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Famous Dane Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Ibsen, Henrik
...song sung? 
Is this our Denmark's end? 
Who set the craven colophon, 
While Germans seized the hold, 
And o'er the last Dane lying prone 
Old Denmark's tattered flag was thrown 
With doubly crimsoned fold? 

But thou, my brother Norsemen, set 
Beyond the war-storm's power 
Because thou knewest to forget 
Fair words in danger's hour: 
Flee from thy homes of ancient fame-- 
Go chase a new sunrise-- 
Pursue oblivion, and for shame 
Disguise thee in a stranger's name 
To hide fro...Read more of this...



by Bradstreet, Anne
...rce usurp'd thy flow'ring crown,
30 Or by tempestuous Wars thy fields trod down?
31 Or hath Canutus, that brave valiant Dane,
32 The regal peaceful Sceptre from thee ta'en?
33 Or is 't a Norman whose victorious hand
34 With English blood bedews thy conquered Land?
35 Or is 't intestine Wars that thus offend?
36 Do Maud and Stephen for the Crown contend?
37 Do Barons rise and side against their King,
38 And call in Foreign aid to help the thing?
39 Must Edward be depos'd? Or i...Read more of this...

by Lawson, Henry
...n, wherever is aught to save, 
Christian or Jew or Wowser – and I knew one who was brave; 
British or French or German, Dane or Latin or Dutch: 
"Scandies" that ignorant British reckon with "Dagoes and such" – 
(Where'er, on a wreck titanic, in a scene of wild despair, 
The officers call for assistance, a Swede or a Norse is there.) 

Tale of a wreck titanic, with the last boat over the side, 
And a brave young husband fighting his clinging, hysterical bride; 
He strikes ...Read more of this...

by Kipling, Rudyard
...u last night -- we are quite prepared to fight,
 Unless you pay us cash to go away."

And that is called asking for Dane-geld,
 And the people who ask ti explain
That you've only to pay 'em the Dane-geld
 And then you'll get rid of the Dane!

It is always a temptation to a rich and lazy nation,
 To puff and look important and to say: --
"Though we know we should defeat you, we have not the time to meet you.
 We will therefore pay you cash to go away."

And that is...Read more of this...

by Borges, Jorge Luis
...
to the ancient lands of his forebears,
to Andalucia, to Portugal and to those counties
where the Saxon warred with the Dane and they
mixed their blood,
to have wandered through the red and tranquil
labyrinth of London,
to have grown old in so many mirrors,
to have sought in vain the marble gaze of the statues,
to have questioned lithographs, encyclopedias,
atlases,
to have seen the things that men see,
death, the sluggish dawn, the plains,
and the delicate stars,
and to have...Read more of this...



by Kipling, Rudyard
...What is a woman that you forsake her,
And the hearth-fire and the home-acre,
To go with the old grey Widow-maker?

She has no house to lay a guest in--
But one chill bed for all to rest in,
That the pale suns and the stray bergs nest in.

She has no strong white arms to fold you,
But the ten-times-fingering weed to hold you--
Out on the rocks where the...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...e Scheld; 
Others add to the exits and entrances at Sandy Hook; 
Others to the comers and goers at Gibraltar, or the Dardanelles;
Others sternly push their way through the northern winter-packs; 
Others descend or ascend the Obi or the Lena; 
Others the Niger or the Congo—others the Indus, the Burampooter and Cambodia; 
Others wait at the wharves of Manhattan, steam’d up, ready to start; 
Wait, swift and swarthy, in the ports of Australia;
Wait at Liverpool, Glasgow, Dublin, ...Read more of this...

by Masefield, John
..."Goneys an' gullies an' all o' the birds o' the sea
They ain't no birds, not really", said Billy the Dane.
"Not mollies, nor gullies, nor goneys at all", said he,
"But simply the sperrits of mariners livin' again.

"Them birds goin' fishin' is nothin' but the souls o' the drowned,
Souls o' the drowned, an' the kicked as are never no more
An' that there haughty old albatross cruisin' around,
Belike he's Admiral Nelson or Admiral Noah.

"An' merry...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...toward his hills—the Prussian goes his way, the Hungarian his way,
 and
 the
 Pole his way,
The Swede returns, and the Dane and Norwegian return. 

17
The homeward bound, and the outward bound, 
The beautiful lost swimmer, the ennuyé, the onanist, the female that loves
 unrequited,
 the
 money-maker, 
The actor and actress, those through with their parts, and those waiting to commence, 
The affectionate boy, the husband and wife, the voter, the nominee that is chosen, an...Read more of this...

by Kipling, Rudyard
...e of the Lord,
And crackling oaths went to and fro
 Across the fist-banged board.

And there was Hans the blue-eyed Dane,
 Bull-throated, bare of arm,
Who carried on his hairy chest
 The maid Ultruda's charm --
The little silver crucifix
 That keeps a man from harm.

And there was Jake Withouth-the-Ears,
 And Pamba the Malay,
And Carboy Gin the Guinea cook,
 And Luz from Vigo Bay,
And Honest Jack who sold them slops
 And harvested their pay.

And there was Salem H...Read more of this...

by Chesterton, G K
..., strange, and quaintly coloured
As the broidery of Bayeux
The England of that dawn remains,
And this of Alfred and the Danes
Seems like the tales a whole tribe feigns
Too English to be true.

Of a good king on an island
That ruled once on a time;
And as he walked by an apple tree
There came green devils out of the sea
With sea-plants trailing heavily
And tracks of opal slime.

Yet Alfred is no fairy tale;
His days as our days ran,
He also looked forth for an hour
On ...Read more of this...

by Campbell, Thomas
...ke the hurricane eclipse 
Of the sun. 

Again! again! again! 
And the havoc did not slack, 
Till a feeble cheer the Dane 
To our cheering sent us back;— 
Their shots along the deep slowly boom:— 
Then ceased—and all is wail, 
As they strike the shatter'd sail, 
Or in conflagration pale 
Light the gloom. 

Out spoke the victor then 
As he hail'd them o'er the wave: 
'Ye are brothers! ye are men! 
And we conquer but to save:— 
So peace instead of death let us bring: 
Bu...Read more of this...

by Chaucer, Geoffrey
...tar*: *pole star
Thus was it painted, I can say no far*; *farther
Her son is eke a star as men may see.
There saw I Dane  turn'd into a tree,
I meane not the goddess Diane,
But Peneus' daughter, which that hight Dane.
There saw I Actaeon an hart y-maked*, *made
For vengeance that he saw Dian all naked:
I saw how that his houndes have him caught,
And freten* him, for that they knew him not. *devour
Yet painted was, a little farthermore
How Atalanta hunted the w...Read more of this...

by Kipling, Rudyard
...ed too.
Then did robbers enter Britain from across the Northern main
And our Lower River-field was won by Ogier the Dane.

Well could Ogier work his war-boat --well could Ogier wield his
 brand--
Much he knew of foaming waters--not so much of farming land.
So he called to him a Hobden of the old unaltered blood,
Saying: "What about that River-piece; she doesn't look no good?"

And that aged Hobden answered "'Tain't for me not interfere.
But I've known that bit...Read more of this...

by Carman, Bliss
...e furled,
And wondered what cities they must have seen
On the other side of the world.

Frenchman and Britisher and Dane,
Yankee, Spaniard and Portugee,
And many a home ship back again
With her stories of the sea.

Calm and victorious, at rest
From the relentless, rough sea-play,
The wild duck on the river's breast
Was not more sure than they.

The creatures of a passing race,
The dark spruce forests made them strong,
The sea's lore gave them magic grace,
The grea...Read more of this...

by Laurence Dunbar, Paul
...an, the blunders, an' the laffin',
The nudges an' the nods an' winks an' stale good-natured chaffin'.
Ole Uncle Hiram Dane was there, the clostest man a-livin',
Whose only bugbear seemed to be the dreadful fear o' givin'.
His beard was long, his hair uncut, his clothes all bare an' dingy;
It wasn't 'cause the man was pore, but jest so mortal stingy;
An' there he sot by Sally Riggs a-smilin' an' a-smirkin',
An' all his children lef' to home a diggin' an' a-workin'.
A w...Read more of this...

by Robinson, Mary Darby
...Donnas, in Spain,
"I have left in gay France, every bosom in pain.
"I have conquer'd the Russian, the Prussian, the Dane,
"And will reign in the Banquetting Hall!"

The Monarch now rose, with majestical look,
And his sword from the scabbard of Jewels he took,
And the Castle with laughter and ribaldry shook.
While the braggart accosted thus he:
"I will give thee a place that will suit thy demand,
"What to thee, is more fitting than Vassals or Land--
"I will give thee,-...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...was heard to express, 
'Our president is going to war, I guess.' 

LX 

Besides there were the Spaniard, Dutch, and Dane; 
In short, an universal shoal of shades, 
From Otaheite's isle to Salisbury Plain, 
Of all climes and professions, years and trades, 
Ready to swear against the good king's reign, 
Bitter as clubs in cards are against spades: 
All summon'd by this grand 'subpoena,' to 
Try if kings mayn't be damn'd like me or you. 

LXI 

When Michael saw this host...Read more of this...

by Chaucer, Geoffrey
...u fette;
Now help, O Mars, thou with thy blody cope,
For love of Cipris, thou me nought ne lette; 
O Phebus, thenk whan Dane hir-selven shette
Under the bark, and laurer wex for drede,
Yet for hir love, O help now at this nede!

'Mercurie, for the love of Hierse eke,
For which Pallas was with Aglauros wrooth, 
Now help, and eek Diane, I thee biseke
That this viage be not to thee looth.
O fatal sustren, which, er any clooth
Me shapen was, my destene me sponne,
So helpeth t...Read more of this...

by Field, Eugene
...pi in St. Jo!

I've known the slow-consuming grief and ostentatious pain
Accruing from McKean Buchanan's melancholy Dane;
Away out West I've witnessed Bandmann's peerless hardihood,
With Arthur Cambridge have I wrought where walking was not good;
In every phase of horror have I bravely borne my part,
And even on my uppers have I proudly stood for Art!
And, after all my suffering, it were not hard to show
That I got my allopathic dose with Brutus at St. Jo!

That army ...Read more of this...

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