, perchance, when all our wars are done, 
The brand Excalibur wil...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord

The Idiot Boy

...ad."   She listens, but she cannot hear  The foot of horse, the voice of man;  The streams with softest sound are flowing,  The grass you almost hear it growing,  You hear it now if e'er you can.   The owlets through the long blue night  Are shouting to each other still:  Fond lovers, yet not quite hob nob,  They lengthen out the tremulous sob,  That echoes far fr...Read more of this...
by Wordsworth, William

The Lady of the Lake

...hung.
     Loud cries their blood from Meggat's mead,
     From Yarrow braes and banks of Tweed,
     Where the lone streams of Ettrick glide,
     And from the silver Teviot's side;
     The dales, where martial clans did ride,
     Are now one sheep-walk, waste and wide.
     This tyrant of the Scottish throne,
     So faithless and so ruthless known,
     Now hither comes; his end the same,
     The same pretext of sylvan game.
     What grace for Highland Chief...Read more of this...
by Scott, Sir Walter

The Triumph of Life

...lets on the wing
"Were lost in the white blaze, others like elves
Danced in a thousand unimagined shapes
Upon the sunny streams & grassy shelves;
"And others sate chattering like restless apes
On vulgar paws and voluble like fire.
Some made a cradle of the ermined capes
"Of kingly mantles, some upon the tiar
Of pontiffs sate like vultures, others played
Within the crown which girt with empire
"A baby's or an idiot's brow, & made
Their nests in it; the old anatomies
Sate hatch...Read more of this...
by Shelley, Percy Bysshe

The Witch Of Atlas

...oh ask not me
To love you till your little race is run;
I cannot die as ye must.--Over me
Your leaves shall glance--the streams in which ye dwell
Shall be my paths henceforth; and so farewell."

She spoke and wept. The dark and azure well
Sparkled beneath the shower of her bright tears,
And every little circlet where they fell
Flung to the cavern-roof inconstant spheres
And intertangled lines of light. A knell
Of sobbing voices came upon her ears
From those departing forms, o...Read more of this...
by Shelley, Percy Bysshe

Dont forget to view our wonderful member Streams poems.

Get a Premium Membership
Get more exposure for your poetry and more features with a Premium Membership.
Book: Reflection on the Important Things

Member Area

My Admin
Profile and Settings
Edit My Poems
Edit My Quotes
Edit My Short Stories
Edit My Articles
My Comments Inboxes
My Comments Outboxes
Soup Mail
Poetry Contests
Contest Results/Status
Followers
Poems of Poets I Follow
Friend Builder

Soup Social

Poetry Forum
New/Upcoming Features
The Wall
Soup Facebook Page
Who is Online
Link to Us

Member Poems

Poems - Top 100 New
Poems - Top 100 All-Time
Poems - Best
Poems - by Topic
Poems - New (All)
Poems - New (PM)
Poems - New by Poet
Poems - Read
Poems - Unread

Member Poets

Poets - Best New
Poets - New
Poets - Top 100 Most Poems
Poets - Top 100 Most Poems Recent
Poets - Top 100 Community
Poets - Top 100 Contest

Famous Poems

Famous Poems - African American
Famous Poems - Best
Famous Poems - Classical
Famous Poems - English
Famous Poems - Haiku
Famous Poems - Love
Famous Poems - Short
Famous Poems - Top 100

Famous Poets

Famous Poets - Living
Famous Poets - Most Popular
Famous Poets - Top 100
Famous Poets - Best
Famous Poets - Women
Famous Poets - African American
Famous Poets - Beat
Famous Poets - Cinquain
Famous Poets - Classical
Famous Poets - English
Famous Poets - Haiku
Famous Poets - Hindi
Famous Poets - Jewish
Famous Poets - Love
Famous Poets - Metaphysical
Famous Poets - Modern
Famous Poets - Punjabi
Famous Poets - Romantic
Famous Poets - Spanish
Famous Poets - Suicidal
Famous Poets - Urdu
Famous Poets - War

Poetry Resources

Anagrams
Bible
Book Store
Character Counter
Cliché Finder
Poetry Clichés
Common Words
Copyright Information
Grammar
Grammar Checker
Homonym
Homophones
How to Write a Poem
Lyrics
Love Poem Generator
New Poetic Forms
Plagiarism Checker
Poetry Art
Publishing
Random Word Generator
Spell Checker
What is Good Poetry?
Word Counter