Famous Alarms Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Alarms poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous alarms poems. These examples illustrate what a famous alarms poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Bradstreet, Anne
...nd peace happy and blest,
3 What ails thee hang thy head, and cross thine arms,
4 And sit i' the dust to sigh these sad alarms?
5 What deluge of new woes thus over-whelm
6 The glories of thy ever famous Realm?
7 What means this wailing tone, this mournful guise?
8 Ah, tell thy Daughter; she may sympathize.
Old England.
9 Art ignorant indeed of these my woes,
10 Or must my forced tongue these griefs disclose,
11 And must my self dissect my tatter'd state,
12 Which ...Read more of this...
by
Milton, John
...nknown,
What need a man forestall his date of grief,
And run to meet what he would most avoid?
Or, if they be but false alarms of fear,
How bitter is such self-delusion!
I do not think my sister so to seek,
Or so unprincipled in virtue's book,
And the sweet peace that goodness bosoms ever,
As that the single want of light and noise
(Not being in danger, as I trust she is not)
Could stir the constant mood of her calm thoughts,
And put them into misbecoming plight.
Virtue c...Read more of this...
by
Wilcox, Ella Wheeler
...ating wings and wild exultant cry,
V.
So lion-hearted Custer sprang to arms,
And gloried in the conflict's loud alarms.
But one dark shadow marred his bounding joy;
And then the soldier vanished, and the boy,
The tender son, clung close, with sobbing breath,
To her from whom each parting was new death;
That mother who like goddesses of old,
Gave to the mighty Mars, three warriors brave and bold,
VI.
Yet who, unlike those martial dames of yore,
Grew pa...Read more of this...
by
Arnold, Matthew
..., nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night. ...Read more of this...
by
Marvell, Andrew
...our fears could find a pass,
Through double oak, and lined with treble brass,
That one man still, although but named, alarms
More than all men, all navies, and all arms.
Him, in the day, him, in late night I dread,
And still his sword seems hanging o'er my head.
The nation had been ours, but his one soul
Moves the great bulk, and animates the whole.
He secrecy with number hath enchased,
Courage with age, maturity with haste:
The valiant's terror, riddle ...Read more of this...
by
Yeats, William Butler
...-at-arms
Gathered a score of horse and spent his days
In this tumultuous spot,
Where through long wars and sudden night alarms
His dwinding score and he seemed castaways
Forgetting and forgot;
And I, that after me
My bodily heirs may find,
To exalt a lonely mind,
Befitting emblems of adversity.
III. My Table
Two heavy trestles, and a board
Where Sato's gift, a changeless sword,
By pen and paper lies,
That it may moralise
My days out of their aimlessness.
A bit...Read more of this...
by
Trumbull, John
...ressor's fall.
"Rise then, ere ruin swift surprize,
To victory, to vengeance, rise.
Hark, how the distant din alarms;
The echoing trumpet breathes, to arms.
From provinces remote afar,
The sons of glory rouse to war.
'Tis Freedom calls! the raptured sound
The Apalachian hills rebound.
The Georgian coasts her voice shall hear,
And start from lethargies of fear.
From the parch'd zone, with glowing ray
Where pours the sun intenser day,
To shores where i...Read more of this...
by
Trumbull, John
...ed round;
And on the bench, with blade right loyal,
Had won the day at many a trial,
Of stones and clubs had braved th' alarms,
Shrunk from these new Vulcanian arms.
The spade so temper'd from the sledge,
Nor keen nor solid harm'd its edge,
Now met it, from his arm of might,
Descending with steep force to smite;
The blade snapp'd short--and from his hand,
With rust embrown'd the glittering sand.
Swift turn'd M'Fingal at the view,
And call'd to aid th' attendant crew,
...Read more of this...
by
Trumbull, John
...ry's arm to fall!
Where Hudson with majestic sway
Through hills disparted plows his way,
Fate spreads on Bemus' heights alarms,
And pours destruction on our arms;
There Bennington's ensanguined plain,
And Stony-Point, the prize of Wayne.
Behold near Del'ware's icy roar,
Where morning dawns on Trenton's shore,
While Hessians spread their Christmas feasts,
Rush rude these uninvited guests;
Nor aught avails the captured crew
Their martial whiskers' grisly hue!
On Princeton p...Read more of this...
by
Lowell, Amy
...ome day cease to fright her.
Illness could be no crime, and dreadful harms
Did come from too much sunshine. Her alarms
Would lessen when she saw him standing there,
XLII
Simple and kind, a brother just returned From
journeying, and he would treat her so.
She knew his honest heart, and if there burned A spark in it
he would not let it show.
