Famous Gore Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Nay Lord not thus! white lilies in the spring

by Oscar Wilde
 Seven stars in the still water,
And seven in the sky;
Seven sins on the King's daughter,
Deep in her soul to lie.

Red roses are at her feet,
(Roses are red in her red-gold hair)
And O where her bosom and girdle meet
Red roses are hidden there.

Fair is the knight who lieth slain
Amid the rush and reed,
See the lean fishes that are fain
Upon dead...Read more of this...

138. Address to the Toothache

by Robert Burns
 MY curse upon your venom’d stang,
That shoots my tortur’d gums alang,
An’ thro’ my lug gies mony a twang,
 Wi’ gnawing vengeance,
Tearing my nerves wi’ bitter pang,
 Like racking engines!


When fevers burn, or argues freezes,
Rheumatics gnaw, or colics squeezes,
Our neibor’s sympathy can ease us,
 Wi’ pitying moan;
But thee—thou hell o’ a’ diseases—
 They mock our groan.


Adown my beard the slavers...Read more of this...

The Immortals

by Dorothy Parker
 I killed them, but they would not die. 
Yea! all the day and all the night 
For them I could not rest or sleep, 
Nor guard from them nor hide in flight. 

Then in my agony I turned 
And made my hands red in their gore. 
In vain - for faster than I slew 
They rose more cruel than...Read more of this...

The Lost Battle

by Victor Hugo
 ("Allah! qui me rendra-") 
 
 {XVI., May, 1828.} 


 Oh, Allah! who will give me back my terrible array? 
 My emirs and my cavalry that shook the earth to-day; 
 My tent, my wide-extending camp, all dazzling to the sight, 
 Whose watchfires, kindled numberless beneath the brow of night, 
 Seemed oft unto the sentinel that...Read more of this...

The Rebel Surprise Near Tamai

by William Topaz McGonagall
 'Twas on the 22nd of March, in the year 1885,
That the Arabs rushed like a mountain torrent in full drive,
And quickly attacked General M'Neill's transport-zereba,
But in a short time they were forced to withdraw. 

And in the suddenness of surprise the men were carried away,
Also camels, mules, and horses were thrown into wild disarray,
By thousands of the Arabs that...Read more of this...

To The Genius Of Africa

by Robert Southey
 O thou who from the mountain's height
Roll'st down thy clouds with all their weight
Of waters to old Niles majestic tide;
Or o'er the dark sepulchral plain
Recallest thy Palmyra's ancient pride,
Amid whose desolated domes
Secure the savage chacal roams,
Where from the fragments of the hallow'd fane
The Arabs rear their miserable homes!

Hear Genius hear thy children's cry!
Not always should'st thou love to brood
Stern...Read more of this...

254. Caledonia: A Ballad

by Robert Burns
 THERE was once a day, but old Time wasythen young,
 That brave Caledonia, the chief of her line,
From some of your northern deities sprung,
 (Who knows not that brave Caledonia’s divine?)
From Tweed to the Orcades was her domain,
 To hunt, or to pasture, or do what she would:
Her heav’nly relations there fixed her reign,
 And pledg’d her their godheads...Read more of this...

The Bard

by Thomas Gray
 Pindaric Ode

"Ruin seize thee, ruthless King!
Confusion on thy banners wait!
Tho' fanned by Conquest's crimson wing,
They mock the air with idle state.
Helm, nor hauberk's twisted mail,
Nor e'en thy virtues, Tyrant, shall avail
To save thy secret soul from nightly fears,
From Cambria's curse, from Cambria's tears!"
Such were the sounds that o'er the crested pride
Of the first Edward scattered wild dismay,
As down the...Read more of this...

Avenging and Bright

by Thomas Moore
 Avenging and bright fall the swift sword of Erin
On him who the brave sons of Usna betray'd! -- 
For every fond eye he hath waken'd a tear in 
A drop from his heart-wounds shall weep o'er her blade. 

By the red cloud that hung over Conor's dark dwelling,
When Ulad's three champions lay sleeping in gore -- 
By the billows...Read more of this...

Ode to Napoleon Bonaparte

by George (Lord) Byron
 I 
'Tis done -- but yesterday a King! 
And arm'd with Kings to strive -- 
And now thou art a nameless thing: 
So abject -- yet alive! 
Is this the man of thousand thrones, 
Who strew'd our earth with hostile bones, 
And can he thus survive? 
Since he, miscall'd the Morning Star, 
Nor man nor fiend hath fallen so...Read more of this...

In Memory Of Eva Gore-Booth And Con Markiewicz

by William Butler Yeats
 The light of evening, Lissadell,
Great windows open to the south,
Two girls in silk kimonos, both
Beautiful, one a gazelle.
But a raving autumn shears
Blossom from the summer's wreath;
The older is condemned to death,
Pardoned, drags out lonely years
Conspiring among the ignorant.
I know not what the younger dreams -
Some vague Utopia - and she seems,
When withered old and skeleton-gaunt,
An image of such politics.
Many...Read more of this...

Gwin King of Norway

by William Blake
 Come, kings, and listen to my song:
When Gwin, the son of Nore,
Over the nations of the North
His cruel sceptre bore;
The nobles of the land did feed
Upon the hungry poor;
They tear the poor man's lamb, and drive
The needy from their door.

`The land is desolate; our wives
And children cry for bread;
Arise, and pull the tyrant down!
Let Gwin be humbl?d!'

Gordred the giant...Read more of this...

My Hero

by Robert William Service
 Of all the boys with whom I fought
In Africa and Sicily,
Bill was the bravest of the lot
In our dare-devil Company.
That lad would rather die than yield;
His gore he glorified to spill,
And so in every battlefield
A hero in my eyes was Bill.

