Famous Wander Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Wander poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous wander poems. These examples illustrate what a famous wander poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Victor Hugo
("O! dis-moi, tu veux fuir?")
{Bk. IV, vii., Jan. 31, 1821.}
Forget? Can I forget the scented breath
Of breezes, sighing of thee, in mine ear;
The strange awaking from a dream of death,
The sudden thrill to find thee coming near?
Our huts were desolate, and far away
I heard...Read more of this...
by
Edmund Spenser
SInce I haue lackt the comfort of that light,
The which was wont to lead my thoughts astray:
I wander as in darkenesse of the night,
affrayd of euery dangers least dismay.
Ne ought I see, though in the clearest day,
when others gaze vpon theyr shadowes vayne:
but th'onely image of that heauenly ray,
whereof some glance doth in mine eie remayne.
Of which beholding th'Idaea...Read more of this...
by
Robert Burns
O THOU pale orb that silent shines
While care-untroubled mortals sleep!
Thou seest a wretch who inly pines.
And wanders here to wail and weep!
With woe I nightly vigils keep,
Beneath thy wan, unwarming beam;
And mourn, in lamentation deep,
How life and love are all a dream!
I joyless view thy rays adorn
The faintly-marked, distant hill;
I joyless view thy trembling...Read more of this...
by
Pablo Neruda
Don't go far off, not even for a day, because --
because -- I don't know how to say it: a day is long
and I will be waiting for you, as in an empty station
when the trains are parked off somewhere else, asleep.
Don't leave me, even for an hour, because
then the little drops of anguish...Read more of this...
by
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
[First published in Schiller's Horen, in connection
with a
friendly contest in the art of ballad-writing between the two
great poets, to which many of their finest works are owing.]
ONCE a stranger youth to Corinth came,
Who in Athens lived, but hoped that he
From a certain townsman there might claim,
As his father's friend, kind courtesy.
Son and daughter, they
Had been wont to say
Should...Read more of this...
by
William Blake
My spectre around me night and day
Like a wild beast guards my way.
My emanation far within
Weeps incessantly for my sin.
A fathomless and boundless deep,
There we wander, there we weep;
On the hungry craving wind
My spectre follows thee behind.
He scents thy footsteps in the snow,
Wheresoever thou dost go
Through the wintry hail and rain.
When wilt thou return again?
Dost thou not in pride...Read more of this...
by
Henry Lawson
And they heard the tent-poles clatter,
And the fly in twain was torn –
'Tis the soiled rag of a tatter
Of the tent where I was born.
And what matters it, I wonder?
Brick or stone or calico? –
Or a bush you were born under,
When it happened long ago?
And my beds were camp beds and...Read more of this...
by
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
I AM now,--what joy to hear it!--
Of the old magician rid;
And henceforth shall ev'ry spirit
Do whate'er by me is bid;
I have watch'd with rigour
All he used to do,
And will now with vigour
Work my wonders too.
Wander, wander
Onward lightly,
So that rightly
Flow the torrent,
And with teeming waters yonder
In the bath discharge its current!
And now come, thou well-worn broom,
And thy wretched form bestir;
Thou...Read more of this...
by
Hilaire Belloc
The green elm with the one great bough of gold
Lets leaves into the grass slip, one by one, --
The short hill grass, the mushrooms small milk-white,
Harebell and scabious and tormentil,
That blackberry and gorse, in dew and sun,
Bow down to; and the wind travels too light
To shake the fallen birch leaves from the fern;...Read more of this...
by
Eugene Field
In an ocean, 'way out yonder,
(As all sapient people know)
Is the land of Wonder-Wander,
Whither children love to go;
It's their playing, romping, swinging,
That give great joy to me
While the Dinkey-Bird goes singing
In the amfalula tree!
There the gum-drops grow like cherries,
And taffy's thick as peas--
Caramels you pick like berries
When, and where, and how you please;
Big red sugar-plums are clinging
To the cliffs...Read more of this...
by
Thomas Moore
Alone in crowds to wander on,
And feel that all the charm is gone
Which voices dear and eyes beloved
Shed round us once, where'er we roved --
This, this the doom must be
Of all who've loved, and loved to see
The few bright things they thought would stay
For ever near them, die away.
Though fairer forms...Read more of this...
by
Edward Lear
When awful darkness and silence reign
Over the great Gromboolian plain,
Through the long, long wintry nights; --
When the angry breakers roar
As they beat on the rocky shore; --
When Storm-clouds brood on the towering heights
Of the Hills of the Chankly Bore: --
Then, through the vast and gloomy dark,
There moves what seems a fiery spark,
A lonely spark with silvery rays
Piercing the coal-black...Read more of this...
by
John Ashbery
What name do I have for you?
