Famous Charter Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Charter poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous charter poems. These examples illustrate what a famous charter poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Burns, Robert
...rious galley, 4 stem and stern,
Weel rigg’d for Venus’ barter;
But first hang out, that she’ll discern,
Your hymeneal charter;
Then heave aboard your grapple airn,
An’ large upon her quarter,
Come full that day.
Ye, lastly, bonie blossoms a’,
Ye royal lasses dainty,
Heav’n mak you guid as well as braw,
An’ gie you lads a-plenty!
But sneer na British boys awa!
For kings are unco scant aye,
An’ German gentles are but sma’,
They’re better just than want aye
On ony...Read more of this...
by
Burns, Robert
...h’s deep night,
Departed Whigs enjoy the fight,
And think on former daring:
The muffled murtherer of Charles
The Magna Charter flag unfurls,
All deadly gules its bearing.
Nor wanting ghosts of Tory fame;
Bold Scrimgeour follows gallant Graham;
Auld Covenanters shiver—
Forgive! forgive! much-wrong’d Montrose!
Now Death and Hell engulph thy foes,
Thou liv’st on high for ever.
Still o’er the field the combat burns,
The Tories, Whigs, give way by turns;
But Fate ...Read more of this...
by
Burns, Robert
..., if thou please, adrift,
Thro’ Scotland wide;
Wi’ cits nor lairds I wadna shift,
In a’ their pride!”
Were this the charter of our state,
“On pain o’ hell be rich an’ great,”
Damnation then would be our fate,
Beyond remead;
But, thanks to heaven, that’s no the gate
We learn our creed.
For thus the royal mandate ran,
When first the human race began;
“The social, friendly, honest man,
Whate’er he be—
’Tis he fulfils great Nature’s plan,
And none but he.”
O m...Read more of this...
by
Yeats, William Butler
...all these I set
For emblems of the day against the tower
Emblematical of the night,
And claim as by a soldier's right
A charter to commit the crime once more.
My Soul. Such fullness in that quarter overflows
And falls into the basin of the mind
That man is stricken deaf and dumb and blind,
For intellect no longer knows
Is from the Ought, or knower from the Known -
That is to say, ascends to Heaven;
Only the dead can be forgiven;
But when I think of that my tongue's ...Read more of this...
by
Dickinson, Emily
...Could Hope inspect her Basis
Her Craft were done --
Has a fictitious Charter
Or it has none --
Balked in the vastest instance
But to renew --
Felled by but one assassin --
Prosperity --...Read more of this...
by
Lawson, Henry
...with the future for the sea!
We must turn our face to the only track that will take us through the worst –
Cable to charter that we lack, guns and cartridges first,
New machines that will make machines till our factories are complete –
Block the shoddy and Brummagem, pay them with wool and wheat.
Build to-morrow the foundry shed ['tis a task we dare not shirk],
Lay the runs and the engine-bed, and get the gear to work.
Have no fear when we raise the steam in...Read more of this...
by
Dickinson, Emily
...
News-Boys salute the Door --
Carts -- joggle by --
Morning's bold face -- stares in the window --
Were but mine -- the Charter of the least Fly --
Houses hunch the House
With their Brick Shoulders --
Coals -- from a Rolling Load -- rattle -- how -- near --
To the very Square -- His foot is passing --
Possibly, this moment --
While I -- dream -- Here --...Read more of this...
by
Walcott, Derek
...ame be praised."
You cannot hear, beyond the quiet harbor,
the breakers cannonading on the bruised
horizon, or the charter engines gunning for
Buck Island. The only war here is a war
of silence between blue sky and sea,
and just one voice, the marching choir's, is raised
to draft new conscripts with the ancient cry
of "Onward, Christian Soldiers," into pews
half-empty still, or like a glass, half-full.
Pinning itself to a cornice, a gull
hangs like a medal from t...Read more of this...
by
Edgar, Marriott
...I'll tell of the Magna Charter
As were signed at the Barons' command
On Runningmead Island in t' middle of t' Thames
By King John, as were known as "Lack Land."
Some say it were wrong of the Barons
Their will on the King so to thrust,
But you'll see if you look at both sides of the case
That they had to do something, or bust.
For John, from the moment they crowned...Read more of this...
by
Whittier, John Greenleaf
...s have proved
False to their fathers' memory, false to the faith they loved;
If she can scoff at Freedom, and its great charter spurn,
Must we of Massachusetts from truth and duty turn?
We hunt your bondmen, flying from Slavery's hateful hell;
Our voices, at your bidding, take up the bloodhound's yell;
We gather, at your summons, above our fathers' graves,
From Freedom's holy altar-horns to tear your wretched slaves!
