Famous Fighting Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Fighting poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous fighting poems. These examples illustrate what a famous fighting poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
John Dryden
Consecrated to the Glorious Memory of His
Most Serene and Renowned Highness, Oliver,
Late Lord Protector of This Commonwealth, etc.
(Oliver Cromwell)
Written After the Celebration of his Funeral
1
And now 'tis time; for their officious haste,
Who would before have borne him to the sky,
Like eager Romans ere all rites were past
Did let too soon the sacred eagle fly....Read more of this...
by
Nazim Hikmet
The knight of immortal youth
at the age of fifty found his mind in his heart
and on July morning went out to capture
the right, the beautiful, the just.
Facing him a world of silly and arrogant giants,
he on his sad but brave Rocinante.
I know what it means to be longing for something,
but if your heart weighs only a pound and sixteen...Read more of this...
by
Conrad Aiken
'Number four—the girl who died on the table—
The girl with golden hair—'
The purpling body lies on the polished marble.
We open the throat, and lay the thyroid bare . . .
One, who held the ether-cone, remembers
Her dark blue frightened eyes.
He heard the sharp breath quiver, and saw her breast
More hurriedly fall and rise.
Her hands made futile gestures, she turned her...Read more of this...
by
Dorothy Parker
Say my love is easy had,
Say I'm bitten raw with pride,
Say I am too often sad-
Still behold me at your side.
Say I'm neither brave nor young,
Say I woo and coddle care,
Say the devil touched my tongue-
Still you have my heart to wear.
But say my verses do not scan,
And I get me another man!...Read more of this...
by
Henry Lawson
When the man I was denounces all the things that I was not,
When the true souls stand like granite, while the souls of liars not –
When the quids I gave are counted, and the trays I cadged forgot;
Shall my spirit see the country that it wrote for once again?
Shall it see the old selections, and...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
"There's something in your face, Michael, I've seen it all the day;
There's something quare that wasn't there when first ye wint away. . . ."
"It's just the Army life, mother, the drill, the left and right,
That puts the stiffinin' in yer spine and locks yer jaw up tight. . . ."
"There's something in your eyes, Michael, an' how they...Read more of this...
by
Isaac Watts
Let dogs delight to bark and bite,
For God hath made them so:
Let bears and lions growl and fight,
For 'tis their nature, too.
But, children, you should never let
Such angry passions rise:
Your little hands were never made
To tear each other's eyes.
Let love through all your actions run,
And all your words be mild:
Live like the blessed Virgin's Son,
That sweet and...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
Give me the scorn of the stars and a peak defiant;
Wail of the pines and a wind with the shout of a giant;
Night and a trail unknown and a heart reliant.
Give me to live and love in the old, bold fashion;
A soldier's billet at night and a soldier's ration;
A heart that leaps to the fight with a soldier's passion.
For...Read more of this...
by
Siegfried Sassoon
He primmed his loose red mouth and leaned his head
Against a sorrowing angel’s breast, and said:
‘You’d think so much bereavement would have made
‘Unusual big demands upon my trade.
‘The War comes cruel hard on some poor folk;
‘Unless the fighting stops I’ll soon be broke.’
He eyed the Cemetery across the road.
‘There’s scores of bodies out...Read more of this...
by
Charles Bukowski
sometimes you climb out of bed in the morning and you think,
I'm not going to make it, but you laugh inside
remembering all the times you've felt that way, and
you walk to the bathroom, do your toilet, see that face
in the mirror, oh my oh my oh my, but you comb your hair anyway,
get into...Read more of this...
by
Henry Lawson
They were hanging men in Buckland who would not cheer King George –
The parson from his pulpit and the blacksmith from his forge;
They were hanging men and brothers, and the stoutest heart was down,
When a quiet man from Buckland rode at dusk to raise Charlestown.
Not a young man in his glory filled with patriotic fire,...Read more of this...
by
Henry Lawson
It was somewhere in September, and the sun was going down,
When I came, in search of `copy', to a Darling-River town;
`Come-and-have-a-drink' we'll call it -- 'tis a fitting name, I think --
And 'twas raining, for a wonder, up at Come-and-have-a-drink.
'Neath the public-house verandah I was resting on a bunk
When a stranger rose before me,...Read more of this...
by
Katherine Philips
If honor to an ancient name be due,
Or riches challenge it for one that's new,
The British language claims in either sense
Both for its age, and for its opulence.
But all great things must be from us removed,
To be with higher reverence beloved.
