Famous Brave Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Epistle to Katherine, Lady Aubigny

by Ben Jonson
  XIII. — EPISTLE TO KATHARINE LADY AUBIGNY.           As what they have lost t' expect, they dare deride. So both the prais'd and praisers suffer ; yet, For others ill ought none their good forget. I therefore, who profess myself in love With every virtue, wheresoe'er it move, And howsoever ;  as I am at feudBy arts, and practice of the...Read more of this...

Grand-Père

by Robert William Service
 And so when he reached my bed
 The General made a stand:
"My brave young fellow," he said,
 "I would shake your hand."

So I lifted my arm, the right,
 With never a hand at all;
Only a stump, a sight
 Fit to appal.

"Well, well. Now that's too bad!
 That's sorrowful luck," he said;
"But there! You give me, my lad,
 The left...Read more of this...

Not Sickness stains the Brave

by Emily Dickinson
 Not Sickness stains the Brave,
Nor any Dart,
Nor Doubt of Scene to come,
But an adjourning Heart --...Read more of this...

The Battle of Culloden

by William Topaz McGonagall
 'Twas in the year of 1746, and in April the 14th day,
That Prince Charles Stuart and his army marched on without delay,
And on the 14th of April they encamped on Culloden Moor,
But the army felt hungry, and no food could they procure. 

And the calls of hunger could not brook delay,
So they resolved to have food, come what may;
They,...Read more of this...

To offer brave assistance

by Emily Dickinson
 To offer brave assistance
To Lives that stand alone --
When One has failed to stop them --
Is Human -- but Divine

To lend an Ample Sinew
Unto a Nameless Man --
Whose Homely Benediction
No other -- stopped to earn --...Read more of this...

What man, what hero (QUEMN VIRUM AUT HEROA)

by Horace
     What man, what hero, Clio sweet,
       On harp or flute wilt thou proclaim?
     What god shall echo's voice repeat
       In mocking game
     To Helicon's sequester'd shade,
       Or Pindus, or...Read more of this...

To the Memory of the Brave Americans

by Philip Freneau
 Under General Greene, in South Carolina,
  who fell in the action of September 8, 1781

AT Eutaw Springs the valiant died;
 Their limbs with dust are covered o'er--
Weep on, ye springs, your tearful tide;
 How many heroes are no more!

If in this wreck or ruin, they
 Can yet be thought to claim a tear,
O smite your gentle breast, and...Read more of this...

Edmunds Wedding

by Mary Darby Robinson
 By the side of the brook, where the willow is waving
Why sits the wan Youth, in his wedding-suit gay!
Now sighing so deeply, now frantickly raving
Beneath the pale light of the moon's sickly ray.
Now he starts, all aghast, and with horror's wild gesture,
Cries, "AGNES is coming, I know her white vesture!
"See! see! how she beckons me on to the willow,
"Where,...Read more of this...

The Death of Robin Hood

by Eugene Field
 "Give me my bow," said Robin Hood,
"An arrow give to me;
And where 't is shot mark thou that spot,
For there my grave shall be."

Then Little John did make no sign,
And not a word he spake;
But he smiled, altho' with mickle woe
His heart was like to break.

He raised his master in his arms,
And set him on his knee;
And Robin's eyes...Read more of this...

Brave Coward

by Robert William Service
 Elisabeth imagines I've
 A yellow streak
She deems I have no dash and drive,
 Jest dogoned weak.
'A man should be a man,' says Liz
 'Trade blow for blow.'
Poor kid! What my position is
 She jest don't know.

She jest don't know my old man killed,
 Yea, slew and slew.
As steamy blood he sweetly spilled,
 So could I too.
And though no wrath...Read more of this...

Fuzzy-Wuzzy

by Rudyard Kipling
 (Soudan Expeditionary Force)
We've fought with many men acrost the seas,
 An' some of 'em was brave an' some was not:
The Paythan an' the Zulu an' Burmese;
 But the Fuzzy was the finest o' the lot.
We never got a ha'porth's change of 'im:
 'E squatted in the scrub an' 'ocked our 'orses,
'E cut our sentries up at Suakim,
 An' 'e...Read more of this...

How Sleep the Brave

by Walter de la Mare
 Nay, nay, sweet England, do not grieve! 
Not one of these poor men who died 
But did within his soul believe 
That death for thee was glorified. 

Ever they watched it hovering near 
That mystery 'yond thought to plumb, 
Perchance sometimes in loathèd fear 
They heard cold Danger whisper, Come! -- 

Heard and obeyed. O, if thou weep 
Such...Read more of this...

Tell brave deeds of war

by Stephen Crane
 "Tell brave deeds of war."

Then they recounted tales, --
"There were stern stands
And bitter runs for glory."

Ah, I think there were braver deeds....Read more of this...

