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Famous Barricade Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Seeger, Alan
...I have a rendezvous with Death
At some disputed barricade,
When Spring comes back with rustling shade
And apple-blossoms fill the air— 
I have a rendezvous with Death
When Spring brings back blue days and fair.

It may be he shall take my hand
And lead me into his dark land
And close my eyes and quench my breath— 
It may be I shall pass him still.
I have a rendezvous with Death
On some scarred slo...Read more of this...



by Lindsay, Vachel
...When Yankee soldiers reach the barricade
Then Joan of Arc gives each the accolade.

For she is there in armor clad, today,
All the young poets of the wide world say.

Which of our freemen did she greet the first,
Seeing him come against the fires accurst?

Mark Twain, our Chief, with neither smile nor jest,
Leading to war our youngest and our best.

The Yankee to King Arthur's...Read more of this...

by Yeats, William Butler
...man is killed, or a house burned,
Yet no clear fact to be discerned:
Come build in he empty house of the stare.

A barricade of stone or of wood;
Some fourteen days of civil war;
Last night they trundled down the road
That dead young soldier in his blood:
Come build in the empty house of the stare.

We had fed the heart on fantasies,
The heart's grown brutal from the fare;
More Substance in our enmities
Than in our love; O honey-bees,
Come build in the empty house of...Read more of this...

by Seeger, Alan
...I have a rendezvous with Death
At some disputed barricade,
I have a rendezvous with Death
At some disputed barricade,
When Spring comes back with rustling shade
And apple-blossoms fill the air--
I have a rendezvous with Death
When Spring brings back blue days and fair.

It may be he shall take my hand
And lead me into his dark land
And close my eyes and quench my breath--
It may be I shall pass him st...Read more of this...

by Plath, Sylvia
...n not to be borne; let idiots
Reel giddy in bedlam spring:
She withdrew neatly.

And round her house she set
Such a barricade of barb and check
Against mutinous weather
As no mere insurgent man could hope to break
With curse, fist, threat
Or love, either....Read more of this...



by Gregory, Rg
...jabbing spines
  wincing with agony and grief) seeks to hack
  a clear way through
     picking swinging at
  the spiky barricade inch by prickly inch
  smarting with anger bristling with a thin
  itch and tingling of success - acute
  with aching glory the afflicted victim
  of a witch's pique frederick
  frederick the king snips hews chops
  rips slashes cracks cleaves rends pierces
  pierces and shatters into pointless pieces
  this mighty barrier of barbs - comes through ...Read more of this...

by Hugo, Victor
...
 ("Sur une barricade.") 
 
 {June, 1871.} 


 Like Casabianca on the devastated deck, 
 In years yet younger, but the selfsame core. 
 Beside the battered barricado's restless wreck, 
 A lad stood splashed with gouts of guilty gore, 
 But gemmed with purest blood of patriot more. 
 
 Upon his fragile form the troopers' bloody grip 
 Was deeply dug, whil...Read more of this...

by Lawson, Henry
...unded an' senseless, half-dead by the side of `my mate'.

"Surprised in the grey o' the morning half-armed, and the Barricade bad,
A battle o' twenty-five minutes was long 'gainst the odds that they had,
But the light o' the morning was deadened an' the smoke drifted far o'er the town
An' the clay o' Eureka was reddened ere the flag o' the diggers came down.

"But it rose in the hands of the people an' high in the breezes it tost,
And our mates only died for a cause t...Read more of this...

by McGonagall, William Topaz
...nly eighty in number, that brave British band,
And brave Lieutenant Broomhead did them command;
He gave orders to erect barricades without delay,
"It's the only plan I can see, men, to drive four thousand savages away." 

Then the mealie bags and biscuit boxes were brought out,
And the breastwork was made quickly without fear or doubt,
And barely was it finished when some one cried in dismay,
"There's the Zulus coming just about twelve hundred yards away." 

Methinks ...Read more of this...

by Hugo, Victor
...mayst ride with gallant rein, 
 Cut the knots of civil feud 
 With the trenchant steel in twain; 
 With thine edicts barricade 
 Haughty Thames' o'er-freighted trade; 
 Fickle Victory's self enthrall, 
 Captive to thy trumpet call; 
 Burst the stoutest gates asunder; 
 Leave the names of brightest wonder, 
 Pale and dim, behind thee far; 
 And to exhaustless armies yield 
 Thy glancing spur,—o'er Europe's field 
 A glory-guiding star. 
 
 God guards duration, if...Read more of this...

by Dickinson, Emily
...Their Barricade against the Sky
The martial Trees withdraw
And with a Flag at every turn
Their Armies are no more.

What Russet Halts in Nature's March
They indicate or cause
An inference of Mexico
Effaces the Surmise --

Recurrent to the After Mind
That Massacre of Air --
The Wound that was not Wound nor Scar
But Holidays of War...Read more of this...

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