Famous Assault Poems by Famous Poets

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

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A Prayer For My Daughter

...up of late,
Yet knows that to be choked with hate
May well be of all evil chances chief.
If there's no hatred in a mind
Assault and battery of the wind
Can never tear the linnet from the leaf.

An intellectual hatred is the worst,
So let her think opinions are accursed.
Have I not seen the loveliest woman born
Out of the mouth of plenty's horn,
Because of her opinionated mind
Barter that horn and every good
By quiet natures understood
For an old bellows full of angry wind?

C...Read more of this...
by Yeats, William Butler


A Song Of Despair

...e.

You swallowed everything, like distance.
Like the sea, like time. In you everything sank!

It was the happy hour of assault and the kiss.
The hour of the spell that blazed like a lighthouse.

Pilot's dread, fury of blind driver,
turbulent drunkenness of love, in you everything sank!

In the childhood of mist my soul, winged and wounded.
Lost discoverer, in you everything sank!

You girdled sorrow, you clung to desire,
sadness stunned you, in you everything sank!

I made t...Read more of this...
by Neruda, Pablo

Beowulf (Modern English)

...,
who carried forth a lighted terror,
hot before the hoard, a deadly welling
at midnight, until he was killed in the assault. (ll. 2767-82)

The messenger was in haste, eager to return,
advancing with adornments—curiosity broke within him
whether he would met with the courage-souled warrior
still alive on the plain outside, the prince of the Weders
sick at spirit, where he had left him earlier.
Then with those treasures, he discovered his famous prince,
his own lor...Read more of this...
by Anonymous,

Charmides

...he might not wake, and then afraid
Lest he might wake too soon, fled back, and then, fond renegade,

Returned to fresh assault, and all day long
Sat at his side, and laughed at her new toy,
And held his hand, and sang her sweetest song,
Then frowned to see how froward was the boy
Who would not with her maidenhood entwine,
Nor knew that three days since his eyes had looked on Proserpine;

Nor knew what sacrilege his lips had done,
But said, 'He will awake, I know him well,
He...Read more of this...
by Wilde, Oscar

Comus

...lime-twigs of his spells,
And yet came off. If you have this about you
(As I will give you when we go), you may
Boldly assault the necromancer's hall;
Where if he be, with dauntless hardihood
And brandished blade rush on him: break his glass,
And shed the luscious liquor on the ground;
But seize his wand. Though he and his curst crew
Fierce sign of battle make, and menace high,
Or, like the sons of Vulcan, vomit smoke,
Yet will they soon retire, if he but shrink.
 ELD. BRO. ...Read more of this...
by Milton, John


Hyperion

...and some wandering.
Caus, and Gyges, and Briareus,
Typhon, and Dolor, and Porphyrion,
With many more, the brawniest in assault,
Were pent in regions of laborious breath;
Dungeon'd in opaque element, to keep
Their clenched teeth still clench'd, and all their limbs
Lock'd up like veins of metal, crampt and screw'd;
Without a motion, save of their big hearts
Heaving in pain, and horribly convuls'd
With sanguine feverous boiling gurge of pulse.
Mnemosyne was straying in the worl...Read more of this...
by Keats, John

Inferno (English)

...a! let her from her place appear, 
 To change him into stone! Our first default 
 That venged no wrath on Theseus' deep assault, 
 So brings him." 
 "Turn thou from their sight," my guide 
 Enjoined, nor wholly on my fear relied, 
 But placed his hands across mine eyes the while 
 He told me further "Risk no glance. The sight 
 Of Gorgon, if she cometh, would bring thee night 
 From which were no returning." 
 Ye
 that read 
 With wisdom to discern, ye well may heed 
 The hid...Read more of this...
by Alighieri, Dante

Lara

...perchance, may break and pass the line, 
However link'd to baffle such design. 
"The charge be ours! to wait for their assault 
Were fate well worthy of a coward's halt." 
Forth flies each sabre, rein'd is every steed, 
And the next word shall scarce outstrip the deed: 
In the next tone of Lara's gathering breath 
How many shall but hear the voice of death! 

XIV. 

His blade is bared — in him there is an air 
As deep, but far too tranquil for despair; 
A something of indiff...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)

Paradise Lost: Book 02

...feel? 
Nor will occasion want, nor shall we need 
With dangerous expedition to invade 
Heaven, whose high walls fear no assault or siege, 
Or ambush from the Deep. What if we find 
Some easier enterprise? There is a place 
(If ancient and prophetic fame in Heaven 
Err not)--another World, the happy seat 
Of some new race, called Man, about this time 
To be created like to us, though less 
In power and excellence, but favoured more 
Of him who rules above; so was his will 
Pro...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Paradise Lost: Book 04

...thief, bent to unhoard the cash 
Of some rich burgher, whose substantial doors, 
Cross-barred and bolted fast, fear no assault, 
In at the window climbs, or o'er the tiles: 
So clomb this first grand thief into God's fold; 
So since into his church lewd hirelings climb. 
Thence up he flew, and on the tree of life, 
The middle tree and highest there that grew, 
Sat like a cormorant; yet not true life 
Thereby regained, but sat devising death 
To them who lived; nor on the vir...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Paradise Lost: Book 06

