Famous Summits Poems by Famous Poets

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

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A Curse For A Nation

...e sea,
Who stretch out kindly hands to me.'

'Therefore,' the voice said, 'shalt thou write
My curse to-night.
From the summits of love a curse is driven,
As lightning is from the tops of heaven.'

'Not so,' I answered. 'Evermore
My heart is sore
For my own land's sins: for little feet
Of children bleeding along the street:

'For parked-up honors that gainsay
The right of way:
For almsgiving through a door that is
Not open enough for two friends to kiss:

'For love of freedom...Read more of this...
by Browning, Elizabeth Barrett


A Pastoral Dialogue (Melibæus Alcippe Asteria Licida Alcimedon and Amira. )

...oes prey, 
Those hours pass swiftest, that we talk away.
Declining Sol forsaken hath the Fields, 
And Mountains highest Summits only gildes: 
Which warns us home-wards with our Flocks to make. 
 Alci. Along with thee our Thanks and Praises take. 
 Aste. In which our Hearts do all in One unite,
What e're the Gods as their Best Gifts bestow. 
 Meli. Kind Nymphs on you may Equal Blessings flow....Read more of this...
by Killigrew, Anne

Alastor: or the Spirit of Solitude

...human form 
Had been an elemental god.

At midnight
The moon arose; and lo! the ethereal cliffs
Of Caucasus, whose icy summits shone
Among the stars like sunlight, and around
Whose caverned base the whirlpools and the waves
Bursting and eddying irresistibly
Rage and resound forever.--Who shall save?--
The boat fled on,--the boiling torrent drove,--
The crags closed round with black and jagged arms,
The shattered mountain overhung the sea, 
And faster still, beyond all human ...Read more of this...
by Shelley, Percy Bysshe

Belisarius

...ndy street. 

For him I won again
The Ausonian realm and reign,
Rome and Parthenope;
And all the land was mine
From the summits of Apennine
To the shores of either sea. 

For him, in my feeble age,
I dared the battle's rage,
To save Byzantium's state,
When the tents of Zabergan,
Like snow-drifts overran
The road to the Golden Gate. 

And for this, for this, behold!
Infirm and blind and old,
With gray, uncovered head,
Beneath the very arch
Of my triumphal march,
I stand and be...Read more of this...
by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth

Blow Bugle Blow

...THE splendour falls on castle walls 
And snowy summits old in story: 
The long light shakes across the lakes, 
And the wild cataract leaps in glory. 
Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying, 
Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying. 

O hark, O hear! how thin and clear, 
And thinner, clearer, farther going! 
O sweet and far from cliff and scar 
The horns of Elfland faintly blowing! 
Blow, ...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord


Blow Bugle blow

...THE splendour falls on castle walls 
And snowy summits old in story: 
The long light shakes across the lakes  
And the wild cataract leaps in glory. 
Blow bugle blow set the wild echoes flying 5 
Blow bugle; answer echoes dying dying dying. 

O hark O hear! how thin and clear  
And thinner clearer farther going! 
O sweet and far from cliff and scar 
The horns of Elfland faintly blowing! 10 
Blo...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord

Celestial Love

...an,
Melt into one.
There Past, Present, Future, shoot
Triple blossoms from one root
Substances at base divided
In their summits are united,
There the holy Essence rolls,
One through separated souls,
And the sunny &Aelig;on sleeps
Folding nature in its deeps,
And every fair and every good
Known in part or known impure
To men below,
In their archetypes endure.

The race of gods,
Or those we erring own,
Are shadows flitting up and down
In the still abodes.
The circles of that se...Read more of this...
by Emerson, Ralph Waldo

Hiawatha And Mudjekeewis

...the dwellings of the Blackfeet, 
Came unto the Rocky Mountains, 
To the kingdom of the West-Wind, 
Where upon the gusty summits
Sat the ancient Mudjekeewis, 
Ruler of the winds of heaven.
Filled with awe was Hiawatha 
At the aspect of his father. 
On the air about him wildly 
Tossed and streamed his cloudy tresses, 
Gleamed like drifting snow his tresses, 
Glared like Ishkoodah, the comet, 
Like the star with fiery tresses.
Filled with joy was Mudjekeewis 
When he looked on H...Read more of this...
by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth

Intima (Intimate)

...ms of my lifeOn this deepest of blue nights.In your hands my soul will tremble,On your shoulders my cross will rest.The summits of life are lonely,So lonely and so cold! I lockedMy yearnings inside, and all resideIn the ivory tower I raised.Today I will reveal a great mystery;Your soul has the power to penetrate me.In silence are vertigos of the abyss:I hesitate, I am sustained in you.I die of dreams; I will drink truth,Pure and cool, from your springs.I know in the well of y...Read more of this...
by Agustini, Delmira

