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Famous Guards Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry
...n art of craft,
Even there resolved my reason into tears;
There my white stole of chastity I daff'd,
Shook off my sober guards and civil fears;
Appear to him, as he to me appears,
All melting; though our drops this difference bore,
His poison'd me, and mine did him restore.

'In him a plenitude of subtle matter,
Applied to cautels, all strange forms receives,
Of burning blushes, or of weeping water,
Or swooning paleness; and he takes and leaves,
In either's aptness, as it bes...Read more of this...
by Shakespeare, William



...
in its mooring, swaying on the sea, fast at anchor,
the broad-bosomed boat. Helmets shone boar-fashioned
over cheek-guards, adorned with gold,
flecked and fire-hardened—the masked man,
war-minded held the life-warden. The men hurried
advancing in step, until they could perceive
the timbered hall, magnificent and gold-spangled—
it was the most famous house under the heavens
among all earth-dwellers—and inside waited the king.
Its rays of light blazed over a bevy of ...Read more of this...
by Anonymous,
...oom; the Danes were bereft,
castle-dwellers and clansmen all,
earls, of their ale. Angry were both
those savage hall-guards: the house resounded.
Wonder it was the wine-hall firm
in the strain of their struggle stood, to earth
the fair house fell not; too fast it was
within and without by its iron bands
craftily clamped; though there crashed from sill
many a mead-bench -- men have told me --
gay with gold, where the grim foes wrestled.
So well had weened the wisest...Read more of this...
by Anonymous,
...MY Spectre around me night and day 
Like a wild beast guards my way; 
My Emanation far within 
Weeps incessantly for my sin. 

‘A fathomless and boundless deep, 
There we wander, there we weep; 
On the hungry craving wind 
My Spectre follows thee behind. 

‘He scents thy footsteps in the snow 
Wheresoever thou dost go, 
Thro’ the wintry hail and rain. 
When wilt thou return again? 

’Dost thou not in pride and ...Read more of this...
by Blake, William
...le sweetly, thou! my love hath smiled on me." 

'But thou begone, take counsel, and away, 
For hard by here is one that guards a ford-- 
The second brother in their fool's parable-- 
Will pay thee all thy wages, and to boot. 
Care not for shame: thou art not knight but knave.' 

To whom Sir Gareth answered, laughingly, 
'Parables? Hear a parable of the knave. 
When I was kitchen-knave among the rest 
Fierce was the hearth, and one of my co-mates 
Owned a rough dog, to whom he...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord



...do thine aid entreat, 
 And guidance, that beyond the ills I meet 
 I safety find, within the Sacred Gate 
 That Peter guards, and those sad souls to see 
 Who look with longing for their end to be." 

 Then he moved forward, and behind I trod. 





Canto II



 THE day was falling, and the darkening air 
 Released earth's creatures from their toils, while I, 
 I only, faced the bitter road and bare 
 My Master led. I only, must defy 
 The powers of pity, and the night to b...Read more of this...
by Alighieri, Dante
...she resoloves, at once, Sidney's disgrace 
And her self scorned for emulous Denham's face, 
And nightly hears the hated guards, away 
Galloping with the Duke to other prey. 

Paint Castlemaine in colours that will hold 
(Her, not her picture, for she now grows old): 
She through her lackey's drawers, as he ran, 
Discerned love's cause and a new flame began. 
Her wonted joys thenceforth and court she shuns, 
And still within her mind the footman runs: 
His brazen calves, his b...Read more of this...
by Marvell, Andrew
...or porridge, nor the tingling taste of oranges.
—An angel has no nerves.

Far richer they! I know the senses' witchery 
Guards us like air, from heavens too big to see; 
Imminent death to man that barb'd sublimity 
And dazzling edge of beauty unsheathed would be. 
Yet here, within this tiny, charmed interior, 
This parlour of the brain, their Maker shares 
With living men some secrets in a privacy 
Forever ours, not theirs....Read more of this...
by Lewis, C S
...l in one moment, and so near the brink; 
But Fate withstands, and, to oppose th' attempt, 
Medusa with Gorgonian terror guards 
The ford, and of itself the water flies 
All taste of living wight, as once it fled 
The lip of Tantalus. Thus roving on 
In confused march forlorn, th' adventurous bands, 
With shuddering horror pale, and eyes aghast, 
Viewed first their lamentable lot, and found 
No rest. Through many a dark and dreary vale 
They passed, and many a region dolorous,...Read more of this...
by Milton, John
...that overhung 
Still as it rose, impossible to climb. 
Betwixt these rocky pillars Gabriel sat, 
Chief of the angelick guards, awaiting night; 
About him exercised heroick games 
The unarmed youth of Heaven, but nigh at hand 
Celestial armoury, shields, helms, and spears, 
Hung high with diamond flaming, and with gold. 
Thither came Uriel, gliding through the even 
On a sun-beam, swift as a shooting star 
In autumn thwarts the night, when vapours fired 
Impress the air, and ...Read more of this...
by Milton, John
...shades thee, and protects. 
The wife, where danger or dishonour lurks, 
Safest and seemliest by her husband stays, 
Who guards her, or with her the worst endures. 
To whom the virgin majesty of Eve, 
As one who loves, and some unkindness meets, 
With sweet austere composure thus replied. 
Offspring of Heaven and Earth, and all Earth's Lord! 
That such an enemy we have, who seeks 
Our ruin, both by thee informed I learn, 
And from the parting Angel over-heard, 
As in a shady n...Read more of this...
by Milton, John
...they less?) the penalty; 
And, manifold in sin, deserved to fall. 
Up into Heaven from Paradise in haste 
The angelick guards ascended, mute, and sad, 
For Man; for of his state by this they knew, 
Much wondering how the subtle Fiend had stolen 
Entrance unseen. Soon as the unwelcome news 
From Earth arrived at Heaven-gate, displeased 
All were who heard; dim sadness did not spare 
That time celestial visages, yet, mixed 
With pity, violated not their bliss. 
About the new-a...Read more of this...
by Milton, John
...n vain the ashes of her son.

