Famous General Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous General poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous general poems. These examples illustrate what a famous general poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
William Shakespeare
'Tis better to be vile than vile esteemed
When not to be receives reproach of being,
And the just pleasure lost, which is so deemed
Not by our feeling, but by others' seeing.
For why should others' false adulterate eyes
Give salutation to my sportive blood?
Or on my frailties why are frailer spies,
Which in their wills count bad what I think good?
No, I am...Read more of this...
by
Walt Whitman
I SAW old General at bay;
(Old as he was, his grey eyes yet shone out in battle like stars;)
His small force was now completely hemm’d in, in his works;
He call’d for volunteers to run the enemy’s lines—a desperate emergency;
I saw a hundred and more step forth from the ranks—but two or three were selected;
I saw...Read more of this...
by
Siegfried Sassoon
‘Good-morning; good-morning!’ the General said
When we met him last week on our way to the line.
Now the soldiers he smiled at are most of ’em dead,
And we’re cursing his staff for incompetent swine.
‘He’s a cheery old card,’ grunted Harry to Jack
As they slogged up to Arras with rifle and pack.
. . . .
But he...Read more of this...
by
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
In this noble ring to-day
Let my warning shame ye!
Listen to my solemn voice,--
Seldom does it name ye.
Many a thing have ye intended,
Many a thing have badly ended,
And now I must blame ye.
At some moment in our lives
We must all repent us!
So confess, with pious trust,
All your sins momentous!
Error's crooked pathways shunning.
Let us, on the straight road running,
Honestly content us!
Yes!...Read more of this...
by
Jonathan Swift
His Grace! impossible! what dead!
Of old age too, and in his bed!
And could that mighty warrior fall?
And so inglorious, after all!
Well, since he's gone, no matter how,
The last loud trump must wake him now:
And, trust me, as the noise grows stronger,
He'd wish to sleep a little longer.
And could he be indeed so old
As by the newspapers we're told?
Threescore, I think,...Read more of this...
by
Jonathan Swift
On the Death of a Late FAMOUS GENERAL
His Grace! impossible! what dead!
Of old age, too, and in his bed!
And could that Mighty Warrior fall?
And so inglorious, after all!
Well, since he's gone, no matter how,
The last loud trump must wake him now:
And, trust me, as the noise grows stronger,
He'd wish to sleep a little longer.
And could he be indeed so...Read more of this...
by
William Topaz McGonagall
Ye Sons of Great Britain! come join with me
And King in praise of the gallant British Armie,
That behaved right manfully in the Soudan,
At the great battle of Omdurman.
'Twas in the year of 1898, and on the 2nd of September,
Which the Khalifa and his surviving followers will long remember,
Because Sir Herbert Kitchener has annihilated them outright,
By the British troops...Read more of this...
by
John Berryman
Bats have no bankers and they do not drink
and cannot be arrested and pay no tax
and, in general, bats have it made.
Henry for joining the human race is bats,
known to be so, by few them who think,
out of the cave.
Instead of the cave! ah lovely-chilly, dark,
ur-moist his cousins hang in hundreds or swerve
with personal radar,
crisisless, kid. Instead of the...Read more of this...
by
John Berryman
General Fatigue stalked in, & a Major-General,
Captain Fatigue, and at the base of all
pale Corporal Fatigue,
and curious microbes came, came viruses:
and the Court conferred on Henry, and conferred on Henry
the rare Order of Weak.
-”How come dims one these wholesome elsers oh?
Old polymaths, old trackers, far from home,
say how thro' auburn hairtidbits of youth's grey climb.
My beauty id off duty!-”
Henry...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...
by
Vachel Lindsay
[To be sung to the tune of The Blood of the Lamb with indicated instrument]
I
[Bass drum beaten loudly.]
Booth led boldly with his big bass drum --
(Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?)
The Saints smiled gravely and they said: "He's come."
(Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?)
Walking lepers followed, rank on rank,
Lurching bravoes from...Read more of this...
by
William Topaz McGonagall
Alas! now o'er the civilised world there hangs a gloom
For brave General Gordon, that was killed in Khartoum,
He was a Christian hero, and a soldier of the Cross,
And to England his death will be a very great loss.
He was very cool in temper, generous and brave,
The friend of the poor, the sick, and the slave;
And many a poor...Read more of this...
by
Andrew Barton Paterson
We read in the press that Lord Northcote is here
To take up Lord Tennyson's mission.
