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Best History Poems

Below are the all-time best History poems written by Poets on PoetrySoup. These top poems in list format are the best examples of history poems written by PoetrySoup members

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Definition & Discussion of History Poems
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See also: Best Famous Poems



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Details | History Poem

Black Diamond Night

Black Diamond Night (a coalminer’s cemetery) 

Where the ebony, we call “NIGHT”,
Old black rocks sit under the twilight.
Diamond shape eyes unclear and lonely, 
Sinister through hostile spirits only,

I stumble across these stones without a bone.
A solitary confinement alone,
From a barren zone the light transcend.
Only in time, our minds will mend.

Endless valleys and limitless stones.
These bones- these bones they sit alone.
The abyss, of rotten cavities with no fill,
A system no power can unwell the drill
The blood that passed over without a spill.
Peaks collapse into a spellbinding chill.
They are trapped! They are trapped!
Another diamond in the rough. 
Is what they left.

Obsessed by the dead without a death. 
Death that impatiently awaited their last breath.
Gushing, unto the gems of dead chemistry,
Diamonds holding its own intensity,
These lonely graves, on top of sycamore hill.
Coal mining hearts that will never heal.
If only shiny eyes could see?
These lonely bones inside of me!
Moving in every direction possible
Flowing in every direction noticeable.
Sockets without eyes.
Stones hiding under the cobalt skies.
The mad sparkles, the madness dies.
Throughout this mass, we held in the blasphemous.
Intervening lots of gems so miraculous.
  
Into a stone of self-religion,
A black night filled of legions.
Acknowledging the souls capacity of free.
Near the frail bones that sit alone,
Alone they sit in a morbid home.
Through a path unclear and all alone,
Troubled by the visions of my own stone.
Where the night takes place in the dark. 
The ebony rides under the diamond bark.
Along with the coalminers who never got to see the;
“Diamonds of another day!”

by;pd


Details | History Poem

Forgotten Heroes of the Somme

Over the top lads, for old Blighty! Hold the colours high!
Say a little prayer for me, for this summer day we die.
My brothers from the ripened field and blackened mill, shop floor, 
Your brother in a killing field to fight a rich man’s war.

In bloodied mud and shattered wood, fight legions of the brave,
Unwitting youth, you’ll do your duty until you’re in the grave.
A sergeant greets a fresh-faced boy, “welcome to the slaughter!”
Here you die from three diseases, bullet, gas or mortar.

In arms we fight together and in leaden hails we pass,
We die amongst the filth and stench that once was verdant grass.
“In the morning we will remember them” we hear the leaders call,
Those fickle words of history, will not remember us all.


Details | History Poem

Light A Candle

N ever again will the Tribes of Israel be the sacrificial lamb of man.
A nnealed in furnaces not in Olam HaEmet by the Almighty "the World of Truth."
Z ealots rose from the ashes of the ovens and now defend like Sicarii of old.
I srael blooms and grows in the desert, returned by Allied Forces to the cauldron.
H ome to the Holy Land, sent, shipped, caste surrounded by Arab foe, isolated. 
O vens melted their hearts, striped their forms for their souls held no intrinsic value.
L ampshades and shoes made from their skin, jewelry from the gold in their teeth.
O rders given by The Third Reich obeyed without conscious. The herd was culled.
C hrist-killer the Christian mind said, devil worshiper, their deaths were acceptable.
A nti-Semitism always has been and always will be a threat to Jews everywhere.
U nited, Jews must form a majority in Israel, so Jews everywhere feel safe.
S anctuary will never again being denied, Israel will be safe haven from persecution.
T o a future where all men have worth regardless of race, creed or religion, pray.


*Thanks to Arild Andresen Ertsland for his inspiring
From the Ashes


Details | History Poem

Person of Colour

Person of colour is coherently germane,
He is never insane.

Some things about this person of colour may seem strange,
He is simple and he is yet to engage.

This person of colour loves the critics,
It is from them, he ticks.

This person of colour is natural,
And so, he is not a trial.

