Famous Cheer Poems by Famous Poets

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

See also:

The Battle of El-Teb

by William Topaz McGonagall
 Ye sons of Great Britain, I think no shame
To write in praise of brave General Graham!
Whose name will be handed down to posterity without any stigma,
Because, at the battle of El-Teb, he defeated Osman Digna.

With an army about five thousand strong,
To El-Teb, in the year 1884, he marched along,
And bivouacked there for the night;
While around their fires they only...Read more of this...

The Congo: A Study of the Negro Race

by Vachel Lindsay
 I. THEIR BASIC SAVAGERY

Fat black bucks in a wine-barrel room,
Barrel-house kings, with feet unstable,
Sagged and reeled and pounded on the table, 
A deep rolling bass.
Pounded on the table,
Beat an empty barrel with the handle of a broom,
Hard as they were able,
Boom, boom, BOOM,
With a silk umbrella and the handle of a broom,
Boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, BOOM.
THEN I had religion, THEN...Read more of this...

Cheer

by Robert William Service
 It's a mighty good world, so it is, dear lass,
 When even the worst is said.
There's a smile and a tear, a sigh and a cheer,
 But better be living than dead;
A joy and a pain, a loss and a gain;
 There's honey and may be some gall:
Yet still I declare, foul weather or fair,
 It's a mighty good...Read more of this...

Five-Per-Cent

by Robert William Service
 Because I have ten thousand pounds I sit upon my stern,
And leave my living tranquilly for other folks to earn.
For in some procreative way that isn't very clear,
Ten thousand pounds will breed, they say, five hundred every year.
So as I have a healthy hate of economic strife,
I mean to stand aloof from it the balance of my life.
And yet...Read more of this...

Goalkeeper Joe

by Marriott Edgar
 Joe Dunn were a bobby for football 
He gave all his time to that sport, 
He played for the West Wigan Whippets, 
On days when they turned out one short. 

He’d been member of club for three seasons 
And had grumbled again and again, 
Cos he found only time that they’d used him, 
Were when it were pouring with...Read more of this...

Hymn 17

by Isaac Watts
 Victory over death.

1 Cor. 15:55ff 

O for an overcoming faith
To cheer my dying hours;
To triumph o'er the monster Death,
And all his frightful powers!

Joyful with all the strength I have
My quiv'ring lips should sing-
Where is thy boasted vict'ry, Grave?
And where the monster's sting?

If sin be pardoned, I'm secure,
Death hath no sting beside;
The law gives sin its damning power;
But Christ, my...Read more of this...

Horace iii. 13

by Eugene Field
 O fountain of Bandusia,
Whence crystal waters flow,
With garlands gay and wine I'll pay
The sacrifice I owe;
A sportive kid with budding horns
I have, whose crimson blood
Anon shall dye and sanctify
Thy cool and babbling flood.

O fountain of Bandusia,
The dog-star's hateful spell
No evil brings unto the springs
That from thy bosom well;
Here oxen, wearied by the plough,
The roving cattle here,
Hasten in quest of...Read more of this...

Dont Cheer

by Robert William Service
 Don't cheer, damn you! Don't cheer!
Silence! Your bitterest tear
Is fulsomely sweet to-day. . . .
Down on your knees and pray.

See, they sing as they go,
Marching row upon row.
Who will be spared to return,
Sombre and starkly stern?
Chaps whom we knew - s0 strange,
Distant and dark with change;
Silent as those they slew,
Something in them dead too.
Who will return this way,
To sing...Read more of this...

To His Orphan Grandchildren

by Victor Hugo
 ("O Charles, je te sens près de moi.") 
 
 {July, 1871.} 


 I feel thy presence, Charles. Sweet martyr! down 
 In earth, where men decay, 
 I search, and see from cracks which rend thy tomb, 
 Burst out pale morning's ray. 
 
 Close linked are bier and cradle: here the dead, 
 To charm us,...Read more of this...

The Cooks Tale

by Geoffrey Chaucer
 THE PROLOGUE.


THE Cook of London, while the Reeve thus spake,
For joy he laugh'd and clapp'd him on the back:
"Aha!" quoth he, "for Christes passion,
This Miller had a sharp conclusion,
Upon this argument of herbergage.* *lodging
Well saide Solomon in his language,
Bring thou not every man into thine house,
For harbouring by night is perilous.
*Well ought a man avised for to be* *a...Read more of this...

Fight to a Finish

by Siegfried Sassoon
 The boys came back. Bands played and flags were flying, 
And Yellow-Pressmen thronged the sunlit street 
To cheer the soldiers who’d refrained from dying, 
And hear the music of returning feet. 
‘Of all the thrills and ardours War has brought,
This moment is the finest.’ (So they thought.) 

Snapping their bayonets on to charge the mob, 
Grim Fusiliers broke ranks...Read more of this...

The Logger

by Robert William Service
 In the moonless, misty night, with my little pipe alight,
 I am sitting by the camp-fire's fading cheer;
Oh, the dew is falling chill on the dim, deer-haunted hill,
 And the breakers in the bay are moaning drear.
The toilful hours are sped, the boys are long abed,
 And I alone a weary vigil keep;
In the sightless, sullen sky I can...Read more of this...