Landscapes

...from anquish 
Full of death tales 

I speak of open valleys 
Fertile at men's feet 
Overgrown with flowers 

Of captive summits 

Of mountains, of clear skies 
Devoured by untamed evergreens 

And of trees that know 
The welcome of lakes 
Black earth 
Errant pathways 

Echoes of the faces 
Haunting our days....Read more of this...
by Burnside, John

Monadnoc

...yes,
Eyes that frame cities where none be,
And hands that stablish what these see:
And, by the moral of his place,
Hint summits of heroic grace;
Man in these crags a fastness find
To fight pollution of the mind;
In the wide thaw and ooze of wrong,
Adhere like this foundation strong,
The insanity of towns to stem
With simpleness for stratagem.
But if the brave old mould is broke,
And end in clowns the mountain-folk,
In tavern cheer and tavern joke,—
Sink, O mountain! in the sw...Read more of this...
by Emerson, Ralph Waldo

Morituri Salutamus: Poem for the Fiftieth Anniversary

...r delight 
To see the embattled hosts, with spear and shield, 
Of Trojans and Achaians in the field; 
So from the snowy summits of our years 
We see you in the plain, as each appears, 
And question of you; asking, "Who is he 
That towers above the others? Which may be 
Atreides, Menelaus, Odysseus, 
Ajax the great, or bold Idomeneus?" 

Let him not boast who puts his armor on 
As he who puts it off, the battle done. 
Study yourselves; and most of all note well 
Wherein kind N...Read more of this...
by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth

Mountains

...t behind this mountain land. 


``Lovely Being, can a mortal, weary of this changeless scene, 

Cross these cloudy summits to the land where man hath never been? 
Can he find a pathway leading through that wildering mass of pines, 
So that he shall reach the country where ethereal glory shines; 
So that he may glance at waters never dark with coming ships; 
Hearing round him gentle language floating from angelic lips; 
Casting off his earthly fetters, living there f...Read more of this...
by Kendall, Henry

The Ballad Of Blasphemous Bill

...ream I slept to lose and I waked to dream again.

River and plain and mighty peak--and who could stand unawed?
As their summits blazed, he could stand undazed at the foot of the throne of God.
North, aye, North, through a land accurst, shunned by the scouring brutes,
And all I heard was my own harsh word and the whine of the malamutes,
Till at last I came to a cabin squat, built in the side of a hill,
And I burst in the door, and there on the floor, frozen to death, lay Bill....Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William

The Eve Of Revolution

...leep, when all her strengths forsake
The sense-compelling spirit; the depths glow,
The heights flash, and the roots and summits shake
Of earth in all her mountains,
And the inner foamless fountains
And wellsprings of her fast-bound forces quake;
Yea, the whole air of life
Is set on fire of strife,
Till change unmake things made and love remake;
Reason and love, whose names are one,
Seeing reason is the sunlight shed from love the sun.



The night is broken eastward; is it da...Read more of this...
by Swinburne, Algernon Charles

The Farewell XXVIII

...in your sleep your dreams were my dreams. 

And oftentimes I was among you a lake among the mountains. 

I mirrored the summits in you and the bending slopes, and even the passing flocks of your thoughts and your desires. 

And to my silence came the laughter of your children in streams, and the longing of your youths in rivers. 

And when they reached my depth the streams and the rivers ceased not yet to sing. 

But sweeter still than laughter and greater than longing came t...Read more of this...
by Gibran, Kahlil

The Giaour

...here:
Each side the midway path there lay
Small broken crags of granite grey
By time, or mountain lightning, riven
From summits clad in mists of heaven;
For where is he that hath beheld
The peak of Liakura unveiled?


They reach the grove of pine at last:
'Bismillah! now the peril's past;
For yonder view the opening plain,
And there we'll prick our steeds amain.'
The Chiaus spake, and as he said,
A bullet whistled o'er his head;
The foremost Tartar bites the ground!
Scarce ha...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)

The Hermit of Mont-Blanc

...of social intercourse,
Alone, unpitied, by the world forgot!

His Scrip each morning bore the day's repast
Gather'd on summits, mingling with the clouds,
From whose bleak altitude the Eye look'd down
While fast the giddy brain was rock'd by fear.
Oft would he start from visionary rest
When roaming wolves their midnight chorus howl'd,
Or blasts infuriate shatter'd the white cliffs,
While the huge fragments, rifted by the storm,
Plung'd to the dell below. Oft would he sit
In s...Read more of this...
by Robinson, Mary Darby

The Lady of the Lake

...ks of the pass,
     Huge as the tower which builders vain
     Presumptuous piled on Shinar's plain.
     The rocky summits, split and rent,
     Formed turret, dome, or battlement.
     Or seemed fantastically set
     With cupola or minaret,
     Wild crests as pagod ever decked,
     Or mosque of Eastern architect.
     Nor were these earth-born castles bare,
     Nor lacked they many a banner fair;
     For, from their shivered brows displayed,
     Far o'er ...Read more of this...
by Scott, Sir Walter

The Princess (part 3)

...s death and fell, and all 
The rosy heights came out above the lawns. 


The splendour falls on castle walls 
And snowy summits old in story: 
The long light shakes across the lakes, 
And the wild cataract leaps in glory. 
Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying, 
Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying. 

O hark, O hear! how thin and clear, 
And thinner, clearer, farther going! 
O sweet and far from cliff and scar 
The horns of Elfland faintly blowing! 
Blow, ...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord

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