Famous Dervish Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Dervish poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous dervish poems. These examples illustrate what a famous dervish poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
See also:
...r the tower
and the hewn coping
That takes thunder at the head of the turret-
Terrible and real. Therefore a mindless dervish
carving himself
With knives will seem to have conquered the world.
The world's God is treacherous and full of
unreason; a torturer, but also
The only foundation and the only fountain.
Who fights him eats his own flesh and perishes
of hunger; who hides in the grave
To escape him is dead; who enters the Indian
Recession to escape him is dead; w...Read more of this...
by
Jeffers, Robinson
...am fellah's heart;
The Ghurka reads it at his evening prayer;
The raw lands know it, where the fierce suns glare;
The Dervish fears it. Honor to his name
Who holds aloft the shield of England's fame.
Mourn for our hero, men of Northern race!
We do not know his sin; we only know
His sword was keen. He laughed death in the face,
And struck, for Empire's sake, a giant blow.
His arm was strong. Ah! well they learnt, the foe
The echo of his deeds is ringing yet --
Will ring ...Read more of this...
by
Service, Robert William
...I am worthy neither of Hell nor a celestial abode; God
knows from what clay he has moulded me. Heretical as
a dervish and foul as a lost woman, I have neither
wealth, nor fortune, nor hope of Paradise....Read more of this...
by
Khayyam, Omar
...;
And still one pulse
Through the world did thresh.
And the world all whirling
Around in joy
Like the dance of a dervish
Did destroy
My sense—and my reason
Spun like a toy.
But firm at the centre
My heart was found;
Her own to my perfect
Heart-beat bound,
Like a magnet’s keeper
Closing the round....Read more of this...
by
Lawrence, D. H.
...O Thou, the quest of whom holds all in dizziness and
distress, the dervish and the rich are equally void of
means of reaching Thee. Thy name is in the speech
of all, but all are deaf; Thou art present to the eyes of
all, but all are blind.
330...Read more of this...
by
Khayyam, Omar
...m manage how they may,
Heed thou only Saadi's lay.
Seek the living among the dead:
Man in man is imprisoned.
Barefooted Dervish is not poor,
If fate unlock his bosom's door.
So that what his eye hath seen
His tongue can paint, as bright, as keen,
And what his tender heart hath felt,
With equal fire thy heart shall melt.
For, whom the muses shine upon,
And touch with soft persuasion,
His words like a storm-wind can bring
Terror and beauty on their wing;
In his every syllable
L...Read more of this...
by
Emerson, Ralph Waldo
...Ye Sons of Great Britain, pray list to me,
And I'll tell ye of a great victory.
Where the British defeated the Dervishes, without delay,
At the Battle of Atbara, without dismay.
The attack took place, 'twas on the 8th of April, in the early morning dawn,
And the British behaved manfully to a man;
And Mahmud's front was raked fearfully, before the assault began,
By the disposition of the force under Colonel Long :
Because the cannonading of their guns was very stron...Read more of this...
by
McGonagall, William Topaz
...glades, where childhood in its glee
Re-echoes with fresh voice the heaven-lit ecstasy.
Yon girl whirls like an eastern dervish. Her dance is
No less a god-intoxicated dance than his,
Though all unknowing the arcane fire that lights her feet,
What motions of what starry tribes her limbs repeat.
I, too, firesmitten, cannot linger: I know there lies
Open somewhere this hour a gate to Paradise,
Its blazing battlements with watchers thronged, O where?
I know not, but my flame-win...Read more of this...
by
Cavafy, Constantine P
...head
Bent to the dust, o'ercharged with dread,
Whilst "God be praised!" all cried;
But through the throng one dervish pressed,
Aged and bent, who dared arrest
The pasha in his pride.
"Ali Tepelini, light of all light,
Who hold'st the Divan's upper seat by right,
Whose fame Fame's trump hath burst—
Thou art the master of unnumbered hosts,
Shade of the Sultan—yet he only boasts
In thee a dog accurst!
"An unseen tomb-torch flickers on t...Read more of this...
by
Hugo, Victor
...In my predestin'd Plot of Dust and Soul.
LXVI.
The Vine has struck a fiber: which about
If clings my Being -- let the Dervish flout;
Of my Base metal may be filed a Key,
That shall unlock the Door he howls without.
LXVII.
And this I know: whether the one True Light,
Kindle to Love, or Wrath -- consume me quite,
One Glimpse of It within the Tavern caught
Better than in the Temple lost outright.
LXVIII.
What! out of senseless Nothing to provoke
A conscious Something to re...Read more of this...
by
Khayyam, Omar
...variety, trying to find what never sates.
Laughs at the holy writings and the text divine,
O'er which the humble dervish prays and venerates.
There is a common saying which holds often good:
That cruel is he who is sparing in his cups.
That they are such as are most thirsty of man's blood—
Yet he will see a slave beheaded whilst he sups.
But be this as it all may, glory gilds his reign,
He has overrun Africa, the old and black;
Asia as well—holding...Read more of this...
by
Hugo, Victor
Dont forget to view our wonderful member Dervish poems.