Famous Travels Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Travels poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous travels poems. These examples illustrate what a famous travels poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
See also:
by
Pritish Nandy
1
Come, let us pretend this is a ritual. This hand
in your hair, your tongue seeking mine: this
cataclysmic despair. Let us pretend tonight that
you are mine. Forever. For when daybreak returns, we
shall realise once more that forever means an
empty room, a tired night swirling into nowhere,
when I shore up to your tattered skyline.
2
At midnight I move in...Read more of this...
by
Arthur Hugh Clough
Where lies the land to which the ship would go?
Far, far ahead, is all her seamen know.
And where the land she travels from? Away,
Far, far behind, is all that they can say.
On sunny noons upon the deck's smooth face,
Linked arm in arm, how pleasant here to pace!
Or, o'er the stern reclining, watch below
The foaming wake far widening as we...Read more of this...
by
Robert Browning
I
What's become of Waring
Since he gave us all the slip,
Chose land-travel or seafaring,
Boots and chest, or staff and scrip,
Rather than pace up and down
Any longer London-town?
Who'd have guessed it from his lip,
Or his brow's accustomed bearing,
On the night he thus took ship,
Or started landward?—little caring
For us, it seems, who supped together,
(Friends of his too, I remember)
And walked home through...Read more of this...
by
William Butler Yeats
Though nurtured like the sailing moon
In beauty's murderous brood,
She walked awhile and blushed awhile
And on my pathway stood
Until I thought her body bore
A heart of flesh and blood.
But since I laid a hand thereon
And found a heart of stone
I have attempted many things
And not a thing is done,
For every hand is lunatic
That travels on the moon.
She smiled and that...Read more of this...
by
Robert Louis Stevenson
The sun is not a-bed, when I
At night upon my pillow lie;
Still round the earth his way he takes,
And morning after morning makes.
While here at home, in shining day,
We round the sunny garden play,
Each little Indian sleepy-head
Is being kissed and put to bed.
And when at eve I rise from tea,
Day...Read more of this...
by
William Topaz McGonagall
As I stood upon the Dean Bridge and viewed the beautiful scenery,
I felt fascinated and my heart was full of glee,
And I exclaimed in an ecstasy of delight,
In all my travels I never saw such a sight.
The scenery is so enchanting to look upon
That all tourists will say, "Dull care, be gone."
'Tis certainly a most lovely spot,
And once...Read more of this...
by
William Shakespeare
How heavy do I journey on the way,
When what I seek, my weary travel's end,
Doth teach that case and that repose to say,
"Thus far the miles are measured from thy friend!"
The beast that bears me, tired with my woe,
Plods dully on, to bear that weight in me,
As if by some instinct the wretch did know
His rider loved not speed...Read more of this...
by
Robert Burns
O THOU! whatever title suit thee—
Auld Hornie, Satan, Nick, or Clootie,
Wha in yon cavern grim an’ sootie,
Clos’d under hatches,
Spairges about the brunstane cootie,
To scaud poor wretches!
Hear me, auld Hangie, for a wee,
An’ let poor damned bodies be;
I’m sure sma’ pleasure it can gie,
Ev’n to a deil,
To skelp an’ scaud poor dogs like me,
An’ hear us...Read more of this...
by
Michael Drayton
Like an advent'rous seafarer am I,
Who hath some long and dang'rous voyage been,
And, call'd to tell of his discovery,
How far he sail'd, what countries he had seen;
Proceeding from the port whence he put forth,
Shows by his compass how his course he steer'd,
When East, when West, when South, and when by North,
As how...Read more of this...
by
Siegfried Sassoon
I
Because the night was falling warm and still
Upon a golden day at April’s end,
I thought; I will go up the hill once more
To find the face of him that I have lost,
And speak with him before his ghost has flown
Far from the earth that might not keep him long.
So down the road I went,...Read more of this...
by
John Milton
Aug. 14. 1653.
Upon The Words Of Chush The Benjamite Against Him.
Lord my God to thee I flie
Save me and secure me under
Thy protection while I crie
Least as a Lion (and no wonder)
He hast to tear my Soul asunder
Tearing and no rescue nigh.
Lord my God if I have thought
Or done this, if wickedness
Be in my hands, if I have wrought
Ill...Read more of this...
by
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
OH, unhappy stars! your fate I mourn,
Ye by whom the sea-toss'd sailor's lighted,
Who with radiant beams the heav'ns adorn,
But by gods and men are unrequited:
For ye love not,--ne'er have learnt to love!
Ceaselessly in endless dance ye move,
In the spacious sky your charms displaying,
What far travels ye have hasten'd through,
Since, within my loved one's arms delaying,
I've forgotten you and midnight...Read more of this...
by
Isaac Watts
v.30ff
C. M.
The covenant of grace unchangeable.
