Famous Cannonade Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Cannonade poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous cannonade poems. These examples illustrate what a famous cannonade poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Hugo, Victor
...Follow no gilded car
In ways of Honesty.
Ye troopers who shot mothers down,
And marshals whose brave cannonade
Broke infant arms and split the stone
Where slumbered age and guileless maid—
Though blood is in the cup you fill,
Pretend it "rosy" wine, and still
Hail Cannon "King!" and Steel the "Queen!"
But I prefer to sup
From Philip Sidney's cup—
True soldier's draught serene.
Oh, workmen, seen by me sublime,
When from the t...Read more of this...
by
Chesterton, G K
...st Italy the rumour of his raid.
Gun upon gun, ha! ha!
Gun upon gun, hurrah!
Don John of Austria
Has loosed the cannonade.
The Pope was in his chapel before day or battle broke,
(Don John of Austria is hidden in the smoke.)
The hidden room in man's house where God sits all the year,
The secret window whence the world looks small and very dear.
He sees as in a mirror on the monstrous twilight sea
The crescent of his cruel ships whose name is mystery;...Read more of this...
by
Emerson, Ralph Waldo
...ice-imprisoned hood;
With the pulse of manly hearts;
With the voice of orators;
With the din of city arts;
With the cannonade of wars;
With the marches of the brave;
And prayers of might from martyrs' cave.
Great is the art,
Great be the manners, of the bard.
He shall not his brain encumber
With the coil of rhythm and number;
But, leaving rule and pale forethought,
He shall aye climb
For his rhyme.
"Pass in, pass in," the angels say,
"In to the uppe...Read more of this...
by
Emerson, Ralph Waldo
...he ice-imprisoned flood;
With the pulse of manly hearts,
With the voice of orators,
With the din of city arts,
With the cannonade of wars.
With the marches of the brave,
And prayers of might from martyrs' cave.
Great is the art,
Great be the manners of the bard!
He shall not his brain encumber
With the coil of rhythm and number,
But, leaving rule and pale forethought,
He shall aye climb
For his rhyme:
Pass in, pass in, the angels say,
In to the upper doors;
Nor count...Read more of this...
by
Yeats, William Butler
...ed on grave
That they be satisfied -
Over the blackened earth
The old troops parade,
Birth is heaped on Birth
That such cannonade
May thunder time away,
Birth-hour and death-hour meet,
Or, as great sages say,
Men dance on deathless feet.'...Read more of this...
by
Hardy, Thomas
...'d leapt upon,
And madly we entered in.
"On end for plunder, 'mid rain and thunder
That burst with the lull of our cannonade,
We vamped the streets in the stifling air--
Our hunger unsoothed, our thirst unstayed--
And ransacked the buildings there.
"Down the stony steps of the house-fronts white
We rolled rich puncheons of Spanish grape,
Till at length, with the fire of the wine alight,
I saw at a doorway a fair fresh shape--
A woman, a sylph, or sprite.
"Afear...Read more of this...
by
Dyke, Henry Van
...night,
With a fusillade of hail!
Hear the forest fight,
With its tossing arms that crack and clash
In the thunder's cannonade,
While the lightning's forked flash
Brings the old hero-trees to the ground with a crash!
Hear the breakers' deepening roar,
Driven like a herd of cattle
In the wild stampede of battle,
Trampling, trampling, trampling, to overwhelm the shore!
Is it the end of all?
Will the land crumble and fall?
Nay, for a voice replies
Out of the hidden ski...Read more of this...
by
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...ed asunder 25
The rattling musketry the clashing blade;
And ever and anon in tones of thunder
The diapason of the cannonade.
Is it O man with such discordant noises
With such accursed instruments as these 30
Thou drownest Nature's sweet and kindly voices
And jarrest the celestial harmonies?
Were half the power that fills the world with terror
Were half the wealth bestowed on camps and courts
Given to redeem the human mind from error 35
There ...Read more of this...
by
McGonagall, William Topaz
...he front line,
After the Highlanders had been firing for a short time;
The Duke ordered Colonel Belford to continue the cannonade,
To induce the Highlanders to advance, because they seemed afraid.
And with a cannon-ball the Prince's horse was shot above the knee,
So that Charles had to change him for another immediately;
And one of his servants who led the horse was killed on the spot,
Which by Prince Charles Stuart was never forgot.
'Tis said in history, before t...Read more of this...
by
McGonagall, William Topaz
...uickly flew,
And each man in haste to his comrade closely drew.
Then the Scottish artillery opened with a fearful cannonade;
But the English army seemed to be not the least afraid,
And they quickly answered them by their cannon on the plain;
While innocent blood did flow, just like a flood of rain.
But the artillery practice very soon did cease,
Then foe met foe foot to foot, and the havoc did increase,
And, with a wild slogan cry, the Highlanders bounded down the...Read more of this...
by
McGonagall, William Topaz
...e,
Which was followed by a general onset upon the British line,
In which three hundred pieces of artillery opened their cannonade;
But the British artillery played upon them, and great courage displayed.
For ten long hours it was a continued succession of attacks;
Whilst the British cavalry charged them in all their drawbacks;
And the courage of the British Army was great in square at Waterloo,
Because hour after hour they were mowed down in numbers not a few.
At ...Read more of this...
by
McGonagall, William Topaz
...hard and didn't frown.
The bombardment was opened on the 30th of June,
And from the British battleships a fierce cannonade did boom;
And continued from six in the morning till two o'clock in the afternoon,
And with grief the French and Spaniards sullenly did gloom.
And by the 26th of July the guns of Fort Moro were destroyed,
And the French and Spaniards were greatly annoyed;
Because the British troops entered the Fort without dismay,
And drove them from it at th...Read more of this...
by
Betjeman, John
...The sea runs back against itself
With scarcely time for breaking wave
To cannonade a slatey shelf
And thunder under in a cave.
Before the next can fully burst
The headwind, blowing harder still,
Smooths it to what it was at first -
A slowly rolling water-hill.
Against the breeze the breakers haste,
Against the tide their ridges run
And all the sea's a dappled waste
Criss-crossing underneath the sun.
Far down the be...Read more of this...
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