Famous Hostage Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Hostage poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous hostage poems. These examples illustrate what a famous hostage poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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...ing from the walls,
the opponent of God singing his keening terror,
a chant without victory, bemoaning his pain,
the hostage of hell. He held him tightly,
the one who was the strongest in power of all men
back in the days of that age. (ll. 782b-90)
XII.
That shelter of heroes didn’t wish to allow
his fatal visitor to escape alive for any thing,
nor could he account much use of Grendel’s life-days
to any people. There the thanes of Beowulf
most rapidly...Read more of this...
by
Anonymous,
...a warning to marauders.
Only Kahgahgee, the leader,
Kahgahgee, the King of Ravens,
He alone was spared among them
As a hostage for his people.
With his prisoner-string he bound him,
Led him captive to his wigwam,
Tied him fast with cords of elm-bark
To the ridge-pole of his wigwam.
"Kahgahgee, my raven!" said he,
"You the leader of the robbers,
You the plotter of this mischief,
The contriver of this outrage,
I will keep you, I will hold you,
As a hostage for your people,
As ...Read more of this...
by
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...a man with red hair drives the wrong way
down a one-way street so he arrives late
at the library where his son is held hostage
he breaks in lifts the boy in his arms and tells
the one kind man he had met that he and
his brother would be saved but the others
who had mocked him would surely die...Read more of this...
by
Lehman, David
...love is hard to stop
In their entwined sleep they exchanged arms and legs
In their dreams their brains took each other hostage
In the morning they wore each other's face...Read more of this...
by
Hughes, Ted
...schoolhouses
between blackouts and blasts, when each word was
flensed by new censure, books exchanged for bread,
both hostage to the happenstance of war?
Sometimes the only schoolroom is a kitchen.
Outside the window, black strokes on a graph
of broken glass, birds line up on bare branches.
"This letter curves, this one spreads its branches
like friends holding hands outside their houses."
Was the lesson stopped by gunfire? Was
there panic, silence? Does a torn photograph
...Read more of this...
by
Hacker, Marilyn
...na, you found beauty, long ago.
And when you draw, with your slim, swift pen
The image of that memory - time's patient hostage;
Then how can I forget him, that boy whom you could not forget,
Or that music, in a foreign language?...Read more of this...
by
Crumey, Andrew
...hill.
A careless boy that night he seemed;
But at his desk he had the look
And air of one who wisely schemed,
And hostage from the future took
In trainëd thought and lore of book.
Large-brained, clear-eyed, of such as he
Shall Freedom's young apostles be,
Who, following in War's bloody trail,
Shall every lingering wrong assail;
All chains from limb and spirit strike,
Uplift the black and white alike;
Scatter before their swift advance
The darkness and the ignor...Read more of this...
by
Whittier, John Greenleaf
...e better yet can have;
Bad is the match where neither party won.
I offer free conditions of fair peace,
My heart for hostage that it shall remain;
Discharge our forces, here let malice cease,
So for my pledge thou give me pledge again.
Or if no thing but death will serve thy turn,
Still thirsting for subversion of my state,
Do what thou canst, rase, massacre, and burn;
Let the world see the utmost of thy hate;
I send defiance, since, if overthrown,
Thou vanquishing...Read more of this...
by
Drayton, Michael
...all pay the deed I would have done;
Yet grants three days' delay to me,
My sister's marriage-rites to see;
If thou, the hostage, wilt remain
Till I--set free--return again!"
His friend embraced--No word he said,
But silent to the tyrant strode--
The other went upon his road.
Ere the third sun in heaven was red,
The rite was o'er, the sister wed;
And back, with anxious heart unquailing,
He hastes to hold the pledge unfailing.
Down the great rains unending bore,
Down from the...Read more of this...
by
Schiller, Friedrich von
...
There nobles mourned their pride restrained,
And the mean burgher's joys disdained;
And chiefs, who, hostage for their clan,
Were each from home a banished man,
There thought upon their own gray tower,
Their waving woods, their feudal power,
And deemed themselves a shameful part
Of pageant which they cursed in heart.
XXII.
Now, in the Castle-park, drew out
Their checkered bands the joyous rout.
There m...Read more of this...
by
Scott, Sir Walter
...o has this night,
You lying close upon his territory,
Slipt round and in the dark invested you,
And here he keeps me hostage for his son.'
The second was my father's running thus:
'You have our son: touch not a hair of his head:
Render him up unscathed: give him your hand:
Cleave to your contract: though indeed we hear
You hold the woman is the better man;
A rampant heresy, such as if it spread
Would make all women kick against their Lords
Through all the world, a...Read more of this...
by
Tennyson, Alfred Lord
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