"Yet," saith the Lord, "if David's race,
The children of my Son,
Should break my laws, abuse my grace,
And tempt mine anger down;
"Their sins I'll visit with the rod
And make their folly smart;
But I'll not cease to be their God,
Nor from my truth depart.
"My cov'nant I will ne'er revoke,
But keep my grace in mind
And what...Read more of this...
by
Robert Louis Stevenson
GO(D) knows, my Martial, if we two could be
To enjoy our days set wholly free;
To the true life together bend our mind,
And take a furlough from the falser kind.
No rich saloon, nor palace of the great,
Nor suit at law should trouble our estate;
On no vainglorious statues should we look,
But of a walk, a talk, a little book,
Baths, wells and...Read more of this...
by
Les Murray
We who travel between worlds
lose our muscle and bone.
I was wheeling a barrow of earth
when agony bayoneted me.
I could not sit, or lie down,
or stand, in Casualty.
Stomach-calming clay caked my lips,
I turned yellow as the moon
and slid inside a CAT-scan wheel
in a hospital where I met no one
so much...Read more of this...
by
Paul Laurence Dunbar
Ah, Nora, my Nora, the light fades away,
While Night like a spirit steals up o'er the hills;
The thrush from his tree where he chanted all day,
No longer his music in ecstasy trills.
Then, Nora, be near me; thy presence doth cheer me,
Thine eye hath a gleam that is truer than gold.
I cannot but love thee; so do not reprove me,
Read more of this...
by
William Shakespeare
O, never say that I was false of heart,
Though absence seem'd my flame to qualify.
As easy might I from myself depart
As from my soul, which in thy breast doth lie:
That is my home of love: if I have ranged,
Like him that travels I return again,
Just to the time, not with the time exchanged,
So that myself bring water for my...Read more of this...
by
William Shakespeare
How heavy do I journey on the way,
When what I seek, my weary travel's end,
Doth teach that ease and that repose to say
'Thus far the miles are measured from thy friend!'
The beast that bears me, tired with my woe,
Plods dully on, to bear that weight in me,
As if by some instinct the wretch did know
His rider loved not speed,...Read more of this...
by
Aleksandr Blok
Don't fear death in earthly travels.
Don't fear enemies or friends.
Just listen to the words of prayers,
To pass the facets of the dreads.
Your death will come to you, and never
You shall be, else, a slave of life,
Just waiting for a dawn's favor,
From nights of poverty and strife.
She'll build with you a common...Read more of this...
by
Robert Frost
Mary sat musing on the lamp-flame at the table
Waiting for Warren. When she heard his step,
She ran on tip-toe down the darkened passage
To meet him in the doorway with the news
And put him on his guard. 'Silas is back.'
She pushed him outward with her through the door
And shut it after her. "Be kind,' she said.
She took the market things...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
A winged spark doth soar about --
I never met it near
For Lightning it is oft mistook
When nights are hot and sere --
Its twinkling Travels it pursues
Above the Haunts of men --
A speck of Rapture -- first perceived
By feeling it is gone --
Rekindled by some action quaint...Read more of this...
by
William Butler Yeats
Because I am mad about women
I am mad about the hills,'
Said that wild old wicked man
Who travels where God wills.
'Not to die on the straw at home.
Those hands to close these eyes,
That is all I ask, my dear,
From the old man in the skies.
Daybreak and a candle-end.
'Kind are all your words, my dear,
Do not the rest withhold.
Who can...Read more of this...
by
Henry Van Dyke
Let me but live my life from year to year,
With forward face and unreluctant soul;
Not hurrying to, nor turning from the goal;
Not mourning for the things that disappear
In the dim past, nor holding back in fear
From what the future veils; but with a whole
And happy heart, that pays its toll
To Youth and...Read more of this...
by
Thomas Hardy
When the Present has latched its postern behind my tremulous stay,
And the May month flaps its glad green leaves like wings,
Delicate-filmed as new-spun silk, will the neighbours say,
"He was a man who used to notice such things"?
If it be in the dusk when, like an eyelid's soundless blink,
The dewfall-hawk comes crossing the shades to alight
Upon...Read more of this...
by
Robinson Jeffers
Seventy years ago my mother labored to bear me,
A twelve-pound baby with a big head,
Her first, it was plain torture. Finally they used the forceps
And dragged me out, with one prong
In my right eye, and slapped and banged me until I breathed.
I am not particularly grateful for it.
As to the eye: it remained invalid and now has a cataract.
It...Read more of this...
Dont forget to view our wonderful member Travels poems.