List of long poems in English explained

This is a list of English poems over 1000 lines. This list includes poems that are generally identified as part of the long poem genre, being considerable in length, and with that length enhancing the poems' meaning or thematic weight. This alphabetical list is incomplete, as the label of long poem is selectively and inconsistently applied in literary academia.

PoetPoemYear publisheddata-sort-type="number" LengthVerse form
Algerton, Frank C. Columbia: an Epic Poem on the Late Civil War between the Northern and Southern States of North America 1893 heroic couplet
Sphere: The Form of a Motion 1973
Tape for the Turn of the Year 1965
Flow Chart 1991
The Fall of Nineveh 1828-1868 blank verse
Israel in Egypt 1861 blank verse
The Age of Anxiety 1944-46
1951 lines blank verse
Anonymous Beowulf 3,182 lines alliterative verse
John Brown's Body 1930 lines various
Eliza 1705 lines heroic couplet
Redemption 1722
The Spirit of Discovery; or, the Conquest of Ocean 1804 blank verse
Nimrod 1910 blank verse
Aurora Leigh 1856 10,938 lines blank verse
Sordello 1840 heroic couplet
The Ring and the Book 1868-69 lines blank verse
Fifine at the Fair 1872 2,530 lines alexandrine couplets
Redemption, a Poem 1857 blank verse
Messiah's Kingdom 1833 lines heroic couplet
Don Juan 1824 15,920 lines ottava rima
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage 1812-18 4,455 lines Spenserian stanza
Troilus and Criseyde 8,239 lines rhyme royal
The Bothie of Tober-na-Vuolich 1848 hexameter
The Task 1785 blank verse
The Bridge 1930
Anonymous Cursor Mundi lines, depending on manuscript primarily eight-syllable couplets
Helen in Egypt 1961
Trilogy 1944-46
Gondibert 1651 6,940 lines decasyllabic quatrains
The Zodiac 1976
Gunslinger 1989
The Barons' Wars 1603 3,624 lines ottava rima
The Battle of Trafalgar 1806 heroic couplet
The Structure of Rime 1960
Passages 1968
Poly-Olbion 1612; 1622 15,000 lines alexandrine
The Hind and the Panther 1687 2,569 lines heroic couplet
Pinion 2002
King Alfred 1841 lines[1] blank verse
Cleanness 1,813 lines alliterative verse
Pearl 1212 lines alliterative verse
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight 2,530 lines alliterative verse
Anonymous Generides 6696 lines rhyme royal
Leonidas 1737 blank verse
Gower, JohnConfessio Amantis33,000 linesrhymed couplets
Fotheringhay 1995
Gascoigne's Egg 2000
Omm Sety 2001
The Silence 2019
Regiment of Princes 1410–1413 5,464 lines Seven-line decasyllabic rhymed stanzas
The Liberties 1980
Montage of a Dream Deferred 1951
The Anathemata 1952
In Parenthesis 1937
Trial of Christ in Seven Stages 1909 blank verse
Vashti 1894 blank verse
Endymion 1818 heroic couplet
Anonymous King Alisaunder 4,000 lines octosyllabic couplets
Anonymous King Horn 1,650 lines rhyming couplets with occasional alliterative metre
Piers Plowman lines alliterative metre
Anonymous Laud Troy Book 18,664 lines tetrameter couplets
The Story of Judeth 1889 heroic couplet
Brut lines[2] alliterative verse with rhyme
The Fall of the Princes 1431-1439 36,365 lines rhyme royal
Troy Book 1412–20 30,117 lines ten-syllable couplets
Evangeline 1847 1396 lines hexameter
The Song of Hiawatha 1855 5,414 lines octosyllable
Handlyng Synne lines four-stress rhyme royal
Dauber 1912 rhyme royal
The Red Eagle. A Poem of the South 1855
Clarel 1876 18,000 lines irregularly rhymed iambic tetrameter
The Wanderer of Scandinavia, or Sweden Delivered 1826 Spenserian stanza
Paradise Lost 1667 10,565 lines blank verse
Paradise Regained 1671 2,070 lines blank verse
Samson Agonistes 1671 1,758 lines blank verse
Elijah the Prophet 1866 blank verse
The Earthly Paradise 1868-1870 various
The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs 1876 10,000+ lines alliterative verse
Britannia 1801 blank verse
Maximus Poems 1953–1975
Ormulum 1150–1180 18,956 lines unrhymed strict heptameter
Inside the Whale 2011
Cantos 1915-62 free verse
Anonymous lines octosyllabic couplets
Merlin 1917 lines blank verse
Seymer, John Gunning The Fall of Saul 1839 blank verse
The Rape of Lucrece 1594 1,855 lines rhyme royal
Queen Mab 1813 2,289 lines
The Revolt of Islam 1817 4,818 lines Spenserian stanza
Joan of Arc 1796
Thalaba the Destroyer 1801
Madoc 1805
Roderick the Last of the Goths 1814
The Faerie Queene[3] 1590, 1596 34,928 lines Spenserian stanza
The Battlefield Where The Moon Says I Love You 1977 15,283 lines
Stanzas in Meditation 1956
Tristram of Lyonesse 1882 4,488 lines heroic couplet
The Castle of Indolence 1748 1,422 lines Spenserian stanza
The Seasons 1730 5,405 lines blank verse
Psyche, or the Legend of Love[4] 1805 3,348 lines Spenserian stanza
The Lay of Leithian 1985 4,223 lines rhyming couplets
The Lay of the Children of Húrin 1985 2,276 lines alliterative verse
Harlem Gallery 1965
Armageddon 1815 blank verse
Omeros 1990 terza rima, free verse
Song of Myself 1881 1346 lines
, said the shotgun to the head 2006
Paterson 1946-58
The Prelude 1850 blank verse
"A" 1928-78 free verse

Notes and References

  1. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Fitchett,_John_(DNB00) Charles William Sutton, Fitchett, John at Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 19.
  2. The majority of Brut's lines are pairs of half-lines, though some consist of only one half-line. The poem contains 32241 total half-lines in the longer of the two manuscripts in which it is extant.
  3. Web site: The Faerie Queene, Book III, Canto Vi by Edmund Spenser | Poemist.
  4. Web site: Psyche ; or, the Legend of Love: Canto Ii. By Mary Tighe | Poemist.