Stowaway

by Robert William Service
 We'd left the sea-gulls long behind,
And we were almost in mid-ocean;
The sky was soft and blue and kind,
The boat had scarcely any motion;
Except that songfully it sped,
And sheared the foam swift as an arrow . . .
There fluttered down a city sparrow.

I stared with something of surprise;
The apparition mocked my seeming;
In fact I gently rubbed my eyes
And wondered if...Read more of this...

Sonnet 15: When I consider every thing that grows

by William Shakespeare
 When I consider every thing that grows
Holds in perfection but a little moment.
That this huge stage presenteth nought but shows
Whereon the stars in secret influence comment.
When I perceive that men as plants increase,
Cheerèd and checked even by the self-same sky,
Vaunt in their youthful sap, at height decrease,
And wear their brave state out of memory;
Then the conceit of this inconstant...Read more of this...

Come up from the Fields Father

by Walt Whitman
 1
COME up from the fields, father, here’s a letter from our Pete; 
And come to the front door, mother—here’s a letter from thy dear son. 

2
Lo, ’tis autumn; 
Lo, where the trees, deeper green, yellower and redder, 
Cool and sweeten Ohio’s villages, with leaves fluttering in the moderate wind;
Where apples ripe in the orchards hang, and grapes on the...Read more of this...

To fight aloud is very brave

by Emily Dickinson
 To fight aloud, is very brave --
But gallanter, I know
Who charge within the bosom
The Cavalry of Woe --

Who win, and nations do not see --
Who fall -- and none observe --
Whose dying eyes, no Country
Regards with patriot love --

We trust, in plumed procession
For such, the Angels go --
Rank after Rank, with even feet --
And Uniforms of Snow....Read more of this...

Brave New World

by Robert William Service
 One spoke: "Come, let us gaily go
With laughter, love and lust,
Since in a century or so
We'll all be boneyard dust.
When unborn shadows hold the screen,
(Our betters, I'll allow)
'Twill be as if we'd never been,
A hundred years from now. 

When we have played life's lively game
Right royally we'll rot,
And not a soul will care a damn
The why or how we...Read more of this...

Night Is On The Downland

by John Masefield
 Night is on the downland, on the lonely moorland,
On the hills where the wind goes over sheep-bitten turf,
Where the bent grass beats upon the unplowed poorland
And the pine-woods roar like the surf.

Here the Roman lived on the wind-barren lonely,
Dark now and haunted by the moorland fowl;
None comes here now but the peewit only,
And moth-like death in the owl.

Beauty was...Read more of this...

Here Died

by Henry Lawson
 There's many a schoolboy's bat and ball that are gathering dust at home, 
For he hears a voice in the future call, and he trains for the war to come; 
A serious light in his eyes is seen as he comes from the schoolhouse gate; 
He keeps his kit and his rifle clean, and he sees that his back...Read more of this...

Ode to the Northeast Wind

by Charles Kingsley
 Welcome, wild Northeaster! 
Shame it is to see 
Odes to every zephyr; 
Ne'er a verse to thee. 
Welcome, black Northeaster! 
O'er the German foam; 
O'er the Danish moorlands, 
From thy frozen home. 
Tired are we of summer, 
Tired of gaudy glare, 
Showers soft and steaming, 
Hot and breathless air. 
Tired of listless dreaming, 
Through the lazy day-- 
Jovial wind...Read more of this...

Imperial Revels

by Victor Hugo
 ("Courtisans! attablés dans le splendide orgie.") 
 
 {Bk. I. x., Jersey, December, 1852.} 


 Cheer, courtiers! round the banquet spread— 
 The board that groans with shame and plate, 
 Still fawning to the sham-crowned head 
 That hopes front brazen turneth fate! 
 Drink till the comer last is full, 
 And never hear in revels' lull,...Read more of this...

A Song of Brave Men

by Henry Lawson
 Man, is the Sea your master? Sea, and is man your slave? – 
This is the song of brave men who never know they are brave: 
Ceaselessly watching to save you, stranger from foreign lands, 
Soundly asleep in your state room, full sail for the Goodwin Sands! 
Life is a dream, they tell us, but life seems very real,...Read more of this...

A Hedge Of Rubber Trees

by Amy Clampitt
 The West Village by then was changing; before long
the rundown brownstones at its farthest edge
would have slipped into trendier hands. She lived,
impervious to trends, behind a potted hedge of
rubber trees, with three cats, a canary—refuse 
from whose cage kept sifting down and then 
germinating, a yearning seedling choir, around
the saucers on the windowsill—and an inexorable
cohort of roaches she was...Read more of this...

The Prisoner

by Edna St. Vincent Millay
 I lash and writhe against my prison bars,
And watch with sullen eyes the gaping crowd . . 
Give me my freedom and the burning stars,
The hollow sky, and crags of moonlit cloud! 

Once I might range across the trackless plain,
And roar with joy, until the desert air 
And wide horizons echoed it amain:
I feared no foe, for I was...Read more of this...

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