Famous Assailed Poems by Famous Poets

These are examples of famous Assailed poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous assailed poems. These examples illustrate what a famous assailed poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).

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A Channel Crossing

...k panting and satiate with storm, and released the tides.
In the dense mid channel the steam-souled ship hung hovering, assailed and withheld
As a soul born royal, if life or if death be against it, is thwarted and quelled.
As the glories of myriads of glow-worms in lustrous grass on a boundless lawn
Were the glories of flames phosphoric that made of the water a light like dawn.
A thousand Phosphors, a thousand Hespers, awoke in the churning sea,
And the swift soft hiss of th...Read more of this...
by Swinburne, Algernon Charles


Alfred Lord Tennyson - The Coming Of Arthur

...wolves. And King Leodogran 
Groaned for the Roman legions here again, 
And Csar's eagle: then his brother king, 
Urien, assailed him: last a heathen horde, 
Reddening the sun with smoke and earth with blood, 
And on the spike that split the mother's heart 
Spitting the child, brake on him, till, amazed, 
He knew not whither he should turn for aid. 

But--for he heard of Arthur newly crowned, 
Though not without an uproar made by those 
Who cried, `He is not Uther's son'--the ...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord

Beowulf (Modern English)

...me for Heardred
his killer under the shelter of shields,
when the Battle-Scylfings sought him,
the hardened warriors assailed him with hatred,
the nephew of Hereric, in his triumphant nation. (ll. 2200-06)

Afterwards the broad realm turned to the hand
of Beowulf. He kept it well for fifty winters—
he was a wise king, an elder home-warden—
until a single dragon began to hold sway
over the darkened nights, who kept watch
over his hoard in his high house,
an unyield...Read more of this...
by Anonymous,

Comus

...
Are but as slavish officers of vengeance,
Would send a glistering guardian, if need were,
To keep my life and honour unassailed. . . .
Was I deceived, or did a sable cloud
Turn forth her silver lining on the night?
I did not err: there does a sable cloud
Turn forth her silver lining on the night,
And casts a gleam over this tufted grove.
I cannot hallo to my brothers, but
Such noise as I can make to be heard farthest
I'll venture; for my new-enlivened spirits
Prompt me, and ...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Darkness

...all entrails—men
Died, and their bones were tombless as their flesh;
The meagre by the meagre were devoured,
Even dogs assailed their masters, all save one,
And he was faithful to a corse, and kept
The birds and beasts and famished men at bay,
Till hunger clung them, or the drooping dead
Lured their lank jaws; himself sought out no food,
But with a piteous and perpetual moan,
And a quick desolate cry, licking the hand
Which answered not with a caress—he died.
The crowd was f...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)


Elegy XVI: On His Mistress

...idnight's startings, crying out—oh, oh
Nurse, O my love is slain, I saw him go
O'er the white Alps alone; I saw him, I,
Assailed, fight, taken, stabbed, bleed, fall, and die.
Augur me better chance, except dread Jove
Think it enough for me t' have had thy love....Read more of this...
by Donne, John

Harry Wilmans

...superintendent,
Made a speech in Bindle's Opera House.
"The honor of the flag must be upheld," he said,
"Whether it be assailed by a barbarous tribe of Tagalogs
Or the greatest power in Europe."
And we cheered and cheered the speech and the flag he waved
As he spoke.
And I went to the war in spite of my father,
And followed the flag till I saw it raised
By our camp in a rice field near Manila,
And all of us cheered and cheered it.
But there were flies and poisonous things;
A...Read more of this...
by Masters, Edgar Lee

Hughes' Voice In My Head

...As soon as we crossed into Yorkshire

Hughes’ voice assailed me, unmistakable

Gravel and honey, a raw celebration of rain

Like a tattered lacework window;

Black glisten on roof slates,

Tarmac turned to shining ice,

Blusters of naked wind whipping

The wavelets of shifting water

To imaginary floating islets

On the turbulent river

Glumly he asked, "Where are the mills?"

Knowing their goneness in his lo...Read more of this...
by Tebb, Barry

I am a Black Woman

...black woman 
tall as a cypress 
strong 
beyond all definition still 
defying place 
and time 
and circumstance 
assailed 
impervious 
indestructible 
Look 
on me and be 
renewed ...Read more of this...
by Evans, Mari

In My Solitary Hours in My Dear Husband his Absence

...
My longings and my fears.

Thou hitherto hast been my God; 
Thy help my soul hath found. 
Though loss and sickness me assailed, 
Through Thee I've kept my ground.

And Thy abode Thou'st made with me; 
With Thee my soul can talk; 
In secret places Thee I find 
Where I do kneel or walk.

Though husband dear be from me gone, 
Whom I do love so well, 
I have a more beloved one 
Whose comforts far excel.

O stay my heart on Thee. my God, 
Uphold my fainting soul. 
And when I kno...Read more of this...
by Bradstreet, Anne

In the Greenest of our Valleys

...but to sing,
In voices of surpassing beauty,
The wit and wisdom of their king.