Certainly there is not name for you
In the sense that the stars have names
That somehow fit them. Just walking around,
An object of curiosity to some,
But you are too preoccupied
By the secret smudge in the back of your soul
To say much and wander around,
Smiling to yourself and others.
It gets to...Read more of this...
by
Hafez
Wend I, wander I, past all worlds that be;
Ever have I wander’d or e’er the earth was made;
Urg’d like the álien áir o’er land & sea,
Sleepless as sunlight, joyless as its shade.
Not on your earth travel I; sáy not to mé
‘Cease awhile thy wandering, Ó tir’d day!’
Say not, ‘O pilgrim, rest thee; comfort thee’:
Not hére is my journey’s end, Indus...Read more of this...
by
Robert Burns
Farewell to the Highlands, farewell to the North,
The birth-place of Valour, the country of Worth;
Wherever I wander, wherever I rove,
The hills of the Highlands for ever I love.
My heart's in the Highlands, my heart is not here;
My heart's in the Highlands a-chasing the deer;
A-chasing the wild-deer, and following the roe,
My heart's in the Highlands wherever I go.
Farewell to the...Read more of this...
by
Anne Bronte
I have slept upon my couch,
But my spirit did not rest,
For the labours of the day
Yet my weary soul opprest;
And, before my dreaming eyes
Still the learned volumes lay,
And I could not close their leaves,
And I could not turn away.
But I oped my eyes at last,
And I heard a muffled sound;
'Twas the night-breeze, come to say
That the snow...Read more of this...
by
Ezra Pound
Italian Campagna 1309, the open road
Bah! I have sung women in three cities,
But it is all the same;
And I will sing of the sun.
Lips, words, and you snare them,
Dreams, words, and they are as jewels,
Strange spells of old deity,
Ravens, nights, allurement:
And they are not;
Having become the souls of song.
Eyes, dreams, lips, and the night goes.
Being upon the road once...Read more of this...
by
Alfred Lord Tennyson
Strong Son of God, immortal Love,
Whom we, that have not seen thy face,
By faith, and faith alone, embrace,
Believing where we cannot prove;
Thine are these orbs of light and shade;
Thou madest Life in man and brute;
Thou madest Death; and lo, thy foot
Is on the skull which thou hast...Read more of this...
by
Emily Brontë
The wind was rough which tore
That leaf from its parent tree
The fate was cruel which bore
The withering corpse to me
We wander on we have no rest
It is a dreary way
What shadow is it
That ever moves before [my] eyes
It has a brow of ghostly whiteness...Read more of this...
by
Lucy Maud Montgomery
Through the pungent hours of the afternoon,
On the autumn slopes we have lightly wandered
Where the sunshine lay in a golden swoon
And the lingering year all its sweetness squandered.
Oh, it was blithesome to roam at will
Over the crest of each westering hill,
Over those dreamy, enchanted lands
Where the trees held to us their friendly hands!
Winds...Read more of this...
by
Robert Burns
ONE night as I did wander,
When corn begins to shoot,
I sat me down to ponder
Upon an auld tree root;
Auld Ayr ran by before me,
And bicker’d to the seas;
A cushat crooded o’er me,
That echoed through the braes...Read more of this...
by
Rg Gregory
begin at a chapter you have read before
with new words and a new hand turning
the pages where the print vibrates and the white
paper runs in a stream of many colours
stand with a new light at your shoulder
and wander slowly through familiar doors
into tomorrows no shadows yet have trodden
or come in an old way to a new place
and there i...Read more of this...
by
Rupert Brooke
"Oh! Love," they said, "is King of Kings,
And Triumph is his crown.
Earth fades in flame before his wings,
And Sun and Moon bow down." --
But that, I knew, would never do;
And Heaven is all too high.
So whenever I meet a Queen, I said,
I will not catch her eye.
"Oh! Love," they said, and "Love," they said,
"The gift of Love is this;
A...Read more of this...
by
Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
Oh, if a tree could wander and move with foot and wings! It would not suffer the axe blows and not the pain of saws! For would the sun not wander
Parables And Riddles
by
Friedrich von Schiller
I.
A bridge of pearls its form uprears
High o'er a gray and misty sea;
E'en in a moment it appears,
And rises upwards giddily.
Beneath its arch can find a road
The loftiest vessel's mast most high,
Itself hath never borne a load,
And seems, when thou draw'st near, to fly.
It comes first with the stream, and goes
Soon as the watery flood is dried.
Where may be...Read more of this...
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