Get Your Premium Membership

Best Famous Gladiators Poems

Here is a collection of the all-time best famous Gladiators poems. This is a select list of the best famous Gladiators poetry. Reading, writing, and enjoying famous Gladiators poetry (as well as classical and contemporary poems) is a great past time. These top poems are the best examples of gladiators poems.

Search and read the best famous Gladiators poems, articles about Gladiators poems, poetry blogs, or anything else Gladiators poem related using the PoetrySoup search engine at the top of the page.

See Also:
Written by Aleister Crowley | Create an image from this poem

The Garden of Janus

 I

The cloud my bed is tinged with blood and foam.
The vault yet blazes with the sun Writhing above the West, brave hippodrome Whose gladiators shock and shun As the blue night devours them, crested comb Of sleep's dead sea That eats the shores of life, rings round eternity! II So, he is gone whose giant sword shed flame Into my bowels; my blood's bewitched; My brain's afloat with ecstasy of shame.
That tearing pain is gone, enriched By his life-spasm; but he being gone, the same Myself is gone Sucked by the dragon down below death's horizon.
III I woke from this.
I lay upon the lawn; They had thrown roses on the moss With all their thorns; we came there at the dawn, My lord and I; God sailed across The sky in's galleon of amber, drawn By singing winds While we wove garlands of the flowers of our minds.
IV All day my lover deigned to murder me, Linking his kisses in a chain About my neck; demon-embroidery! Bruises like far-ff mountains stain The valley of my body of ivory! Then last came sleep.
I wake, and he is gone; what should I do but weep? V Nay, for I wept enough --- more sacred tears! --- When first he pinned me, gripped My flesh, and as a stallion that rears, Sprang, hero-thewed and satyr-lipped; Crushed, as a grape between his teeth, my fears; Sucked out my life And stamped me with the shame, the monstrous word of wife.
VI I will not weep; nay, I will follow him Perchance he is not far, Bathing his limbs in some delicious dim Depth, where the evening star May kiss his mouth, or by the black sky's rim He makes his prayer To the great serpent that is coiled in rapture there.
VII I rose to seek him.
First my footsteps faint Pressed the starred moss; but soon I wandered, like some sweet sequestered saint, Into the wood, my mind.
The moon Was staggered by the trees; with fierce constraint Hardly one ray Pierced to the ragged earth about their roots that lay.
VIII I wandered, crying on my Lord.
I wandered Eagerly seeking everywhere.
The stories of life that on my lips he squandered Grew into shrill cries of despair, Until the dryads frightened and dumfoundered Fled into space --- Like to a demon-king's was grown my maiden face! XI At last I came unto the well, my soul In that still glass, I saw no sign Of him, and yet --- what visions there uproll To cloud that mirror-soul of mine? Above my head there screams a flying scroll Whose word burnt through My being as when stars drop in black disastrous dew.
X For in that scroll was written how the globe Of space became; of how the light Broke in that space and wrapped it in a robe Of glory; of how One most white Withdrew that Whole, and hid it in the lobe Of his right Ear, So that the Universe one dewdrop did appear.
IX Yea! and the end revealed a word, a spell, An incantation, a device Whereby the Eye of the Most Terrible Wakes from its wilderness of ice To flame, whereby the very core of hell Bursts from its rind, Sweeping the world away into the blank of mind.
XII So then I saw my fault; I plunged within The well, and brake the images That I had made, as I must make - Men spin The webs that snare them - while the knee Bend to the tyrant God - or unto Sin The lecher sunder! Ah! came that undulant light from over or from under? XIII It matters not.
Come, change! come, Woe! Come, mask! Drive Light, Life, Love into the deep! In vain we labour at the loathsome task Not knowing if we wake or sleep; But in the end we lift the plumed casque Of the dead warrior; Find no chaste corpse therein, but a soft-smiling whore.
XIV Then I returned into myself, and took All in my arms, God's universe: Crushed its black juice out, while His anger shook His dumbness pregnant with a curse.
I made me ink, and in a little book I wrote one word That God himself, the adder of Thought, had never heard.
XV It detonated.
Nature, God, mankind Like sulphur, nitre, charcoal, once Blended, in one annihilation blind Were rent into a myriad of suns.