Johnson's Antidote

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 Down along the Snakebite River, where the overlanders camp, 
Where the serpents are in millions, all of the most deadly stamp; 
Where the station-cook in terror, nearly every time he bakes, 
Mixes up among the doughboys half-a-dozen poison-snakes: 
Where the wily free-selector walks in armour-plated pants, 
And defies the stings of scorpions, and the bites of bull-dog ants: 
Where...Read more of this...

The Headliner And The Breadliner

by Robert William Service
 Moko, the Educated Ape is here,
The pet of vaudeville, so the posters say,
 And every night the gaping people pay
To see him in his panoply appear;
To see him pad his paunch with dainty cheer,
 Puff his perfecto, swill champagne, and sway
 Just like a gentleman, yet all in play,
Then bow himself off stage with brutish leer.

And as to-night, with...Read more of this...

The Downfall of Delhi

by William Topaz McGonagall
 'Twas in the year of 1857 and on the 14th of September
That the Sepoy rebels at Delhi were forced to surrender;
The attack was first to be made by Brigadier Nicholson,
And he was ordered to attack the Cashmere Bastion. 

The British were entirely in command.
Of Major-General Reid, assisted by Brigadier-Generals Wilson and Burnand;
After a long march, fighting through a hostile...Read more of this...

Portent

by Robert William Service
 Courage mes gars:
La guerre est proche.

I plant my little plot of beans,
I sit beneath my cyprus tree;
I do not know what trouble means,
I cultivate tranquillity . . .
But as to-day my walk I made
In all serenity and cheer,
I saw cut in an agave blade:
"Courage, my comrades, war is near!"

Seward I went, my feet were slow,
Awhile I dowsed upon the...Read more of this...

Joy and Peace in Believing

by William Cowper
 Sometimes a light surprises
The Christian while he sings;
It is the Lord who rises
With healing on His wings;
When comforts are declining,
He grants the soul again
A season of clear shining,
To cheer it after rain.

In holy contemplation
We sweetly then pursue
The theme of God's salvation,
And find it ever new;
Set free from present sorrow,
We cheerfully can say,
E'en let the unknown to-morrow
Bring with it what...Read more of this...

Upon My Dear and Loving Husband his Going into England Jan. 16

by Anne Bradstreet
 O thou Most High who rulest all 
And hear'st the prayers of thine, 
O hearken, Lord, unto my suit 
And my petition sign.

Into Thy everlasting arms Of mercy 
I commend Thy servant, Lord. 
Keep and preserve My husband, 
my dear friend.

At Thy command, O Lord, he went, 
Nor nought could keep him back. 
Then let Thy promise joy his...Read more of this...

The Man From Snowy River

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 There was movement at the station, for the word has passed around
That the colt from old Regret had got away,
And had joined the wild bush horses—he was worth a thousand pound,
So all the cracks had gathered to the fray.
All the tried and noted riders from the stations near and far
Had mustered at the homestead overnight,
For the bushmen love hard...Read more of this...

My Masterpiece

by Robert William Service
 It's slim and trim and bound in blue;
Its leaves are crisp and edged with gold;
Its words are simple, stalwart too;
Its thoughts are tender, wise and bold.
Its pages scintillate with wit;
Its pathos clutches at my throat:
Oh, how I love each line of it!
That Little Book I Never Wrote.

In dreams I see it praised and prized
By all, from plowman unto peer;
It's...Read more of this...

The Haystack in the Floods

by William Morris
 Had she come all the way for this,
To part at last without a kiss?
Yea, had she borne the dirt and rain
That her own eyes might see him slain
Beside the haystack in the floods?

Along the dripping leafless woods,
The stirrup touching either shoe,
She rode astride as troopers do;
With kirtle kilted to her knee,
To which the mud splash'd wretchedly;
And the wet dripp'd...Read more of this...

These are the Signs to Natures Inns --

by Emily Dickinson
 These are the Signs to Nature's Inns --
Her invitation broad
To Whosoever famishing
To taste her mystic Bread --

These are the rites of Nature's House --
The Hospitality
That opens with an equal width
To Beggar and to Bee

For Sureties of her staunch Estate
Her undecaying Cheer
The Purple in the East is set
And in the North, the Star --...Read more of this...

An Answer

by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
 If all the year was summer-time,
And all the aim of life
Was just to lilt on like a rhyme –
Then I would be your wife.

If all the days were August days,
And crowned with golden weather,
How happy then through green-clad ways
We two could stray together!

If all the nights were moonlit nights,
And we had naught to do
But just to sit and plan...Read more of this...

Cheer up! your lot was settled yesterday!

by Omar Khayyam
Cheer up! your lot was settled yesterday!
Heedless of all that you might do or say,
Without so much as «By your leave» they fixed
Your lot for all the morrows yesterday!...Read more of this...

The Man From Eldorado

by Robert William Service
 He's the man from Eldorado, and he's just arrived in town,
 In moccasins and oily buckskin shirt.
He's gaunt as any Indian, and pretty nigh as brown;
 He's greasy, and he smells of sweat and dirt.
He sports a crop of whiskers that would shame a healthy hog;
 Hard work has racked his joints and stooped his back;
He slops along the...Read more of this...

Dont forget to view our wonderful member Cheer poems.

Get a Premium Membership
Turn off ads, get more exposure for your poetry, and get more features with a Premium Membership.
Book: Diverse Voices: The Poetry of Human Rights and the Pursuit of Peace