Famous Helmeted Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Beowulf (Old English)

...other now,
gloomy and grim, would go that quest
of sorrow, the death of her son to avenge.
To Heorot came she, where helmeted Danes
slept in the hall. Too soon came back
old ills of the earls, when in she burst,
the mother of Grendel. Less grim, though, that terror,
e’en as terror of woman in war is less,
might of maid, than of men in arms
when, hammer-forged, the falchion hard,
sword gore-stained, through swine of the helm,
crested, with keen blade carves amain.
...Read more of this...
by Anonymous,


Gangrene

...brought forth; when he tried to drown 
 in his own stew 
he was recovered. "You are 
worse than a ****** or Jew," 

the helmeted one said. "You 
are an intellectal. 
 I hate your brown 
skin; it makes me sick." The tall 
intense one, his ***** wired, 
 was shocked out of 
his senses in three seconds. 
Weakened, he watched them install 

another battery in 
the crude electric device. 
 The genitals 
of a third were beaten with 
a short wooden ruler: "Reach 
 for your black bal...Read more of this...
by Levine, Philip

Goliath and David

...hand sabre-cut— 
“I’m hit! I’m killed!” young David cries, 
Throws blindly forward, chokes … and dies. 
And look, spike-helmeted, grey, grim,
Goliath straddles over him....Read more of this...
by Graves, Robert

Mossbawn: Two Poems in Dedication

...1. Sunlight

There was a sunlit absence.
The helmeted pump in the yard
heated its iron,
water honeyed

in the slung bucket
and the sun stood
like a griddle cooling
against the wall

of each long afternoon.
So, her hands scuffled
over the bakeboard,
the reddening stove

sent its plaque of heat
against her where she stood
in a floury apron
by the window.

Now she dusts the board
with a goose's wing,
now ...Read more of this...
by Heaney, Seamus

Song of the Broad-Axe

...ceding the consuls,
The antique European warrior with his axe in combat, 
The uplifted arm, the clatter of blows on the helmeted head, 
The death-howl, the limpsey tumbling body, the rush of friend and foe thither, 
The siege of revolted lieges determin’d for liberty, 
The summons to surrender, the battering at castle gates, the truce and parley;
The sack of an old city in its time, 
The bursting in of mercenaries and bigots tumultuously and disorderly, 
Roar, flames, blood, ...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt


Song of the Exposition

...me the broken-lipp’d Sphynx in Egypt—silent those century-baffling tombs;

Closed for aye the epics of Asia’s, Europe’s helmeted warriors; 
Calliope’s call for ever closed—Clio, Melpomene, Thalia closed and dead; 
Seal’d the stately rhythmus of Una and Oriana—ended the quest of the Holy Graal; 
Jerusalem a handful of ashes blown by the wind—extinct;
The Crusaders’ streams of shadowy, midnight troops, sped with the sunrise; 
Amadis, Tancred, utterly gone—Charlemagne, Roland, O...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt

The Man In The Dead Machine

...s thick as arms. In 1943,
the clenched hand of a pilot
glided it here
where no one has ever been. 

In the cockpit, the helmeted
skeleton sits
upright, held
by dry sinews at neck
and shoulder, and webbing
that straps the pelvic cross
to the cracked
leather of the seat, and the breastbone
to the canvas cover
of the parachute. 

Or say the shrapnel
missed him, he flew
back to the carrier, and every
morning takes the train, his pale
hands on the black case, and sits
upright, hel...Read more of this...
by Hall, Donald

The Pearl Diver

...of hornets -- the little brown men of Japan. 

Down in the ooze and the coral, down where earth's wonders are spread, 
Helmeted, ghastly, and swollen, Kanzo Makame lies dead. 
Joe Nagasaki, his "tender", is owner and diver instead. 

Wearer of pearls in your necklace, comfort yourself if you can. 
These are the risks of the pearling -- these are the ways of Japan; 
"Plenty more Japanee diver plenty more little brown man!"...Read more of this...
by Paterson, Andrew Barton

The Roman Road

...thoughtful men 
Contrast its days of Now and Then, 
And delve, and measure, and compare; 

Visioning on the vacant air 
Helmeted legionnaires, who proudly rear 
The Eagle, as they pace again 
The Roman Road. 

But no tall brass-helmeted legionnaire 
Haunts it for me. Uprises there 
A mother's form upon my ken, 
Guiding my infant steps, as when 
We walked that ancient thoroughfare, 
The Roman Road....Read more of this...
by Hardy, Thomas

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