Yea! all the mighty fabric of a Mind Stood in the abyss, Belching a Law for "That" more awful than for "This.
" XVI Vain was the toil.
So then I left the wood And came unto the still black sea, That oily monster of beatitude! ('Hath "Thee" for "Me," and "Me" for "Thee!") There as I stood, a mask of solitude Hiding a face Wried as a satyr's, rolled that ocean into space.
XVII Then did I build an altar on the shore Of oyster-shells, and ringed it round With star-fish.
Thither a green flame I bore Of phosphor foam, and strewed the ground With dew-drops, children of my wand, whose core Was trembling steel Electric that made spin the universal Wheel.
XVIII With that a goat came running from the cave That lurked below the tall white cliff.
Thy name! cried I.
The answer that gave Was but one tempest-whisper - "If!" Ah, then! his tongue to his black palate clave; For on soul's curtain Is written this one certainty that naught is certain! XIX So then I caught that goat up in a kiss.
And cried Io Pan! Io Pan! Io Pan! Then all this body's wealth of ambergris, (Narcissus-scented flesh of man!) I burnt before him in the sacrifice; For he was sure - Being the Doubt of Things, the one thing to endure! XX Wherefore, when madness took him at the end, He, doubt-goat, slew the goat of doubt; And that which inward did for ever tend Came at the last to have come out; And I who had the World and God to friend Found all three foes! Drowned in that sea of changes, vacancies, and woes! XXI Yet all that Sea was swallowed up therein; So they were not, and it was not.
As who should sweat his soul out through the skin And find (sad fool!) he had begot All that without him that he had left in, And in himself All he had taken out thereof, a mocking elf! XXII But now that all was gone, great Pan appeared.
Him then I strove to woo, to win, Kissing his curled lips, playing with his beard, Setting his brain a-shake, a-spin, By that strong wand, and muttering of the weird That only I Knew of all souls alive or dead beneath the sky.
XXIII So still I conquered, and the vision passed.
Yet still was beaten, for I knew Myself was He, Himself, the first and last; And as an unicorn drinks dew From under oak-leaves, so my strength was cast Into the mire; For all I did was dream, and all I dreamt desire.
XXIV More; in this journey I had clean forgotten The quest, my lover.
But the tomb Of all these thoughts, the rancid and the rotten, Proved in the end to be my womb Wherein my Lord and lover had begotten A little child To drive me, laughing lion, into the wanton wild! XXV This child hath not one hair upon his head, But he hath wings instead of ears.
No eyes hath he, but all his light is shed Within him on the ordered sphere Of nature that he hideth; and in stead Of mouth he hath One minute point of jet; silence, the lightning path! XXVI Also his nostrils are shut up; for he Hath not the need of any breath; Nor can the curtain of eternity Cover that head with life or death.
So all his body, a slim almond-tree, Knoweth no bough Nor branch nor twig nor bud, from never until now.
XXVII This thought I bred within my bowels, I am.
I am in him, as he in me; And like a satyr ravishing a lamb So either seems, or as the sea Swallows the whale that swallows it, the ram Beats its own head Upon the city walls, that fall as it falls dead.
XXVIII Come, let me back unto the lilied lawn! Pile me the roses and the thorns, Upon this bed from which he hath withdrawn! He may return.
A million morns May follow that first dire daemonic dawn When he did split My spirit with his lightnings and enveloped it! XXIX So I am stretched out naked to the knife, My whole soul twitching with the stress Of the expected yet surprising strife, A martyrdom of blessedness.
Though Death came, I could kiss him into life; Though Life came, I Could kiss him into death, and yet nor live nor die! *** Yet I that am the babe, the sire, the dam, Am also none of these at all; For now that cosmic chaos of I AM Bursts like a bubble.
Mystical The night comes down, a soaring wedge of flame Woven therein To be a sign to them who yet have never been.
XXXI The universe I measured with my rod.
The blacks were balanced with the whites; Satan dropped down even as up soared God; Whores prayed and danced with anchorites.
So in my book the even matched the odd: No word I wrote Therein, but sealed it with the signet of the goat.
XXXII This also I seal up.
Read thou herein Whose eyes are blind! Thou may'st behold Within the wheel (that alway seems to spin All ways) a point of static gold.
Then may'st thou out therewith, and fit it in That extreme spher Whose boundless farness makes it infinitely near.