So landskips which in prospects distant lie,
With greater wonder draw the pleasèd eye.
Is not great Troy to one dark ruin...Read more of this...
by
William Topaz McGonagall
'Twas about the beginning of the past century
Billy Bowls was pressed into the British Navy,
And conveyed on board the "Waterwitch" without delay,
Scarce getting time to bid farewell to the villagers of Fairway.
And once on board the "Waterwitch" he resolved to do his duty,
And if he returned safe home he'd marry Nelly Blyth, his beauty;
And he'd fight for old...Read more of this...
by
Sir Henry Newbolt
It was eight bells ringing,
For the morning watch was done,
And the gunner's lads were singing
As they polished every gun.
It was eight bells ringing,
And the gunner's lads were singing,
For the ship she rode a-swinging,
As they polished every gun.
Oh! to see the linstock lighting,
T?m?raire! T?m?raire!
Oh! to hear the round shot biting,...Read more of this...
by
William Topaz McGonagall
Success to Tommy Atkins, he's a very brave man,
And to deny it there's few people can;
And to face his foreign foes he's never afraid,
Therefore he's not a beggar, as Rudyard Kipling has said.
No, he's paid by our Government, and is worthy of his hire;
And from our shores in time of war he makes our foes retire,
He doesn't need...Read more of this...
by
Naomi Shihab Nye
You can't be, says a Palestinian Christian
on the first feast day after Ramadan.
So, half-and-half and half-and-half.
He sells glass. He knows about broken bits,
chips. If you love Jesus you can't love
anyone else. Says he.
At his stall of blue pitchers on the Via Dolorosa,
he's sweeping. The rubbed stones
feel holy. Dusting of powdered sugar
across faces of date-stuffed mamool.
This morning we lit the...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
A Life Tragedy
A pistol shot rings round and round the world;
In pitiful defeat a warrior lies.
A last defiance to dark Death is hurled,
A last wild challenge shocks the sunlit skies.
Alone he falls, with wide, wan, woeful eyes:
Eyes that could smile at death -- could not face shame.
Alone, alone he paced his narrow room,
In the bright...Read more of this...
by
Andrew Barton Paterson
As I lie at rest on a patch of clover
In the Western Park when the day is done.
I watch as the wild black swans fly over
With their phalanx turned to the sinking sun;
And I hear the clang of their leader crying
To a lagging mate in the rearward flying,
And they fade away in the...Read more of this...
by
Andrew Barton Paterson
In distant New Zealand, whose tresses of gold
The billows are ceaselessly combing,
Away in a village all tranquil and old
I came on a market where porkers were sold --
A market for pigs in the gloaming.
And Maoris in plenty in picturesque rig
The lands of their forefathers roaming,
Were weighing their swine, whether little or big,...Read more of this...
by
Vachel Lindsay
I am unjust, but I can strive for justice.
My life's unkind, but I can vote for kindness.
I, the unloving, say life should be lovely.
I, that am blind, cry out against my blindness.
Man is a curious brute — he pets his fancies —
Fighting mankind, to win sweet luxury.
So he will be, tho' law be...Read more of this...
by
Rainer Maria Rilke
In the years when we were
all children, this inclining
to be alone so much was gentle;
others' time passed fighting,
and one had one's faction,
one's near, one's far-off place,
a path, an animal, a picture.
And I still imagined, that life
would always keep providing
for one to dwell on things within,
Am I within myself not in what's greatest?
Shall what's mine no longer soothe
and understand me...Read more of this...
by
Randall Jarrell
It was not dying: everybody died.
It was not dying: we had died before
In the routine crashes-- and our fields
Called up the papers, wrote home to our folks,
And the rates rose, all because of us.
We died on the wrong page of the almanac,
Scattered on mountains fifty miles away;
Diving on haystacks, fighting with a...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
'Twas fighting for his Life he was --
That sort accomplish well --
The Ordnance of Vitality
Is frugal of its Ball.
It aims once -- kills once -- conquers once --
There is no second War
In that Campaign inscrutable
Of the Interior....Read more of this...
by
William Topaz McGonagall
'Twas after the great Majuba fight:
And the next morning, at daylight,
Captain Macbean's men were ordered to headquarters camp,
So immediately Captain Macbean and his men set out on tramp.
And there they were joined by the Blue Jackets and 58th men,
Who, for unflinching courage, no man can them condemn;
And that brave little band was commissioned to bury their dead,
And the...Read more of this...
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