Famous Bandit Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Black Moran

by Robert William Service
 The mule-skinner was Bill Jerome, the passengers were three;
Two tinhorns from the dives of Nome, and Father Tim McGee.
And as for sunny Southland bound, through weary woods they sped,
The solitude that ringed them round was silent as the dead.

Then when the trail crooked crazily, the frost-rimed horses reared,
And from behind a fallen tree a grim galoot appeared;
He wore a...Read more of this...

A Statesmans Holiday

by William Butler Yeats
 I lived among great houses,
Riches drove out rank,
Base drove out the better blood,
And mind and body shrank.
No Oscar ruled the table,
But I'd a troop of friends
That knowing better talk had gone
Talked of odds and ends.
Some knew what ailed the world
But never said a thing,
So I have picked a better trade
And night and morning sing:
Tall dames go walking in grass-green...Read more of this...

Fear

by Robert William Service
 I know how father's strap would feel,
If ever I were caught,
So mother's jam I did not steal,
Though theft was in my thought.
Then turned fourteen and full of pitch,
Of love I was afraid,
And did not dare to dally with
Our pretty parlour maid.

And so it is and always was,
The path of rectitude
I've followed all my life because
The Parson said I should.
The...Read more of this...

Momus

by Carl Sandburg
 Momus is the name men give your face,
The brag of its tone, like a long low steamboat whistle
Finding a way mid mist on a shoreland,
Where gray rocks let the salt water shatter spray
Against horizons purple, silent.


Yes, Momus,
Men have flung your face in bronze
To gaze in gargoyle downward on a street-whirl of folk.
They were artists did this, shaped your sad...Read more of this...

Struck was I not yet by Lightning --

by Emily Dickinson
 Struck, was I, not yet by Lightning --
Lightning -- lets away
Power to perceive His Process
With Vitality.

Maimed -- was I -- yet not by Venture --
Stone of stolid Boy --
Nor a Sportsman's Peradventure --
Who mine Enemy?

Robbed -- was I -- intact to Bandit --
All my Mansion torn --
Sun -- withdrawn to Recognition --
Furthest shining -- done --

Yet was not the...Read more of this...

Requiem

by Anna Akhmatova
 Not under foreign skies
 Nor under foreign wings protected -
 I shared all this with my own people
 There, where misfortune had abandoned us.
 [1961]

INSTEAD OF A PREFACE

During the frightening years of the Yezhov terror, I
spent seventeen months waiting in prison queues in
Leningrad. One day, somehow, someone 'picked me out'.
On that occasion there was a woman standing behind me,
her...Read more of this...

The Bandit

by Robert William Service
 Upon his way to rob a Bank
 He paused to watch a fire;
Though crowds were pressing rank on rank
 He pushed a passage nigher;
Then sudden heard, piercing and wild,
 The screaming of a child.

A Public Enemy was he,
 A hater of the law;
He looked around for bravery
 But only fear he saw;
Then to the craven crowds amaze
 He plunged...Read more of this...

The Respectable Burgher on The Higher Criticism

by Thomas Hardy
 Since Reverend Doctors now declare 
That clerks and people must prepare 
To doubt if Adam ever were; 
To hold the flood a local scare; 
To argue, though the stolid stare, 
That everything had happened ere 
The prophets to its happening sware; 
That David was no giant-slayer, 
Nor one to call a God-obeyer 
In certain details we could spare, 
But...Read more of this...

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