V.
But evil things, in robes of sorrow,
Assailed the monarch's high estate;
(Ah, let us mourn, for never morrow
Shall dawn upon him, desolate!)
And, round about his home, the glory
That blushed and bloomed
Is but a dim-remembered story
Of the old time entombed.

VI.
And travellers now within that valley,
Through the red-litten windows, see
Vast forms that move fantastically
To a discordant melody;...Read more of this...
by Poe, Edgar Allan

Inferno Canto02

...ffesa ; 

"If I have understood what you have said," 
replied the shade of that great-hearted one, 
"your soul has been assailed by cowardice, 


la qual molte fiate l'omo ingombra 
s? che d'onrata impresa lo rivolve, 
come falso veder bestia quand'ombra . 

which often weighs so heavily on a man- 
distracting him from honorable trials- 
as phantoms frighten beasts when shadows fall. 


Da questa tema acci? che tu ti solve, 
dirotti perch'io venni e quel ch'io 'ntesi 
nel pri...Read more of this...
by Alighieri, Dante

Miniver Cheevy

...Miniver Cheevy, child of scorn,
Grew lean while he assailed the seasons;
He wept that he was ever born,
And he had reasons.


Miniver loved the days of old
When swords were bright and steeds were prancing;
The vision of a warrior bold
Would set him dancing.


Miniver sighed for what was not,
And dreamed, and rested from his labors;
He dreamed of Thebes and Camelot,
And Priam's neighbors.


M...Read more of this...
by Robinson, Edwin Arlington

Paradise Lost: Book 10

...down 
The causey to Hell-gate: On either side 
Disparted Chaos overbuilt exclaimed, 
And with rebounding surge the bars assailed, 
That scorned his indignation: Through the gate, 
Wide open and unguarded, Satan passed, 
And all about found desolate; for those, 
Appointed to sit there, had left their charge, 
Flown to the upper world; the rest were all 
Far to the inland retired, about the walls 
Of Pandemonium; city and proud seat 
Of Lucifer, so by allusion called 
Of that b...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Psalm 129

...re constant as the day,
And tedious as the years.

Up from my youth I bore the rage
Of all the sons of strife;
Oft they assailed my riper age,
But not destroyed my life.

Their cruel plow had torn my flesh
With furrows long and deep;
Hourly they vexed my wounds afresh,
Nor let my sorrows sleep.

The Lord grew angry on his throne,
And, with impartial eye,
Measured the mischiefs they had done,
Then let his arrows fly.

How was their insolence surprised
To hear his thunders roll...Read more of this...
by Watts, Isaac

The Battle of Alexandria

...to attack them from behind the palace wall,
Then he opened fire at thirty yards, which did the enemy appal. 

And thus assailed in front, flank and rear,
The French soon began to shake with fear;
Then the 58th charged them with the bayonet, with courage unshaken,
And all the enemy that entered the palace ruins were killed or taken. 

Then the French Invincibles, stimulated by liquor and the promise of gold,
Stole silently along the valley with tact and courage bold,
Proceede...Read more of this...
by McGonagall, William Topaz

The Giaour

...t and Rapine wildly reign
To darken o'er the fair domain.
It is as though the Fiends prevailed
Against the Seraphs they assailed,
And, fixed on heavenly thrones, should dwell
The freed inheritors of Hell;
So soft the scene, so formed for joy,
So curst the tyrants that destroy!

He who hath bent him o'er the dead
Ere the first day of Death is fled,
The first dark day of Nothingness,
The last of Danger and Distress,
(Before Decay's effacing fingers
Have swept the lines where Be...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)

The Haunted Palace

...as but to sing,
In voices of surpassing beauty,
The wit and wisdom of their king.

But evil things, in robes of sorrow,
Assailed the monarch's high estate.
(Ah, let us mourn!- for never morrow
Shall dawn upon him desolate!)
And round about his home the glory
That blushed and bloomed,
Is but a dim-remembered story
Of the old time entombed.

And travellers, now, within that valley,
Through the red-litten windows see
Vast forms, that move fantastically
To a discordant melody,
Wh...Read more of this...
by Poe, Edgar Allan

The Walk

...Am I in truth, then, alone? Within thine arms, on thy bosom,
Nature, I lie once again!--Ah, and 'twas only a dream
That assailed me with horrors so fearful; with life's dreaded phantom,
And with the down-rushing vale, vanished the gloomy one too.
Purer my life I receive again from thine altar unsullied,--
Purer receive the bright glow felt by my youth's hopeful days.
Ever the will is changing its aim and its rule, while forever,
In a still varying form, actions revolve round ...Read more of this...
by Schiller, Friedrich von

The Wife of Baths Tale

...thou very knave,
Thou say'st that every holour* will her have; *whoremonger
She may no while in chastity abide,
That is assailed upon every side.
Thou say'st some folk desire us for richess,
Some for our shape, and some for our fairness,
And some, for she can either sing or dance,
And some for gentiless and dalliance,
Some for her handes and her armes smale:
Thus goes all to the devil, by thy tale;
Thou say'st, men may not keep a castle wall
That may be so assailed *over all....Read more of this...
by Chaucer, Geoffrey

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