Famous Freedom Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Freedom poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous freedom poems. These examples illustrate what a famous freedom poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Robert William Service
They told to Marie Antoinette:
"The beggers at your gate
Have eyes too sad for tears to wet,
And for your pity wait."
But Marie only laughed and said:
"My heart they will not ache:
If people starve for want of bread
Let them eat cake."
The Court re-echoed her bon mot;
It rang around the land,
Till masses wakened from their woe
With...Read more of this...
by
Mary Darby Robinson
It was in the days of a gay British King
(In the old fashion'd custom of merry-making)
The Palace of Woodstock with revels did ring,
While they sang and carous'd--one and all:
For the monarch a plentiful treasury had,
And his Courtiers were pleas'd, and no visage was sad,
And the knavish and foolish with drinking were mad,
While they sat in the Banquetting hall.
Some talk'd...Read more of this...
by
Algernon Charles Swinburne
I -- In Church
Thou whose birth on earth
Angels sang to men,
While thy stars made mirth,
Saviour, at thy birth,
This day born again;
As this night was bright
With thy cradle-ray,
Very light of light,
Turn the wild world's night
To thy perfect day.
God whose feet made sweet
Those wild ways they trod,
From thy fragrant feet
Staining field and street
With the blood of God;
God whose breast is rest
In...Read more of this...
by
Andrew Barton Paterson
'Tis strange that in a land so strong
So strong and bold in mighty youth,
We have no poet's voice of truth
To sing for us a wondrous song.
Our chiefest singer yet has sung
In wild, sweet notes a passing strain,
All carelessly and sadly flung
To that dull world he thought so vain.
"I care for nothing,...Read more of this...
by
Wystan Hugh (W H) Auden
IHe disappeared in the dead of winter:The brooks were frozen, the airports almost deserted,And snow disfigured the public statues;The mercury sank in the mouth of the dying day.What instruments we have agreeThe day of his death was a dark cold day. Far from his illnessThe wolves ran on through the evergreen forests,The peasant river was untempted by the fashionable quays;By...Read more of this...
by
Henry Lawson
Australia's a big country
An' Freedom's humping bluey,
An' Freedom's on the wallaby
Oh! don't you hear 'er cooey?
She's just begun to boomerang,
She'll knock the tyrants silly,
She's goin' to light another fire
And boil another billy.
Our fathers toiled for bitter bread
While loafers thrived beside 'em,
But food to eat and clothes to wear,
Their...Read more of this...
by
Alfred Lord Tennyson
Of old sat Freedom on the heights,
The thunders breaking at her feet:
Above her shook the starry lights:
She heard the torrents meet.
There in her place she did rejoice,
Self-gather'd in her prophet-mind,
But fragments of her mighty voice
Came rolling on the wind.
Then stept she down thro' town and field
To mingle with the human race,
And part by part to men reveal'd
The fulness of...Read more of this...
by
Helen Hunt Jackson
he drank wine all night of the
28th, and he kept thinking of her:
the way she walked and talked and loved
the way she told him things that seemed true
but were not, and he knew the color of each
of her dresses
and her shoes-he knew the stock and curve of
each heel
as well as the...Read more of this...
by
Helen Hunt Jackson
I WILL not follow you, my bird,
I will not follow you.
I would not breathe a word, my bird,
To bring thee here anew.
I love the free in thee, my bird,
The lure of freedom drew;
The light you fly toward, my bird,
I fly with thee unto.
And there we yet will meet, my bird,
Though far I go from...Read more of this...
by
Kahlil Gibran
And an orator said, "Speak to us of Freedom."
And he answered:
At the city gate and by your fireside I have seen you prostrate yourself and worship your own freedom,
Even as slaves humble themselves before a tyrant and praise him though he slays them.
Ay, in the grove of the temple and in the shadow of the...Read more of this...
by
Siegfried Sassoon
The anguish of the earth absolves our eyes
Till beauty shines in all that we can see.
War is our scourge; yet war has made us wise,
And, fighting for our freedom, we are free.
Horror of wounds and anger at the foe,
And loss of things desired; all these must pass.
We are the happy legion, for we...Read more of this...
by
Victor Hugo
{Inscription under a Statue of the Virgin and Child, at Guernsey.—The
poet sees in the emblem a modern Atlas, i.e., Freedom supporting the
World.}
("Le peuple est petit.")
Weak is the People—but will grow beyond all other—
Within thy holy arms, thou fruitful victor-mother!
O Liberty, whose conquering flag is never furled—...Read more of this...
by
Amy Lowell
High up above the open, welcoming door
It hangs, a piece of wood with colours dim.
Once, long ago, it was a waving tree
And knew the sun and shadow through the leaves
Of forest trees, in a thick eastern wood.
