Famous Short Travel Poems
Famous Short Travel Poems. Short Travel Poetry by Famous Poets. A collection of the all-time best Travel short poems
by
Walt Whitman
A PROMISE to California,
Also to the great Pastoral Plains, and for Oregon:
Sojourning east a while longer, soon I travel toward you, to remain, to teach robust
American
love;
For I know very well that I and robust love belong among you, inland, and along the
Western
Sea;
For These States tend inland, and toward the Western Sea—and I will also.
by
Dorothy Parker
Travel, trouble, music, art,
A kiss, a frock, a rhyme-
I never said they feed my heart,
But still they pass my time.
by
Paul Eluard
I cannot be known
Better than you know me
Your eyes in which we sleep
We together
Have made for my man's gleam
A better fate than for the common nights
Your eyes in which I travel
Have given to signs along the roads
A meaning alien to the earth
In your eyes who reveal to us
Our endless solitude
Are no longer what they thought themselves to be
You cannot be known
Better than I know you.
by
A E Housman
On your midnight pallet lying,
Listen, and undo the door:
Lads that waste the light in sighing
In the dark should sigh no more;
Night should ease a lover's sorrow;
Therefore, since I go to-morrow,
Pity me before.
In the land to which I travel,
The far dwelling, let me say--
Once, if here the couch is gravel,
In a kinder bed I lay,
And the breast the darnel smothers
Rested once upon another's
When it was not clay.
by
Richard Brautigan
There are no postage stamps that send letters
back to England three centuries ago,
no postage stamps that make letters
travel back until the grave hasn't been dug yet,
and John Donne stands looking out the window,
it is just beginning to rain this April morning,
and the birds are falling into the trees
like chess pieces into an unplayed game,
and John Donne sees the postman coming up the street,
the postman walks very carefully because his cane
is made of glass.
by
George Herbert
Sweetest of sweets, I thank you: when displeasure
Did through my body wound my mind,
You took me thence, and in your house of pleasure
A dainty lodging me assigned.
Now I in you without a body move,
Rising and falling with your wings:
We both together sweetly live and love,
Yet say sometimes, "God help poor Kings".
Comfort, I'll die; for if you post from me
Sure I shall do so, and much more:
But if I travel in your company,
You know the way to heaven's door.
by
Thomas Hardy
My spirit will not haunt the mound
Above my breast,
But travel, memory-possessed,
To where my tremulous being found
Life largest, best.
My phantom-footed shape will go
When nightfall grays
Hither and thither along the ways
I and another used to know
In backward days.
And there you'll find me, if a jot
You still should care
For me, and for my curious air;
If otherwise, then I shall not,
For you, be there.
by
Regina Derieva
It was not necessary to study
the language
of a strange country;
anyway, it would be of no help.
It was not necessary to know
where Italy or England
is located;
travel was obviously
out of question.
It was not necessary to live
among the wild beasts
of Noah's ark,
which had just devoured
the last dove of peace,
along with Noah
and his virtuous family.
It was not necessary to strive
for some holy land
awash in milk and honey,
according to rumor.
by
Li Po
A pity it is evening, yet
I do love the water of this spring
seeing how clear it is, how clean;
rays of sunset gleam on it,
lighting up its ripples, making it
one with those who travel
the roads; I turn and face
the moon; sing it a song, then
listen to the sound of the wind
amongst the pines.
by
Li Po
A wind, bringing willow-cotton, sweetens the shop,
And a girl from Wu, pouring wine, urges me to share it.
With my comrades of the city who are here to see me off;
And as each of them drains his cup, I say to him in parting,
Oh, go and ask this river running to the east
If it can travel farther than a friend's love!
by
Li Bai
A wind, bringing willow-cotton, sweetens the shop,
And a girl from Wu, pouring wine, urges me to share it.
With my comrades of the city who are here to see me off;
And as each of them drains his cup, I say to him in parting,
Oh, go and ask this river running to the east
If it can travel farther than a friend's love!
by
Ben Jonson
XXXI.
? ON BANKS THE USURER.
BANKS feel no lameness in his knotty gout,
His monies travel for him in and out.