'Tis pleasant to find they have sent us a Peer,
And a man of exalted position.
It's his business to see that the Radical horde
From loyalty's path does not swerve us;
But his tastes, and the task, don't seem quite in accord...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
Little Annabelle to please,
(Lacking grace, I grant),
Grandpa down on hands and knees
Plays the elephant.
Annabelle shrieks with delight,
Bouncing up and down,
On his back and holding tight
To his dressing gown.
As they roll and bowl along,
Round and round the room,
There is sunshine and a song
'Spite December gloom.
Yet we hear not Grandpa's groans,
Hushed his beard inside,
As...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
My Heart ran so to thee
It would not wait for me
And I affronted grew
And drew away
For whatsoe'er my pace
He first achieve they Face
How general a Grace
Allotted two --
Not in malignity
Mentioned I this to thee --
Had he obliquity
Soonest to share
But for the Greed of him --
Boasting my Premium --
Basking in Bethleem
Ere I be there --...Read more of this...
by
Robert Burns
NO Spartan tube, no Attic shell,
No lyre Æolian I awake;
’Tis liberty’s bold note I swell,
Thy harp, Columbia, let me take!
See gathering thousands, while I sing,
A broken chain exulting bring,
And dash it in a tyrant’s face,
And dare him to his very beard,
And tell him he no more is feared—
No more the despot of Columbia’s race!
A tyrant’s...Read more of this...
by
William Topaz McGonagall
'Twas in the year of 1878, and. the winter had set in,
Lord Roberts and the British Army their march did begin,
On their way to Afghanistan to a place called Cabul;
And the weather was bitter cold and the rivers swollen and full.
And the enemy were posted high up amongst the hills,
And when they saw the British, with fear their...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
Somewhere upon the general Earth
Itself exist Today --
The Magic passive but extant
That consecrated me --
Indifferent Seasons doubtless play
Where I for right to be --
Would pay each Atom that I am
But Immortality --
Reserving that but just to prove
Another Date of Thee --
Oh God of Width, do not for us
Curtail Eternity!...Read more of this...
by
Stephen Vincent Benet
"Ah, did you once see Shelley plain?" -- Browning.
"Shelley? Oh, yes, I saw him often then,"
The old man said. A dry smile creased his face
With many wrinkles. "That's a great poem, now!
That one of Browning's! Shelley? Shelley plain?
The time that I remember best is this --
A thin mire crept along the rutted ways,...Read more of this...
by
Dorothy Parker
Woman wants monogamy;
Man delights in novelty.
Love is woman's moon and sun;
Man has other forms of fun.
Woman lives but in her lord;
Count to ten, and man is bored.
With this the gist and sum of it,
What earthly good can come of it?...Read more of this...
by
William Topaz McGonagall
'Twas in the year of 1854, and on the 5th November,
Which Britain will no doubt long remember,
When the Russians plotted to drive the British army into the sea,
But at the bayonet charge the British soon made them flee.
With fourteen hundred British, fifteen thousand Russians were driven back,
At half-past seven o'clock in the morning they made the attack,
But the...Read more of this...
by
Rudyard Kipling
We are very slightly changed
From the semi-apes who ranged
India's Prehistoric clay;
He that drew the longest bow
Ran his brother down, you know,
As we run men down to-tday.
"Dowb," the first of all his race,
Met the Mammoth face to face
On the lake or in the cave:
Stole the steadiest canoe,
Ate the quarry others slew,
Died -- and took the finest...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
The General now lives in town;
He's eighty odd, they say;
You'll see him strolling up and down
The Prada any day.
He goes to every football game,
The bull-ring knows his voice,
And when the people cheer his name
Moscardo must rejoice.
Yet does he, in the gaiety
Of opera and ball,
A dingy little cellar see,
A picture on a wall?
A portrait of a laughing boy
Of sixteen singing...Read more of this...
by
Walt Whitman
WHAT General has a good army in himself, has a good army;
He happy in himself, or she happy in herself, is happy,
But I tell you you cannot be happy by others, any more than you can beget or conceive a
child
by others....Read more of this...
by
Wang Wei
When he was a youth of fifteen or twenty,
He chased a wild horse, he caught him and rode him,
He shot the white-browed mountain tiger,
He defied the yellow-bristled Horseman of Ye.
Fighting single- handed for a thousand miles,
With his naked dagger he could hold a multitude.
...Granted that the troops of China were as swift as heaven's...Read more of this...
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