Then when the bloody war was done,
He moseyed back to our home town,
And there, a loving mother's son,
Like other...Read more of this...

The Boy On The Barricade

by Victor Hugo
 ("Sur une barricade.") 
 
 {June, 1871.} 


 Like Casabianca on the devastated deck, 
 In years yet younger, but the selfsame core. 
 Beside the battered barricado's restless wreck, 
 A lad stood splashed with gouts of guilty gore, 
 But gemmed with purest blood of patriot more. 
 
 Upon his fragile form the troopers' bloody grip...Read more of this...

The Universal Republic

by Victor Hugo
 ("Temps futurs.") 
 
 {Part "Lux," Jersey, Dec. 16-20, 1853.} 


 O vision of the coming time! 
 When man has 'scaped the trackless slime 
 And reached the desert spring; 
 When sands are crossed, the sward invites 
 The worn to rest 'mid rare delights 
 And gratefully to sing. 
 
 E'en now the eye that's...Read more of this...

Fabien Dei Franchi

by Oscar Wilde
 (To my Friend Henry Irving)

The silent room, the heavy creeping shade,
The dead that travel fast, the opening door,
The murdered brother rising through the floor,
The ghost's white fingers on thy shoulders laid,
And then the lonely duel in the glade,
The broken swords, the stifled scream, the gore,
Thy grand revengeful eyes when all is o'er, -
These things are well enough, - but...Read more of this...

The Tear

by George (Lord) Byron
 When Friendship or Love
Our sympathies move;
When Truth, in a glance, should appear,
The lips may beguile,
With a dimple or smile,
But the test of affection's a Tear:

Too oft is a smile
But the hypocrite's wile,
To mask detestation, or fear;
Give me the soft sigh,
Whilst the soultelling eye
Is dimm'd, for a time, with a Tear:

Mild Charity's glow,
To us mortals below,
Shows the soul from barbarity...Read more of this...

The Faerie Queene Book III Canto VI

by Edmund Spenser
The birth of faire Belphoebe and
Of Amoret is told.
The Gardins of Adonis fraught
With pleasures manifold.
 
And gentle sprite deforme with rude rusticity.
 But to this faire Belphoebe in her berth
The heauens so fauourable were and free,
Looking with myld aspect vpon the earth,
In th'Horoscope of her natiuitee,
That all the gifts of grace and chastitee
On her they poured forth of plenteous horne;
Ioue...Read more of this...

Song 2

by Anne Bronte
 Come to the banquet -- triumph in your songs!
Strike up the chords -- and sing of Victory!
The oppressed have risen to redress their wrongs;
The Tyrants are o'erthrown; the Land is free!
The Land is free! Aye, shout it forth once more;
Is she not red with her oppressors' gore? 
We are her champions -- shall we not rejoice?
Are not the tyrants'...Read more of this...

The Ballad Of Soulful Sam

by Robert William Service
 You want me to tell you a story, a yarn of the firin' line,
Of our thin red kharki 'eroes, out there where the bullets whine;
Out there where the bombs are bustin',
and the cannons like 'ell-doors slam --
Just order another drink, boys, and I'll tell you of Soulful Sam.

Oh, Sam, he was never 'ilarious, though I've 'ad some mates as...Read more of this...

Montreal Maree

by Robert William Service
 You've heard of Belching Billy, likewise known as Windy Bill,
As punk a chunk of Yukon scum as ever robbed a sluice;
A satellite of Soapy Smith, a capper and a shill,
A slimy tribute-taker from the Ladies on the Loose.
But say, you never heard of how he aimed my gore to spill
(That big gorilla gunnin' for a little guy like me,)
A-howlin'...Read more of this...

Count Eberhard The Groaner Of Wurtembert. A War Song

by Friedrich von Schiller
 Now hearken, ye who take delight
In boasting of your worth!
To many a man, to many a knight,
Beloved in peace and brave in fight,
The Swabian land gives birth.

Of Charles and Edward, Louis, Guy,
And Frederick, ye may boast;
Charles, Edward, Louis, Frederick, Guy--
None with Sir Eberhard can vie--
Himself a mighty host!

And then young Ulerick, his son,
Ha! how he loved the fray!
Young Ulerick,...Read more of this...

Valenciennes

by Thomas Hardy
 By Corporal Tullidge. See "The Trumpet-Major"
In Memory of S. C. (Pensioner). Died 184-

WE trenched, we trumpeted and drummed,
And from our mortars tons of iron hummed
Ath'art the ditch, the month we bombed
The Town o' Valencie?n.

'Twas in the June o' Ninety-dree
(The Duke o' Yark our then Commander be?n)
The German Legion, Guards, and we
Laid siege to Valencie?n.

This was the first time in...Read more of this...

Sonnet XXXVI

by Francesco Petrarch
SONNET XXXVI. Quel che 'n Tessaglia ebbe le man sì pronte. SOME HAVE WEPT FOR THEIR WORST ENEMIES, BUT LAURA DEIGNS HIM NOT A SINGLE TEAR.  He who for empire at Pharsalia threw,Reddening its beauteous plain with civil gore,As Pompey's corse his conquering soldiers bore,Wept when the well-known features met his view:Read more of this...

The Higher Unity

by G K Chesterton
 The Rev. Isaiah Bunter has disappeared into the interior of the Solomon Islands, and it is feared that he may have been devoured by the natives, as there has been a considerable revival of religious customs among the Polynesians.--A real paragraph from a real Paper; only the names altered.

It was Isaiah Bunter
Who sailed to the world's end,
And spread religion...Read more of this...

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