Written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow | Create an image from this poem

The Goblet of Life

 Filled is Life's goblet to the brim;
And though my eyes with tears are dim,
I see its sparkling bubbles swim,
And chant a melancholy hymn
With solemn voice and slow.
No purple flowers,--no garlands green, Conceal the goblet's shade or sheen, Nor maddening draughts of Hippocrene, Like gleams of sunshine, flash between Thick leaves of mistletoe.
This goblet, wrought with curious art, Is filled with waters, that upstart, When the deep fountains of the heart, By strong convulsions rent apart, Are running all to waste.
And as it mantling passes round, With fennel is it wreathed and crowned, Whose seed and foliage sun-imbrowned Are in its waters steeped and drowned, And give a bitter taste.
Above the lowly plants it towers, The fennel, with its yellow flowers, And in an earlier age than ours Was gifted with the wondrous powers, Lost vision to restore.
It gave new strength, and fearless mood; And gladiators, fierce and rude, Mingled it in their daily food; And he who battled and subdued, A wreath of fennel wore.
Then in Life's goblet freely press, The leaves that give it bitterness, Nor prize the colored waters less, For in thy darkness and distress New light and strength they give! And he who has not learned to know How false its sparkling buhbles show, How bitter are the drops of woe, With which its brim may overflow, He has not learned to live.
The prayer of Ajax was for light; Through all that dark and desperate fight The blackness of that noonday night He asked but the return of sight, To see his foeman's face.
Let our unceasing, earnest prayer Be, too, for light,--for strength to bear Our portion of the weight of care, That crushes into dumb despair One half the human race.
O suffering, sad humanity! O ye afflicted one; who lie Steeped to the lips in misery, Longing, and yet afraid to die, Patient, though sorely tried ! I pledge you in this cup of grief, Where floats the fennel's bitter leaf ! The Battle of our Life is briet The alarm,--the struggle,--the relief, Then sleep we side by side.
Written by Andrew Barton Paterson | Create an image from this poem

Ave Ceasar

 Long ago the Gladiators, 
When the call to combat came, 
Marching past the massed spectators, 
Hailed the Emp'ror with acclaim! 
Voices ringing with the fury 
Of the strife so soon to be, 
Cried, "O Caesar, morituri 
salutamus te!" 

Nowadays the massed spectators 
See the unaccustomed sight -- 
Legislative gladiators 
Marching to their last great fight; 
Young and old, obscure and famous, 
Hand to hand and knee to knee -- 
Hear the war-cry, "Salutamus 
morituri te!" 

Fight! Nor be the fight suspended 
Till the corpses strew the plain.
Ere the grisly strife be ended Five and thirty must be slain.
Slay and spare not, lest another Haply may discomfit thee: Brother now must war with brother -- "Salutamus te!" War-torn vet'ran, skilled debater, Trickster famed of bridge and road, Now for each grim gladiator Gapes Oblivion's drear abode.
Should the last great final jury Turn their thumbs down -- it must be! "Ave, Caesar, morituri salutamus te!"
Written by Alexander Pope | Create an image from this poem

