Poems About Lions
|

Poems About Lions (Peeking into the Poet’s Den..)

You are about to read poems about lions. Be warned; this may change or improve those stories you have read/ heard about the lion and the elephant, or the lion’s den. Don’t worry biblical stories  are true and will remain untouched.

Poems About Lions

One of the strongest wild creatures on Earth is the lion. They have ample cause to be referred to as “The King of Jungle.” In its peak, a lion is a genuinely stunning animal.

It has a huge mane, two bright eyes, and a robust, hefty build that give it a fearsome appearance (the typical weight of a mature male lion is roughly 180kg).

We’ll look at some of the finest lion poetry in this post. Lions are a proud species.

The Lonely Lion 

The lion was lonely;
Said he, “There is only
One way of driving this gloom from me:
I must enter into society!”
So he asked the beasts in a manner quite hearty,
To come to his cave for a little party.

On the appointed day,
In a frightened way,
A parrot flew over his head to say
That the beasts would be happy the lion to greet,
But they very much feared he was out of meat!
“Alas!” the lion cried with a groan,
And must I then live forever alone?”

By Amos Russel Wells

READ ALSO:

The Lion and the Mouse 

A lion with the heat oppressed,
One day composed himself to rest:
But while he dozed as he intended,
A mouse, his royal back ascended;
Nor thought of harm, as Aesop tells,
Mistaking him for someone else;
And travelled over him, and round him,
And might have left him as she found him
Had she not—tremble when you hear—
Tried to explore the monarch’s ear!
Who straightway woke, with wrath immense,
And shook his head to cast her thence.

“You rascal, what are you about?”
Said he, when he had turned her out,
“I’ll teach you soon,” the lion said,
“To make a mouse-hole in my head!”
So saying, he prepared his foot
To crush the trembling tiny brute;
But she (the mouse) with tearful eye,
Implored the lion’s clemency,
Who thought it best at last to give
His little prisoner a reprieve.

‘Twas nearly twelve months after this,
The lion chanced his way to miss;
When pressing forward, heedless yet,
He got entangled in a net.
With dreadful rage, he stamped and tore,
And straight commenced a lordly roar;
When the poor mouse, who heard the noise,
Attended, for she knew his voice.

Then what the lion’s utmost strength
Could not effect, she did at length;
With patient labor she applied
Her teeth, the network to divide;
And so at last forth issued he,
A lion, By a mouse set free.
Few are so small or weak, I guess,
But may assist us in distress,
Nor shall we ever, if we’re wise,
The meanest, or the least despise.

By Jeffreys Taylor

READ ALSO:

I Wonder if the Lion Knows 

I wonder if the lion knows
That people are afraid
To meet him when for walks he goes
Beneath the jungle shade;
And when they scream and run away,
O, does he laugh at their dismay?
And does he say with head tossed high:
“How ‘terribully’ fierce am I”?

I’d like to know
If this is so;
But if I met a lion some day
I would not ask, I’d run away,
For surely it is not a treat
To meet a lion on the street!

By Annette Wynne

To a Caged Lion 

Poor conquered monarch! though that haughty glance
Still speaks thy courage unsubdued By time,
And in the grandeur of thy sullen tread
Lives the proud spirit of thy burning clime; —
Fettered By things that shudder at thy roar,
Torn from thy pathless wilds to pace this narrow floor!

Thou wast the victor, and all nature shrunk
Before the thunders of thine awful wrath;
The steel-armed hunter viewed thee from afar,
Fearless and trackless in thy lonely path!
The famished tiger closed his flaming eye,
And crouched and panted as thy step went By !

Thou art the vanquished, and insulting man
Bars thy broad bosom as a sparrow’s wing;
His nerveless arms thine iron sinews bind,
And lead in chains the desert’s fallen king;
Are these the beings that have dared to twine
Their feeble threads around those limbs of thine?

So must it be; the weaker, wiser race,
That wields the tempest and that rides the sea,
Even in the stillness of thy solitude
Must teach the lesson of its power To thee;
And thou, the terror of the trembling wild,
Must bow thy savage strength, the mockery of a child!

By Oliver Wendell Holmes

READ ALSO:

On a Lion Enraged at Seeing a Lad in the Highland Dress

Calm and serene the imperial lion lay,
Mildly indulging in the solar ray;
On vulgar mortals with indifference gazed,
All unconcerned, nor angry, nor amazed;
But when the Caledonian lad appeared,
Sudden alarmed, his manly mane he reared,
Prepared in fierce encounter to engage
The only object worthy of his rage.

By W. Hamilton

Roar of the African Lion 

This noble monarch of the Afric waste
Meets with no rival to contest his reign,
With his surpassing strength and agile stride
He can o’er come each creature of the plain.
He dashes to the earth the tall giraffe
Who towers above the summits of the woods;
He tracks the herds of shaggy buffaloes,
And slays the bull in solitudes;
He preys on nimble flocks of antelopes,
The pallah, oryx, quagga and wild-beest.
O’ertakes the blesbok in its swiftest flight,
On zebra and the eland makes his feast.

How grand, how thunderous his savage roar!
First he emits a dull, far-echoing moan
That ends at times with faintly-whispered sighs.
At other times he startles all the herds
With deep-toned roar and wild, tempestuous cries
That sudden sink away in muffled tone,
Like distant thunder fading in the skies.

His roar is loudest in cold, frosty nights
When two troops meet beside a fountain’s flow;
Then each troop sounds a bold, defiant roar,
Each seeking to out-roar the rival foe.
Those grand, nocturnal concerts fill the waste
With universal terror, yet they thrill,
With transport the brave hunter’s fearless heart,
Who lies there close ambush’d, resolute to kill;
A hunter in the glooms of forests hid,
In the dead hour of midnight, all alone;
Ensconced in thicket at the fountain’s edge,
Listing the awful roar, or hollow moan.

The lions roar incessant in the night,
Their sighing moans beginning with the shades
Of evening; gather in the forest depths,
Sounding their warnings in the dim arcades
Thro’ all the day they rest concealed in shade
Of gloomy forests on some mountain side,
Loving the jungles or the tangled grass
In low-lying shelves or in the valleys wide;
From thence they stalk, when ends the sunset glow,
Intent on nightly prowl for wandering foe,
Then in dark night their roar is full of ire,
Their eyeballs glowing like two balls of fire.

By Isaac McLellan

As I’m sure we can all agree with the poets, the lion is certainly the king of the jungle. I hope you enjoyed reading, and you just cannot read enough.

We can notify you on our next release if you can just share this post and drop a comment in the comment section below.

Similar Posts

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *