Famous Defended Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Defended poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous defended poems. These examples illustrate what a famous defended poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Burns, Robert
...s a cant phrase in the west of Scotland for those religious opinions which Dr. Taylor of Norwich has so strenuously defended.—R. B. [back]...Read more of this...
by
Thomson, James
...urse was known
Full in its causes and effects to him,
All-piercing sage! who sat not down and dream'd
Romantic schemes, defended by the din
Of specious words, and tyranny of names;
But, bidding his amazing mind attend,
And with heroic patience years on years
Deep-searching, saw at last the system dawn,
And shine, of all his race, on him alone.
What were his raptures then! how pure! how strong!
And what the triumphs of old Greece and Rome,
By his diminish'd, but the prid...Read more of this...
by
McGonagall, William Topaz
...met with rather a disagreeable surprise.
He was attacked by five gipsy men without uttering a word,
But he manfully defended himself with his sword.
There chanced to be a poor man threshing corn in a barn near by,
Who came out on hearing the noise so high;
And seeing one man defending himself so gallantly,
That he attacked the gipsies with his flail, and made them flee.
Then he took the King into the barn,
Saying, "I hope, sir, you've met with no great harm;
A...Read more of this...
by
Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...from the wilderness, wallow in it,
Till the face of Bel be brighten'd, Taranis be propitiated.
Lo their colony half-defended! lo their colony, Camulodune!
There the horde of Roman robbers mock at a barbarous adversary.
There the hive of Roman liars worship a gluttonous emperor-idiot.
Such is Rome, and this her deity: hear it, Spirit of Cassivelaun!
`Hear it, Gods! the Gods have heard it, O Icenian, O Coritanian!
Doubt not ye the Gods have answer'd, Catieuchlania...Read more of this...
by
Betjeman, John
...he tide.
More than in gardened Surrey, nature spills
A wealth of heather, kidney-vetch and squills
Over these long-defended Cornish hills.
A gun-emplacement of the latest war
Looks older than the hill fort built before
Saxon or Norman headed for the shore.
And in the shadowless, unclouded glare
Deep blue above us fades to whiteness where
A misty sea-line meets the wash of air.
Nut-smell of gorse and honey-smell of ling
Waft out to sea the freshness of the ...Read more of this...
by
Hugo, Victor
...he still doth find.
When people suffer under cruel kings,
With pity moved, he to them succor brings.
'Twas he defended Alix from her foes
As sword of Urraca—he ever shows
His strength is for the feeble and oppressed;
Father of orphans he, and all distressed!
Kings of the Rhine in strongholds were by him
Boldly attacked, and tyrant barons grim.
He freed the towns—confronting in his lair
Hugo the Eagle; boldly did he dare
To break the collar of...Read more of this...
by
Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
...
Thus hym frayned that fre, and fondet hym ofte,
For to haf wonnen hym to woyghe, what-so scho thoyght ellez;
Bot he defended hym so fayr that no faut semed,
Ne non euel on nawther halue, nawther thay wysten
bot blysse.
Thay layghed and layked longe;
At the last scho con hym kysse,
Hir leue fayre con scho fonge
And went hir waye, iwysse.
The ruthes hym the renk and ryses to the masse,
And sithen hor diner watz dyyght and derely serued.
The lede with th...Read more of this...
by
Levine, Philip
...ty. )
Leo, the third foolish partner,
suggested my brother should have
swiped Canadian whiskey or brandy,
but Eddie defended his choice
on the grounds of the expressions
"gin house" and "gin lane," both
of which indicated the preeminence
of gin in the world of drinking,
a world we were entering without
understanding how difficult
exit might be. Maybe the bliss
that came with drinking came
only after a certain period
of apprenticeship. Eddie likened
it to the holy ...Read more of this...
by
Trumbull, John
...and plann'd;
The Whigs have got the upper hand.
Could mortal arm our fears have ended,
This arm (and shook it) had defended.
Wait not till things grow desperater,
For hanging is no laughing matter.
Adventure then no longer stay;
But call your friends and haste away.
"For lo, through deepest glooms of night,
I come to aid thy second-sight,
Disclose the plagues that round us wait,
And scan the dark decrees of fate.
"Ascend this ladder, whence unfurl'd
T...Read more of this...
by
Milton, John
...ounced his sovran will.
O Sons, like one of us Man is become
To know both good and evil, since his taste
Of that defended fruit; but let him boast
His knowledge of good lost, and evil got;
Happier! had it sufficed him to have known
Good by itself, and evil not at all.
He sorrows now, repents, and prays contrite,
My motions in him; longer than they move,
His heart I know, how variable and vain,
Self-left. Lest therefore his now bolder hand
Reach also of ...Read more of this...
by
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...THERE is no flock however watched and tended
But one dead lamb is there!