This person of colour loves to exchange
Ideas beyond his range.

This person of colour loves keyboard,
Tis with this he comes on board.

This person of colour is a charcoal- a black beauty.
This person of colour is me.


Details | History Poem

Tartan and Pipes

Tradition and dress
A nations finesse
Symbolic in style
By a country mile
 
The drone of the pipes
Tartan clad
Bonnie on the girls
Proud on the lads
 
Highland dancers
In kilted skirts 
Grooms at weddings
Kilt and dirk

But our Tartan and Pipes
Go back many years
Led soldiers into battles
See the enemy fear

After Culloden
Both were banned
A country naked
At the English hand

Our clans of many
In colours so grand
Woven by weavers
Our women's hands

All over the world
Scots are spread
Taking their Tartans
Of green, blue and red

It's a welcome reminder
To the kin of their past
Never forgotten
Designed to last

This plaid of cloth
History enriched
Scottish pride
In every stitch

And like our pipes
From centuries past
This Scottish of Scots
Are here to last


http://www.thehighlanderspoems.com/scotland.php


Details | History Poem

Gettysburg Hauntings

Gettysburg Hauntings

When General Meade met General Lee
At Gettysburg in 1863

Sons of the South battled Northern brothers
And neither side has ever recovered

Fifty-one thousand lives lost in three days
Of a summertime swelter, July haze

Souls rose not to heaven from bodies piled
On blood-soaked battlefields spanning 40 miles

An on-scene photographer moved fallen men
To snap better images with his lens

Hats off to Alex Gardner if you please
Today picture-takers’ cameras freeze

At a large bouldered site called Devil’s Den
Sharpshooter hid, killed unsuspecting men

Travelers at night on Pennsylvania roads
Claim they see soldiers, hear cannons explode

A century after the Revolution
United our states to wage war as one

Virginians were forced to choose blue or gray
Mason Dixon Line divided that way

If only Tom Jefferson’s wise notion
Had not been struck from the Declaration

Slavery, the impetus for war and hate
Would have been quashed before State versus State

Gettysburg might have been a peaceful farm
Where soldiers had never succumbed to harm

But restless spirits, faces pale and gaunt
Never retreat from their Gettysburg haunt

Our nation’s darkest hour plays out each night
And passersby still marvel at the sight

Where sons of the South battled Northern brothers
For neither side will ever recover


Details | History Poem

The Names of Jesus

_____________ (_____GOD_____) (_____LORD_____) (_____ JESUS _____) (_______RABBI______) (_______TRUTH_______) (________SAVIOR________) (________ MESSIAH________) ________(_______ HOLY SPIRIT_______)_______ ___(_______________ KING OF KINGS_______________)___ (________________ EVERLASTING FATHER________________ ) (__________________ THE PRINCE OF PEACE___________________) (__________________GOOD SHEPHERD__________________) (_______________ LION OF JUDAH_______________) (________ LORD OF ALL________) (______MIGHTY ONE______) (_______HOLY ONE_______) (______ DELIVERER ______) (_______SHEPHERD_______) (______MEDIATOR______) (______ADVOCATE______) (______REDEEMER ______) (______CAPSTONE______) (_______PROPHET_______) (_______SAVIOR ________) (_______THE WAY_______) ___(______ALMIGHTY _______)__ __(_______THE BREAD OF LIFE_______) _ _(____________THE LAMB OF GOD__________)_ (_________THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD_________)


Details | History Poem

Slavery in Haiti

Haiti, the home of voodoo practices
Seventeenth Century Spain cedes to France
Catholic Spaniards trembled when they saw
“Dead” men revived to wander in trances

A vile poison can make men appear dead
Revival requires an antidote
But perhaps there is more to zombie lore
An explanation to why these souls woke

Brutally treated slaves worked sugar fields
Captives from Africa known as “Maroons”
As French aristocrats sat and grew fat
Blacks sweated for “sweets” in the tropic sun

Buried guilt deep at night still festers
For conscience is God’s gift to each man
Some may suppress it for just a short time
‘Til magical night envelopes the land

