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Famous Tiber Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Horace,
...ame
     The Tusculan Mamilius,
          Prince of the Latian name.

               XIII

     But by the yellow Tiber
          Was tumult and affright:
     From all the spacious champaign
          To Rome men took their flight.
     A mile around the city,
          The throng stopped up the ways;
     A fearful sight it was to see
          Through two long nights and days.

               XIV

     For aged folks on crutches,
          And women great...Read more of this...



by Burns, Robert
...an’ Tweed, to monie a tune,
 Owre Scotland rings;
While Irwin, Lugar, Ayr, an’ Doon
 Naebody sings.


Th’ Illissus, Tiber, Thames, an’ Seine,
Glide sweet in monie a tunefu’ line:
But Willie, set your fit to mine,
 An’ cock your crest;
We’ll gar our streams an’ burnies shine
 Up wi’ the best!


We’ll sing auld Coila’s plains an’ fells,
Her moors red-brown wi’ heather bells,
Her banks an’ braes, her dens and dells,
 Whare glorious Wallace
Aft bure the gree, as story tells,
...Read more of this...

by Brackenridge, Hugh Henry
...ace blow. 
No more the maids round Alpheus' waters stray 
Where he with Arethusas' stream doth mix, 
Or where swift Tiber disembogues his waves 
Into th' Italian sea so long unsung. 
Hither they've wing'd their way, the last, the best 
Of countries where the arts shall rise and grow 
Luxuriant, graceful; and ev'n now we boast 
A Franklin skill'd in deep philosophy, 
A genius piercing as th' electric fire, 
Bright as the light'nings flash explain'd so well 
By him the ...Read more of this...

by Horace,
...ce the stock-dove wont to bide,
     And does were floating, all distraught,
               Adown the tide.
     Old Tiber, hurl'd in tumult back
       From mingling with the Etruscan main,
     Has threaten'd Numa's court with wrack
               And Vesta's fane.
     Roused by his Ilia's plaintive woes,
       He vows revenge for guiltless blood,
     And, spite of Jove, his banks o'erflows,
               Uxorious flood.
     Yes, Fame shall tell of civic ste...Read more of this...

by Lazarus, Emma
...Rome. 
All the Campagna spreads before my sight, 
The mouldering wall, the Caesars' tombs unwreathed, 
Rome and the Tiber, and the yellow light, 
Wherein the honey-colored blossom breathed. 
But most I thank it--egoists that we be! 
For proving then and there you thought of me....Read more of this...



by Ashbery, John
...Arno is all stones.
Wind ruffles the Hudson's
Surface. The Irawaddy is overflowing.
But the yellowish, gray Tiber
Is contained within steep banks. The Isar
Flows too fast to swim in, the Jordan's water
Courses over the flat land. The Allegheny and its boats
Were dark blue. The Moskowa is
Gray boats. The Amstel flows slowly.
Leaves fall into the Connecticut as it passes
Underneath. The Liffey is full of sewage,
Like the Seine, but unlike
The...Read more of this...

by Service, Robert William
...on Kinchinjunga, and I've crossed the Great Karoo.
I've drifted on the Hoang-ho, the Nile and Amazon;
I've swam the Tiber and the Po.." thus I was going on,
When Jobson yawned above his beer, and rumbled: "Is that so?...
It's been so damned exciting here, too bad you had to go.
We've had the devil of a slump; the market's gone to pot;
You should have stuck around, you chump, you've missed an awful lot."

. . . . . . .Read more of this...

by Horace,
...it
     On horseback in his company, nor with uneven bit
         His Gallic courser tame?
     Why dreads he yellow Tiber, as 'twould sully that fair frame?
         Like poison loathes the oil,
     His arms no longer black and blue with honourable toil,
         He who erewhile was known
     For quoit or javelin oft and oft beyond the limit thrown?
         Why skulks he, as they say
     Did Thetis' son before the dawn of Ilion's fatal day,
         For fear th...Read more of this...

by Hugo, Victor
...low 
 Of tears never to cease! Oh, Hope quite gone, 
 Dead like the dead!—Yet could they live alone— 
 Without their Tiber and their Rome? and be 
 Young and Italian—and not also free? 
 They longed to see the ancient eagle try 
 His lordly pinions in a modern sky. 
 They bore—each on himself—the insults laid 
 On the dear foster-land: of naught afraid, 
 Save of not finding foes enough to dare 
 For Italy. Ah; gallant, free, and rare 
 Young martyrs of a sacred ca...Read more of this...

by Hugo, Victor
...jousts, where, spite of cynic vaunts, 
 Austere but lenient Seneca no "Ercles" bumper daunts; 
 
 Nor where upon the Tiber floats Aglae in galley gay, 
 'Neath Asian tent of brilliant stripes, in gorgeous array; 
 Nor when to lutes and tambourines the wealthy prefect flings 
 A score of slaves, their fetters wreathed, to feed grim, greedy 
 things. 
 