Epistles to Several Persons: Epistle IV To Richard Boyle

 Est brevitate opus, ut currat sententia, neu se 
Impediat verbis lassas onerantibus aures: 
Et sermone opus est modo tristi, saepe jocoso, 
Defendente vicem modo Rhetoris atque Poetae, 
Interdum urbani, parcentis viribus, atque
Extenuantis eas consulto.
(Horace, Satires, I, x, 17-22) 'Tis strange, the miser should his cares employ To gain those riches he can ne'er enjoy: Is it less strange, the prodigal should waste His wealth to purchase what he ne'er can taste? Not for himself he sees, or hears, or eats; Artists must choose his pictures, music, meats: He buys for Topham, drawings and designs, For Pembroke, statues, dirty gods, and coins; Rare monkish manuscripts for Hearne alone, And books for Mead, and butterflies for Sloane.
Think we all these are for himself? no more Than his fine wife, alas! or finer whore.
For what his Virro painted, built, and planted? Only to show, how many tastes he wanted.
What brought Sir Visto's ill got wealth to waste? Some daemon whisper'd, "Visto! have a taste.
" Heav'n visits with a taste the wealthy fool, And needs no rod but Ripley with a rule.
See! sportive fate, to punish awkward pride, Bids Bubo build, and sends him such a guide: A standing sermon, at each year's expense, That never coxcomb reach'd magnificence! You show us, Rome was glorious, not profuse, And pompous buildings once were things of use.
Yet shall (my Lord) your just, your noble rules Fill half the land with imitating fools; Who random drawings from your sheets shall take, And of one beauty many blunders make; Load some vain church with old theatric state, Turn arcs of triumph to a garden gate; Reverse your ornaments, and hang them all On some patch'd dog-hole ek'd with ends of wall; Then clap four slices of pilaster on't, That lac'd with bits of rustic, makes a front.
Or call the winds through long arcades to roar, Proud to catch cold at a Venetian door; Conscious they act a true Palladian part, And, if they starve, they starve by rules of art.
Oft have you hinted to your brother peer, A certain truth, which many buy too dear: Something there is more needful than expense, And something previous ev'n to taste--'tis sense: Good sense, which only is the gift of Heav'n, And though no science, fairly worth the sev'n: A light, which in yourself you must perceive; Jones and Le Notre have it not to give.
To build, to plant, whatever you intend, To rear the column, or the arch to bend, To swell the terrace, or to sink the grot; In all, let Nature never be forgot.
But treat the goddess like a modest fair, Nor overdress, nor leave her wholly bare; Let not each beauty ev'rywhere be spied, Where half the skill is decently to hide.
He gains all points, who pleasingly confounds, Surprises, varies, and conceals the bounds.
Consult the genius of the place in all; That tells the waters or to rise, or fall; Or helps th' ambitious hill the heav'ns to scale, Or scoops in circling theatres the vale; Calls in the country, catches opening glades, Joins willing woods, and varies shades from shades, Now breaks, or now directs, th' intending lines; Paints as you plant, and, as you work, designs.
Still follow sense, of ev'ry art the soul, Parts answ'ring parts shall slide into a whole, Spontaneous beauties all around advance, Start ev'n from difficulty, strike from chance; Nature shall join you; time shall make it grow A work to wonder at--perhaps a Stowe.
Without it, proud Versailles! thy glory falls; And Nero's terraces desert their walls: The vast parterres a thousand hands shall make, Lo! Cobham comes, and floats them with a lake: Or cut wide views through mountains to the plain, You'll wish your hill or shelter'd seat again.
Ev'n in an ornament its place remark, Nor in an hermitage set Dr.
Clarke.
Behold Villario's ten years' toil complete; His quincunx darkens, his espaliers meet; The wood supports the plain, the parts unite, And strength of shade contends with strength of light; A waving glow his bloomy beds display, Blushing in bright diversities of day, With silver-quiv'ring rills meander'd o'er-- Enjoy them, you! Villario can no more; Tir'd of the scene parterres and fountains yield, He finds at last he better likes a field.
Through his young woods how pleas'd Sabinus stray'd, Or sat delighted in the thick'ning shade, With annual joy the redd'ning shoots to greet, Or see the stretching branches long to meet! His son's fine taste an op'ner vista loves, Foe to the dryads of his father's groves; One boundless green, or flourish'd carpet views, With all the mournful family of yews; The thriving plants ignoble broomsticks made, Now sweep those alleys they were born to shade.
