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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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by Yeats, William Butler
...oys and girls about him.
With any sort of clothes,
With a hat out of fashion,
With Old patched shoes,
With a ragged bandit cloak,
With an eye like a hawk,
With a stiff straight back,
With a strutting turkey walk.
With a bag full of pennies,
With a monkey on a chain,
With a great cock's feather,
With an old foul tune.
Tall dames go walking in grass-green Avalon....Read more of this...



by Service, Robert William
...kay," drawled Bill Jerome,
"Could be, this guy who aims to kill is Black Moran from Nome."

"You lousy crooks," the bandit cried; "You're slickly heeled I know;
Come, make it snappy, dump outside your booty in the snow."
The gambling pair went putty pale; they crimped as if with cold.
And heaved upon the icy trail two hefty pokes of gold.

Then softly stepping from the sleigh came Father Tim McGee,
And speaking in his gentle way: :Accept my Cross," said he.Read more of this...

by Hugo, Victor
...Their plans succeed, and each is well content. 
 Thus under Satan's all paternal care 
 They brothers are, this royal bandit pair. 
 Oh, noxious conquerors! with transient rule 
 Chimera heads—ambition can but fool. 
 Their misty minds but harbor rottenness 
 Loathsome and fetid, and all barrenness— 
 Their deeds to ashes turn, and, hydra-bred, 
 The mystic skeleton is theirs to dread. 
 The daring German and the cunning Pole 
 Noted to-day a woman had control 
 Of...Read more of this...

by Service, Robert William
...me straight
When I was wont to stray,
And though my guts I often hate,
I walk the narrow way.

I might have been a bandit or
A Casanovish blade,
But always I have prospered for
I've always been afraid;
Ay, fear's behind the best of us
And schools us for success,
And that is why I'm virtuous,
And happy - more or less.

So let me hail that mighty power
That goads me to be good,
And makes me cannily to cower
Amid foolhardihood;
Though I be criminal in gain,
My virtue a ...Read more of this...

by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...
'To the wilds!' and Enid leading down the tracks 
Through which he bad her lead him on, they past 
The marches, and by bandit-haunted holds, 
Gray swamps and pools, waste places of the hern, 
And wildernesses, perilous paths, they rode: 
Round was their pace at first, but slackened soon: 
A stranger meeting them had surely thought 
They rode so slowly and they looked so pale, 
That each had suffered some exceeding wrong. 
For he was ever saying to himself, 
'O I that was...Read more of this...



by Campbell, Thomas
...'d:--
And aye, as if for death, some lonely trumpet wail'd.

Then look'd they to the hills, where fire o'erhung
The bandit groups, in one Vesuvian glare;
Or swept, far seen, the tower, whose clock unrung
Told legible that midnight of despair.
She faints,--she falters not,--th' heroic fair,
As he the sword and plume in haste array'd.
One short embrace--he clasp'd his dearest care--
But hark! what nearer war-drum shakes the glade?
Joy, joy! Columbia's friends are tr...Read more of this...

by Sandburg, Carl
...ith a smile that forever
wishes and wishes, purple, silent, fled from all the
iron things of life, evaded like a sought bandit, gone
into dreams, by God.


I wonder, Momus,
Whether shadows of the dead sit somewhere and look
with deep laughter
On men who play in terrible earnest the old, known,
solemn repetitions of history.


A droning monotone soft as sea laughter hovers from
your kindliness of bronze,
You give me the human ease of a mountain peak, purple,
silent;
Gr...Read more of this...

by Akhmatova, Anna
...rful.
Assume whatever shape you wish. Burst in
Like a shell of noxious gas. Creep up on me
Like a practised bandit with a heavy weapon.
Poison me, if you want, with a typhoid exhalation,
Or, with a simple tale prepared by you
(And known by all to the point of nausea), take me
Before the commander of the blue caps and let me
glimpse
The house administrator's terrified white face.
I don't care anymore. The river Yenisey
Swirls on. The Pole star blaze...Read more of this...

by Dickinson, Emily
...ot 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 foe -- of any --
Not the smallest Bird
In the nearest Orchard dwelling
Be of Me -- afraid.

Most -- I love the Cause that slew Me.
Often as I die
Its beloved Recognition
Holds a Sun on Me --

Best -- at Setting -- as is Nature's --
Neither...Read more of this...

by Service, Robert William
...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 into the blaze.

Ho...Read more of this...

by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...ay, for my lord,' said Percivale, `the King, 
Was not in hall: for early that same day, 
Scaped through a cavern from a bandit hold, 
An outraged maiden sprang into the hall 
Crying on help: for all her shining hair 
Was smeared with earth, and either milky arm 
Red-rent with hooks of bramble, and all she wore 
Torn as a sail that leaves the rope is torn 
In tempest: so the King arose and went 
To smoke the scandalous hive of those wild bees 
That made such honey in his realm...Read more of this...

by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...re going to the King, 
He made this pretext, that his princedom lay 
Close on the borders of a territory, 
Wherein were bandit earls, and caitiff knights, 
Assassins, and all flyers from the hand 
Of Justice, and whatever loathes a law: 
And therefore, till the King himself should please 
To cleanse this common sewer of all his realm, 
He craved a fair permission to depart, 
And there defend his marches; and the King 
Mused for a little on his plea, but, last, 
Allowing it, t...Read more of this...

by Hardy, Thomas
...s no giant-slayer, 
Nor one to call a God-obeyer 
In certain details we could spare, 
But rather was a debonair 
Shrewd bandit, skilled as banjo-player: 
That Solomon sang the fleshly Fair, 
And gave the Church no thought whate'er; 
That Esther with her royal wear, 
And Mordecai, the son of Jair, 
And Joshua's triumphs, Job's despair, 
And Balaam's ass's bitter blare; 
Nebuchadnezzar's furnace-flare, 
And Daniel and the den affair, 
And other stories rich and rare, 
Were writ...Read more of this...

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