O mightiest exile! all thy grief is done:
Thy soul walks now beside thy Beatrice;
Ravenna guards thine ashes: sleep in peace.


IV.


How lone this palace is; how grey the walls!
No minstrel now wakes echoes in these halls.
The broken chain lies rusting on the door,
And noisome weeds have split the marble floor:
Here lurks the snake, and here the lizards run
By the stone lions blinking in the sun.
Byron dwelt here in love and revelry
For two long...Read more of this...
by Wilde, Oscar
...ant ships!
You rows of houses! you window-pierc’d façades! you roofs! 
You porches and entrances! you copings and iron guards! 
You windows whose transparent shells might expose so much! 
You doors and ascending steps! you arches! 
You gray stones of interminable pavements! you trodden crossings!
From all that has been near you, I believe you have imparted to yourselves, and now would
 impart the
 same secretly to me; 
From the living and the dead I think you have peopled yo...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt
...(In memoriam
C. T. W.
Sometime trooper of the Royal Horse Guards
obiit H.M. prison, Reading, Berkshire
July 7, 1896)

I

He did not wear his scarlet coat,
For blood and wine are red,
And blood and wine were on his hands
When they found him with the dead,
The poor dead woman whom he loved,
And murdered in her bed.

He walked amongst the Trial Men
In a suit of shabby grey;
A cricket cap was on his head,
And his step ...Read more of this...
by Wilde, Oscar
...ts the day,
But choked with sedges works its weedy way.
Along thy glades, a solitary guest,
The hollow-sounding bittern guards its nest;
Amidst thy desert walks the lapwing flies,
And tires their echoes with unvaried cries.
Sunk are thy bowers, in shapeless ruin all,
And the long grass o'ertops the mouldering wall;
And, trembling, shrinking from the spoiler's hand,
Far, far away, thy children leave the land.

Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,
Where wealth accumula...Read more of this...
by Goldsmith, Oliver
...And the bittern sound his drum
          Booming from the sedgy shallow.
     Ruder sounds shall none be near,
     Guards nor warders challenge here,
     Here's no war-steed's neigh and champing,
     Shouting clans or squadrons stamping.'
     XXXII.

     She paused,—then, blushing, led the lay,
     To grace the stranger of the day.
     Her mellow notes awhile  prolong
     The cadence of the flowing song,
     Till to her lips in measured frame
     The m...Read more of this...
by Scott, Sir Walter
...ome Sylph embrac'd:
For Spirits, freed from mortal Laws, with ease
Assume what Sexes and what Shapes they please. 
What guards the Purity of melting Maids,
In Courtly Balls, and Midnight Masquerades,
Safe from the treach'rous Friend, and daring Spark,
The Glance by Day, the Whisper in the Dark;
When kind Occasion prompts their warm Desires,
When Musick softens, and when Dancing fires?
'Tis but their Sylph, the wise Celestials know,
Tho' Honour is the Word with Men below.

Som...Read more of this...
by Pope, Alexander
...op of every feather, 
And form'd a circle like Orion's belt 
Around their poor old charge; who scarce knew whither 
His guards had led him, though they gently dealt 
With royal manes (for by many stories, 
And true, we learn the angels all are Tories.) 

XXVII 

As things were in this posture, the gate flew 
Asunder, and the flashing of its hinges 
Flung over space an universal hue 
Of many-colour'd flame, until its tinges 
Reach'd even our speck of earth, and made a new 
Aur...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)
...n I translated both volumes of War and Peace into Turkish 
I hear voices
not from the blue vault but from the yard 
the guards are beating someone again
I didn't know I loved trees
bare beeches near Moscow in Peredelkino
they come upon me in winter noble and modest 
beeches are Russian the way poplars are Turkish 
"the poplars of Izmir
losing their leaves. . .
they call me The Knife. . .
 lover like a young tree. . .
I blow stately mansions sky-high"
in the Ilgaz woods in 192...Read more of this...
by Hikmet, Nazim

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry