Famous Courage Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Courage poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous courage poems. These examples illustrate what a famous courage poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
See also:
by
John Berryman
How this woman came by the courage, how she got
the courage, Henry bemused himself in a frantic hot
night of the eight of July,
where it came from, did once the Lord frown down
upon her ancient cradle thinking 'This one
will do before she die
for two and seventy years of chipped indignities
at least,' and with his thunder clapped a promise?
In that far...Read more of this...
by
Aleister Crowley
Forth flashed the serpent streak of steel,
Consummate crown of man's device;
Down crashed upon an immobile
And brainless barrier of ice.
Courage!
The grey gods shoot a laughing lip: -
Let not faith founder with the ship!
We reel before the blows of fate;
Our stout souls stagger at the shock.
Oh! there is Something ultimate
Fixed faster than the living rock.
Courage!
Catastrophe beyond belief
Harden our hearts to fear...Read more of this...
by
Stephen Vincent Benet
Black trees against an orange sky,
Trees that the wind shook terribly,
Like a harsh spume along the road,
Quavering up like withered arms,
Writhing like streams, like twisted charms
Of hot lead flung in snow. Below
The iron ice stung like a goad,
Slashing the torn shoes from my feet,
And all the air was bitter sleet.
And...Read more of this...
by
Stephen Crane
Supposing that I should have the courage
To let a red sword of virtue
Plunge into my heart,
Letting to the weeds of the ground
My sinful blood,
What can you offer me?
A gardened castle?
A flowery kingdom?
What? A hope?
Then hence with your red sword of virtue....Read more of this...
by
Paul Laurence Dunbar
By rugged ways and thro' the night
We struggle blindly toward the light;
And groping, stumbling, ever pray
For sight of long delaying day.
The cruel thorns beside the road
Stretch eager points our steps to goad,
And from the thickets all about
Detaining hands reach threatening out.
"Deliver us, oh, Lord," we cry,
Our hands uplifted to the sky.
No answer save the thunder's peal,
And onward, onward, still we...Read more of this...
by
Rainer Maria Rilke
In the beginning life was good to me;
it held me warm and gave me courage.
That this is granted all while in their youth,
how could I then have known of this.
I never knew what living was----.
But suddenly it was just year on year,
no more good, no more new, no more wonderful.
Life had been torn in two right down the middle.
That...Read more of this...
by
Aleister Crowley
To-night I tread the unsubstantial way
That looms before me, as the thundering night
Falls on the ocean: I must stop, and pray
One little prayer, and then - what bitter fight
Flames at the end beyond the darkling goal?
These are my passions that my feet must read;
This is my sword, the fervour of my soul;
This is my Will, the crown upon my...Read more of this...
by
Francesco Petrarch
SONNET XL. Quella per cui con Sorga ho cangiat' Arno. HE ATTEMPTS TO PAINT HER BEAUTIES, BUT NOT HER VIRTUES. She, for whose sake fair Arno I resign,And for free poverty court-affluence spurn,Has known to sour the precious sweets to turnOn which I lived, for which I burn and pine.Though since,...Read more of this...
by
Victor Hugo
("Ho, guerriers! je suis né dans le pays des Gaules.")
{V., March 11, 1825.}
Ho, warriors! I was reared in the land of the Gauls;
O'er the Rhine my ancestors came bounding like balls
Of the snow at the Pole, where, a babe, I was bathed
Ere in bear and in walrus-skin I...Read more of this...
by
Anne Sexton
It is in the small things we see it.
The child's first step,
as awesome as an earthquake.
The first time you rode a bike,
wallowing up the sidewalk.
The first spanking when your heart
went on a journey all alone.
When they called you crybaby
or poor or fatty or crazy
and made you into an alien,
you drank their acid
and concealed it.
Later,
if you faced the death of...Read more of this...
by
Claude McKay
O lonely heart so timid of approach,
Like the shy tropic flower that shuts its lips
To the faint touch of tender finger tips:
What is your word? What question would you broach?
Your lustrous-warm eyes are too sadly kind
To mask the meaning of your dreamy tale,
Your guarded life too exquisitely frail
Against the daggers of my...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
Today I opened wide my eyes,
And stared with wonder and surprise,
To see beneath November skies
An apple blossom peer;
Upon a branch as bleak as night
It gleamed exultant on my sight,
A fairy beacon burning bright
Of hope and cheer.
"Alas!" said I, "poor foolish thing,
Have you mistaken this for Spring?
Behold, the thrush has taken wing,
And Winter's near."
Serene it seemed to lift its head:
"The...Read more of this...
by
Kahlil Gibran
Then said a rich man, "Speak to us of Giving."
And he answered:
You give but little when you give of your possessions.
It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.
