Famous Welcome Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Beowulf (Modern English)

...of haste, bid their allied band to enter and be seen,
gathered together. Say to them wordfully as well
that they are welcome among the Danish people.” (ll. 371-89a)

[Then Wulfgar went to the door of the hall,] announcing his word from within:
“My victorious lord, ruler of the East-Danes,
has ordered me to tell you that he knows of your heritage
and you are welcome by him here, hardy hearts
from over the sea’s whelming. Now you may come inside
in your battle-wear, u...Read more of this...
by Anonymous,


Beowulf (Old English)

...t thought.
Be thou in haste, and bid them hither,
clan of kinsmen, to come before me;
and add this word, -- they are welcome guests
to folk of the Danes.”
[To the door of the hall
Wulfgar went] and the word declared: --
“To you this message my master sends,
East-Danes’ king, that your kin he knows,
hardy heroes, and hails you all
welcome hither o’er waves of the sea!
Ye may wend your way in war-attire,
and under helmets Hrothgar greet;
but let here the battle-shi...Read more of this...
by Anonymous,

Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie

...armers had raised with labor incessant,
Shut out the turbulent tides; but at stated seasons the flood-gates
Opened, and welcomed the sea to wander at will o'er the meadows.
West and south there were fields of flax, and orchards and cornfields
Spreading afar and unfenced o'er the plain; and away to the northward
Blomidon rose, and the forests old, and aloft on the mountains
Sea-fogs pitched their tents, and mists from the mighty Atlantic
Looked on the happy valley, but ne'er f...Read more of this...
by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth

Four Riddles

...,
To partners who would urge them over-much,
A flat and yet decided negative -
Photographers love such. 

There comes a welcome summons - hope revives,
And fading eyes grow bright, and pulses quicken:
Incessant pop the corks, and busy knives
Dispense the tongue and chicken. 

Flushed with new life, the crowd flows back again:
And all is tangled talk and mazy motion -
Much like a waving field of golden grain,
Or a tempestuous ocean. 

And thus they give the time, that Nature m...Read more of this...
by Carroll, Lewis

Inferno (English)

...hrough the five hells ye traversed, the best he may. 
 He can but try it awhile! - But thou shalt stay, 
 And learn the welcome of these halls of woe." 

 Ye well may think how I, discomforted 
 By these accursed words, was moved. The dead, 
 Nay, nor the living were ever placed as I, 
 If this fiends' counsel triumphed. And who should try 
 That backward path unaided? 

 "Lord," I said, 
 "Loved Master, who hast shared my steps so far, 
 And rescued ever, if these our path w...Read more of this...
by Alighieri, Dante


Lara

...h gloomy grace 
The Laras' last and longest dwelling-place; 
But one is absent from the mouldering file, 
That now were welcome to that Gothic pile. 

IV. 

He comes at last in sudden loneliness, 
And whence they know not, why they need not guess; 
They more might marvel, when the greeting's o'er, 
Not that he came, but came not long before: 
No train is his beyond a single page, 
Of foreign aspect, and of tender age. 
Years had roll'd on, and fast they speed away 
To those t...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)

Passage to India

...ers, pinnacled, red as roses, burnish’d with gold! 
Towers of fables immortal, fashion’d from mortal dreams! 
You too I welcome, and fully, the same as the rest; 
You too with joy I sing. 

3
Passage to India!
Lo, soul! seest thou not God’s purpose from the first? 
The earth to be spann’d, connected by net-work, 
The people to become brothers and sisters, 
The races, neighbors, to marry and be given in marriage, 
The oceans to be cross’d, the distant brought near,
The lands t...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt

Poem of Joys

...erent
 to me. 

O the streets of cities! 
The flitting faces—the expressions, eyes, feet, costumes! O I cannot tell how welcome
 they
 are to me. 

6
O to have been brought up on bays, lagoons, creeks, or along the coast! 
O to continue and be employ’d there all my life!
O the briny and damp smell—the shore—the salt weeds exposed at low water, 
The work of fishermen—the work of the eel-fisher and clam-fisher. 

O it is I! 
I come with my clam-rake and spade! I come with my ee...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt

Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror

...y be the first step
Toward achieving an inner calm
But it is the first step only, and often
Remains a frozen gesture of welcome etched
On the air materializing behind it,
A convention. And we have really
No time for these, except to use them
For kindling. The sooner they are burnt up
The better for the roles we have to play.
Therefore I beseech you, withdraw that hand,
Offer it no longer as shield or greeting,
The shield of a greeting, Francesco:
There is room for one bullet ...Read more of this...
by Ashbery, John

Song of Myself

...ing the perfect fitness and equanimity of things, while they discuss I am
 silent, and go bathe and admire myself. 

Welcome is every organ and attribute of me, and of any man hearty and clean; 
Not an inch, nor a particle of an inch, is vile, and none shall be less familiar
 than the rest.

I am satisfied—I see, dance, laugh, sing: 
As the hugging and loving Bed-fellow sleeps at my side through the night, and
 withdraws at the peep of the day, with stealthy tread, 
...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt

Song of the Open Road

...we cannot remain
 here; 
However shelter’d this port, and however calm these waters, we must not anchor here; 
However welcome the hospitality that surrounds us, we are permitted to receive it but a
 little
 while. 