But when he really came, and stood beside Her underneath the
fruitless cherry boughs,
He seemed a tired man, gaunt, le...Read more of this...
by
Yeats, William Butler
...at he talks about,
And there's a politician
That has read and thought,
And maybe what they say is true
Of war and war's alarms,
But O that I were young again
And held her in my arms!...Read more of this...
by
Lowell, Amy
...Quick the old man grew
Livid. "Mynheer, a pistol! Let me swerve
You from your purpose. Life brings often false alarms
--"
63
"Peace, good old Isaacs, why should you suppose
My purpose deadly. In good truth I've been
Blest above others. You have many rows
Of pistols it would seem. Here, this shagreen
Case holds one that I fancy. Silvered mounts
Are to my taste. These letters `C. D. L.'
Its former owner? Dead, you say. Poor Ghost!
...Read more of this...
by
Bridges, Robert Seymour
...oil to keep the names of love
Honour'd on earth, as they are bright above.
53
I heard great Hector sounding war's alarms,
Where thro' the listless ghosts chiding he strode,
As tho' the Greeks besieged his last abode,
And he his Troy's hope still, her king-at-arms.
But on those gentle meads, which Lethe charms
With weary oblivion, his passion glow'd
Like the cold night-worm's candle, and only show'd
Such mimic flame as neither heats nor harms.
'Twas plain to rea...Read more of this...
by
Scott, Sir Walter
...w staved,
The falconer tossed his hawk away,
The hunter left the stag at hay;
Prompt at the signal of alarms,
Each son of Alpine rushed to arms;
So swept the tumult and affray
Along the margin of Achray.
Alas, thou lovely lake! that e'er
Thy banks should echo sounds of fear!
The rocks, the bosky thickets, sleep
So stilly on thy bosom deep,
The lark's blithe carol from the cloud
Seems for the scene too gay...Read more of this...
by
Trumbull, John
...ve proceeds.
'Tis love disturbs with fell debate
Of man and beast the peaceful state:
Men fill the world with war's alarms,
When female trumpets sound to arms;
The commonwealth of dogs delight
For beauties, as for bones, to fight.
Love hath his tens of thousands slain,
And heap'd with copious death the plain:
Samson, with ass's jaw to aid,
Ne'er peopled thus th'infernal shade.
"Nor this the worst; for he that's dead,
With love no more will vex his head.
'Tis...Read more of this...
by
Warton, Thomas
...trees; till haply from the depth
The woodman's stroke, or distant tinkling team
Or heifers rustling through the brake, alarms
Th' illuded sense, and mars the golden dream.
These are delights that absence drear has made
Familiar to my soul, e'er since the form
Of young Sapphira, beauteous as the Spring,
When from her violet-woven couch awaked
By frolic Zephyr's hand, her tender cheek
Graceful she lifts, and blushing from her bower
Issues to clothe in gladsome-glistering g...Read more of this...
by
Pope, Alexander
...d heav'nly Breasts with human Passions rage;
'Gainst Pallas, Mars; Latona, Hermes arms;
And all Olympus rings with loud Alarms.
Jove's Thunder roars, Heav'n trembles all around;
Blue Neptune storms, the bellowing Deeps resound;
Earth shakes her nodding Tow'rs, the Ground gives way;
And the pale Ghosts start at the Flash of Day!
Triumphant Umbriel on a Sconce's Height
Clapt his glad Wings, and sate to view the Fight,
Propt on their Bodkin Spears, the Sprights survey
The ...Read more of this...
by
Petrarch, Francesco
...PAN>Noradin, and Lancaster fierce in arms,Who vex'd the Gallic coast with long alarms.[Pg 391]I look'd around with painful search to spyIf any martial form should meet my eyeFamiliar to my sight in worlds above,The willing objects of respect or love;Read more of this...
by
Johnson, Samuel
...iding joy,
40 Increase his riches and his peace destroy,
41 New fears in dire vicissitude invade,
42 The rustling brake alarms, and quiv'ring shade,
43 Nor light nor darkness bring his pain relief.
44 One shews the plunder, and one hides the thief.
45 Yet still one gen'ral cry the skies assails,
46 And gain and grandeur load the tainted gales,
47 Few know the toiling statesman's fear or care,
48 Th' insidious rival and the gaping heir.
49 Once more, Democritus, ...Read more of this...
by
Hillringhouse, Mark
...sty hollowness of barren shelves.
Or maybe it's the cheap Plexiglas above the Chinese lettering
or the sound of car alarms and sirens blaring us back.
The city dead in me swaying down these aisles,
like everything else that fell from my life.
I walk down Main Street
trying to regain my balance
behind the men who walk home
from sweaty jobs with clenched fists
and the women who follow them
pulling their children
like dogs in the rain....Read more of this...
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