For what are your possessions but things you keep and guard for fear you may need them tomorrow?
And tomorrow, what shall tomorrow bring to...Read more of this...
by
Anne Bronte
Jan 7th
A dreadful darkness closes in
On my bewildered mind;
O let me suffer and not sin,
Be tortured yet resigned.
Through all this world of whelming mist
Still let me look to Thee,
And give me courage to resist
The Tempter till he flee.
Weary I am -- O give me strength
And leave me not to faint;
Say Thou wilt comfort me at length
And pity my...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
Ten little brown chicks scattered and scuffled,
Under the blue-berries hiding in fear;
Mother-grouse cackling, feathers all ruffled,
Dashed to defend them as we drew near.
Heart of a heroine, how I admired her!
Of such devotion great poets have sung;
Homes have been blest by the love that inspired her,
Risking her life for the sake of her young.
Ten little chicks on her valour reliant,
Peered...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
In the shadow of the grave
I will be brave;
I'll smile,--I know I will
E'er I be still;
Because I will not smile
So long a while.
But I'll be sad, I fear,
And shed a tear,
For those I love and leave
My loss to grieve:
'Tis just their grief I'll grieve,
Believe, believe.
Not for myself I care
As forth I fare;
But...Read more of this...
by
Joyce Kilmer
(For Shaemas O Sheel)
One winter night a Devil came and sat upon my bed,
His eyes were full of laughter for his heart was full of crime.
"Why don't you take up fancy work, or embroidery?" he said,
"For a needle is as manly a tool as a pen that makes a rhyme!"
"You little ugly Devil," said I, "go back to Hell
For...Read more of this...
by
Stephen Crane
There were many who went in huddled procession,
They knew not whither;
But, at any rate, success or calamity
Would attend all in equality.
There was one who sought a new road.
He went into direful thickets,
And ultimately he died thus, alone;
But they said he had courage....Read more of this...
by
Amy Lowell
At first a mere thread of a footpath half blotted
out by the grasses
Sweeping triumphant across it, it wound between hedges of roses
Whose blossoms were poised above leaves as pond lilies float on
the water,
While hidden by bloom in a hawthorn a bird filled the morning with
singing.
It widened a highway, majestic, stretching ever
to distant horizons,
Where shadows of...Read more of this...
by
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
CARELESSLY over the plain away,
Where by the boldest man no path
Cut before thee thou canst discern,
Make for thyself a path!
Silence, loved one, my heart!
Cracking, let it not break!
Breaking, break not with thee!
1776.*...Read more of this...
by
Isaac Watts
Persecutors punished.
Up from my youth, may Isr'el say,
Have I been nursed in tears;
My griefs were constant as the day,
And tedious as the years.
Up from my youth I bore the rage
Of all the sons of strife;
Oft they assailed my riper age,
But not destroyed my life.
Their cruel plow had torn my flesh
With furrows long and deep;
Hourly they vexed my wounds afresh,
Nor...Read more of this...
by
Henry Van Dyke
The land was broken in despair,
The princes quarrelled in the dark,
When clear and tranquil, through the troubled air
Of selfish minds and wills that did not dare,
Your star arose, Jeanne d'Arc.
O virgin breast with lilies white,
O sun-burned hand that bore the lance,
You taught the prayer that helps men to unite,
You brought the courage equal to the fight,
You gave a heart...Read more of this...
by
Maya Angelou
A Rock, A River, A Tree
Hosts to species long since departed,
Marked the mastodon.
The dinosaur, who left dry tokens
Of their sojourn here
On our planet floor,
Any broad alarm of their hastening doom
Is lost in the gloom of dust and ages.
But today, the Rock cries out to us, clearly, forcefully,
Come, you may stand upon my
Back and face your distant destiny,
But seek no haven...Read more of this...
by
Jack Gilbert
The Poles rode out from Warsaw against the German
Tanks on horses. Rode knowing, in sunlight, with sabers,
A magnitude of beauty that allows me no peace.
And yet this poem would lessen that day. Question
The bravery. Say it's not courage. Call it a passion.
Would say courage isn't that. Not at its best.
It was impossib1e, and...Read more of this...
by
Friedrich von Schiller
Joy, thou goddess, fair, immortal,
Offspring of Elysium,
Mad with rapture, to the portal
Of thy holy fame we come!
Fashion's laws, indeed, may sever,
But thy magic joins again;
All mankind are brethren ever
'Neath thy mild and gentle reign.
CHORUS.
Welcome, all ye myriad creatures!
Brethren, take the kiss of love!
Yes, the starry realms above
Hide a Father's smiling features!
He, that noble prize possessing--
He that boasts a friend...Read more of this...
Dont forget to view our wonderful member Courage poems.