Famous Brandished Poems by Famous Poets

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

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The Bell-ringer

by Emile Verhaeren
Yon, in the depths of the evening's track,
Like a herd of blind bullocks that seek their fellows,
Wild, as in terror, the tempest bellows.
And suddenly, there, o'er the gables black
That the church, in the twilight, around it raises
All scored with lightnings the steeple blazes.


See the old bell-ringer, frenzied with fear.
Mouth gaping, yet speechless, draw hastening near.
And the knell of alarm that...Read more of this...

Little Ballads Of Timely Warning; II: On Malicious Cruelty To Harmless Creatures

by Ellis Parker Butler
 The cruelty of P. L. Brown—
(He had ten toes as good as mine)
Was known to every one in town,
And, if he never harmed a noun,
He loved to make verbs shriek and whine.

The “To be” family’s just complaints—
(Brown had ten toes as good as mine)
Made Brown cast off the last restraints:
He smashed the “Is nots” into “Ain’ts”
And kicked both mood...Read more of this...

The Silence

by Emile Verhaeren
Ever since ending of the summer weather.
When last the thunder and the lightning broke,
Shatt'ring themselves upon it at one stroke,
The Silence has not stirred, there in the heather.


All round about stand steeples straight as stakes,
And each its bell between its fingers shakes;
All round about, with their three-storied loads,
The teams prowl down the roads;
All round about, where'er the pine woods end,
The...Read more of this...

A Little History

by David Lehman
 Some people find out they are Jews.
They can't believe it.
Thy had always hated Jews.
As children they had roamed in gangs on winter nights in the old
 neighborhood, looking for Jews.
They were not Jewish, they were Irish.
They brandished broken bottles, tough guys with blood on their
 lips, looking for Jews.
They intercepted Jewish boys walking alone and beat them up.
Sometimes they...Read more of this...

The Worlds in this World

by Laure-Anne Bosselaar
 Doors were left open in heaven again: 
drafts wheeze, clouds wrap their ripped pages 
around roofs and trees. Like wet flags, shutters 
flap and fold. Even light is blown out of town,
its last angles caught in sopped
newspaper wings and billowing plastic — 
all this in one American street. 
 Elsewhere, somewhere, a tide 
recedes, incense is lit, an infant...Read more of this...

Morning Express

by Siegfried Sassoon
ALONG the wind-swept platform pinched and white 
The travellers stand in pools of wintry light 
Offering themselves to morn¡¯s long slanting arrows.
The train¡¯s due; porters trundle laden barrows.
The train steams in volleying resplendent clouds 5
Of sun-blown vapour. Hither and about 
Scared people hurry storming the doors in crowds.
The officials seem to waken with a shout 
Resolved to hoist and plunder;...Read more of this...

To The Memory Of My Beloved The Author Mr William Shakespeare And What He Hath Left Us

by Ben Jonson
 To draw no envy, Shakespeare, on thy name
Am I thus ample to thy book and fame;
While I confess thy writings to be such
As neither Man nor Muse can praise too much.
'Tis true, and all men's suffrage. But these ways
Were not the paths I meant unto thy praise;
For silliest ignorance on these may light,
Which when it sounds at best but...Read more of this...

English Flavors

by Laure-Anne Bosselaar
  I love to lick English the way I licked the hard 
round licorice sticks the Belgian nuns gave me for six
good conduct points on Sundays after mass. 

 Love it when ‘plethora’, ‘indolence’, ‘damask’, 
or my new word: ‘lasciviousness,’ stain my tongue, 
thicken my saliva, sweet as those sticks — black

 and slick with every lick it took...Read more of this...

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