Spirits of those who were taken in chains
Are given by God a chance to rebel
Stalking the living in deathly pallor
Haunting their captors with visions of hell

“Zombifications,” Maroons erected
Spreading the horrors of slavery with anger
Showing the French what their evil produced
And putting their sanity in danger

So please put the voodoo dolls back on shelves
The needle-sharp pricks of remorse can sting
Enslaved Maroons prevail in heaven’s court
Our Creator’s eyes aren’t missing a thing

Magic, black or white, God sees no color
Love is bestowed on men of all races
And those who question the Lord’s intentions
Should look in the eyes of living-dead faces


Details | History Poem

Movements of Beginnings

                                                                   written on time’s page
                                                        with finite syllables of dust
                                                  he spelled my heritage
                                           from earth to sky
                                     along an umbilical line of faith 

                                 we fluttered from the lips of fingers
                           fully form for purpose
                       written on an invisible calculus
                that bring monarchs where birth mark lingers
            and salmons somersaulting sluice and streams
      turtles, penguins, and herons white wings
netted in design with nested tabula rasa  mind 

I have an argument
   against the beginning begotten from a bang 
      before atom or element
         I have an argument against force and natural laws
             at work without mass or embodiment
                 for embryonic gravity or forces weak or strong
                    I have an argument
                        that the singularity could not become more than fragment
                           of energy again if a single atom explode 
                              its forces flocking away from fusion
                                 for energy fission to explode

                                  a theory 
                         flimsy as spiders web
                  dethroning my majesty gulped 
          in primeval slime unlinked history from love
  minimizing the particular time of our becoming on ships 
that met the stagnant eyes of swampy thoughts … shuddering 
                                    in vain
                     the whip cracks louder than pain -
             and on our black blistered backs … crumbling 
soils in desertification threw some syllables skywards for mercy
                               starvation winds with sickle clouds of rain  
                                 they lie again ... leaving us without inheritance
                                    for all our labors, lost, and grievance
                                      what bang can buck the strain 
                                          and bring us broken souls to glory again?


Details | History Poem

The Seamstress of Time

I have a special story I wish to share
About a seamstress beautiful and fair

She would fade away turning into smoke
Of her amazing beauty, no man would joke

The spiraling smoke would then re-form
I know only an angels face could be so warm

Before her a beautiful quilt was spread
Upon it the story of my life was said

As she once again started to dissipate 
She said, “Mike this quilt records your fate”

As the smoke traveled over to a new place
And then formed together creating her face

Looking over her shoulder back at me
She said, “This area will hold what has yet to be”

Most of the quilt looked like twisted evil tattoo
Simply because, my life’s quilt was quilted true

I looked the quilt over and then met her gaze
She was so beautiful in so many different ways

The last part of the quilt way over to the right
Showed the beauty of someone changing their plight

Upon her beautiful hand, which seemed so nimble
I noticed she was wearing my grandmother’s thimble 

From a young maiden so beautiful to see
My grandmother appeared right in front of me

I guess up in heaven we return to our youth
My grandmother was beautiful; such is the truth

I thought of the price grandma was asked to pay
The shame of knowing I had turned out that way

I thought of her sitting there stitching my shame
My grandmother didn’t deserve an eternity of pain

She said, “Michael be still with the pain in your heart,
Your story encourages others to make a new start.”

“The deeper the wrong the stronger the right
I always knew my boy would take up the fight”

With a smile much brighter than an ice covered sea
She said, “I love the man my boy has grown up to be”

As she turned to the quilt and started to sew
She said, “Michael, its now time for you to go.”

“Believe in your story believe in your truth
For Salvation is the true fountain of youth”

One night in a dream, which I’ll hold forever divine
I learned; my Grandmother is now,” The Seamstress of Time”


When I was a boy I would help my Grandmother roll
her quilt, find her glasses, as well as, her thimble. I 
never thought about how amazing her art truly was.
From a pile of rags she would make the most beautiful
quilt's. I sleep under one of her quilts to this very day. 



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