There is no fireside howsoe'er defended
But has one vacant chair!
The air is full of farewells to the dying 5
And mournings for the dead;
The heart of Rachel for her children crying
Will not be comforted!
Let us be patient! These severe afflictions
Not from the ground arise 10
But oftentimes celestial benedictions
Assume this dark disguise.
We see but dimly...Read more of this...
by
Milton, John
...uisht Kings;
And how ingrateful Ephraim
Not worse then by his shield and spear
Had dealt with Jephtha, who by argument,
Defended Israel from the Ammonite,
Had not his prowess quell'd thir pride
In that sore battel when so many dy'd
Without Reprieve adjudg'd to death,
For want of well pronouncing Shibboleth.
Sam: Of such examples adde mee to the roul,
Mee easily indeed mine may neglect,
But Gods propos'd deliverance not so.
Chor: Just are the ways of God,
And justif...Read more of this...
by
Service, Robert William
....
True, his tummy was distended, but he gave his horns a toss.
By them his goathood's honour would be gallantly defended,
And if their valour failed him - he would perish with his boss
So dauntlessly he lowered his head, and ever clearer, clearer,
He heard the throb and thunder of the Continental Mail.
He would face the mighty monster. It was coming nearer, nearer;
He would fight it, he would smite it, but he'd never show his tail.
Can you see that hirsut...Read more of this...
by
Robinson, Edwin Arlington
...maginable town,—
Even he who climbed and vanished may have taken
Down to the perils of a depth not known,
From death defended though by men forsaken,
The bread that every man must eat alone;
He may have walked while others hardly dared
Look on to see him stand where many fell;
And upward out of that, as out of hell,
He may have sung and striven
To mount where more of him shall yet be given,
Bereft of all retreat,
To sevenfold heat,—
As on a day when three in Dura s...Read more of this...
by
Robinson, Edwin Arlington
...site of the Greek.
The shadow fades, the light arrives,
And ills that were concealed are seen;
The combs of long-defended hives
Now drip dishonored and unclean;
No Nazarite or Nazarene
Compels our questioning to prove
The difference that is between
Dead lions—or the sweet thereof.
But not for lions, live or dead,
Except as we are all as one,
Is he the world’s accredited
Revealer of what we have done;
What You and I and Anderson
Are still to do is his rewa...Read more of this...
by
Byron, George (Lord)
...ng
Than his falchion's point had found,
Had the time allow'd to wound,
From within the neighbouring porch
Of a long-defended church,
Where the last and desperate few
Would the failing fight renew,
The sharp shot dash'd Alp to the ground;
Ere an eye could view the wound
That crash'd through the brain of the infidel,
Round he spun, and down he fell;
A flash like fire within his eyes
Blazed, as he bent no more to rise,
And then eternal darkness sunk
Through all the...Read more of this...
by
Chaucer, Geoffrey
...*I tell you*
This *maketh the fiend,* this must be amended. *is the devil's work*
Ire is a thing that high God hath defended,* *forbidden
And thereof will I speak a word or two."
"Now, master," quoth the wife, "ere that I go,
What will ye dine? I will go thereabout."
"Now, Dame," quoth he, "je vous dis sans doute,
Had I not of a capon but the liver,
And of your white bread not but a shiver,* *thin slice
And after that a roasted pigge's head,
(But I would that ...Read more of this...
by
Crane, Stephen
...ed slumber.
In guiltless ignorance, in ignorant guilt,
He delivered his secrets to the riven multitude.
"Thus I defended: Thus I wrought."
Complacent, smiling,
He stands heavily on the dead.
Erect on a pillar of skulls
He declaims his trampling of babes;
Smirking, fat, dripping,
He makes speech in guiltless ignorance,
Innocence....Read more of this...
by
Chaucer, Geoffrey
...ore than two;
And many another holy man also.
Where can ye see, *in any manner age,* *in any period*
That highe God defended* marriage *forbade 5
By word express? I pray you tell it me;
Or where commanded he virginity?
I wot as well as you, it is no dread,* *doubt
Th' apostle, when he spake of maidenhead,
He said, that precept thereof had he none:
Men may counsel a woman to be one,* *a maid
But counseling is no commandement;
He put it in our owen judgement.
For, hadde...Read more of this...
by
Dyke, Henry Van
...world they did not die in vain.
Thank God we can see, in the glory of morn,
The invincible flag that our fathers defended;
And our hearts can repeat what the heroes have sworn,
That war shall not end till the war-lust is ended.
Then the bloodthirsty sword shall no longer be lord
Of the nations oppressed by the conqueror's horde,
But the banners of freedom shall peacefully wave
O'er the world of the free and the lands of the brave....Read more of this...
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