...illions, ranged for fight, 
Equal in number to that Godless crew 
Rebellious: Them with fire and hostile arms 
Fearless assault; and, to the brow of Heaven 
Pursuing, drive them out from God and bliss, 
Into their place of punishment, the gulf 
Of Tartarus, which ready opens wide 
His fiery Chaos to receive their fall. 
So spake the Sovran Voice, and clouds began 
To darken all the hill, and smoke to roll 
In dusky wreaths, reluctant flames, the sign 
Of wrath awaked; nor wit...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Paradise Lost: Book 07

...ageous as a sea, dark, wasteful, wild, 
Up from the bottom turned by furious winds 
And surging waves, as mountains, to assault 
Heaven's highth, and with the center mix the pole. 
Silence, ye troubled Waves, and thou Deep, peace, 
Said then the Omnifick Word; your discord end! 
Nor staid; but, on the wings of Cherubim 
Uplifted, in paternal glory rode 
Far into Chaos, and the world unborn; 
For Chaos heard his voice: Him all his train 
Followed in bright procession, to behol...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Paradise Lost: Book 09

...arned us, what malicious foe 
Envying our happiness, and of his own 
Despairing, seeks to work us woe and shame 
By sly assault; and somewhere nigh at hand 
Watches, no doubt, with greedy hope to find 
His wish and best advantage, us asunder; 
Hopeless to circumvent us joined, where each 
To other speedy aid might lend at need: 
Whether his first design be to withdraw 
Our fealty from God, or to disturb 
Conjugal love, than which perhaps no bliss 
Enjoyed by us excites his en...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Paradise Regained: The Fourth Book

...,
Beat off, returns as oft with humming sound;
Or surging waves against a solid rock,
Though all to shivers dashed, the assault renew,
(Vain battery!) and in froth or bubbles end— 
So Satan, whom repulse upon repulse
Met ever, and to shameful silence brought,
Yet gives not o'er, though desperate of success,
And his vain importunity pursues.
He brought our Saviour to the western side
Of that high mountain, whence he might behold
Another plain, long, but in breadth not wide,
Wa...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Samson Agonistes

...thwith how thou oughtst to receive him.

Sam: Ay me, another inward grief awak't, 
With mention of that name renews th' assault.

Man: Brethren and men of Dan, for such ye seem,
Though in this uncouth place; if old respect,
As I suppose, towards your once gloried friend,
My Son now Captive, hither hath inform'd
Your younger feet, while mine cast back with age
Came lagging after; say if he be here.

Chor: As signal now in low dejected state,
As earst in highest; behold him whe...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

The Knights Tale

...hat was of Thebes king,
He fought, and slew him manly as a knight
In plain bataille, and put his folk to flight:
And by assault he won the city after,
And rent adown both wall, and spar, and rafter;
And to the ladies he restored again
The bodies of their husbands that were slain,
To do obsequies, as was then the guise*. *custom

But it were all too long for to devise* *describe
The greate clamour, and the waimenting*, *lamenting
Which that the ladies made at the brenning* *bu...Read more of this...
by Chaucer, Geoffrey

The Lovers of the Poor

...hers taught: You'd better not be cruel!
You had better not throw stones upon the wrens!
Herein they kiss and coddle and assault
Anew and dearly in the innocence
With which they baffle nature. Who are full,
Sleek, tender-clad, fit, fiftyish, a-glow, all
Sweetly abortive, hinting at fat fruit,
Judge it high time that fiftyish fingers felt
Beneath the lovelier planes of enterprise.
To resurrect. To moisten with milky chill.
To be a random hitching post or plush.
To be, for wet e...Read more of this...
by Brooks, Gwendolyn

The Siege of Corinth

...the ruins yawn, 
And, with to-morrow's earliest dawn, 
O'er the disjointed mass shall vault 
The foremost of the fierce assault. 
The bands are rank'd; the chosen van 
Of Tartar and of Mussulman, 
The full of hope, misnamed "forlorn," 
Who hold the thought of death in scorn, 
And win their way with falchion's force, 
Or pave the path with many a corse, 
O'er which the following brave may rise, 
Their stepping-stone — the last who dies! 

XI. 

'Tis midnight: on the mountains ...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)

The Triumph Of Fame

...ole;A mole-ey'd race their hapless guide pursued,And blindly still the vain assault renew'd.Dark Metrodorus next sustain'd the cause,With Aristippus, true to Pleasure's laws.Chrysippus next his subtle web disposed:Zeno alternate spread his hand, and closed;To show how eloquence expands the soul,And logi...Read more of this...
by Petrarch, Francesco

Witness

...Against the enormous rocks of a rough coast
The ocean rams itself in pitched assault
And spastic rage to which there is no halt;
Foam-white brigades collapse; but the huge host

Has infinite reserves; at each attack
The impassive cliffs look down in gray disdain
At scenes of sacrifice, unrelieved pain,
Figured in froth, aquamarine and black.

Something in the blood-chemistry of life,
Unspeakable, impressive, undeterred,
Expresses its...Read more of this...
by Boland, Eavan

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