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Famous Drummer Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by McGonagall, William Topaz
...ot whistled around, her courage wasn't slack,
Because to the soldiers she carried sand-bags on her back. 

A little drummer boy was told to fetch water from the well,
But he was afraid because the bullets from the enemy around it fell;
And the Doctor cried to the boy, Why are you standing there?
But Mrs Reston said, Doctor, the bairn is feared, I do declare. 

And she said, Give me the pail, laddie, I'll fetch the water,
Not fearing that the shot would her brains scat...Read more of this...



by Sandburg, Carl
...d knows, gigglers daffy with life’s razzle dazzle.

Slow good-night melodies and Home Sweet Home. And the snare drummer bookkeeper in a hardware store nods hello to the daughter of a railroad conductor—a giggler, God knows, a giggler—and the summer-white dresses filter fanwise out of the public square.

The crushed strawberries of ice cream soda places, the night wind in cottonwoods and willows, the lattice shadows of doorsteps and porches, these know more of the ...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...surrounding, alert through the dark, 
And a word provided for countersign, careful for safety; 
Till to the call of the drummers at daybreak loudly beating the drums, 
We rose up refresh’d, the night and sleep pass’d over, and resumed our journey, 
Or proceeded to battle.

Lo! the camps of the tents of green, 
Which the days of peace keep filling, and the days of war keep filling, 
With a mystic army, (is it too order’d forward? is it too only halting awhile, 
Till night ...Read more of this...

by Hardy, Thomas
...They throw in Drummer Hodge, to rest
Uncoffined -- just as found:
His landmark is a kopje-crest
That breaks the veldt around:
And foreign constellations west
Each night above his mound.

Young Hodge the drummer never knew --
Fresh from his Wessex home --
The meaning of the broad Karoo,
The Bush, the dusty loam,
And why uprose to nightly view
Strange stars amid the glo...Read more of this...

by Masters, Edgar Lee
...Out of a cell into this darkened space --
The end at twenty-five!
My tongue could not speak what stirred within me,
And the village thought me a fool.
Yet at the start there was a clear vision,
A high and urgent purpose in my soul
Which drove me on trying to memorize
The Encyclopedia Britannica!...Read more of this...



by Dickinson, Emily
...se spark
Some sailor, rowing in the dark,
   Had importuned to see!
It might have been the waning lamp
That lit the drummer from the camp
   To purer reveille!...Read more of this...

by Masters, Edgar Lee
...Do the boys and girls still go to Siever's
For cider, after school, in late September?
Or gather hazel nuts among the thickets
On Aaron Hatfield's farm when the frosts begin?
For many times with the laughing girls and boys
Played I along the road and over the hills
When the sun was low and the air was cool,
Stopping to club the walnut tree
Standing leafles...Read more of this...

by Smart, Christopher
...se of Thickness rejoice with The Papah a fruit found at Chequetan. 

Let Heartly, house of Heartly rejoice with the Drummer-Fish. God be gracious to Heartly of Christ, to Marsh, Hingeston and Bill. 

Let Sizer, house of Sizer rejoice with Trichros a precious stone black at bottom, white atop and blood-red in the middle. 

Let Chetwind, house of Chetwind rejoice with Hammocrysos, a gem with gold sands on it. 

Let Branch, house of Branch rejoice with Hæmati...Read more of this...

by Lowell, Amy
...marching army hitches its little green platforms 
valiantly, and steadily
approaches the door. The overturned bass-drummer, lying 
on the hearth-rug,
melting in the heat, softens and sheds tears. The song 
jeers
at his impotence, and flaunts the glory of the martial and still 
upstanding,
vaunting the deeds it will do. For are not Tommy's soldiers
all bright and new?

Tommy's leaden soldiers we,
Glittering with efficiency.
Not a button's out of place,
Tons an...Read more of this...

by Housman, A E
...On the idle hill of summer,
Sleepy with the flow of streams, 
Far I hear the steady drummer
Drumming like a noise in dreams. 

Far and near and low and louder
On the roads of earth go by, 
Dear to friends and food for powder, 
Soldiers marching, all to die. 

East and west on fields forgotten
Bleach the bones of comrades slain, 
Lovely lads and dead and rotten; 
None that go return again. 

Far the calling bugles ho...Read more of this...

by Paterson, Andrew Barton
...'the boys'." 

He answered: "I've bought you a hummer, 
A horse that has never been raced; 
I saw him run over the Drummer, 
He held him outclassed and outpaced. 
His breeding's not known, but they state he 
Is born of a thoroughbred strain. 
I've paid them a hundred and eighty, 
And started the horse in the train." 

They met him -- alas, that these verses 
Aren't up to their subject's demands, 
Can't set forth thier eloquent curses -- 
For Partner was back ...Read more of this...

by Goose, Mother
...dle is green;Father's a nobleman, mother's a queen;And Betty's a lady, and wears a gold ring;And Johnny's a drummer, and drums for the king....Read more of this...

by Sexton, Anne
...Boston 
the dying 
ride in cabs, 
yes death again, 
that ride home 
with our boy.) 
O Sylvia, I remember the sleepy drummer 
who beat on our eyes with an old story, 
how we wanted to let him come 
like a sadist or a New York fairy 
to do his job, 
a necessity, a window in a wall or a crib, 
and since that time he waited 
under our heart, our cupboard, 
and I see now that we store him up 
year after year, old suicides 
and I know at the news of your death 
a terrible taste...Read more of this...

by Sexton, Anne
...o's on your shut eyes,
while my fingers drew little smiles on your mouth,
while I drew I LOVE YOU on your chest and its drummer
and whispered, "Wake up!" and you mumbled in your sleep,
"Sh. We're driving to Cape Cod. We're heading for the Bourne
Bridge. We're circling the Bourne Circle." Bourne!
Then I knew you in your dream and prayed of our time
that I would be pierced and you would take root in me
and that I might bring forth your born, might bear
the you o...Read more of this...

by Hardy, Thomas
...I 

They throw in Drummer Hodge, to rest 
 Uncoffined--just as found: 
His landmark is a kopje-crest 
 That breaks the veldt around; 
And foreign constellations west 
 Each night above his mound. 

II 

Young Hodge the Drummer never knew - 
 Fresh from his Wessex home - 
The meaning of the broad Karoo, 
 The Bush, the dusty loam, 
And why uprose to nightly view 
 Strange ...Read more of this...

by Wignesan, T
...for J. C. Alldridge

Flagellant!
Flexor of the Temple's
Flexuous moulded walls
The high reliefs sallying through your
Flaunting fingers
Wrap the holy-comer with your
Invocatory maul
While word of vedic prayer
Seeps from some steepening Brahmin wall

O stretched bowel of your potted paunch
In perspiration's puffing piped paean
Rivet the...Read more of this...

by Masters, Edgar Lee
...rible dreams,
And specks before my eyes, and nervous weakness.
And I couldn't remember the books I read,
Like Frank Drummer who memorized page after page.
And my back was weak, and I worried and worried,
And I was embarrassed and stammered my lessons,
And when I stood up to recite I'd forget
Everything that I had studied.
Well, I saw Dr. Weese's advertisement,
And there I read everything in print,
Just as if he had known me;
And about the dreams which I couldn...Read more of this...

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