Famous Frontier Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Frontier poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous frontier poems. These examples illustrate what a famous frontier poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Emily Dickinson
I am afraid to own a Body --
I am afraid to own a Soul --
Profound -- precarious Property --
Possession, not optional --
Double Estate -- entailed at pleasure
Upon an unsuspecting Heir --
Duke in a moment of Deathlessness
And God, for a Frontier....Read more of this...
by
Eben E. Rexford
1. Paul Venarez heard them say, in the frontier town that day,
That a band of Red Plume's warriors was upon the trail of death;
Heard them tell of a murder done: Three men killed at Rocky Run.
"They're in danger up at Crawford's," said Venarez, under breath.
2. "Crawford's"—thirty miles away—was a settlement, that lay
In a green and pleasant valley of the mighty...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
I strolled up old Bonanza, where I staked in ninety-eight,
A-purpose to revisit the old claim.
I kept thinking mighty sadly of the funny ways of Fate,
And the lads who once were with me in the game.
Poor boys, they're down-and-outers, and there's scarcely one to-day
Can show a dozen colors in his poke;
And me, I'm still prospecting, old and battered, gaunt and...Read more of this...
by
Laurence Binyon
O race that Cæsar knew,
That won stern Roman praise,
What land not envies you
The laurel of these days?
You build your cities rich
Around each towered hall, —
Without, the statued niche,
Within, the pictured wall.
Your ship-thronged wharves, your marts
With gorgeious Venice vied,
Peace and her famous arts
Were yours: though tide on tide
Of Europe's...Read more of this...
by
Sir Henry Newbolt
This is the Chapel: here, my son,
Your father thought the thoughts of youth,
And heard the words that one by one
The touch of Life has turn’d to truth.
Here in a day that is not far,
You too may speak with noble ghosts
Of manhood and the vows of war
You made before the Lord of Hosts.
To set the cause above renown,
To love the...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
For all good friends who care to read,
here let me lyre my living creed . . .
One: you may deem me Pacifist,
For I've no sympathy with strife.
Like hell I hate the iron fist,
And shun the battle-ground of life.
The hope of peace is dear to me,
And I to Christian faith belong,
Holding that breath should sacred be,
And War is always...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
The saddest noise, the sweetest noise,
The maddest noise that grows, --
The birds, they make it in the spring,
At night's delicious close.
Between the March and April line --
That magical frontier
Beyond which summer hesitates,
Almost too heavenly near.
It makes us think of all the dead
That sauntered with us here,
By separation's sorcery
Made cruelly more dear.
It makes us think of what we had,
And what...Read more of this...
by
Du Fu
Wagons rumble rumble Hhorses whinny whinny Foot person bow arrow each at waist Father mother wife children go mutual see off Dust dust not see Xianyang bridge Pull clothes stamp foot bar way weep Weep sound directly up strike clouds clouds Road side passerby ask foot person Foot person only say mark down often Some from ten...Read more of this...
by
Ezra Pound
By the North Gate, the wind blows full of sand,
Lonely from the beginning of time until now!
Trees fall, the grass goes yellow with autumn.
I climb the towers and towers
to watch out the barbarous land:
Desolate castle, the sky, the wide desert.
There is no wall left to this village.
Bones white with a thousand frosts,
High heaps, covered with trees and grass;
Who brought...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
Not that he goes -- we love him more
Who led us while he stayed.
Beyond earth's trafficking frontier,
For what he moved, he made....Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
This is the law of the Yukon, and ever she makes it plain:
"Send not your foolish and feeble; send me your strong and your sane --
Strong for the red rage of battle; sane for I harry them sore;
Send me men girt for the combat, men who are grit to the core;
Swift as the panther in triumph, fierce as the...Read more of this...
by
Larry Levis
--The Carpathian Frontier, October, 1968
--for my brother
Once, in a foreign country, I was suddenly ill.
I was driving south toward a large city famous
For so little it had a replica, in concrete,
In two-thirds scale, of the Arc de Triomphe stuck
In the midst of traffic, & obstructing it.
But the city was hours away, beyond the hills
Shaped like the bodies of...Read more of this...
by
Sylvia Plath
(Rock Lake, Canada)
In this country there is neither measure nor balance
To redress the dominance of rocks and woods,
The passage, say, of these man-shaming clouds.
No gesture of yours or mine could catch their attention,
No word make them carry water or fire the kindling
Like local trolls in the spell of a superior being.
Well, one wearies of the Public Gardens: one wants...Read more of this...
by
William Morris
Had she come all the way for this,
To part at last without a kiss?
Yea, had she borne the dirt and rain
That her own eyes might see him slain
Beside the haystack in the floods?
Along the dripping leafless woods,
The stirrup touching either shoe,
She rode astride as troopers do;
With kirtle kilted to her knee,
To which the mud splash'd wretchedly;
And the wet dripp'd...Read more of this...
by
Alec Derwent (A D) Hope
Crossing the frontier they were stopped in time,
Told, quite politely, they would have to wait:
Passports in order, nothing to declare
And surely holding hands was not a crime
Until they saw how, ranged across the gate,
All their most formidable friends were there.
Wearing his conscience like a crucifix,
Her father, rampant, nursed the Family Shame;
And,...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
Their Height in Heaven comforts not --
Their Glory -- nought to me --
'Twas best imperfect -- as it was --
I'm finite -- I can't see --
The House of Supposition --
The Glimmering Frontier that
Skirts the Acres of Perhaps --
To Me -- shows insecure --
The Wealth I had -- contented me --
If 'twas a meaner size --
Then I had counted it...Read more of this...
by
Rudyard Kipling
Now Jones had left his new-wed bride to keep his house in order,
And hied away to the Hurrum Hills above the Afghan border,
To sit on a rock with a heliograph; but ere he left he taught
His wife the working of the Code that sets the miles at naught.
And Love had made him very sage, as Nature made her fair;
So...Read more of this...
by
John Masefield
Night is on the downland, on the lonely moorland,
On the hills where the wind goes over sheep-bitten turf,
Where the bent grass beats upon the unplowed poorland
And the pine-woods roar like the surf.
Here the Roman lived on the wind-barren lonely,
Dark now and haunted by the moorland fowl;
None comes here now but the peewit only,
And moth-like death in the owl.
Beauty was...Read more of this...
by
Rudyard Kipling
So here's your Empire. No more wine, then?
Good.
We'll clear the Aides and khitmatgars away.
(You'll know that fat old fellow with the knife --
He keeps the Name Book, talks in English too,
And almost thinks himself the Government.)
O Youth, Youth, Youth! Forgive me, you're so young.
Forty from sixty -- twenty years of work
And power to back the working. Ay def mi!
You...Read more of this...
by
Rudyard Kipling
A great and glorious thing it is
To learn, for seven years or so,
The Lord knows what of that and this,
Ere reckoned fit to face the foe --
The flying bullet down the Pass,
That whistles clear: "All flesh is grass."
Three hundred pounds per annum spent
On making brain and body meeter
For all the murderous intent
Comprised in "villanous saltpetre!"
And...Read more of this...
by
Seamus Heaney
The tightness and the nilness round that space
when the car stops in the road, the troops inspect
its make and number and, as one bends his face
towards your window, you catch sight of more
on a hill beyond, eyeing with intent
down cradled guns that hold you under cover
and everything is pure interrogation
until a rifle...Read more of this...
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