The winter snows had bent its branches down,
The spring had swelled its buds with coming flowers,
Summer had run like fire through its veins,
While...Read more of this...
by
Ambrose Bierce
Freedom, as every schoolboy knows,
Once shrieked as Kosciusko fell;
On every wind, indeed, that blows
I hear her yell.
She screams whenever monarchs meet,
And parliaments as well,
To bind the chains about her feet
And toll her knell.
And when the sovereign people cast
The votes they cannot spell,
Upon the pestilential blast
Her clamors swell.
For all to whom the power's given
To sway or to compel,
Among themselves apportion...Read more of this...
by
Aleksandr Blok
I prefer the gorgeous freedom,
And I fly to lands of grace,
Where in wide and clear meadows
All is good, as dreams, and blest.
Here they rice: the clover clear,
And corn-flower's gentle lace,
And the rustle is always here:
"Ears are leaning... Take your ways!"
In this immense sea of fair,
Only one of blades reclines.
You don't see in misty air,
I'd seen it!It will be mine!...Read more of this...
by
Victor Hugo
("Lorsqu'à l'antique Olympe immolant l'evangile.")
{Bk. II. v., 1823.}
{There was in Rome one antique usage as follows: On the eve of the
execution day, the sufferers were given a public banquet—at the prison
gate—known as the "Free Festival."—CHATEAUBRIAND'S "Martyrs."}
...Read more of this...
by
Robert Frost
I've tried the new moon tilted in the air
Above a hazy tree-and-farmhouse cluster
As you might try a jewel in your hair.
I've tried it fine with little breadth of luster,
Alone, or in one ornament combining
With one first-water start almost shining.
I put it shining anywhere I please.
By walking slowly on some evening later,
I've pulled it from a crate of crooked trees,
And...Read more of this...
by
Gwendolyn Brooks
To be in love
Is to touch with a lighter hand.
In yourself you stretch, you are well.
You look at things
Through his eyes.
A cardinal is red.
A sky is blue.
Suddenly you know he knows too.
He is not there but
You know you are tasting together
The winter, or a light spring weather.
His hand...Read more of this...
by
Thomas Campbell
How delicious is the winning
Of a kiss at love's beginning,
When two mutual hearts are sighing
For the knot there's no untying!
Yet remember, 'Midst our wooing,
Love has bliss, but Love has ruing;
Other smiles may make you fickle,
Tears for other charms may trickle.
Love he comes, and Love he tarries,
Just as fate or fancy carries;
Longest stays, when sorest chidden;
Laughs and flies, when press'd...Read more of this...
by
Nazim Hikmet
You waste the attention of your eyes,
the glittering labour of your hands,
and knead the dough enough for dozens of loaves
of which you'll taste not a morsel;
you are free to slave for others--
you are free to make the rich richer.
The moment you're born
they plant around you
mills that grind lies
lies to last...Read more of this...
by
Alfred Lord Tennyson
Of old sat Freedom on the heights,
The thunders breaking at her feet:
Above her shook the starry lights:
She heard the torrents meet.
There in her place she did rejoice,
Self-gather'd in her prophet-mind,
But fragments of her mighty voice
Came rolling on the wind.
Then stept she down thro' town and field
To mingle with the human race,
And part by part to men reveal'd
The fullness of...Read more of this...
by
Robert Burns
I SING of a Whistle, a Whistle of worth,
I sing of a Whistle, the pride of the North.
Was brought to the court of our good Scottish King,
And long with this Whistle all Scotland shall ring.
Old Loda, still rueing the arm of Fingal,
The god of the bottle sends down from his hall—
“The Whistle’s your challenge, to Scotland get o’er,
And drink...Read more of this...
by
Robinson Jeffers
I
The broken pillar of the wing jags from the clotted shoulder,
The wing trails like a banner in defeat,
No more to use the sky forever but live with famine
And pain a few days: cat nor coyote
Will shorten the week of waiting for death, there is game without talons.
He stands under the oak-bush and waits
The lame feet of salvation;...Read more of this...
by
Andre Breton
(Translated from the French by Edouard Rodti)
My wife with the hair of a wood fire
With the thoughts of heat lightning
With the waist of an hourglass
With the waist of an otter in the teeth of a tiger
My wife with the lips of a cockade and of a bunch of stars of the last magnitude
With the teeth of tracks of white...Read more of this...
by
Helen Hunt Jackson
What freeman knoweth freedom? Never he
Whose father's father through long lives have reigned
O'er kingdoms which mere heritage attained.
Though from his youth to age he roam as free
As winds, he dreams not freedom's ecstacy.
But he whose birth was in a nation chained
For centuries; where every breath was drained
From breasts of slaves which knew...Read more of this...
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