 I vow to show ye Rome aflame, the whole town in a mass; 
 Upon this tower we'll take our stand to watch the 'wilder...Read more of this...

by Masefield, John
...

Beauty was here in on this beetle-droning downland;
The thought of a Caesar in the purple came
From the palace by the Tiber in the Roman townland
To this wind-swept hill with no name.

Lonely Beauty came here and was here in sadness,
Brave as a thought on the frontier of the mind,
In the camp of the wild upon the march of madness,
The bright-eyed Queen of the Blind.

Now where Beauty was are the wind-withered gorses,
Moaning like old men in the hill-wind's blast;
Th...Read more of this...

by Robinson, Mary Darby
...ts and vivifies the fainting soul,
With extacies beyond the pow'rs of song!
That ere I reach those banks
Where the loud TIBER flows,
Or milder ARNO slowly steals along,
To the soft music of the summer breeze,
The wafting wing of TIME
May bear this last ADIEU,
This wild untutor'd picture of the heart,
To HIM, whose magic verse INSPIR'D THE STRAIN....Read more of this...

by Wilde, Oscar
...cred street.


II.


And yet what joy it were for me
To turn my feet unto the south,
And journeying towards the Tiber mouth
To kneel again at Fiesole!

And wandering through the tangled pines
That break the gold of Arno's stream,
To see the purple mist and gleam
Of morning on the Apennines

By many a vineyard-hidden home,
Orchard and olive-garden grey,
Till from the drear Campagna's way
The seven hills bear up the dome!


III.


A pilgrim from the northern seas -
...Read more of this...

by Kipling, Rudyard
...t City should arise and bear
 The weight and state of Rome.

A shiftless, westward-wandering tramp,
 Checked by the Tiber flood, 
He reared a wall around his camp
 Of uninspired mud.

But when his brother leaped the Wall
 And mocked its height and make,
He guessed the future of it all
 And slew him for its sake.

Swift was the blow--swift as the thought
 Which showed him in that hour
How unbelief may bring to naught
 The early steps of Power.

Foreseeing Time'...Read more of this...

by Petrarch, Francesco
...br>]  Nor Arne, nor Mincius, nor stately Tiber,Sebethus, nor the flood into whose streamsHe fell who burnt the world with borrow'd beams;Gold-rolling Tagus, Munda, famous Iber,Sorgue, Rhone, Loire, Garron, nor proud-bank'd Seine,Peneus, Phasis, Xanthus, humble Ladon,...Read more of this...

by Swinburne, Algernon Charles
...as casting of crowns from them, from their young men's heads,
The crowns of shame.

By the horn of Eridanus, by the Tiber mouth,
As thy day rose,
They arose up and girded them to the north and south,
By seas, by snows.

As a water in January the frost confines,
Thy kings bound thee;
As a water in April is, in the new-blown vines,
Thy sons made free.

And thy lovers that looked for thee, and that mourned from far,
For thy sake dead,
We rejoiced in the light of thee...Read more of this...

by Chesterton, G K
...ts in lines,
To quiet men with olives
Or madden men with vines.

"No more shall the white towns of the south,
Where Tiber and Nilus run,
Sitting around a secret sea
Worship a secret sun.

"The blind gods roar for Rome fallen,
And forum and garland gone,
For the ice of the north is broken,
And the sea of the north comes on.

"The blind gods roar and rave and dream
Of all cities under the sea,
For the heart of the north is broken,
And the blood of the north is free....Read more of this...

by Chatterton, Thomas
...On Tiber's banks, Tiber, whose waters glide 
In slow meanders down to Gaigra's side; 
And circling all the horrid mountain round, 
Rushes impetuous to the deep profound; 
Rolls o'er the ragged rocks with hideous yell; 
Collects its waves beneath the earth's vast shell; 
There for a while in loud confusion hurl'd, 
It crumbles mountains down and shakes the world...Read more of this...

by Lowell, Robert
...ined by the hands of time;
they show how more was lost by chance and time
the Hannibal or Ceasar could consume.
The Tiber flows still, but its waste laments
a city that has fallen in its grave—
each wave's a woman beating at her breast.
O Rome! Form all you palms, dominion, bronze
and beauty, what was firm has fled. What once
was fugitive maintains its permenance....Read more of this...

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Book: Reflection on the Important Things