At Timon's villa let us pass a day, Where all cry out, "What sums are thrown away!" So proud, so grand of that stupendous air, Soft and agreeable come never there.
Greatness, with Timon, dwells in such a draught As brings all Brobdingnag before your thought.
To compass this, his building is a town, His pond an ocean, his parterre a down: Who but must laugh, the master when he sees, A puny insect, shiv'ring at a breeze! Lo, what huge heaps of littleness around! The whole, a labour'd quarry above ground.
Two cupids squirt before: a lake behind Improves the keenness of the Northern wind.
His gardens next your admiration call, On ev'ry side you look, behold the wall! No pleasing intricacies intervene, No artful wildness to perplex the scene; Grove nods at grove, each alley has a brother, And half the platform just reflects the other.
The suff'ring eye inverted Nature sees, Trees cut to statues, statues thick as trees; With here a fountain, never to be play'd; And there a summerhouse, that knows no shade; Here Amphitrite sails through myrtle bow'rs; There gladiators fight, or die in flow'rs; Unwater'd see the drooping sea horse mourn, And swallows roost in Nilus' dusty urn.
My Lord advances with majestic mien, Smit with the mighty pleasure, to be seen: But soft--by regular approach--not yet-- First through the length of yon hot terrace sweat; And when up ten steep slopes you've dragg'd your thighs, Just at his study door he'll bless your eyes.
His study! with what authors is it stor'd? In books, not authors, curious is my Lord; To all their dated backs he turns you round: These Aldus printed, those Du Sueil has bound.
Lo, some are vellum, and the rest as good For all his Lordship knows, but they are wood.
For Locke or Milton 'tis in vain to look, These shelves admit not any modern book.
And now the chapel's silver bell you hear, That summons you to all the pride of pray'r: Light quirks of music, broken and uneven, Make the soul dance upon a jig to heaven.
On painted ceilings you devoutly stare, Where sprawl the saints of Verrio or Laguerre, On gilded clouds in fair expansion lie, And bring all paradise before your eye.
To rest, the cushion and soft dean invite, Who never mentions Hell to ears polite.
But hark! the chiming clocks to dinner call; A hundred footsteps scrape the marble hall: The rich buffet well-colour'd serpents grace, And gaping Tritons spew to wash your face.
Is this a dinner? this a genial room? No, 'tis a temple, and a hecatomb.
A solemn sacrifice, perform'd in state, You drink by measure, and to minutes eat.
So quick retires each flying course, you'd swear Sancho's dread doctor and his wand were there.
Between each act the trembling salvers ring, From soup to sweet wine, and God bless the King.
In plenty starving, tantaliz'd in state, And complaisantly help'd to all I hate, Treated, caress'd, and tir'd, I take my leave, Sick of his civil pride from morn to eve; I curse such lavish cost, and little skill, And swear no day was ever pass'd so ill.
Yet hence the poor are cloth'd, the hungry fed; Health to himself, and to his infants bread The lab'rer bears: What his hard heart denies, His charitable vanity supplies.
Another age shall see the golden ear Embrown the slope, and nod on the parterre, Deep harvests bury all his pride has plann'd, And laughing Ceres reassume the land.
Who then shall grace, or who improve the soil? Who plants like Bathurst, or who builds like Boyle.
'Tis use alone that sanctifies expense, And splendour borrows all her rays from sense.
His father's acres who enjoys in peace, Or makes his neighbours glad, if he increase: Whose cheerful tenants bless their yearly toil, Yet to their Lord owe more than to the soil; Whose ample lawns are not asham'd to feed The milky heifer and deserving steed; Whose rising forests, not for pride or show, But future buildings, future navies, grow: Let his plantations stretch from down to down, First shade a country, and then raise a town.
You too proceed! make falling arts your care, Erect new wonders, and the old repair; Jones and Palladio to themselves restore, And be whate'er Vitruvius was before: Till kings call forth th' ideas of your mind, Proud to accomplish what such hands design'd, Bid harbours open, public ways extend, Bid temples, worthier of the God, ascend; Bid the broad arch the dang'rous flood contain, The mole projected break the roaring main; Back to his bounds their subject sea command, And roll obedient rivers through the land; These honours, peace to happy Britain brings, These are imperial works, and worthy kings.
Written by Thomas Hardy | Create an image from this poem