10
Allons! the inducements shall be greater;
We will sail pathless and wild seas; 
We will go where winds blow, waves dash, and the Yankee clipper speeds by under full sail.


Allons! with power, liberty, the earth, the elements! 
Health, defiance, gayety, self-...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt

The Bride of Abydos

...e offspring of my choice; 
Oh! more than ev'n her mother dear, 
With all to hope, and nought to fear — 
My Peri! — ever welcome here! 
Sweet, as the desert fountain's wave, 
To lips just cool'd in time to save — 
Such to my longing sight art thou; 
Nor can they waft to Mecca's shrine 
More thanks for life, than I for thine, 
Who blest thy birth, and bless thee now." 

VI. 

Fair, as the first that fell of womankind, 
When on that dread yet lovely serpent smiling, 
Whose image...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)

The Growth of Love

...d order of your birth?
How, with a fancy so unkind to mirth,
A sense so hard, a style so worn and bare,
Look ye for any welcome anywhere
From any shelf or heart-home on the earth? 
Should others ask you this, say then I yearn'd
To write you such as once, when I was young,
Finding I should have loved and thereto turn'd.
'Twere something yet to live again among
The gentle youth beloved, and where I learn'd
My art, be there remember'd for my song. 

52
Who takes the census of th...Read more of this...
by Bridges, Robert Seymour

The Holy Grail

...
Pricked with incredible pinnacles into heaven. 
And by the gateway stirred a crowd; and these 
Cried to me climbing, "Welcome, Percivale! 
Thou mightiest and thou purest among men!" 
And glad was I and clomb, but found at top 
No man, nor any voice. And thence I past 
Far through a ruinous city, and I saw 
That man had once dwelt there; but there I found 
Only one man of an exceeding age. 
"Where is that goodly company," said I, 
"That so cried out upon me?" and he had 
Sca...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord

The Knights Tale

...n leaves,
And loud he sang against the sun so sheen*. *shining bright
"O May, with all thy flowers and thy green,
Right welcome be thou, faire freshe May,
I hope that I some green here getten may."
And from his courser*, with a lusty heart, *horse
Into the grove full hastily he start,
And in a path he roamed up and down,
There as by aventure this Palamon
Was in a bush, that no man might him see,
For sore afeard of his death was he.
Nothing ne knew he that it was Arcite;
God w...Read more of this...
by Chaucer, Geoffrey

The Lady of the Lake

...he rood, my lovely maid,
     Your courtesy has erred,' he said;
     'No right have I to claim, misplaced,
     The welcome of expected guest.
     A wanderer, here by fortune toss,
     My way, my friends, my courser lost,
     I ne'er before, believe me, fair,
     Have ever drawn your mountain air,
     Till on this lake's romantic strand
     I found a fey in fairy land!'—
     XXIII.

     'I well believe,' the maid replied,
     As her light skiff approach...Read more of this...
by Scott, Sir Walter

The Seasons: Winter

...
Vapours, and Clouds, and Storms: Be these my Theme,
These, that exalt the Soul to solemn Thought,
And heavenly musing. Welcome kindred Glooms! 
Wish'd, wint'ry, Horrors, hail! -- With frequent Foot,
Pleas'd, have I, in my cheerful Morn of Life,
When, nurs'd by careless Solitude, I liv'd,
And sung of Nature with unceasing Joy,
Pleas'd, have I wander'd thro' your rough Domains; 
Trod the pure, virgin, Snows, my self as pure:
Heard the Winds roar, and the big Torrent burst:
Or ...Read more of this...
by Thomson, James

The Waste Land

...d and decided, he assaults at once;
Exploring hands encounter no defence; 
His vanity requires no response,
And makes a welcome of indifference.
(And I Tiresias have foresuffered all
Enacted on this same divan or bed;
I who have sat by Thebes below the wall
And walked among the lowest of the dead.)
Bestows one final patronising kiss,
And gropes his way, finding the stairs unlit . . .
 She turns and looks a moment in the glass,
Hardly aware of her departed lover; 
Her brain al...Read more of this...
by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)

The White Cliffs

...only son to die? 

LI 
And then, and then, 
I thought of Elizabeth stepping down 
Over the stones of Plymouth town 
To welcome her sailors, common men, 
She herself, as she used to say, 
Being' mere English' as much as they— 
Seafaring men who sailed away 
From rocky inlet and wooded bay, 
Free men, undisciplined, uncontrolled, 
Some of them pirates and all of them bold, 
Feeling their fate was England's fate, 
Coming to save it a little late, 
Much too late for the easy way...Read more of this...
by Miller, Alice Duer

The Wood

...
Along the guarded land. 

I feared not then­I fear not now; 
The interest of each stirring scene 
Wakes a new sense, a welcome glow, 
In every nerve and bounding vein; 
Alike on turbid Channel sea, 
Or in still wood of Normandy, 
I feel as born again. 

The rain descended that wild morn 
When, anchoring in the cove at last, 
Our band, all weary and forlorn, 
Ashore, like wave-worn sailors, cast­ 
Sought for a sheltering roof in vain, 
And scarce could scanty food obtain 
To ...Read more of this...
by Bronte, Charlotte

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