And though the soundest legs go every day,
He toils to be at hell, as soon as they.
by
Thomas Hardy
Once more the cauldron of the sun
Smears the bookcase with winy red,
And here my page is, and there my bed,
And the apple-tree shadows travel along.
Soon their intangible track will be run,
And dusk grow strong
And they have fled.
Yes: now the boiling ball is gone,
And I have wasted another day.
.
.
.
But wasted--wasted, do I say?
Is it a waste to have imagined one
Beyond the hills there, who, anon,
My great deeds done,
Will be mine alway?
by
Herman Melville
The grass shall never forget this grave.
When homeward footing it in the sun
After the weary ride by rail,
The stripling soldiers passed her door,
Wounded perchance, or wan and pale,
She left her household work undone -
Duly the wayside table spread,
With evergreens shaded, to regale
Each travel-spent and grateful one.
So warm her heart, childless, unwed,
Who like a mother comforted.
by
Emily Dickinson
The longest day that God appoints
Will finish with the sun.
Anguish can travel to its stake,
And then it must return.
by
Carl Sandburg
THE SHEETS of night mist travel a long valley.
I know why you came at sundown in a scarf mist.
What was it we touched asking nothing and asking all?
How many times can death come and pay back what we saw?
In the oath of the sod, the lips that swore,
In the oath of night mist, nothing and all,
A riddle is here no man tells, no woman.
by
Edna St Vincent Millay
The railroad track is miles away,
And the day is loud with voices speaking,
Yet there isn't a train goes by all day
But I hear its whistle shrieking.
All night there isn't a train goes by,
Though the night is still for sleep and dreaming,
But I see its cinders red on the sky,
And hear its engine steaming.
My heart is warm with friends I make,
And better friends I'll not be knowing;
Yet there isn't a train I'd rather take,
No matter where it's going.
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 nor Cathay.
by
Rainer Maria Rilke
Interior of the hand.
Sole that has come to walk
only on feelings.
That faces upward
and in its mirror
receives heavenly roads, which travel
along themselves.
That has learned to walk upon water
when it scoops,
that walks upon wells,
transfiguring every path.
That steps into other hands,
changes those that are like it
into a landscape:
wanders and arrives within them,
fills them with arrival.
by
Anne Kingsmill Finch
Thou bidst me come away,
And I'll no longer stay,
Than for to shed some tears
For faults of former years;
And to repent some crimes
Done in the present times;
And next, to take a bit
Of bread, and wine with it;
To don my robes of love,
Fit for the place above;
To gird my loins about
With charity throughout;
And so to travel hence
With feet of innocence;
These done, I'll only cry,
'God, mercy!' and so die.
by
Edna St Vincent Millay
How shall I know, unless I go
To Cairo and Cathay,
Whether or not this blessed spot
Is blest in every way?
Now it may be, the flower for me
Is this beneath my nose:
How shall I tell, unless I smell
The Carthaginian rose?
The fabric of my faithful love
No power shall dim or ravel
Whilst I stay here,—but oh, my dear,
If I should ever travel!
by
Robert Burns
HEE balou, my sweet wee Donald,
Picture o’ the great Clanronald;
Brawlie kens our wanton Chief
Wha gat my young Highland thief.
Leeze me on thy bonie craigie,
An’ thou live, thou’ll steal a naigie,
Travel the country thro’ and thro’,
And bring hame a Carlisle cow.
Thro’ the Lawlands, o’er the Border,
Weel, my babie, may thou furder!
Herry the louns o’ the laigh Countrie,
Syne to the Highlands hame to me.
by
Edna St Vincent Millay
How shall I know, unless I go
To Cairo and Cathay,
Whether or not this blessed spot
Is blest in every way?
Now it may be, the flower for me
Is this beneath my nose:
How shall I tell, unless I smell
The Carthaginian rose?
The fabric of my faithful love
No power shall dim or ravel
Whilst I stay here, -- but oh, my dear,
If I should ever travel!
by
Omar Khayyam
Who e'er returned of all that went before,
To tell of that long road they travel o'er?
Leave naught undone of what you have to do,
For when you go, you will return no more.