Famous Barbarians Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Barbarians poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous barbarians poems. These examples illustrate what a famous barbarians poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Petrarch, Francesco
...s invest?That her green fields be dyed,Hope ye, with blood from the Barbarians' veins?Beguiled by error weak,Ye see not, though to pierce so deep ye boast,Who love, or faith, in venal bosoms seek:When throng'd your standards most,Ye are encompass'd most by hostile bands.O...Read more of this...
by
Wilcox, Ella Wheeler
...repid and unflinching men
Who knew no homes save ever moving tents,
And who 'twixt fierce unfriendly elements
And wild barbarians warred. Yet unfraid,
Since love impels thy strains, sing, sing, my modest maid.
II.
Relate how Custer in midwinter sought
Far Washita's cold shores; tell why he fought
With savage nomads fortressed in deep snows.
Woman, thou source of half the sad world's woes
And all its joys, what sanguinary strife
Has vexed the earth and made...Read more of this...
by
Verlaine, Paul
...I am the Empire in the last of its decline,
That sees the tall, fair-haired Barbarians pass,--the while
Composing indolent acrostics, in a style
Of gold, with languid sunshine dancing in each line.
The solitary soul is heart-sick with a vile
Ennui. Down yon, they say, War's torches bloody shine.
Alas, to be so faint of will, one must resign
The chance of brave adventure in the splendid file,-
Of death, pe...Read more of this...
by
Cheney-Coker, Syl
...ed wine
offered to a Messiah, only to be deceived by the false crown
in his teeth, soon after we had silenced the red barbarians.
The chosen was what we could have been,
but since we have only one story to tell:
whether it be of The Athens of West Africa
or the song of the Wretched of the earth—
in our font of secrets, where we change
the name of Christ with our miscreant voices,
—always this ridiculous viaticum—
let us now imagine the face of a different Messia...Read more of this...
by
Cavafy, Constantine P
...upon a time were citizens of Magna Graecia;
and how low they'd fallen now, what they'd become,
living and speaking like barbarians,
cut off so disastrously from the Greek way of life....Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...lling through the air;
I see diminute farms, hamlets, ruins, grave-yards, jails, factories, palaces, hovels, huts
of
barbarians, tents of nomads, upon the surface;
I see the shaded part on one side, where the sleepers are sleeping—and the sun-lit part on
the
other side,
I see the curious silent change of the light and shade,
I see distant lands, as real and near to the inhabitants of them, as my land is to me.
I see plenteous waters;
I see mountain peaks—I see t...Read more of this...
by
Dyke, Henry Van
...Lord.
O land where reason stands secure on right,
O land where freedom is the source of light,
Against the mailed Barbarians' deadly blast,
Britain, stand fast!
Stand fast, dear land!
Thou island mother of a world-wide race,
Whose children speak thy tongue and love thy face,
Their hearts and hopes are with thee in the strife,
Their hands will break the sword that seeks thy life;
Fight on until the Teuton madness cease;
Fight bravely on, until the word of peace
Is sp...Read more of this...
by
von Goethe, Johann Wolfgang
...OD gave to mortals birth,
In his own image too;
Then came Himself to earth,
A mortal kind and true.
1821.*
BARBARIANS oft endeavour
Gods for themselves to make
But they're more hideous ever
Than dragon or than snake.
1821.*
WHAT shall I teach thee, the very first thing?--
Fain would I learn o'er my shadow to spring!
1827.*
"WHAT is science, rightly known?
'Tis the strength of life alone.
Life canst thou engender never,
Life must be life's ...Read more of this...
by
Aeschylus,
...e loud-resounding din
Of song triumphant came; and shrill at once
Echo responded from the island rock.
Then upon all barbarians terror fell,
Thus disappointed; for not as for flight
The Hellenes sang the holy pæan then,
But setting forth to battle valiantly.
The bugle with its note inflamed them all;
And straightway with the dip of plashing oars
They smote the deep sea water at command,
And quickly all were plainly to be seen.
Their right wing first in orderly arra...Read more of this...
by
Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...br>
And so last night she fell to canvass you:
~Her~ countrywomen! she did not envy her.
"Who ever saw such wild barbarians?
Girls?--more like men!" and at these words the snake,
My secret, seemed to stir within my breast;
And oh, Sirs, could I help it, but my cheek
Began to burn and burn, and her lynx eye
To fix and make me hotter, till she laughed:
"O marvellously modest maiden, you!
Men! girls, like men! why, if they had been men
You need not set your though...Read more of this...
by
Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...dy vengeance on you both?--
Yet since our father--Wasps in our good hive,
You would-be quenchers of the light to be,
Barbarians, grosser than your native bears--
O would I had his sceptre for one hour!
You that have dared to break our bound, and gulled
Our servants, wronged and lied and thwarted us--
~I~ wed with thee! ~I~ bound by precontract
Your bride, our bondslave! not though all the gold
That veins the world were packed to make your crown,
And every spoken ton...Read more of this...
by
Duncan, Robert
...r the disrobing of the guard;
the beautil boundaries of the empire
naked, rapt round in the smell of a lion.
(The barbarians have passt over the significant phrase)
-When I was asleep,
a certain guard says,
a man shed his clothes as if he shed tears
and appeard as a lonely lion
waiting for a song under the shed-roof of wars.
I sang the song that he waited to hear,
I, the Prize-Winner, the Poet Acclaimd.
Dear, Dear, Dear, Dear, I sang,
believe, believe, b...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...han that—there is strict account of all.
The interminable hordes of the ignorant and wicked are not nothing,
The barbarians of Africa and Asia are not nothing,
The common people of Europe are not nothing—the American aborigines are not nothing,
The infected in the immigrant hospital are not nothing—the murderer or mean person is
not
nothing,
The perpetual successions of shallow people are not nothing as they go,
The lowest prostitute is not nothing—the mocker of r...Read more of this...
by
Cavafy, Constantine P
...What are we waiting for, assembled in the forum?
The barbarians are due here today.
Why isn't anything happening in the senate?
Why do the senators sit there without legislating?
Because the barbarians are coming today.
What laws can the senators make now?
Once the barbarians are here, they'll do the legislating.
Why did our emperor get up so early,
and why is he sitting at the city's main ga...Read more of this...
by
Crane, Stephen
...o you strive for greatness, fool?
Go pluck a bough and wear it.
It is as sufficing.
My Lord, there are certain barbarians
Who tilt their noses
As if the stars were flowers,
And Thy servant is lost among their shoe-buckles.
Fain would I have mine eyes even with their eyes.
Fool, go pluck a bough and wear it....Read more of this...
by
Po, Li
...f fulling mallets.
Autumn winds keep on blowing,
all things make me think of Jade Pass!
When will they put down the barbarians
and my good man come home from his far campaign?...Read more of this...
by
Bai, Li
...ulling mallets.
Autumn winds keep on blowing,
all things make me think of Jade Pass!
When will they put down the barbarians
and my good man come home from his far campaign?
- English Translation -...Read more of this...
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