Her Death And After

 'TWAS a death-bed summons, and forth I went
By the way of the Western Wall, so drear
On that winter night, and sought a gate--
The home, by Fate,
Of one I had long held dear.
And there, as I paused by her tenement, And the trees shed on me their rime and hoar, I thought of the man who had left her lone-- Him who made her his own When I loved her, long before.
The rooms within had the piteous shine The home-things wear which the housewife miss; From the stairway floated the rise and fall Of an infant's call, Whose birth had brought her to this.
Her life was the price she would pay for that whine-- For a child by the man she did not love.
"But let that rest forever," I said, And bent my tread To the chamber up above.
She took my hand in her thin white own, And smiled her thanks--though nigh too weak-- And made them a sign to leave us there; Then faltered, ere She could bring herself to speak.
"'Twas to see you before I go--he'll condone Such a natural thing now my time's not much-- When Death is so near it hustles hence All passioned sense Between woman and man as such! "My husband is absent.
As heretofore The City detains him.
But, in truth, He has not been kind.
.
.
.
I will speak no blame, But--the child is lame; O, I pray she may reach his ruth! "Forgive past days--I can say no more-- Maybe if we'd wedded you'd now repine!.
.
.
But I treated you ill.
I was punished.
Farewell! --Truth shall I tell? Would the child were yours and mine! "As a wife I was true.
But, such my unease That, could I insert a deed back in Time, I'd make her yours, to secure your care; And the scandal bear, And the penalty for the crime!" --When I had left, and the swinging trees Rang above me, as lauding her candid say, Another was I.
Her words were enough: Came smooth, came rough, I felt I could live my day.
Next night she died; and her obsequies In the Field of Tombs, by the Via renowned, Had her husband's heed.
His tendance spent, I often went And pondered by her mound.
All that year and the next year whiled, And I still went thitherward in the gloam; But the Town forgot her and her nook, And her husband took Another Love to his home.
And the rumor flew that the lame lone child Whom she wished for its safety child of mine, Was treated ill when offspring came Of the new-made dame, And marked a more vigorous line.
A smarter grief within me wrought Than even at loss of her so dear; Dead the being whose soul my soul suffused, Her child ill-used, I helpless to interfere! One eve as I stood at my spot of thought In the white-stoned Garth, brooding thus her wrong, Her husband neared; and to shun his view By her hallowed mew I went from the tombs among To the Cirque of the Gladiators which faced-- That haggard mark of Imperial Rome, Whose Pagan echoes mock the chime Of our Christian time: It was void, and I inward clomb.
Scarce had night the sun's gold touch displaced From the vast Rotund and the neighboring dead When her husband followed; bowed; half-passed, With lip upcast; Then, halting, sullenly said: "It is noised that you visit my first wife's tomb.
Now, I gave her an honored name to bear While living, when dead.
So I've claim to ask By what right you task My patience by vigiling there? "There's decency even in death, I assume; Preserve it, sir, and keep away; For the mother of my first-born you Show mind undue! --Sir, I've nothing more to say.
" A desperate stroke discerned I then-- God pardon--or pardon not--the lie; She had sighed that she wished (lest the child should pine Of slights) 'twere mine, So I said: "But the father I.
"That you thought it yours is the way of men; But I won her troth long ere your day: You learnt how, in dying, she summoned me? 'Twas in fealty.
--Sir, I've nothing more to say, "Save that, if you'll hand me my little maid, I'll take her, and rear her, and spare you toil.
Think it more than a friendly act none can; I'm a lonely man, While you've a large pot to boil.
"If not, and you'll put it to ball or blade-- To-night, to-morrow night, anywhen-- I'll meet you here.
.
.
.
But think of it, And in season fit Let me hear from you again.
" --Well, I went away, hoping; but nought I heard Of my stroke for the child, till there greeted me A little voice that one day came To my window-frame And babbled innocently: "My father who's not my own, sends word I'm to stay here, sir, where I belong!" Next a writing came: "Since the child was the fruit Of your passions brute, Pray take her, to right a wrong.
" And I did.
And I gave the child my love, And the child loved me, and estranged us none.
But compunctions loomed; for I'd harmed the dead By what I'd said For the good of the living one.
--Yet though, God wot, I am sinner enough, And unworthy the woman who drew me so, Perhaps this wrong for her darling's good She forgives, or would, If only she could know!



Book: Reflection on the Important Things