Thank God! not yet so vilely can Massachusetts bow;
The s...Read more of this...
by
Trumbull, John
...never join in British rage,
Nor help Lord North, nor Gen'ral Gage;
Nor lift my gun in future fights,
Nor take away your Charter-rights;
Nor overcome your new-raised levies,
Destroy your towns, nor burn your navies;
Nor cut your poles down while I've breath,
Though raised more thick than hatchel-teeth:
But leave King George and all his elves
To do their conq'ring work themselves."
This said, they lower'd him down in state,
Spread at all points, like falling cat;
But took...Read more of this...
by
Dickinson, Emily
...t conceal!
Mine -- here -- in Vision -- and in Veto!
Mine -- by the Grave's Repeal --
Tilted -- Confirmed --
Delirious Charter!
Mine -- long as Ages steal!...Read more of this...
by
Thomson, James
...When Britain first, at Heaven's command,
Arose from out the azure main;
This was the charter of the land,
And guardian angels sung this strain:
"Rule, Britannia, rule the waves;
Britons never will be slaves."
The nations, not so blest as thee,
Must, in their turns, to tyrants fall:
While thou shalt flourish great and free,
The dread and envy of them all.
"Rule, Britannia, rule the waves;
Britons never will be slaves."
Still m...Read more of this...
by
Shakespeare, William
...Farewell! Thou art too dear for my possessing,
And like enough thou know'st thy estimate,
The charter of thy worth gives thee releasing;
My bonds in thee are all determinate.
For how do I hold thee but by thy granting,
And for that riches where is my deserving?
The cause of this fair gift in me is wanting,
And so my patent back again is swerving.
Thyself thou gav'st, thy own worth then not knowing,
Or me, to whom thou gav'st it, else mistakin...Read more of this...
by
Shakespeare, William
...Farewell! thou art too dear for my possessing,
And like enough thou know'st thy estimate:
The charter of thy worth gives thee releasing;
My bonds in thee are all determinate.
For how do I hold thee but by thy granting?
And for that riches where is my deserving?
The cause of this fair gift in me is wanting,
And so my patent back again is swerving.
Thyself thou gavest, thy own worth then not knowing,
Or me, to whom thou gavest it, else mistakin...Read more of this...
by
McGonagall, William Topaz
...id, "Sir, I have been requested by the Committee
To give you the deed conveying the monument to your care,
With the feu-charter of the ground, therefore, sir, I'd have you beware."
Then the Chief Magistrate Forbes to Lord Breadalbane said,
"My noble Lord, I accept the charge, and you needn't be afraid.
Really it gives me much pleasure in accepting as I now do from thee
This Memorial, along with the deeds, on behalf of Aberfeldy."
Then Major Menzies proposed th...Read more of this...
by
Lawson, Henry
...looked redly on a bloody battlefield;
Till the man from 'cross the border marched through Buckland once again,
With a charter for the people and ten thousand fighting men.
There are ancient dames in Buckland with old secrets to reveal,
Wearing wedding rings of iron, wearing wedding rings of steel;
And their tears drop on the metal when their thoughts are far away
In the past where their young husbands died on Buckland field that day....Read more of this...
by
Dryden, John
...he spoil;
They boast e'en when each other they beguile.
Customs to steal is such a trivial thing
That 'tis their charter to defraud their King.
All hands unite of every jarring sect;
They cheat the country first, and then infect.
They for God's cause their monarchs dare dethrone,
And they'll be sure to make His cause their own.
Whether the plotting Jesuit laid the plan
Of murdering kings, or the French Puritan,
Our sacrilegious sects their guides out...Read more of this...
by
Chaucer, Geoffrey
...rise*. *twig
A merry child he was, so God me save;
Well could he letten blood, and clip, and shave,
And make a charter of land, and a quittance.
In twenty manners could he trip and dance,
After the school of Oxenforde tho*, *then
And with his legges caste to and fro;
And playen songes on a small ribible*; *fiddle
Thereto he sung sometimes a loud quinible* *treble
And as well could he play on a gitern.* *guitar
In all the town was brewhouse nor tavern,
Tha...Read more of this...
by
Cowper, William
...t, deriv'd from Heav'n,
Bought with his blood who gave it to mankind,
And seal'd with the same token. It is held
By charter, and that charter sanction'd sure
By th' unimpeachable and awful oath
And promise of a God. His other gifts
All bear the royal stamp that speaks them his,
And are august, but this transcends them all....Read more of this...
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